Halfway to 50

Well I have officially turned 25. Or, as the crazy old Navy Captain in office told me... I'm now halfway to 50! I apologize ahead of time for a lack of pictures in this post.

My birthday fell on a Wed. this year which was unfortunate since I work all day and then have 4 hours of class until 9pm. We originally decided to celebrate on Saturday, but ended up semi-celebrating on Wed. When I got to work my cube-mate Jenny had gone WAY out of her way to make my birthday a big deal. We were going to go get birthday breakfast (aka coffee) but ended up in a 2 1/2 hour meeting. After the meeting, she and a few of the other sweet girls in my office actually gave me presents. I was shocked! I ended up with a cast-iron skillet, spices, a hand-sewn card from Pakistan, a hand-painted card from the Congo, and a home-made pashmina from Nepal. I thought it very fitting that I work in an office that handles international disasters in trouble prone countries and I received gifts from Pakistan, Nepal and the Congo.

Then, the entire team treated me to lunch in the Pentagon dining room. This is the fancy, white-table cloth, reservation only club in the Pentagon where important people eat lunch. It was so sweet of them to not only take me there, but they all took time out of there busy days to go. After lunch, Jenny had even made caramel topped brownies! Amazing.

I didn't have much time to eat my brownies because I got sent to a lecture at the U.S. Peace Institute for the afternoon for a former Ambassador and a former Secretary General for peace the the United Nations. The seminar was packed and they took only 3 questions from the whole group, and mine was one of the ones they picked! It was awesome since I'm the intern and I was in there with real government employees.

Unfortunately, after the seminar I had to go to class, BUT I only had to sit through 2 hours. My last class was cancelled because my professor was hunkered down in a bunker in Libya (don't ask me why she was there). So, instead of learning about post-conflict reconstruction, we went to dinner at a restaurant called Founding Farmers. It's a really popular restaurant we've tried to go to several time, but its always been over an hour wait. They have a HUGE menu and focus on local produce. It was great! We started off with barbecue flavored popcorn, then I had a steak, double whipped potatoes and homemade mac and cheese (I was not counting calories on my birthday) and then for dessert we shared beignets with chocolate, caramel and raspberry dipping sauce. It was so good, but I didn't want to eat again for days!


We had already decided that our real celebration was going to be on Saturday - we bought tickets to go see Les Miserables at the Kennedy Center. We planned our entire Saturday around it. We ran our errands early, ate barbecue and watched the Arkansas v. A&M  game (we're not talking about it...) then we got all dressed up and fancy and headed to the Kennedy Center. Unfortunately, this is where the day turned bad. We bought the tickets when they first went on sale back in June because they aren't cheap and they ran a special. When the tickets came, we set them aside until my birthday. So put yourself in our situation. We are super excited, I had bought a new dress, we were all done up, we walk up to hand them our tickets to go in and they beep funny. The lady looks at us and say... oh, these tickets were for LAST NIGHT'S SHOW!

I panicked. I knew 100% that I had ordered tickets for Saturday night, not Friday. We went to the ticket office to see what they could do. Unfortunately, that night's show was almost completely sold out. They wouldn't give us tickets and wanted us to pay more than we had for our original tickets for not so good seats. He told us we could call customer service but that they wouldn't be able to help us until Monday. Then the waterworks started. I hate when I don't want to cry, but there is nothing you can do to stop the tears from coming. The poor man at the ticket office felt so bad, but there was nothing he could do for us. So Caleb dragged a weepy hysterical version of me out of the Kennedy Center and back home where I spent the rest of the night in my sweatpants, binging on junk food and soda and feeling sorry for myself.

LUCKILY, this story has a happy ending. The customer service lady called me on Monday, felt very bad, and was able to get us tickets on the very same row we originally had for Thursday evening. So... my birthday got extended a few days longer and we enjoyed Les Miserables Thursday evening. It was sooooooooo good that it was worth the wait.


So my birthday was definitely eventful and drawn out to enjoy it for a few extra days : ) On our birthdays, my mom always asks us what we are going to do in the xxth year of our life. In the 25th year of my life I plan to get my Master's Degree and get a real job (with the government if they'd lift there hiring freeze!) I know that's boring, but that will be a big accomplishment if it all comes true!

Well... I better get back to writing my paper if I plan to graduate. Check back in a few days for a new update!