DC News

It's been a busy week. My work week was fast. I attended a conference on grant writing from Monday to Wednesday. It was a lot of information crammed into three days of sessions. I learned quite a bit and am excited about the opportunities to put my new knowledge into practice. Rich said that if it's something I enjoy that we may add it to my responsibilities at the CCCU. I may be able to write grants for them. It would be a great way to increase my salary while padding my resume.

On Tuesday night I went to dinner with some alumni from UNCG. One of my former supervisors (when I worked as a telemarketer for UNCG) emailed me a couple weeks back and mentioned that she'd be in town. She currently works in the fundraising office there and is in a position where she's bringing alumns together in cities across the U.S. Pretty cool idea. So, she wanted to have a dinner and reunite some UNCG alumns in the DC area.

Although the idea of dining with a bunch of strangers wasn't the most appealing and I was worried that it'd be a plug for UNCG all night, I decided to attend.

It wound up being a lot of fun! Ten of us met at an Italian place in Dupont and dined for about three hours! Everyone was happy to be there. We all shared about ourselves, learned about UNCG, and exchanged contact information. I feel that it was a good time had by all.

Thursday night I went to a play called Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind. It was a five man show of 30 plays in 60 minutes. The concept and delivery were cool. When we walked into the theatre, we were handed a brochure that had the name of thirty plays on it that were in numeric order. Across the stage was a clothesline with thirty pieces of paper also numbered from 1-30. We were instructed that the play would be run by the audience. We got to pick which short play should be acted out next. For example, they began with #7 and at the end would yell "CURTAIN!" It was then our role as the audience to scream out another number. Someone on stage would pluck a number off the clothesline that was heard and that would be the next short play performed. The catch was that it all had to be done within one hour. Any play not completed within an hour went unperformed. To ensure that everyone was aware of the time, a giant clock was started at the beginning of the play. Thus, we could see the time ticking away as the night went on. Time ticked, numbers were shouted and plucked from the clothesline, and the plays performed.

It looked like they were going to be able to perform them all. They were on the last number when the alarm sounded on the clock. They stopped and shared that, "we were so close! There were about eight more seconds left in that last play."

So close... and now I'll never know the ending.

It was very cool. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone. Plus, at the end of the night they rolled a dice. Then, they explained that the number would be applied to Friday night's play list. The number was five. So, they were going to cut five of the shows on Thursday's playlist and add five new ones to Friday's list. Another great idea!

Last night I saw the movie No Reservations. It was a really cute romantic comedy. It had a little bit of everything- laughter, sadness, sappiness, etc. If you like romantic comedies, you should see this one. The little girl, Abigal Breslin, is a brilliant actress for her age. I'm always impressed with her.

Today I went to the beach with my friend Kat. She's a newer friend and I'm excited about our developing relationship. She's a really chill chick and she's spontaneous. She's also really interesting and has a great sense of humor. We packed a lunch and went to Breezy Point Beach in Maryland, which is only about 45 minutes from DC. Supposedly. I got us lost on the way there, so it really took like 1.5 hours. I know y'all are really surprised.

I found a lot of sharks teeth on the beach. It seems like everytime I looked down I found another one. I couldn't help but recall memories from my childhood when I'd visit my grandparents in Surfside Beach, SC and we'd spend HOURS looking for teeth and come proudly home with about 10 collectively! Good times.

In addition to searching for teeth, I caught some Zzz's, and read a bit. It was beautiful and relaxing.

For dinner, we went to a local seafood restaurant and gorged on yummy, fresh seafood. We had scallops, crab dip, shrimp, clams, and more crab. Mmmm.... tasty! I'm still full and we ate about six hours ago.

Because of my thick sunscreen application, I'm still as white as Casper, but it was fun.

We decided on a new roommate (finally!). Emily is moving some of her things in tomorrow. She actually lives across the street from us now in a basement apartment of some friends of ours. They mentioned last week that their tenant was moving and looking for a new place. They gave us her contact information and the ball rolled from there. Emily came by and likes the place and us. We like her. The arrangement was made! Pretty small world, eh?