The night that never ended

I’ve been bad again at updating. So I’ll go with the quick recap of this past week and a half!

I spent most of last week at my internship working on the story about Obama’s proposal to lower tax deductions for charitable giving from 35 to 28 percent for families earning more than $200,000 annually. It was definitely one of my favorite articles I’ve had to research for, and it ended up on both USA Today and Christianity Today!

I also did a “10 Minutes with Al Meredith,” which is basically a Q&A that RNS runs on its Web site. Al Meredith is the pastor of a church that had a gunman enter the church during a youth service a decade ago and release 200 rounds of ammo, killing seven and injuring seven more. He went to the church several weekends ago that had its pastor shot and killed in the pulpit and gave a sermon, and it was so enlightening and encouraging talking to him. He had such solid, biblical advice to give while also being entirely honest and raw about the pain endured. It was a very sensitive interview and so heartbreaking for me to hear about his experiences, but by far my favorite interview I’ve done here – this is the type of journalism I would spend my life doing.

Last Monday (March 17) I went to Chad’s for a Saint Patrick’s Day party to watch Boondock Saints and eat pizza, and it ended up being a bunch of the guys and me and Yvette, haha. For some reason they thought we wouldn’t be able to handle the movie, but I actually really liked it. So it was definitely a fun, alternative (not getting smashed) way to celebrate the holiday!

Last Wednesday’s progressive dinner went well and concluded with all of us playing telephone pictionary, which is always a good time.

Thursday evening was our first Bible study. Sarah Breen and I had been talking the prior weekend about how great it would be to get a Bible study going and so we decided to make it happen and announced it during Monday night worship. At 8 p.m. it was just me and Sarah, which we were totally cool with because we figured that we would use the time talking and praying for each other anyways – numbers weren’t important to us – but by 8:30 Katie, Sharyna, Ryan and Jason had all joined. We just spent a lot of time talking about where we were all at spiritually and then ended up talking about spiritual warfare. It was so refreshing getting to do this! We then ended and decided to read Colossians for the next week (for tonight actually, haha). It went so well, and I definitely think God will use this in all our lives.

Friday is where things got fun.

So I had class like normal and after Ebenezar’s, a huge group of us girls and David went out to Georgetown to get some amazing cupcakes. The line took us 30 minutes to get through (yes, they are THAT popular, haha), and they were definitely good … I think Baked and Wired is still my favorite, but I definitely enjoyed mine! Then we met up with Cole, Chad and Brian (their friend from USC who was visiting for the week) and went to a sports bar to have dinner and watch March Madness. Rachelle, Micaela, David and I all shared some appetizers, which were pretty amazing.

After dinner Chad, Cole, Brian, Michaela, Danielle, Rachelle, Christine and I all decided to walk to the Georgetown University campus and explore. And it’s amazingly beautiful and ivy-leagueish. We walked around the halls, the graveyard (yes, they had a graveyard!), the chapel, and finally ended up in the student lounge to where my great joy we found a bunch of old school video games, including Ms. Pac Man! So I said that I was going to get change when a student informed me that they were all FREE. So we spent two full hours playing all the games. Yes, we are definitely easily amused, haha.

We finally took the metro back and got back to Eastern Market around 1 a.m … but a few of us decided that the night wasn’t over and that we wanted to go back out. So Chad, Cole, Brian, Christine and I took the metro nearly all the way to the end of the orange line to an IHop out in Virginia. We didn’t get there until around 2, which is when the metro closes, so we knew we’d have to find a different way back. So we all got stuff (well, Christine and I just stole Chad and Brian’s pancakes) and had some good talks over our 2 a.m. snack.

Then we began talking about what to do, at which point I suggested that we walk to the Lincoln Memorial and watch the sunrise since we were only a few hours away and it was something I’ve always wanted to do. Now I was 100 percent serious, but I doubted anyone would actually want to because I’m used to people shooting down my crazy suggestions. But they did! I love these people, haha. It definitely helped that it was Brian’s last night here, which obviously meant that it had to be amazing. He had an iphone so we looked up the distance from where we were to the Lincoln Memorial, and it was a direct line of a little less than 5 miles. Totally doable.

So around 3:30 we left, got energy drinks and began our journey after asking a lady at the gas station for directions who made sure we knew how far we were going to have to walk and told us it would get “kind of hairy” trying to cross the Potomac and two freeways. It was absolutely freezing, so I’m glad we were moving the whole time, but we had a great walk over there, complete with lots of fun conversation and a few “adventures,” haha. We got to the memorial around 6 a.m., which was perfect because we had about 30 minutes to spare. So we walked to the Vietnam War Memorial and talked to one of the guys cleaning it up and then sprinted back to the Lincoln.

The sunrise was AMAZING. One of the coolest things I’ve ever seen! From the steps of the Lincoln we watched the sky behind the Washington Monument turn brilliant hues and illuminate the Reflecting Pool, slowly bringing day to all of DC. Gorgeous. Breathtaking. Extremely surreal. We took lots of pictures, and I’m so glad we did so we can remember it, but no picture could have ever done it justice. It was beautiful.

At that point we figured that after walking all of that way it would’ve been totally lame to do anything but walk the rest of the way back, so we did. The marathon was going on that day, so we walked the opposite way of them, actually running into two ASPers who were doing it, and finally crossed over and made our way to Union Station. We got breakfast at Au Bon Pairs (or something like that, haha) and were absolutely dead – I’m sure we looked absolutely downtrodden and I’m sure our conversation reflected that, haha. We got back to the apartments at 9 a.m., which was perfect because Brian had to be out of there at 10:30 to catch his plane home.

I fell asleep right away and woke up a little before 2 p.m. I told the story to my roommates who all thought I was crazy, made myself lunch, ate it, and then fell back asleep from 4 to 6. Then I got up, did my chores, showered and got ready to go dancing! Christine, Rachelle, Danielle and I all left for The Black Cat (the same place where we went ‘80s dancing) around 10:30 and danced the night away until 1:30. So fun! I was absolutely dead, though, and my feet were killing me. My bed was especially wonderful that night.

Sunday the four of us went to National Community Church and then to an Asian restaurant in Union Station. At some point that day Danielle, Natalie, Alyssa and I went back to Union Station to get milkshakes at Johnny Rockets. And then Danielle and I attempted to get homework done with a nice, little incentive program … which worked somewhat, haha.

Now onto Monday, as in only three days ago! We had class, family dinner, I did some work, and then that night Alyssa and I ordered in Chinese food and watched a movie.

Tuesday after work I decided that I wanted to go running, and I decided that I wanted to do a different route than normal. On the run I decided that I wanted to try to make it to the Washington Monument, which is pretty far away, and I told myself that I could just walk some of it. So I ran to the Capital, onto the Mall, and all the way to and around the Washington and then all the way back – I ran the whole way, which for me is SO much more than I normally do! I kept a pretty slow place for some of it, especially that nasty uphill part on the back of the Capital, but I didn’t walk any of it. And it was so nice – such a scenic, relaxing run! I knew it was pretty darn far, but someone yesterday told me that it was a 6 mile run … 6 miles! I usually only run two or three, haha. So that was definitely enjoyable.

Wednesday (yesterday) after work was progressive dinner. We had rolls in our apartment, went to the girls’ for taco salad, and then came back to our apartment for cherry cheesecake cupcakes that John had made. Cole dared me to stick two into my mouth at once. So I did. And it was messy. But they were delicious. Then we had story time with John, which was hilarious. Best story teller ever. And then a bunch of people stuck around, and Rachelle, Christine, Cole, Geoff and I talked for a few hours. It was a great progressive dinner.

Today it’s been really rainy, and I am SO cozy right now – right after I got back from work I changed into jeans, slippers and a huge sweatshirt, which is just lovely. Oh, and I got pupusas at a Salvadorian restaurant for lunch, and they were really good. That was nice, especially since I didn’t wake up until 9 this morning, which was when I was supposed to BE at work … my alarm didn’t go off for whatever reason, so I was over an hour late to work, haha. Not so cool. But the pupusas were amazing. And now Rachelle and I are going to make a chicken dinner, then there’s Bible study, and Rachelle and I might watch Casablanca later tonight – after The Office of course.

Vintage hip-hop dancing tomorrow!!!!