...was full of fun things, including canoeing (see picture of Martin, looking rugged) and discovering the first Boba place I've seen in D.C., watching Star Wars, playing with a 206 pound St. Bernard, getting sunburned, making arroz con leche, and strolling around not one, but two Maryland lakes.
I'm happy and exhausted.
Monday, May 23, 2005
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
Fear Factor
First, you will note that it's BASEBALL season and I don't care what you think about baseball, I love it. It means summer and hot nights and the sound of balls cracking against bats and the smell of the barbeque. It means flip flops all day and watermelon for dessert. Besides, it's a great game. So, here's a picture of the Nationals, DC's home team (finally).
Second, and most recently:
They say that you have to confront your fear in order to overcome it. I hate making phone calls. Any excuse will do: I have a hangnail and can't possibly call until it's taken care of. I'm sleepy, I'll probably slur my words. Someone is vaccuuming in the basement, better wait 'til it's quiet. It's 4:47, I'd better wait until 5 PM exactly.
Well. Yesterday. We have our weekly program meeting at work. The boss wants us to follow up on the conference invitations that we have sent out because only 109 people have responded. We sent out 615 invitations. ... I'll let the enormity of that number sink in. Yes. That's 506 follow ups, and 506 phone calls. Between Rami and I, it worked out to 253 each.
At 5 o'clock, the boss stops by, "So did you finish all those calls?" I looked up with glazed eyes. "I'm through 175. I'm going home." If I talked in my sleep last night, I bet I said, "Hello, this is Catherine with CSIS and I wanted to confirm that you received the invitation to a conference we're holding on May 25..."
We finished all 515. The number of RSVPs we got proves that it was a successful endeavor. My general aversion to making phone calls persists, and is perhaps aggravated (I never ever want to make a phone call again) but now that I've called 250 strangers in two days, heck, returning a voice mail message? No sweat.
Second, and most recently:
They say that you have to confront your fear in order to overcome it. I hate making phone calls. Any excuse will do: I have a hangnail and can't possibly call until it's taken care of. I'm sleepy, I'll probably slur my words. Someone is vaccuuming in the basement, better wait 'til it's quiet. It's 4:47, I'd better wait until 5 PM exactly.
Well. Yesterday. We have our weekly program meeting at work. The boss wants us to follow up on the conference invitations that we have sent out because only 109 people have responded. We sent out 615 invitations. ... I'll let the enormity of that number sink in. Yes. That's 506 follow ups, and 506 phone calls. Between Rami and I, it worked out to 253 each.
At 5 o'clock, the boss stops by, "So did you finish all those calls?" I looked up with glazed eyes. "I'm through 175. I'm going home." If I talked in my sleep last night, I bet I said, "Hello, this is Catherine with CSIS and I wanted to confirm that you received the invitation to a conference we're holding on May 25..."
We finished all 515. The number of RSVPs we got proves that it was a successful endeavor. My general aversion to making phone calls persists, and is perhaps aggravated (I never ever want to make a phone call again) but now that I've called 250 strangers in two days, heck, returning a voice mail message? No sweat.
Friday, May 13, 2005
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Multicultural
When I get fortune cookies, I ignore the "fortune" because it usually says something like, "You are a joy to all your neighbors" or "Your life is happy." Which aren't really fortunes, so I ignore them. And I never look at the lucky numbers. But some people do, apparently, and 110 people won the Powerball lottery. "That's ours," said Derrick Wong, of Wonton Food, when shown a picture of a winner's cookie slip. "That's very nice, 110 people won the lottery from the numbers." But I still don't intend to start reading the numbers on my fortunes.
In unrelated news, I am still on the job hunt (do you think a fortune cookie would have good advice for me? Hm.) but hoping for my current (temporary) position to turn permanent. It's finally spring, and I can wear all kinds of short skirts and open-toed sandals. By George, we've earned it, after last week's FROST WARNING. The family is back from their much-deserved vacation to the Far East, the baby is even cuter than before and has now learned to say very useful words like, "Baby," "No," Daddy," and the Japanese version of "Aha! I found it!" "Here you go," and "Who is that?" I, by extension, have learned these words too, expanding my Japanese vocabulary to a total of 10 words.
D.C. is, I think, a vortex into which everyone is eventually pulled: just this week I met my Los Angelian friend Stacy (well, she's an Angelian, but we met in Paris and did the Italian hostel thing together) who happend to be in town with her boyfriend doing the East Coast Tour. Then Fatema and I ate a yummy Malaysian dinner with two very smart, very cool, very fun Indian girls we met in Jordan; they were Fulbrighters at the time but now are in D.C. studying and preparing for upcoming exciting careers. Small world. People like this make me excited to see where our lives will go. In 20 years, will we run into each other again? What will we be doing? I think it's sort of inevitable that we will, for once in the Middle-East-study-abroad-circle, always in the circle. You'll just keep running into each other. Here's to the next 20 years and future reunions.
In unrelated news, I am still on the job hunt (do you think a fortune cookie would have good advice for me? Hm.) but hoping for my current (temporary) position to turn permanent. It's finally spring, and I can wear all kinds of short skirts and open-toed sandals. By George, we've earned it, after last week's FROST WARNING. The family is back from their much-deserved vacation to the Far East, the baby is even cuter than before and has now learned to say very useful words like, "Baby," "No," Daddy," and the Japanese version of "Aha! I found it!" "Here you go," and "Who is that?" I, by extension, have learned these words too, expanding my Japanese vocabulary to a total of 10 words.
D.C. is, I think, a vortex into which everyone is eventually pulled: just this week I met my Los Angelian friend Stacy (well, she's an Angelian, but we met in Paris and did the Italian hostel thing together) who happend to be in town with her boyfriend doing the East Coast Tour. Then Fatema and I ate a yummy Malaysian dinner with two very smart, very cool, very fun Indian girls we met in Jordan; they were Fulbrighters at the time but now are in D.C. studying and preparing for upcoming exciting careers. Small world. People like this make me excited to see where our lives will go. In 20 years, will we run into each other again? What will we be doing? I think it's sort of inevitable that we will, for once in the Middle-East-study-abroad-circle, always in the circle. You'll just keep running into each other. Here's to the next 20 years and future reunions.
Monday, May 02, 2005
Enhancement
If performance-enhancing drugs are so scandalous, why aren't these? There is a thin line between acceptable and unacceptable performance enhancement, and while I understand that altering your physical ability chemically crosses the line, what about altering your physical ability, well, physically? Tiger Woods, for instance, recently had LASIK surgery, a perfectly acceptable form of eyesight correction, especially since he already wore contacts that improved his vision. But as the Slate article points out, athletes aren't allowed to doctor the ball, the bat, or use extra devices in the field of play, but you can doctor yourself. If you take this argument too far, it could apply to swim caps and bike gloves, both performance-enhancing. Maybe we should all practice sports like the Greeks...? That would eliminate all this fuss about performance enhancement.
And speaking of performance enhancement, they say that frog cocktails are popular in the Andes because of their aphrodisiac qualities. I have eaten frog legs. They are yummy, if a little bony. But I could not, would not, swallow them in a cocktail.
Maybe after you get your 20/15 LASIK vision, your steroid dose, and your frog cocktail, your performance will be enhanced enough to climb a mountain of Chinese buns. Sign up now for next year's competition.
And speaking of performance enhancement, they say that frog cocktails are popular in the Andes because of their aphrodisiac qualities. I have eaten frog legs. They are yummy, if a little bony. But I could not, would not, swallow them in a cocktail.
Maybe after you get your 20/15 LASIK vision, your steroid dose, and your frog cocktail, your performance will be enhanced enough to climb a mountain of Chinese buns. Sign up now for next year's competition.
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