note to self: buy better walking shoes

well the weekend is over and it was absolutely incredible. (for the most part) my boss, jake, introduced me to even more of his awesome friends and I can't wait to get to know them. his god sister actually lives in the same building as me and we didn't even know. what are the odds? she's also very very cool. they grew up in south carolina, so i got to hear a lot of awesome stories about plantations and the luxurious old south. on saturday we had brunch at this wonderful place in georgetown and then went on a walk to dupont circle. the weather was gorgeous and has been since i got here. (i think i brought it with me) after the walk we all drank wine for hours. unfortunately i ended up losing my debit card, so i've been living off of credit. SO PRACTICAL.

i had quite the headache sunday, but it gave me a good excuse to work on my dumb online intersession class. thank god it ends next week. very easy 3 hours. then i finally finished angels and demons and watched the movie online. it was absurdly different, but i guess it works as a summer blockbuster. i fell asleep pretty early trying to watch another movie, so i had trouble passing back out. if the dumb air conditioner in my room weren't on the ceiling i would have kicked it off by now. i makes this dumb clicking noise that didn't help my partial insomnia. i eventually woke up at about 6 ish and read some more of that Fareed Zakaria book. GET INVOLVED. 

i made sure to shower early. a bunch of people have moved in and i'm not up for competing or waiting in line to clean myself. for some reason i've developed an obsession for a fruit salad/honey butter croissant combo. best breakfast ever. since the weather has been so nice, the walk to work this morning was incredible. its not exactly down the street, but with an ipod its actually kind of nice. i was pretty nervous about getting there because i didn't know exactly what i was going to be doing. i actually beat my boss to work (go me) and i got to read the times. 

it didnt take long to dive right into work. Meridian is switching their newsletter to an online version, so i'm going to be drafting articles for that for the next couple of weeks. i started with an article about a visit from a group of Tajik Imam's who came to study religious freedom and such in the U.S. its actually very cool. they got to hold a friday prayer session in the actual Capitol building. i bet that was really moving. stay tuned for a link sometime in the future. in the meantime, you should def check out the web site. meridian.org b/c its very cool and getting even better.

I also helped work on expanding our presence on social networking sites like facebook. there's a really awesome girl name Beth who has been working on it for months anon. she's a grad student at GW. sadly, she's headed back to europe this week, so i won't get to work with her very much. but, she's teaching me a lot before she takes off. i helped compile data about social networking sites i'd never even heard of: bebo, hi-5, and linked-in. we're focusing, for now at least, mainly on facebook. so, if you're on it then you should def become a fan of meridian international center. not the group, but the fan page. if you have questions about that, ask me.

In addition, i got to sit in on a briefing with two small delegations from south korea and palestine. it was an interesting experience b/c they had translators and stuff so it was like miniature-UN-esque. in reality, though, it was a snooze. a lecture from a george mason teacher about the basics of american gov't. all info i learned in 8th grade history an intro to american fed gov't freshman year. because of my lack of sleep i had trouble not nodding off. i wasn't, however, as bad as the rando Arab guy from the UK who literally fell asleep or the old white man next to him with a manilla folder full of crosswords. 

lesson of the day: buy walking shoes if you plan to trekk to and fro work. my blisters from the other day are not very happy with me. 

well until next time,

LOVE.