"Hands On The Wall" Project

I had quite a busy weekend. This should come as a shock to those of you who know me well. A busy weekend for me generally means getting out of the house once to go to church or the store or something. It generally does NOT mean trying new restaurants, checking out the night life in my neighborhood, touring Virginia wine country, traipsing around the Tidal Basin with my camera for a house project or taking a rug someone threw out on the street. However, this past weekend I did all those things. Who am I?

This past week was Restaurant Week in DC. Participating eateries establish prix fix menus and the foodies and non-foodies alike flock to these places to sample the city's finest. Friday night, a couple roommates and I headed to Dupont Circle to try out Firefly. Deeeelish! I had some superb heirloom tomato gazpacho, a delectable wild mushroom and summer squash casserole, and finished the meal with a perfectly sweet apple brown betty. After eating such a good dinner we girls couldn't really sit on our laurels and waste a happy stomach, so we went back to Clarendon and made friends with strangers who'd also decided to take advantage of Arlington nightlife. I have to tell you, going out after 10pm makes for some fascinating people watching. Plus, I'm getting too old for this stuff. I can't remember the last time I stayed out till 4 in the morning. I'm not 17 anymore. (Disclaimer - that was a joke. I meant to say I'm not 13 anymore.)

Saturday. We got a late start. Surprised? Don't give me any cheek. Well, we did get a late start on our drive out to Leesburg, VA, to visit some Loudon County (Lo.Co.) wineries. Our first stop was to my roomie B's mother ship, her childhood home. We met her mom, got some fresh veggies and zucchini bread to take home and headed off to Lo.Co. First stop, Fabbioli Cellars. Second stop, Lost Creek Winery. Last stop, Tarara Winery. Lost Creek was my least favorite, just so you know. The other two were great and I recommend them to a friend. Anyway, on to the most important stuff - the post winery Leesburg/Lucketts tour. Immediately after we left Tarara we stopped by a cluster of antiques stores that were just to die for. The furniture was unique, the shabby chic was fabulous and the prices were not astronomical. So I totally splurged and bought this wooden frame. You antiquers know what I'm talking about - you don't NEED it but you'll most definitely find a good use for it in your house...or in the future house of your dreams. Who needs a reason to buy a good antique? Am I right or am I right?

Anyway, we finished up the Lo.Co. tour with a stop at Farmer Johns, a local farmers market with the best fruit, vegetables and homemade sauces around. Farmer John was there and we chatted him up for a while. We got back to Clarendon about 7 or 7:30 and decided the night was still young. Sure, we were exhausted but we'd already had a weekend's worth of spontaneous adventures and that just didn't happen to be enough. We were determined to have a good meal, go pick up a movie and spend the rest of the night lying around. Um...yeahhhhh.

We had dinner, alright. But then as we were walking to the Hollywood Video in Courthouse we passed Velocity Five, this "sports restaurant" with an outdoor dining area. We had already walked past the entrance when we heard the strains of a singer/songwriter strumming away on his guitar. We walked a little closer. Yup, definitely good. Okay, we walked back to the entrance and went inside for a little listen. This guy was good. Jason Masi is his name. We sang along to "Sweet Caroline (Bum Bum Bummmm!!)", chatted him up after his set and finally went to the video store to pick up the classic Cher movie Mermaids. But our night didn't end there. As we were walking back we passed by this Irish pub that usually has a good guitar player slash singer on the weekends. We were in the mood for music, so we ended up going there for a couple hours, listening to a guy named Damien Wolf (?) do his thing and chatting up the locals. No, we never watched the movie. I can't guarantee we'll watch it before it must be returned on Thursday. Oops!

So that was Saturday. Sunday dawned bright and early and I headed to the movie theater for church :). The kids were just wild. I didn't really help calm them down so much as I was giving horsey rides and flipping them around in the air and generally making them scream so loudly that I had to tell them that I was the "quiet monster". I might have holes in my jeans from chasing 3 year-olds on my hands and knees for so long. Sunday afternoon I returned to my domicile eager to change into my comfy clothes and read all day long - maybe in my bed, maybe on the couch or maybe on the back porch. None of the above were to be had, good people. Kristen came home and we went to check out the newest boutique in the neighborhood, Current. It's a chic consignment shop that has my name written all over it. I didn't purchase anything but rest assured that I will be back there with cash in hand as soon as possible.

Anyhoo, on our return we decided that it was time to do little DIY decorating. (Shout out to Laurel.) Above the couch in our living room are five hanging frames. Before last night, in each of the frames was a portrait of an original 925 roommate wearing Groucho Marx glasses. This would be great except for the fact that only two of those original roommates still occupy the house. We'd been talking about replacing the pictures with something else for a while and yesterday we finally did. Our first idea was to take pictures of cool buildings/monuments in DC and replace the portraits with architectural shots. However, Kristen came up with an even better plan. We decided to do a "Hands On The Wall" project. We went down to the Tidal Basin area and walked around to all the top monuments featuring statues. We took shots of the hands of these statues at various angles and used those shots above our couch to make the coolest pictures-above-the-couch thing ever. Here's a sampling of the 200+ pictures we took.

George Mason Memorial

Thomas Jefferson Memorial

FDR Memorial - Eleanor Roosevelt

FDR Memorial

Korean War Veterans Memorial

Lincoln Memorial

The Three Soldiers Statue

(These men overlook the Vietnam Wall - legend has it that they are ghosts, returning to the wall to see which of their comrades has died.)

Vietnam Women's Memorial

Albert Einstein Memorial - National Academy of Sciences

Iwo Jima Memorial

The lighting wasn't great for the final memorial we visited, Iwo Jima, but we got some good shots and the top five ended up on our wall. The winners are (from Left): FDR, Eleanor, 3 Soldiers, Albert and George Mason. I supplied FDR and George, Kristen captured the rest so those pictures aren't on my blog.

Final "Hands On The Wall"

There's another story within this photo project story that involves a rug. Here it is...

Kristen and I walked to Walgreen's at 9:30pm last night so we could pick up our prints for the frames. (We'd already sent them to be printed via the magnificent Internet.) Anyway, on our way to the store we noticed a rug rolled up outside a home. Kristen said, "Do you want this?" I said, "Sure, if you do." We took a look at it and determined that if it was still there on our walk back to the house we'd take it home with us.

It was there. So we carried a rolled up rug down the street towards our house. We even made some new friends out of the deal. It's hard not to draw attention to oneself when one is carrying a giant rug down the street at 10pm at night, after all. Anyway, our plan is to clean up this rug and put it in our living room. With that AND the "Hands On The Wall" wall, our living room will be complete! Huzzah!

Rug we got on the way to Wallgreen's

So there you have it, folks. That was my weekend. In fact, I'm exhausted just thinking about it. It was a blast, all in all. New faces, new places, new food, new friends. Glorious. Now it's Monday and I'm left with the happy memories of a weekend well spent. It's a good way to start the week :).

You're Random!

I just committed murder at my desk. The murder of the most disgusting multi-appendaged insecty THING I have ever seen. UGH! And I keep finding its severed, quivering legs around my desk. This is not acceptable. Unacceptable, if you will. Why are there gross bugs in the Smithsonian??? Why are there insects anywhere at all but outdoors? I saw it and I cringed and I wheeled my chair as far away from it as the 3-square foot floorspace of my cube allowed and I squealed and said things like "EW!" and "Ugh!" but no one came to my rescue. I guess damsels in distress really have to be whiny obnoxious things to get noticed.

I told my mentor that the next time we meet I just want to hear all about his career and the things he knows now that he wish he knew then and the advice he has and every little detail he wants to share about his time as a writer/editor. He said he'd bore me to tears. Hmmm. Okay, if late Tuesday night you hear of my untimely demise don't be surprised if the coroner's report reads "Cause of Death: Boredom by Way of Life Story." (Sidebar - that won't happen. It's going to be good.)

Sidebar? What, cause I'm all about courtroom lingo now? I gave up the dream of law school years ago when I realized the Socratic method would kill me. Wow, a lot of death-by-speech fear in this post. Maybe I should talk to someone about that.

I go in spurts of putting books on hold at the library. I'll have nothing to read so I start browsing Amazon and stuff to see what the top selling books are and then I go all bananas requesting them at the library. Then they all come in at once and I have 6 books to read and 3 weeks to do it. NO, I CAN'T just renew them because please keep in mind that these are top selling books, which means there's a queue of at least 20 people behind me wanting to read the same material. You can't renew books that are on hold. But now I got two books on grant writing from a coworker so I can learn some stuff and develop professionally and all that hooey. So now I have 8 books. No, 7. Cause I just finished one.

I want a puppy but I only want to play with it. No walking it, no following it around on the walk with a little plastic baggy, and no paying for vet stuff. Kinda like the same way I want kids right now. Just for play time and when they laugh at my songs and stories. When they adore me, mainly. Not when I have to put them to bed and they've somehow managed to get 8 pieces of gum stuck in my hair when I wasn't paying attention. Just a fear I have...

Last Sunday I helped out in the babies section instead of pre-K. Those kids are cute. I took this one baby from his dad and put him on my hip and started talking baby talk to him. He took one look at me and stuck his hand in my mouth. I did the fake bite thing and he laughed. After that, we were besties. I mean, 1 year-olds just get a kick out of the weirdest stuff. These three kids sat in a rocking chair and just cracked up while I rocked them back and forth. I kept making the same silly noises over and over again at each crest of the rocking wave and they ate it up.

I have to run to the drug store and the grocery store after work. Why the errands? Why? Why do adults have to run so many errands? There's always something I need to get from somewhere, always! ACK, my dry cleaning!!!

The Real World: Summer

Remember those days when you'd count down till the end of school, anticipating the awesomeness that was summer vacation? Eventually, of course, you'd start counting down the days until school recommenced, but between those two countdowns was the most blissful time of year. Maybe you had a summer job, maybe you went to camp, maybe you were at the pool every day...whatever it was, it was summer break. Summer meant no homework (summer reading lists not included), no tests, no papers and no waking up at the crack of dawn to get ready and catch the bus. Ah, perfection.

For some reason I really dreaded falling into the "real world" because I knew that my summers of greatness would be over. In fact, every summer in college I would have the "summer countdown" - not the days till school started but rather the number of summers I would have left before I lost my freedom to a cubicle. Well, I lucked out and went to grad school...more summers! Well, only one more summer, but I made it a good one knowing full well that it was really and truly the last free summer of my life. At that time I anticipated the decline of any summer-anticipation as I progressed through adulthood. I thought I would cease to be excited by the prospect because I'd know I still had to go to work every day. Surely summers won't be the same, I reasoned, because I'll still have the same obligations I did during the rest of the year.

WRONG! I still love summer! Straight up love it. Sure, I have to go to work everyday. That doesn't change. But the season still gives me a sense of excitement. Pools open, summer concert series happen, vacations (sometimes) happen, outdoor movies are playing everywhere. Of course, now that I'm pushing my late 20s, I'm invited to more and more weddings every summer. And even now I'm feeling a bit of nostalgia for the summer that's not yet over. I mean, since my schedule doesn't change much for the season, I can make summer last as long as it technically does, till late September. But I don't. Because now kids are back in school and all the summer series are wrapping up and Barron left town and Labor Day is fast approaching. FAST approaching.

So who knew? Not I. I'm pleasantly surprised that I have yet to lose my childlike anticipation of summer and my childlike sadness when it ends. We'll see how long that lasts.

Update Portion:

So here's how I wrapped up my summer. I've enjoyed some roommate bonding by going to a Dave Matthews Band concert. Though "mainstream," as one blogger described it, attending a DMB concert has been on my list of things to do since college. It seems to be a concert-going right of passage, at least in my opinion. Dave did not disappoint. The band played "Crash" and that's all I needed to hear to have a good time. Last week I went to sunny San Francisco with two of my roomies. That was my first time on the West coast and boy did I love it! The weather was perfect: sunny, breezy, just chilly enough that sometime I needed a light jacket, with temps ranging from the 70s to 80s during the day. Ahhhhhh. I saw Golden Gate Park, Pier 39, Queen Wilhelmina Garden, the Palace of Fine Arts, the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption, Chinatown, Alcatraz (from a distance), and I walked across the Golden Gate Bridge twice. I have yet to mention all the famous streets I saw, bookstores I patronized, coffee shops in which I reclined, and restaurants at which I overate. 'Twas a delight.

~below is the Conservatory of Flowers
~below is a view of the roof of St. Mary's Cathedral

So now that I'm back I really feel like summer's over. I plan to go camping over Labor Day Weekend. (I know, soooo not my style.) Then that's it. It's done, finished, fini. Then work will really start to pick up and I'll be planning my fall agenda. Wow. Time flies when you're...getting old.

Overcompensating

The OHR mentor coordinator told us that we had until August 28th to turn in our complete Individual Development Plans (IDPs). Oh boy. If you read my post on "The Real World: Goals " you'll know exactly how that statement made me feel. In sum, it activated my sensitive gag reflex. However, this weekend I started jotting down some ideas based on the results of a personal assessment I took. I knew I wanted great knowledge of the Smithsonian Institution (SI), I knew I wanted to increase my professional network (IMPW) and I knew that I wanted to improve my written communication skills (INTIWTIMWCS).

I completed my IDP draft today and emailed it to my mentor. I had 8 goals (as determined by the assessment administered to me by the program coordinator), 16 reasons why these goals would help me professionally and personally, 13 activities I will pursue to accomplish these goals, 9 dates for completion of my goals and sub-goals, 13 resources I will need to accomplish said goals, and 9 methods with which to measure my progress. I thought that's what I was supposed to do. Apparently, I went overboard.

In my defense, the example IDP I received looked a lot like the one I created. Okay, okay, there was no (or little) plagiarism involved. What I mean is that the format looked the same. I thought that for each goal I needed 2 or 3 reasons why said goal would help me personally and professionally and at least 2 activities I would pursue to attain the goals. Then of course I had to have completion dates for the activities, measurements for progress and blah blah blah. Formatting. That's what I was going for. I didn't want to look like a slacker, especially because every time my mentor asked me what I wanted to accomplish I really, really, really sounded like a slacker.

I sent my completed IDP draft to my mentor so he could look over it and make suggestions. This is what he said to me: "It certainly seems like you're going to be pretty busy over the next few months!" Oh garsh. Now he probably thinks I'm an over-achiever. Undo! Undo! Undo!

The Real World: Dating

No, I have no stories. But this blog post was really interesting. What do you think?

The Real World: Goals

Are we supposed to have them? Well, apparently when you're in a mentor-mentee relationship, you are. I know this because I've been given the task of hashing out 8 professional goals for myself over the next 6 months. Allow me to rephrase. I have less than two weeks to figure out how to achieve 8 professionals goals in the next 6 months. Cripes.

Whatever happened to just hanging out and maybe just seeing how things play out? Since when is it vital to set goals for yourself professionally? Don't answer that. I KNOW the answer. I'm just annoyed by it is all. I mean, I have some goals in my head: make some money, pay some bills, work some but mostly hang out. I even have more ambitious goals in mind: make some more money, pay off my college loans, use more money to vacation to more exotic places once I make the more money. But now I have to formalize my goals. And I have to get my supervisor to approve them, AND my mentor. Poor guy. He must think I'm hopeless.

Luckily, I have all my papers from career counseling at UK. I have reacquainted myself with my personality type, what sorts of things I value in a job and blah blah blah. It's given me some ideas for my "Individual Development Plan." Ugh. When my mentor and I were talking the other day he said something like, "So you're not one of those really driven people who knew what you wanted to do since you were young." I said, "Sure I knew what I wanted to do when I was young, but that changed every six months." Actually, I wasn't being quite honest. It didn't change. I wanted to be a movie star for years and years. I only gave up that dream when I realized it required moving and auditions and eating Ramen, AGAIN, for months on end while I acted in B movies that I would be more embarrassed by if they weren't paying the bills. But back to reality...The Real World, if you will.

Goals. Gotta have 'em if you want to be motivated and get anywhere in life, I suppose. And so I've come up with my top two goals: Smithsonian Institution Knowledge and Developing My Professional Network. My mentor can help me with both of those. I just have to come up with a plan to attain those goals in the next six months and some performance measurements. BORING! Then, of course, I have to do the same for the six other goals I came up with during my personal assessment test: Creativity & Innovation, Written Communication, Ability to Influence Others, Getting Results, Flexibility & Adaptability, and Stress Tolerance. I'm not sure exactly how I'm supposed to increase my creativity and innovation, for example. How am I supposed to measure my progress in that area? What sorts of exercises can help me get there? I mean, if I'm thinking of creative writing then no problem - I'll set myself a goal of writing a short story every month and reading it aloud or something. But I'm also supposed to be thinking about being creative in my job right now. Not too easy when I'm a data entry specialist. How do I get creative and innovative there? These are not rhetorical questions.

So that's my goal - to formalize my goals. Who knew getting a mentor would require so much homework? Granted, this is a good thing. I need to think about this stuff. I'm not all that concerned about my career path, but that doesn't mean I should sit idly by and not make things happen for myself, right? Right. Hmmm, it might be a good start if I stop blogging and get to that mentee homework.

Bye bye.

Update: Mentor Me, Matey!

Should I have been better prepared? He asked me what I wanted from him over the next six months. I said, "Errrr....Ummmmm....ehhhhhh." There we were, chatting over coffee, and I had no idea what to tell my new mentor. I don't know exactly what I'm looking for out of this whole thing. Clarity? Networking? Sure, both of those things. I want it all. I don't know how to go about it, though. I've never been mentored before and I've never mentored another. How do these things work, especially in the work place?

I walked into the basement cafeteria at the Castle, craning my neck in as many degrees of the 360 degree spectrum as my neck allowed. I saw a man in khakis and a tropical print shirt standing at the coffee machine. I looked at him, he looked at me. Neither one of us said anything. I walked closer and gave him that are-you-the-person-I'm-supposed-to-meet look. He reciprocated. I apparently had nothing brilliant to say because my mouth stayed closed and I continued to look inquisitively in his eyes. He broke the silence. "Are you Gillian?" Yes! This was the guy, my mentor. So now the awkward get-to-know-you conversation could start.

'Twas a pleasant coffee talk. No awkwardness to be had for miles. Well, I felt awkward when he asked me at the end of the conversation to describe my goals for this mentor relationship. I had no idea. Still don't, as a matter of fact. (Any suggestions would be very welcome.) I told him I want to learn more about what he does every day at work because I love to read and write and would enjoy incorporating that into my career. Ho hum, I don't know. I told him I haven't taken much initiative in my career thus far and I didn't really know where to start. Fear not, he said...in my mind. In reality he said something along the lines of, well you've just started your career and the fact that you're in this program so soon after coming here speaks well for your future. Okay, I accept.

You know, I recently finished this book called Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. It's this fascinating book about how our notions of pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps success are flawed. We Americans like to think every great success is attributable to individual merit and gumption. In reality, that's not the case. "Outliers", or unusually great successes, are people with impressive smarts and intelligence and work ethic, but they don't succeed in a personal vacuum. They are born at the right time in the right place and are luckily associated with the right people so that they are in the prime position to become the best at what they do. For more information, please read the book. You may not agree with everything - I didn't - but it's certainly food for thought. Plus, it is written from a sociological perspective and that is just pure awesome in my opinion. What does all this have to do with me, you might ask? I don't think I'm going to be any sort of great outlier or head of my field, especially because I don't even really know what my "field" is going to be in the long run. I do think, however, that I'm well positioned to figure all that out. Just think, I came to the Smithsonian at the right time. Within the past year we have hired a new Secretary for the Institution who is cleaning up around the place and pushing the Institution into a new era of transparency, efficiency and productivity. It's a good time to be working here. Other SI employees have endeavored to pilot a mentoring program in the past but were told there wasn't enough interest or weren't enough resources or were thwarted in some other way. How convenient that just as I finish my first year of work here there is a pilot program for professional mentoring that is accepting applicants who have worked at SI for at least a year. How providential that though I apparently don't care enough about professional development to take the initiative to apply for such programs without prompting (I deleted the informational email about the program within two minutes of reading it), I have colleagues who are looking out for me and want to encourage me in my career growth (my co-assistant gift registrar forwarded me the email with a note that nudged me to apply.)

My point is not that I'm an outlier or super special. My point is that I'm blessed. I have no idea what I'm doing here or where I'll go, but I have people in my life who are encouraging me and pointing me in the right direction. I hope my relationship with my mentor will be similar. I have great hopes for the next six months. I have no clue how I want to go about progressing as a mentee or learning or whatever, but with help I'll figure it out. I'm a fortunate person put in a position for maximum growth. That's pretty humbling. It's also pretty exciting.