The Real World: Meetings

I haven't attended many meetings in my tenure at SI. In fact, the only times I've congregated to discuss business with my colleagues have been either during team meetings or times of great projects. However, I've been informed recently that there will be more meetings in my future. That's right, my fellow Assistant Gift Registrar and I are going to be incorporated into more meetings about gift recording during the coming months as we wrap up one fiscal year and start another. I'm not sure how I feel about this. On one hand, it's nice to see that my superiors are entrusting me with greater responsibility. On the other hand, I don't like meetings. They stress me out. Okay, not always. They don't stress me out when I'm just taking minutes or doing some sort of skit...yeah, that's only in my dreams. This afternoon I will attend my third meeting of the week. This is highly unusual. I haven't been able to dine with my Lunch Bunch (named by a colleague, not by me) since Monday! Sadness ensues. Oh well, with greater responsibility will hopefully come greater salary. :) Fingers crossed? I'll keep you posted.

I found out today that my mentor dropped out of the pilot program at work. Sadness ensues. I hadn't met her yet, but I had Googled her and she was pretty impressive. So the coordinator sent me a bio for another possible mentor and I told her it would work. This guy is a writer/editor at Air & Space and he sounds super groovy. Aces! We'll see. Wish me luck. This whole program is designed to foster pan-institutional cooperation, professional development, career networking and good relationships between young professionals and the more seasoned ladies and gents of SI. I'm excited to be paired with a writer/editor. I hope I learn a lot. Of course, this switch up so late in the game (well, in the planning phase of the game) makes me a bit anxious. What if we don't get along? What if I'm a bad mentee? What if he has nothing good to teach me about life, work and the pursuit of happiness? Yipes!

Tuesday was a good day because I met with almost all the other mentees for our informational meeting regarding this mentoring program. The best part of the meeting was the introduction part. We all introduced ourselves (shocking!) and told everyone why we'd signed up for the program and things we liked to do in our free time. I could start a band. Someone plays cello, someone plays drums, some people sing, and I think someone said she played the piano or something. But all the mentees wanted to learn more about the institution and just increase their suitability for career upward movement. The atmosphere was charged with hope, possibility, excitement...and a wee bit of awkwardness cause no one really knew anyone else. Stranger danger. Just kidding.

So our full mentee AND mentor kickoff is this coming Tuesday. I'll let you know how it goes.

Hmmm, turns out the mentor program update wasn't as short as I'd planned. Anyhoo, maybe I'll start keeping a tally of how many meetings I attend. You know what? I don't think they're even going to serve me food. At least at my old job in Tulsa there were always snacks at meetings. And I was allowed to eat them! And eat them I did. Pause for the happy memory of me eating during a meeting. Sigh. Oh well. I will get back to work and leave you with a happy memory from my weekend with Mom.

Everyone's Napping

Mom and Barron are napping. I generally don't nap, so I'm sitting here listening to gentle snores and loading pictures from the week onto my computer. My mom has taken many more pictures than I, and hers are better, but here are some of the highlights from our activities this week. The short list: I4RC Evening With The Scholars, White House East Wing Tour, National Gallery of Art, The National Archives, Old Town Alexandria, Capitol Building Tour, National Portrait Gallery, Eastern Market. And that's only till 2:28pm on a Saturday. Not everything on the short list is represented in the following pictures, but some things are. Oops, all this typey-tap-typing is disturbing the sleepers. Shhhhh...

Seen This Yet?

Am I allowed to shotgun this when at least 4 million other people have seen it? Possibly the most brilliant idea anyone's ever had. Ever.

I'm in!

Quick update on the career front. I was recently accepted into the "Mentoring: TNG (The Next Generation) Pilot Program" at the Smithsonian. I applied to be one of 15 mentees from across the institution and I got in. The goal of this 6-month program is to foster career potential and networking in emerging younguns' around the institution. I'll be paired with an as yet unnamed mentor. We'll meet over the next 6 months and I'll learn some stuff and get better at stuff and develop professionally and things. I'm actually pretty pumped about this. It's a great opportunity to get to know people across the institution, which doesn't happen much except via business-related email, and connect with a more experienced Smithsonianite who can give me tons of sage advice about careers and life. (I hope.) Bye bye.

The Real World: InISH

Initiative. (Excuse me while I throw up in my mouth a little bit.) Ahem...re-try...initiative. Whew, barely got through that one. You know it's there. You know you have to take it. Alright, I know I have to take it. As an adult you always have to do things on your own and find opportunities on your own. What's the deal with that? I mean, in every aspect of everything we're supposed to be self-starters and go-getters. And I don't mean the big stuff, I mean the little stuff. Things to do on a Friday night, plans for the weekend, finding creative outlets, blah blah-blah-blah blah blah!

Childhood is cake. I mean, parents are always good for suggesting activities. All you have to do is whine, "I'm boooored," and they're right there with opportunities to combat boredom. Who cares that they say it in an exasperated tone. Who cares that you probably whined to them five minutes ago about the very same boredom problem. (Yeesh, say "boredom" more.) They'll still tell you to "go read a book" or "play outside" or "make me dinner." They give you some help. Alas, you can't quite pull that off as a grown up. Any time lately that I've said, "I'm boooored," in the most annoying tone possible, people have just said, "yeah" like they didn't care or rolled their eyes or something. I resent this. What do you mean I have to do stuff on my own? Why am I not set up with a free life coach for life or a free career counselor for life or a free scheduler/assistant for life? I had those things when I was a kid. I had those things when I was in high school, kind of. I had those things when I was in college, kind of. I had those things when I graduated college and lived with my parents whilst working full time for a year, kind of. I had those things in grad school, kind of. I had help!

See how I whine? It's a hard knock life for us grown ups. If we want to be active and productive and creative we have to take initiative and find outlets on our own. Gag me with a shovel. I don't know if I fully realized that when I graduated and moved up here. Sure, I knew that there would be some self-starting on my part because I didn't know many people and I was new to everything. However, I didn't realize how much time it would take up, trying to have a life. Don't get me wrong, being a bum is my all-time favorite course of action, but I can't do that all the time. Even I have my limits.

There's been a little trial and error in the initiative department over the past year. I've joined a community orchestra and subsequently become disillusioned with the community orchestra. I've joined a church and volunteered to help out with the pre-K kids who constantly attempt to break my back when they see me on Sundays. I've joined Bible studies and tried to share my feelings about life without sounding like a broken record. I've given serious thought to training for a 10K or something and subsequently decided that such ideas were ludicrous and I'd best stick to running on the treadmill for 30 minutes. I've joined the gym and taken some gym-ish classes. (Not to depress you) But now that the summer's wrapping up I feel a new wave of pressure for more initiatives to commence. Hence, I joined a meetup group at www.meetup.com for musicians in the DC area - it's a chamber music group that meets a couple times a month to sight read stuff and practice some stuff...I don't know, I just joined and haven't been to a meeting yet. I plan on participating in another small group through my church this fall. But you know, none of these things quite fulfill my desire to be involved around here. I mean, that's plenty, and even those obligations will tax my patience to the limit. Why do I have to go to a meeting again, I'll think to myself, I just went to one a month ago! However, I will still feel the need to do more around the city, taking full advantage of all opportunities while I'm here.

Solution - blogs. Not my blog, DC blogs. A friend of mine introduced me to a couple good blogs that will give me all the coolest things to do in the city for young professionals. (e.g. dcist.com and welovedc.com) Um, no, I will not be doing all these things. I'll venture a guess at the average number of things I'll do per month - .5 - yes, half a thing per month. I just think it's great that I'm even informing myself of things to do around the city. That's step one! Much more initiative and I just might have that throw-up-in-my-mouth problem again. I can't get too crazy.

Ugh, I'm exhausted. That just exhausted me even thinking about all that nonsense. I really need someone to just tell me where to go, put all necessary cash and ID cards in my pocket so I can enjoy myself, dress me so I don't have to decide what to wear, and give me transportation to and from said activity/ies. Is that too much to ask??? The answer is no. The answer is NO.

I realize that I find much of the nitty gritty in the real world to be something that warrants a lot of complaint. I didn't know all this was going to be necessary. Warning, anyone? Probably more so now than ever I feel like a petulant child, stomping my foot because things aren't exactly the way I thought they'd be. Eh, what else can you do as a self-starting initiative-taking 20-something? That's basically the story of our lives and anyone who says differently is selling something. You older folk, you've been there. You younger folk, good luck.

"Oh They Say If You're Married In June..."

"...you're a bride, all your life!" Tis wedding season, mes amis. I have attended two weddings over the past two weekends and I'm thinking there just might be something to this June bride thing. Well, of course I already knew that. Those color coordinated captives in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers did sing about such things when they were stuck in the house all winter long. I should have known then. Nevertheless, I know now. My two summer wedding attendances were June ones, and I don't mind it.


First off was my former roommate Kate Kennedy's wedding. (She's the tall one.) Sweet thing that she is, she asked me to play for the ceremony without even having heard me play the violin. Bless her little heart. You see, Kate is the roommate that I replaced at 925. Okay, "replaced" is a harsh word. Nonetheless, I moved in because she was moving out. However, last summer we overlapped for about a month and a half when another roommate was on a summer trip. Kate and I got to be roomies for a short time, and that was all it took for us to become friends. My roommates Bridget, Kristen and I drove up to Ligonier, PA, for the wedding weekend festivities a couple weeks ago. The events of the weekend: bridal breakfast, rehearsal, rehearsal dinner, wedding, reception. Yes, all those things. Suffice it to say that every female came to Ligonier lugging 5-ish dresses and one pair of casual pants. I didn't really even need a suitcase, just a tall person who could carry all my dresses without dragging them on the ground.

The weekend was great fun. I got to do a lot of window shopping in tiny town PA and it was so much fun. I liked these four things enough to take pictures of them, so here you have it...

The center of the town housed a lovely gazebo that made for some great pictures (bottom pic). I'm convinced that Anne or Diana lived in this house, even if Green Gables was on Prince Edward Island (2nd from top). The Ivy Cafe was too pricey, even for us city folk, so we ended up eating at this diner that could hold about thirty people. I ate zucchini fries and it was delicious! The wedding was lovely. Marred by a little rain, unfortunately, but my violin didn't get wet and there are some great shots of the two of them married under a canopy of umbrellas. All in all, good stuff.

Wedding #2, but in no way lesser than wedding #1, was held in St. Petersburg, Florida. I feel like I can call St. Pete home because I've been there so many times. Two of my best friends from college live there and I have spent at least three spring breaks there. Maybe four. But who's counting? So Nikki was the one getting married this time. The girls from Trinity, the Six Pack to be precise, flew in to St. Pete last Thursday night to help Nikki celebrate her next-to-last night of freedom. We made her wear this dress...
She was a good sport and worked that dress like she owned it. Anyway, the weekend in St. Pete was pure bliss. It was absolutely magical to see my friends again, and we had so much fun just hanging out, talking, eating, playing in the ocean, telling ghost stories (not so much for me cause they FREAK ME OUT), sunning on the sand, dancing at the bachelorette party and reception, and just generally celebrating our friend's trip from single gal to wifey. So now we're a house divided. Three members of the pack are married, three are single. Let's play a game...guess who's married...
Okay, good guess, but you're wrong. It's definitely the one holding the flowers...if you didn't get that, you're fired. The woman in the green dress, and the one in the print dress. Booyah! If you got it all right, you win one million dollars. Nope, I take it back. If you got it right I win one million dollars. Yes, that sounds better. So there we were - me, Jessica, Julie, Nikki, Sarah and Michelle, all having a blast together. By the way, did you know how much I love the water? Cause I do. A LOT. Love it. On Friday night Sarah and her boyfriend, Jessica and her husband Vinnie, and Julie and I all ate dinner in this revolving restaurant that overlooked the beach. I couldn't even concentrate on the food because I was so anxious to shove my toes in the sand. I exaggerate. I concentrated on the food cause it was delish. But I still wanted to shove my toes in the sand the whole time! Finally, we did. After dinner we walked out to the beach and enjoyed the lap of the waves on the sand as we watched the moon slowly waltz across the night sky. Poetic, eh?
Julie Gonzales was my date, as we were the only single 6 pack ladies in attendance. Don't worry, we danced full throttle every time we heard Beyonce's "Single Ladies" mega hit. (I'm so glad she put that song out there. It's going to make every wedding from now on that much more fun for singles and marrieds and dating...s alike.) Anyhoozen, Julie was the best date ever. I challenge any man to dance to every song with me like she did. We were dancing till the cows came home, practically. But so were the bride and groom. Gotta say, that was one good DJ. I didn't think it could happen, but the DJ really brought the heat. He brung it, y'all!


On Sunday, the day of departure, Vinnie, Jess and Michelle came to get Julie and me. We stopped by Cracker Barrel for breakfast and headed out to the airport so Jules and I could catch our plans. Saddest departure ever. Isn't it always, when you're leaving people who mean so much to you? I had the bestest estest time ever, and someone's gonna have to get married next summer at the latest so we can do it all again! No, not me. Not me. I won't shake on it!

Ladies and gentlemen, this summer is flying. The three-day holiday weekend is here and I am astonished. July? Really? Interesting. Well I'll tell you one thing...I welcome July because with it comes my mom's visit to DC! Yes, she will be coming to see me in three weeks and I'm pumped! Now we just have to get Dad and Laurel out here before...well...before I get so fed up with missing everyone that I move closer or something :). In the meantime I will continue to work at the office, invite Barron over for cookouts and watch him teach my roommates to merengue, read books and watch movies, and try to stick to the 30-day diet and exercise regime that my roommates insisted I join them in doing this month. Jillian Michaels, your Making The Cut plan will be the death of me! Oh, and hopefully I'll get some more sun. Now that I'm working on that swimsuit bod I need a good tan to go along with it.

Thank you, world! I love y'all! Thanks for comin' out tonight! Cheers, peeps. Cheers.