Dear Obnoxious Law Student

An ode to all who attend law school, just to keep you in check (and, possibly, to explain why I sometimes find it hard to make friends).


Dear Obnoxious Law Student [sitting outside of Starbucks,]

You aren't. That. Smart.
Your absolute lack of humility is not attractive.
Even the strawberry blond with tube socks
Sitting in front of you
Is not impressed by your venti chai tea and your "big-boy" SAT words.
Your Albert Einstein tuft of hair waving around flagrantly at the tip of your head
Is nowhere near as endearing as Alfalfa's.
If we meet one day, please let's talk about something other than Law and Order
Maybe I'd enjoy your presence then.

Regards,

Another Obnoxious Law Student

Food Truck Fridays

Disclaimer: I apologize for not updating my blog in approximately 1 month, but this is what a law student’s life looks like:





But don’t worry, I still have time for fun!



Anyway…

When I first moved to DC, I opined about how lucky I was to be living in the top floor of my building, Hampshire House. Going from one-story stuccos in Florida to seven-story structures in the District, I felt pretty high and mighty pushing the tippy-top button in the elevator to get to where I slept every night.

Then the earthquake came, and I wondered just how strategic it was for the girl who is terrified of heights (re: my airplane post) to live in the top story of a domicile built in 1919 whose elevator dropped twice before finally landing on the requested floor. If you weren’t aware (because I wasn’t, being an East-coaster,) the higher you are in a structure when an earthquake occurs, the more you feel the movement.

Then we had the hurricane, and I praised the lord for putting me in a top floor – furthest from flooding. DC doesn’t take well to uber huge amounts of rain.

Then –*insert suspenseful noise here* my elevator was taken out of commission for replacement. For six to eight weeks.  And the seventh story became a burden once again, especially with a backpack, a laptop, a lunchbox, and rainboots (yay for unbound books!)



In preparation for the sad day of September 19th (the death of the 1919 elevator), I purchased $400 worth of groceries. Why, you ask? Because one big difference from living in the suburbs to living in a city is grocery shopping. My nearest grocery store is 7 blocks away, and it’s a Trader Joe’s. Trader Joe’s is great for fresh items and specialty items, but if you want a can of Campbell’s soup or a box of Kellogg’s cereal, you won’t find it there. So you buy your $100 of specialty items, careful not to purchase more than one heavy item (ie. A bottle of wine or a jar of spaghetti sauce), and you lug it back 7 blocks to your building.

Did anyone really expect me to then drag bags of groceries up six flights of stairs? Because I didn’t expect myself to do that.

So, I took advantage of PeaPod, a local grocery delivery service that brings NORMAL grocery-store items (Campbell’s soup and…SPAGHETTIOS!) to your kitchen with minimal delivery fees. I’m now well-stocked:



But of course, now that I have plenty in my pantry, I’ve decided to explore more of the local cuisine. And look what I found:





Heaven!

It’s Penn Grille, located at the intersection of 20th and Penn. It looks like a hole-in-the-wall, and that’s because it is, but it’s been described as “one of the best-kept secrets of Foggy Bottom.” It’s also conveniently located a block away from the Law School campus, on 20th and H, and therefore requires minimal walking when you’re full to the max.

You get a silver tin and stock yourself up with raw veggies, noodles, and meats, then hand it to a cook, who turns around and cooks it with his back facing you and then places your cooked lunch (or dinner!) on a scale and charges you by its weight.

As the reviews say, “You have to love a place where the only sauce selections are mild, medium, and spicy.” The people who work there are mostly Asian, and smile a lot when you ask for “80% mild, 20% medium.” The first girl who took me here was also an Asian, who warned me that Penn Grill’s spicy = Asian spicy. So if you enjoy spicy foods – go for the medium. If you like to cry and sweat when you’re eating, go for the spicy!

I also had my first food truck meal this Friday with some of the girls from my internship at Break the Cycle. Food Truck Friday was the most exciting aspect of my week. Seriously. DC is divided into streets which run parallel to each other at 90 degrees (the letters and the numbers). Some streets run all cockamamie (those are the states). They’re confusing because they’re diagonal. But each area is centered around a little circle – a literal circle – that typically has a statue, benches, and some green grass (which isn’t too common in the city). I laughed a LOT when a District native informed me that these were parks.

Anyway, on Food Truck Friday, you can eat lunch outside. The food trucks bring you foods of all kinds – from AZN Eats to CapMac (a macaroni and cheese truck that even has parmesan chicken mac and cheese!) to Hula Girl (sticky rice and teriyaki chicken) to the Cheesecake Truck. And all you have to do is walk to the circle that’s closest to you! The meals typically cost between $7-$10.

Anyway, the girls and I had been planning this Food Truck Friday Funday for a full two days. Of course, when the day rolls by, it’s pouring. The DC girls made fun of me for wearing my snow boots (I’m sorry, but my rain boots hurt my feet and no way am I going to wear flip-flops and narrowly miss falling on my ass every five seconds).



There we are by the CapMac truck with our umbrellas!

Sarah and I decided to try the BBQ Bus – we’d both been missing some good barbecue from our home states (FL and GA). It was right next to the Grilled Cheese bus, which you can see in the background.



DC is way cool, guys. These people might all be skinny because you have to walk a mile to get anywhere (and, in some cases, have to traverse six flights of stairs because your elevator is down)…but they sure do know how to eat.

Even the squirrels enjoy good food.



And that’s the way the hippo heckles.

Office Hours: Professor Banzhaf

Wow, it's been almost a month since I last posted!

I've been busy with an internship, 5 law classes, auditing 2 non-law classes, meeting new friends, writing for the law school newspaper, and running for Senate (and losing). :)

I hope to write a nice, long, descriptive blog about DC life soon, but, to tide you over, here is my article in Nota Bene, George Washington Law's newspaper. It's the first of a column called "Office Hours" that will, week by week, (bi-weekly), bring you closer into GW Law by helping you meet some of the diverse, talented, and intelligent professors that my school offers.

Office Hours


His hobby is suing people. He convinced his own father to stop smoking. He has been interviewed by Stephen Colbert. He organized the first anti-smoking organization, made several appearances on Super Size Me, and believes that smokers and the obese should have higher health insurance payments than other citizens. He’s also been kicked out of a McDonald’s in Virginia.

Who is this GW Law professor?

It’s John Banzhaf, Professor of Torts, Administrative Law, Disabled People and the Law, Law and the Deaf, and Legal Activism.

After graduating from MIT with a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering, why did Professor Banzhaf decide to go to law school?

“I don’t know,” he said. But he believes that his background in science helped him to remain relaxed during his student experience at Columbia Law. “Lots of students are very scared when they come to law school,” he said. “You want to prove yourself. If you can succeed in law school, you will prove to yourself that you really have it. I didn’t have that. If I didn’t fit into this weird-ass culture of law school, it didn’t make any difference to me. I had a degree from MIT. I had two U.S. patents and had written ten technical papers. I was solid.”

At his alma mater, Columbia Law, Professor Banzhaf said he believes he would have been voted “least likely to become a public interest lawyer.” His main goal, post-graduation, was to become a patent lawyer. Why? “They made more money than anyone else.”

Professor Banzhaf knew the value of money. He worked his way through law school as a gigolo – that is, a man who is paid to dance a jig with a woman. He spent his summers traveling the world as an employee on a cruise ship. His main duty: to dance with the ladies at dusk.

While in school, after a flippant challenge from his professor, a well-respected judge in New York, Professor Banzhaf wrote and published his own Law Review article as a 2L. The article discussed weighted voting calculations and introduced a mathematical concept self-entitled the Banzhaf Index.

Here, though he was an editor of Columbia’s Law Review, he began to form an opinion about Law Review articles.

“Law review articles are damn near worthless or worse,” said Banzhaf. “They’re just professors opining about topics. If you have new ideas for legal rules, principles, strategies or tactics…rather than waste your time sending them to be judged by third-year law students, why not test them in the real world on people who are qualified to evaluate them like judges, legislators, and regulators, rather than third-year law students?”

After his own article was published in Columbia’s Law Review, Professor Banzhaf submitted his paper on the Banzhaf Index to the Court of Appeals of New York.

“God damn if they didn’t rule in my favor. The highest court in New York ruled that if you have weighted voting in New York state, it must be according to the Banzhaf Index calculation. That’s when I began to develop the theory that, if you have a good idea, don’t just stick it in the law review. Do something with it. See if you can get it going.”

The free time provided for by his lack of Law Review articles has allowed Professor Banzhaf to organize and head Action on Smoking and Health, America’s first anti-smoking legal action organization.



Professor Banzhaf's favorite phrase is "Sue the Bastards." His license plate typically says something similar. Here I am in his office when he stepped out, holding one of his figurines!

His anti-tobacco sentiments came not from any inherent issue with smoking, but rather from watching T.V. one Thanksgiving with his father, a smoker, and feeling inundated by cigarette commercials.

He wrote a complaint to the major network CNN which would change his life forever. Though CNN didn’t answer his complaint, the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) did, and with an overwhelming response, thanks to the Fairness Doctrine.

Abolished in 1987, the Fairness Doctrine stipulated that any radio or television station broadcasting biased commercials on controversial public issues must provide time for the opposite opinion to be broadcast as well. With the combination of Professor Banzhaf’s complaint and the Fairness Doctrine, television stations had to open air time up to anti-smoking campaigns – for free.

Professor Banzhaf hadn’t intentionally started the anti-smoking crusade. In fact, after he wrote the original CNN complaint, he accepted a job with a law firm whose major client was Philip Morris, the nation’s leading cigarette manufacturer. Professor Banzhaf began to realize something.

“I was getting tremendous pay, and virtually no satisfaction,” he said. He decided that maybe being a public interest lawyer wouldn’t be too bad.

He took on the challenge of helping health organizations to run their anti-smoking ads. “There I was,” he said, “– just graduated from law school – and I saw the anti-smoking messages appear on the air. People came up to me saying, ‘You know, I saw your message on TV. I quit smoking.’ Somebody wrote an article and it said, ‘This young lawyer from Columbia Law School has probably saved more lives than any physician alive today.’ That’s pretty heavy stuff for someone who’s twenty-six. It literally turned me around.”

His own father quit smoking after the televised warnings first appeared.

Despite his influence in the area of public interest, Professor Banzhaf doesn’t view himself as an advocate. “I’m not a crusader. I look for areas where I can put in the least and get the most – the biggest bang for my buck. A three-page letter and an eight-cent stamp got hundreds of thousands of dollars for anti-smoking ads. You can’t get much better than that.”

According to Professor Banzhaf, everybody uses legal action in this day and age. For him personally, it’s a hobby. He said, “There have been a number of situations where I saw an article in the Washington Post and thought hey, I ought to get into that. Not because of any long-standing professional interest.” He throws himself into legal actions which interest him. In the ‘60’s it was anti-smoking; later on, it became obesity, then sexual discrimination in restroom facilities and now, differential health insurance premiums.

He maintained, “Since I don’t write law review articles, I have the same amount of time to put into legal activism – that is, using law in the real world.”

The Hippo Heckles, Back to the Future Style

“Neanderthals had big noses and were about as tall as I am,” I wrote this afternoon as I perused the Smithsonian’s Natural History Museum. (Yes. That’s where I go when I need a break from studying. Don’t laugh). “Maybe I am a direct descendant.”



Thanks to the Smithsonian’s “Meanderthal” application, I can now definitively claim that, despite premature balding, I am one darn good-looking Neanderthal. Who apparently gets beaten often.

As an ancient midget, though, I look much less bruised:



That’s Homo floresiensis, A species that lived from 95,000 to 17,000 years ago on the Asian island of Flores. Their brains were only about 1/3 of the size of a modern-day humans, but they rivaled Homo species of the same time in tool-making and cooking with fire. (See, being short isn’t always a handicap).

To give you a comparison, here is my head compared to the cast (replica) of an adult Homo floresiensis.



Clearly, as you can see, I was excited to be at the museum. I’d ironically forgotten that the Museum of Natural History (in NYC) isn’t quite the same as the Smithsonian’s Natural History Museum, and I decided, this morning, that I could not rightly claim to be a paleobiology-lover without seeing the Koch Hall of Human Origins.

So I saw it. My favorite part was the cave wall – a wall (in obligatory darkness, like a real cave) featuring covered replicas of famous ancient cave paintings.



This is how ancient artists signed their work. They would use a long, hollow object to blow pigment around their hands, forming the handprint.

If you go there, feel free to be a dork (like me) and measure your hand against the ancients’. I still have a floresiensis hand.



The museum itself also has an Ocean exhibit that features a REAL giant squid (even though it’s dead) found in 2005 and a coelacanth, an ancient fish species thought at one time to be extinct but re-discovered in the late 1930’s.

Combine the evidence of “extinct” creatures being re-found and the bones of the plesiosaur (below), and you have my obligatory freshman-year persuasive paper written for speech, “The Plesiosaur Predicament,” which explains how the Loch Ness Monster is real.



It turns out that a majority of my friends (don’t I know how to pick ‘em?) that I’ve met attending law school seem to be on SSRI’s (happy pills. Antidepressants. Whatever nomenclature you prefer). I think it’s because of the lack of sunlight. I was informed in the middle of Category 1 Hurricane Irene (first an earthquake, then a hurricane) by a 2L (second-year law student) that the sky looks like that all day during the winter.

Like what? Gray? Cloudy? Depressing? Frown. There’s a reason why I didn’t move to England.

Ironically, the law school students rely on the same medication that is often given to prisoners in the mental wards of jails and prisons. The problem is that once the inmates are released, they, on occasion, no longer have access to the medication due to lack of funding for the medication itself or for the doctors who prescribe it. What a tangly issue.

Anyway, sitting in your room all day reading ancient cases (or sometimes recent cases, like Iqbar v. Ashcroft, which are especially infuriating) is probably not beneficial to your health. Typically, it seems as if you could lack some essential Vitamin D.

According to vitaminddeficiencysymptoms.com (reliability?), the first symptom of a deficiency is – you got it – depression! So today, I closed my books with a resounding thud, stepped into my purple flip-flops, and traversed the Metro (yes, despite it being the weekend!) to get to the National Mall.

And boy, was that a good decision.

It appears that once you begin taking pictures of yourself to the left of the National Monument, the fever slips in. Then you need a picture of yourself to the right of the Monument. In front of the Monument. Smiling at the Monument. Surprised by the Monument.



Pinching the Monument.



Symptom of a typical law school student: lacking a life.

But all is good.

To close, I will share with you some frightening things to look out for while journeying through the Smithsonian’s Museum of Natural History:



T-Rex eating oblivious people.



Getting in a fist-fight with unknown giant prehistoric wombat creature.



Llama? Placed right by frightening wombat creature and classified (correctly) as a “camelid.”



And, of course, the tusk of an ancient hippo(now extinct) that was 25% bigger than the hippopotamuses existing today.

And that’s the way the hippo heckles.

Tweet or Toot?

I’ve always dismissed Twitter, thinking of it less as a site for social skills strengthening and more as a gathering of egomaniacs – you know, those people who truly believe that everyone honestly cares what they have to say 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

(To be honest…I know I don’t.

…Though, I can also admit that no one wants me to detail every single second of my own personal life, either.)

Well, the dismissing stops here. I, the hippo, am here to heckle. Yes, folks, you’ve got it – I’ll give you a chance to mark your calendars – today is the day when I, a future attorney, admit that I was wrong.

Today, there was an earthquake centered in a small town near Richmond, VA that measured a 5.8 on the Richter scale. This number, according to the scale, is classified as a “moderate” earthquake: one that could cause major damage to poorly-constructed buildings.

Well, shit. To a short girl from Florida whose number one fear is of falling, it felt a bit more than moderate.

But, also being from Florida, I had no idea what was happening until a few minutes after it occurred. Had I been on Twitter, I might have been able to see the 40,000 earthquake-related Tweets that were posted 1 minute after the earthquake or less.

There are currently no fatalities or major building damages reported, but, according to the Associated Press, the Washington Monument has a crack near the top of the obelisk and will be closed indefinitely to maintain the safety of the public.

I was in my Legal Research and Writing class (LRW) on the third floor of my law school with a 3L Dean’s Fellow as a teacher. First, the building started to shake, and my classmates and I looked at one another in bewilderment, searching (in vain) for an answer.

“It’s the construction down the street,” some said, but I was a bit skeptical. If construction down the street causes my building to rumble, we’ve got some issues.

Then, the rumbling was joined by a swaying motion. I was on the third floor of a building. A building that was swaying.

“They didn’t train me for this,” the 3L said, half-jokingly, half-scared.
After about 30 seconds, the swaying stopped and we students roamed into the hallway in a subdued sort of panic. The fire alarms began to blare, and outside we filed.

It was one of the scariest moments in my life.

This moment comes in close comparison to having my life threatened by a native Peruvian because he didn’t like white people (direct translated quote). It matched the anxiety that I feel on airplanes. And it was all because I wasn’t in control.

When a man that I barely know roams the outdoor living space mere feet from my lock-less bedroom, I am not in control of the situation. When a plane is 45,000 feet in the air, I can control neither its speed nor its descent.
When the earth moves under my feet (and the sky comes tumbling down)…there is absolutely nothing that I can do.

It was one of the absolute worst moments in my world, and I can only imagine what the Japanese must have felt like nearly six months ago. And I didn’t even feel the helplessness of the unforgiving strength of a tsunami.

*

On a bit of a happier note (and to add some pictures, since I’ve been remiss with the onslaught of my first law school assignments), here are some things that you might find on a typical eight-block walk from 21st and O streets and 20th and H.



You might call this a surveying transit. It measures distance and elevation and allows road surveyors to build safe roads. It also allows Peruvian archaeologists (and probably archaeologists anywhere) to measure appropriately where a dig will take place. (This brought back some memories from a year ago).



You might see a Hello Kitty car.



You might see the makeshift home of someone who does not have one.



Lo and behold, you might find George Washington!



Or, of course, a lone hippopotamus.



And that’s the way the hippo heckles.

Well, lookee here - I'm short!

So, I’ve been back in the District from my Florida respite for about a week now, and I have come to one stunning, stupefying realization.

I am short.



Look at that.

This might seem like an obvious fact to those who know me, since I stand at 4’10. And there are certain times when I become hyper-aware of my height – or lack thereof. For example, if dancing at a club in a circle with friends…I normally tend to be nipple-level with most guys. That’s not comfortable. That’s awkward. Which explains why I rarely go to clubs.

But when not placed in awkward dancing-circle situations, I rarely realize what I lack in height. Maybe it’s because I’m loud, so my voice easily carries to others, even if it has to travel an extra foot to get to the target. Or maybe it’s because my personality is so large that it overruns my little body.

But there are so many big things in this world. And compared to them, I am very, very small.

There is a monument, cleverly named the Washington Monument. And it is very, very tall.


When I look at it from a ways away, my breath catches, my heartstrings pull and I know that I’m in love with my new city. I feel wholly, devotedly, and proudly American.



When I look at it from up close, I feel overwhelmed, intimidated, and yet, strangely protected.



I feel like I am a citizen of a great nation. A crazy nation, where sometimes white supremacists are considered heroes (“The Day Freedom Died: The Colfax Massacre” by Charles Lane) and little girls are kidnapped on their way to school to help “solve” a grown man’s sex problem (“A Stolen Life” by Jaycee Dugard). Where Casey Anthonys can be set free because of a lack of evidence and men can (almost) get away with writing a daily blog bashing their exes (www.thepsychoexwife.com).

But these less-than-happy antics are intriguing in their own sort of way, because they indicate that we live in a nation where laws are responses rather than control mechanisms. Where our freedom of speech might just allow us to write a book detailing the atrocities of our kidnapping or detail the perceived (or real) insanities of our exes. Where students study history with a glimmer of disgust and a hope for a brighter future. Where we can do what we want, because we are free. A free people. Free to read, write, sing, and dance however we want to. Free to pray, armor up, and study however we want to. Free to think and love and take a stand for what we honestly believe in.

Life isn’t black and white; it’s full of color. And Americans are a colorful people.


(Thanks to prohibitionsend.com for the picture).

A beautiful, colorful, collective mass of people.

And I am one exceedingly small woman within that crowd of people.



Despite this, it’s nice to remember…everyone in my country has the ability to make a difference. Everyone, no matter race, gender, sex, favorite language, favorite movie, or belief system, can be remembered positively.

In fact, the place that I felt the smallest so far in D.C. was at the Vietnam War memorial. I walked through it at night with some new friends. As the walls of fallen men grew taller, I ran my finger over the etched names, halfway listening to those around me murmuring about the humbling effect of the minimalist design.



(Image from tucsoncitizen.com).

I know I’m short. But, in reality, you know it doesn’t much matter if you’re small or tall. It isn’t your physicality that binds you or defines you; it’s how you choose to live your life. It’s what you’re willing to die for. And I know I’m not the most passionate person out here, or the bravest, or even the most dedicated. But I do know that I’m proud to be an American, and I know plenty of people, big or little, inspire me every day.

A Popstar's Panties

So. Selena Gomez.

Oh, you haven’t heard of her? She’s actually a huge star. Her show is called “Wizards of Waverly Place” and she has 2 albums out, including the songs “Natural” and “Who Says” (which you’ve probably heard before). Oh, and she starred in the recent movie “Monte Carlo.” Not to mention, she’s dating the Biebs.



Slammin’ body, huh?

Still don’t know her? This is probably because either 1) you’re not a ‘tween or 2) you don’t watch the Disney Channel.

To be completely honest, I do watch Disney (even if I still can’t tell you exactly what channel that is in the District). Even then, I wasn’t exactly thrilled when my parents told me that we were going to go see Selena in concert on my birthday. But sometimes, that is what being a big sister is about.

And…I actually enjoyed this concert. Despite the screaming prosti-tots and the opening band with a confusing name (doesn’t “Are you ready for All Star Weekend?” sound more like a pump-up for an event rather than for a band?)...despite this confusion...I enjoyed myself. Selena did a medley of Britney Spears songs, which was a throwback to my younger years.

And I can’t lie…but sometimes, looking like a twelve-year-old comes in handy. Like when you’re surrounded by them and screaming for a Disney superstar.

At least I wasn’t one of those six-foot-tall girls slathered in makeup that my dad and I were making fun of.

Either way, the concert ended up being pretty enjoyable – and my little sister was actually ready to leave before I was.

I was too busy being a little philosophically enthralled.



When Selena came out with her rockin’ bod and glittery, breast-enhancing Rockette garment, I paused for a second. She was cute for an eighteen-year-old. Honestly, I've watched her on those kids’ shows and unashamedly wished for a body like hers.

And being only 8 rows away from the stage itself, I was able to see Selena up-close. Her body was great. But not worth it, I think, for the hospital stint she had a few weeks back due to malnutrition.

And her skin was fine, but not perfect like it always is on T.V.

Her hair, in her opening number, was curled to perfection, tickling her cherubic face. By song #3, though, the Florida humidity had gotten to it, and I thought to myself, “Even Selena Gomez sweats. Her hair sticks to the back of her neck, too.”

And Selena herself noticed it. Despite being from California, she mentioned to the audience, “I don’t know how you all do it in this heat.”

Well, Selena, we do it like you do. With a natural cooling system that causes us to look a hot mess.

And get this:



Can you see it? Look at the center of the picture, towards the left. Her panties are showing. In front of a packed amphitheater, Selena Gomez showed her panties off to the world.

And even though she’s dating Justin Bieber, last year’s pop sensation…even though she has 2 albums and she has a music tour AND a hit T.V. show…

Even though she has her own fashion line at Kmart and 92% of the ‘tweens who watch the Disney Channel wish that they looked like her…

She wears yellow granny panties with a blue lace frame. And sometimes they stick out of her shimmery, glittery, fit-for-her pants.

She can for sure pull off wearing little more than a bra and yoga pants in front of a crowd of 5,000 people. But even she can’t help it when her malnutrition causes a little wardrobe malfunction. And she wears normal-people cotton Target brand panties. Just like the rest of us.

And that’s the way the hippo heckles.

Orangutans Are Skeptical of Changes in Their Cages

Oh, hey. I have a new current city: Boynton Beach, Florida. Yeah, that’s right. Some brave chick got on a plane without blogging a sob story about it first. ☺

I was too busy basking in my good luck and my current love of the District to concentrate on being terrified. And you know what? I didn’t crash and burn. To be honest, I was a little superstitious – maybe because I wasn’t so afraid of the plane this time, something bad would happen? …Turns out that’s untrue. Again, let me make this wonderful point: I’m alive!

Back to my good luck and love of D.C. I had the amazing opportunity to spend a few hours of a wonderful (if rainy) day at the National Zoo with my friend Shannon! I know her from undergrad at UCF, but her mom and brother reside in Maryland. Luckily, she’s such a good friend that she braved District traffic to pick me up at my apartment and drive me to the zoo.



Shannon is, in fact, such an awesome friend that she even conceded to wearing elephant ears with me for a picture. She’s moving to Korea in 3 weeks to teach English to some lucky middle schoolers for a year.

I wish that I was brave enough to do that. But maybe by spending a few years in D.C. and at law school, my bravery will grow – and I will be able to travel the world and affect it positively then.

I had 3 favorite animals of the day at the National Zoo. Number 1 was this llama, who sat underneath a constant spray of water. He was soaking wet, adorable, and reminiscent of Peru.



Next up was the panda, who I didn’t get to see on my first zoo adventure with my family, as she suddenly decided to take a nap when we were about 5 people away from gaining admittance to her little area.

And my third favorite animal – this alligator snapping turtle. He looks like a dinosaur. I love him.



Oh, there was also this huge turtle who was being given a shot. Apparently, he was not the most intelligent turtle, because he kept stretching out his neck whenever the zookeeper held up a large red buoy. I honestly thought that he would eventually recognize that the buoy was plastic, and therefore not a desirable food source. …No. He liked it.



…Something tells me it’s all happening at the zoo. I do believe it. I do believe it’s true.

And here is my favorite pretty picture of the day:

Despite the rain, a little boy and his mom can still have tons of fun:



And that's the way the hippo heckles.

A Day of Patience

Today was a valuable day for the new girl in the city. Though she still loves the District’s public transportation, she has come to realize that taking the Metro over the weekend requires a combination of patience and never-ending reading material.

Today was my first time volunteering through the organization Greater D.C. Cares. D.C. has a really great volunteering scene that’s super easy to get connected with. It’s as simple as registering on the website and signing up for a volunteer event.

For my first event, I chose something called Park View FUN Saturdays. Every Saturday, a group of volunteers and a group of kids living in Park View get together and enjoy 4 hours of fun – whether it be a field trip to a local museum, crafting, or playing basketball in the community pool.

My volunteer activity was metro-accessible according to the website, so I signed up for it knowing that I don’t have my own method of transportation here. Over the past few days, I’d heard from the locals that the Georgia/Petworth metro stop isn’t quite the safest place for a pint-sized chick to hang out. This made me nervous.

And I got to thinking. Isn’t it funny that I could spend 4 years in Orlando and rarely think about my safety driving alone on a road that looks like it belongs in a ghost town…and I spend 7 days in D.C. and suddenly I’m terrified of this metro stop that’s rumored to have crime?

I began my metro adventure by waiting 30 minutes for my red line train to come by. Apparently on the weekends, the metro typically undergoes some huge renovation, forcing the trains which normally run in opposite directions to run on the same track. Delays, delays, delays.

As I made my way through the underground world of the District, I began to notice that the closer I got to Georgia/Petworth, the more of a minority I became. And I began getting more and more nervous.

…This is something that I would like to condition in myself. Fear. I had absolutely nothing to fear. I made it to the Park View Kids Zone without a hitch, and met only kind, smiling people on my ways there and back. Though I remained vigilant on both journeys, keeping certain to hold my purse close and being extra conscious of my surroundings, I had no reason to fear the people around me. Why fear them? Because they might be of a different social status? (Not so much. I’m now in major debt). Because of their race? That’s silly. I’m currently reading “The Day Freedom Died,” by Charles Lane, a book written about the Colfax massacre. The mass murder of a group of former slaves who attempted to fit into a post-Civil War society. Reading this book has reminded me just how much I despise racism.

I never, ever want to catch myself being racist again. Being vigilant, yes. I should be vigilant everywhere that I go, no matter which circle, city, state, country, or continent I’m in. But being racist? That’s not an attractive or even human quality.

Because of a block party going on in Park View, not many kids showed up. But I did meet a few girls, particularly “Purple,” who I really enjoyed getting to know. Her birthday is only 5 days after mine, and she’s turning double digits this year!



After volunteering (and waiting another hour to catch the red line on the metro back home), I decided to take a little walk in the 108 degree weather. Every time I had to stop at a crosswalk, my black flip-flops literally started burning my feet. This incidence has never occurred to me in Florida. I am confused.

I walked around 10 blocks to a hardware store, where I bought spray paint for my newest art project: to fix a beautiful bookshelf to better fit my space.

The reason why this book shelf is beautiful is because it was free, from my generous downstairs neighbors in the process of moving out.



Now, I know spray painting indoors is discouraged, but there was no way I was getting that baby downstairs and out the back door by myself. So I opened the windows, cranked up the fan, held my breath, and got to work.



After finishing my three-hour-long spraypainting project, I successfully found my way to a nearby bar, where I helped my gorgeous downstairs neighbor celebrate her twenty-fourth birthday. Happy Birthday, Ashley! 



And here I am at 1:00 a.m., after a great day and night, showing off my awesome ability to walk home by myself at night without getting lost.

Here are some pretty things I encountered today:



A student brass band jamming out in public on Dupont Circle (check out the little guy on the right!)



I got to eat my first yellow cucumber!



This sculpture is awesome. It’s either a wombat (woo!) or a dog…but no matter which way your creative mind leans, the figure remains an adorable animal created solely from recycled objects.

And the next requires no words – just saw it walking towards the hardware store and had to stop and admire from afar.