CRAZY WEEK!!!

I know I know. I did bad updating the blog this last week. ALOT happened and most nights I was lucky if I made it to 9pm without crashing in bed. Here is a quick recap of the week:

Wed.- My first day of orientation, technically site visit days. I had to be on campus, at the Elliott School by 730 sharp or they said they would leave me. This meant I had to be getting on the metro at 615 and get up at 445 to make sure I was ready. Man, being an adult and waking up at the crack of dawn is NOT fun! But this day it was TOTALLY worth it! I chose to go on the intelligence site visits which meant that the school took me to the CIA and the ONI (office of naval intelligence). I'm not exactly sure what I can post up here about my visits, but what I can say is that a) Security was INTENSE! b) I really want to work in intelligence and c) if you ever get a chance to go visit either of these places, you should, its awesome!

Anyways, by the time we got back to the school at 5 I was completely exhausted. Being professional and networking is so exhausting. I walked down into the metro and made my first metro riding mistake. Looking back, I'm not sure if I fell asleep on the bench, zoned out, or just was not paying attention at all. Anyways, I got on the wrong train and rode it 4 stops before I even realized it.....embarassing....so then I had to get off and backtrack. Needless to say I pay alot more attention now!

But by the time I walked back inside our apt. building I got the phone call that I had been waiting for all week. A few weeks ago I applied to by the teaching assistant for an undergraduate class in the Elliott School. It was a film and foreign policy class taught by Ambassador Indefurth (the director of my masters program). I applied thinking there was no way I'd get it because I wasn't qualified. Well, I got a phone interview, then a real interview, then they offered me the job!!! So, twice a week I'll be in the class helping the Ambassador teach his class and then grade all of the papers for him. I'm way excited! Since people have been asking just who Ambassador Indefurth is, here is his bio from the Elliott School Website:

Karl F. Inderfurth


John O. Rankin Professor of the Practice of International Affairs

Director, Graduate Program in International Affairs
 
Expertise:


U.S.-South Asian Relations; National Security Council; United Nations and Peacekeeping; Disarmament and Security Affairs



Background:

Ambassador Inderfurth served as Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs (1997-2001), Special Representative of the President and Secretary of State for Global Humanitarian Demining (1997-98) and U.S. Representative for Special Political Affairs to the United Nations, with ambassadorial rank, where he also served as Deputy U.S. Representative on the U.N. Security Council (1993-1997). Ambassador Inderfurth has worked as a national security and Moscow Correspondent for ABC News (1981-91) and received an Emmy Award in 1983. He has also served on the staffs of the Senate Intelligence and Foreign Relations Committees and the National Security Council. He co-authored Fateful Decisions: Inside the National Security Council (2004), along with Professor Loch K. Johnson, and is a frequent op/ed contributor and commentator in the national media.

Needless to say, I had an awesome Wed.
 
Thursday- This was my official orientation day. We attended lots of seminars on academic success, career center counseling, plans of study, etc. I met lots of great people but it was pretty intimidating. I was surrounded by these amazing people who have been doing incredible things with their lives the last few years. It's kind of awkward when you ask someone "hey, nice to meet you, what have you been up to before you came here" response "oh, you know, I've just been working in Bolivia with an NGO to bring clean water to dying children. what have you been doing?" my response: "wow, that's awesome. I've been working the front desk of a lousy hotel in college station, tx." Lame. Oh well, I got in based on my past experienes (i.e. Kyrgyzstan) so usually throwing that detail into the mix made people like me a little better. During lunch I had to sneak away to fill out my newhire paperwork. Somehow our schedules worked out and Caleb and I were able to find a bench halfway between his school and mine to have a lovely lunch date! We'll definitely have to find time in our schedules to do that more often. At the end of orientation we had a "networking" event on the roof of the school. First, let me say that the view was AMAZING! You could see the entire Washington monument, the Capitol, State Department, most of the memorials. Wow. They served fru fru food (i.e. hummus) and drinks and told us to network with fellow students, faculty, staff, and employers. After these first two days it became clear that "networking" is one of the biggest things that the Elliott School pushes.
 
Friday- Friday I attended an orientation session for the library. After YEARS of library presentations, I have to say that this one was particularly entertaining. Plus, who can complain when the library actually lets you eat and drink in the library! Amazing!!!! After the library, I had several Crossmark retail projects to do from Maryland, DC and Virginia. Since Caleb is done early on Fridays, he went with me. It was nice to actually spend some time together that wasn't both of us sitting at our desks in the office.
 
Saturday- To escape from a week's worth of law school, Caleb got up early on Saturday and went with a friend from the Bush school down to the Glen Beck rally. The metro was so packed that they ended up WALKING to the Lincoln memorial. That's about a 3 mile walk, around the Pentagon and across the bridge. I can't believe they walked that far. Anyways, they really enjoyed that rally and according to them, there were 500,000 people there. By Saturday night, I needed a break from the apartment, so we road the metro down to the Capitol and went to a restaurant called "Good Stuff Eatery." It's a burger, fries, and milkshake place and it was AMAZING! If anyone watches Top Chef on Bravo, it's Spike from a few seasons' ago restaurant. It was easily the best burger I've ever had. And the place was PACKED! I'm thinking about having my birthday dinner there.
 
Sunday- Since we got up here, we have been attending First Baptist Church of Alexandria. It's really funny, for MONTHS before we moved up here we prayed and prayed that God would show us the perfect church to go to. The first weekend we were up here we just happened to visit there because it was close and someone from Caleb's church in Little Rock suggested it. So far it has been amazing. The church has probably about 2,500 people in 2 services on Sunday, its a perfect mix of classic and contemporary service, they are VERY misssion oriented, especially towards Central Asia and have even had a Kyrgyz yurt up in the church the last few weeks and served Kyrgyz food as a way to tell about their mission work. We have LOVED the sunday school class we have been visiting, the Fun Young Couples, which includes an Aggie couple, a Baylor couple, and several others from the South. AND, yesterday I caught up with one of my sorority sisters who apparently that is her home church! It's amazing how God brought us directly to this church. Anyways, on Sunday we joined! We just felt like it was so perfect we wanted to go ahead and join and get involved. We came home and made our own fajitas for lunch, which was great and then just spent the afternoon hanging out.
 
Monday- Caleb headed back to school. He feels like he is getting a good grasp on law school, which is good! And it seems like he keeps meeting more people like him. Yesterday he met an Ok. Sooner that he liked. Yesterday I ended up having an interview for ANOTHER teaching assistant position- this one for an intro to Russian and Eurasian history course. I thought the interview just went okay. Then, I had to meet with the Ambassador to prepare for the first class on Tuesday. He is already putting me to work! I'm a little nervous. As Caleb and I met up to ride the metro home together, the other professor called and offered me the other TA job! So now I'm "teaching" 2 classes!!! I'm super excited- and we definitely needed the money. This way I'll be on campus more, can probably see Caleb more, and can hopefully keep on top of my own work.
 
Tuesday- Today is my first day of class! I have to prep and assist the Ambassador's class at 3:30 until 6:00 today and then I have my first class from 7:10-9pm. Since the Elliott School only has night class, I'm having to adjust to living my schedule backwards. Now, I get up early and do all of my work and when everyone else is finishing school around 3-5, I'm heading TO school. I was nice today, I laid out everything for Caleb to cook dinner tonight. Ah, the roles have reversed. Should be interesting!
 
I promise to be better about updating. If there is anything else you want to hear about from us just let me know! Sometimes I feel like my updates are boring. Have a great day everyone!