So I've basically been killing it out here

Ok, so I wanted to post sooner. My PC has died and I have been adjusting to writing on my iPad. Luckily I have found an app that allows me to blog a little easier, so I can hopefully put off buying another PC for a little longer. The other issue is that I have not had a chance to go anywhere that I might have been able to blog about like I have in the past. However I have been doing a lot of small things. SO I decided to do one post about the mini adventures for the past few weeks! In late August I went to NYC with some friends and invent to my first Mets game. Under no circumstances will I change my allegiance to the Cubbies, but it still was a lot of fun. I had a burger from Shake Shack for the first time, and I got to see my longtime friend Jonah, who lives in NYC.

 

 

In early September I had the pleasure of meeting my Goddaugter, Aubrey Helen Steffey, for the first time. She was one week old when I came to visit, and she is a very chill baby. I learned how to change my first diaper (although I am not very good at it!) and I learned how to swaddle her. Her parents Brian and Marta are just in awe of her, and it is not hard to see why. She is very beautiful, and I cannot wait to spoil her rotten for the rest of my life!

 

 

In mid-September I went to the H Street Festival with some friends. The H St Festival is always one of my favorite events. I am a huge proponent of H St in general. They always have a ton of different live performances, and they have people selling things and food. I had my fortune read while we were there. I drew the "Devil" tarot card and shrieked! Apparently there is going to be an annoyance coming into my life and that I am going to want to face it head on and fight fire with fire, but what I need to do is use my wits to get around it. Once I do, I will conquer the annoyance. Among other things, I also got to sit in a giant banana car, which is everyone's dream really :)

 

 

Last weekend I had my first opportunity to volunteer with the Junior League at the National Book Festival. I had signed up to be a floater, but I actually ended up working at the book signing lines. Apparently there is this author named Jon Green who is a humongous hit for young adults. He writes coming of age novels, and apparently he uses YouTube for promoting as well. Anyway, I got to help with crowd control for hundreds of these screaming teenagers. They all came running over at once, it was insane!!! I also got to see my good friend Jenni in the process :)

 

 

I also had an opportunity to take an Indian cooking class. I love Indian food but I know nothing about cooking it. Unfortunately I was by myself so I was paired up with this random Austrailian guy. He was nice enough though. I got to make Goan Fish Curry, Chetinad Chicken Curry, Lemon Rice, and Rava Kesari. It is my hope to make these things again, hopefully for a special occasion for friends. I normally don't have those ingredients in my kitchen, but perhaps I could get them for a dinner party. Let me know if you want to be my guinea pig! The picture below is me with the instructor.

 

 

That Sunday I did something I had been wanting to do for several years but I had not pulled the trigger. I am a huge Chicago Bears fan, and I had been wanting to go to the bar down the street and watch the games with fellow fans. I recruited my friend and fellow Bears fan, Elsye. We both donned our Bears gear and met up at the bar. It was neat because we got to sit on the patio and there were a bunch of other people there as well, also in Bears gear. I didn't get to watch the whole game because I had some things to do at home, but I did see 3/4 of it. We crushed the Rams :) It was so nice because I had wanted to do this for so long, and it was a lot of fun!!! That evening I went in an entirely different direction and went to a Shakespeare play with my Shakespeare buddy Ruchi. We saw The Government Inspector, and it was hilarious. It's a satire based on a corrupt government in Russia. I laughed so much!

 

 

This past weekend I went to a beer festival with my friends. We consumed a large amount of beer in a short amount of time, and it was awesome. That is all I have to say about that :)

 

 

 

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Newseum!

So I have been wanting to go to the Newseum for a very long time, but since they charge a $20 admission I have been putting it off. Apparently that $20 was a block for me, haha. Anyway my father came into town and I had the opportunity to entertain him. I had suggested Air and Space, but he was more interested in the Newseum, which was very cool. The Newseum was a lot larger than we had thought and has 4 floors!

When we got in there was an introduction movie to help us navigate the Newseum. Our first exhibit was the Berlin Wall and what it was like for the East Germans to receive news as opposed to the West Germans. Apparently the Eastern Germans were able to get news in three minute segments by calling in. The next section was about using the media to help the FBI and the different criminals who were apprehended such as the Teflon Don, the Unabomber, etc. There was also a thing about Patty Hearst which was pretty neat, I hadn't heard about her scandal.

 

We proceeded to the top of the building where we had an awesome view of Pennsylvania Ave. We were able to take some pictures and they had a long hallway where they had the front page news for every state. It was good timing because it was right after Obama's acceptance speech. They then had an exhibit about the history of presidential campaigns and how things changed with the election of Obama. It was really neat- my father did not know who Jon Stewart was before then, haha. We then went to an exhibit on the history of media, and it showed famous front page news from different years. They even had a newspaper that incorrectly printed the name of the Presidential victor years ago.

 

On the next floor there was a very powerful exhibit on 9/11. They had a news antennae that was on the World Trade Center. They showed the timeline of the news and how the events unfolded. They had the newspaper front pages from many different states as well. The next exhibit was about the freedoms of the first amendment, and there was a map of the world at showed the level of freedom of the press in the different countries. They also have a news studio in the Newseum that Tim Russert works out of, which we got to see from the windows. They had an interesting exhibit on journalists who had died while broadcasting the news. The majority of them were men, but one woman in Mexico who was slain because she was reporting the news outside of what the drug cartels wanted.

 

On the second floor they had an interesting exhibit on the first dogs in the White House. It seemed a little random but it was so interesting to see what dogs the presidents had. Apparently JFK was allergic to dogs but still had them. They had an interactive newsroom and ethics center which we looked at but did not participate in it much. The last exhibit was one on Pulitzer prize photography. They had all of the different photograph winners for the last 50 years. They even had the explanations of the photographs and the circumstances surrounding them. It was quite moving and my favorite thing in the museum. The winners for this year included a photograph of a young girl in Iran after a bombing. The other one was a veteran and had been denied an apartment, who was crying and he had been suffering from PTSD. I almost cried myself. The last thing we did was a 4-D movie about the news and how it was broadcasted historically. It was not super impressive but it was fine as our brains were fried at that point. My Dad and I spent 3.5 hours there but if I was able, I would have spent all day there! It was definitely worth the trip and I would recommend it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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I hiked a mountain!!!!

Ok, so again it has been a little while since I wrote.  The last month has been busy with overtime at work, a fabulous trip to NYC with my buddies, and other fun end of the summer activities.  Unfortunately my PC is on the fritz, so until I invest in a new one I'll have to chicken peck on my iPad. #firstworldproblems. But on a psychological level, I want to tell you that I have improved. I am not 100%, but I am doing better. I am so thankful that I now have more mental energy to carry on in my life, and my bikram practice has improved tremendously. I am now the person in the front row who everyone watches!  It has been so nice to focus on my life and making it more awesome.  It goes without saying that I would be unable to be in this improved metal state without all of your help!



Anyway, this weekend I hiked Mt Washington, which is the highest peak in the Northeast.  The plan to do this hatched at the end of July.  My friend Matt (who is Mr. Nature) and I had just gone for a hike in Charlottesville and I suggested we try hiking Mt Washington. We agreed to go over Labor Day. However the next day I actually googled what this entailed and became terrified!!! In case it is not clear, I am not an experienced hiker, and Mt Washington has the reputation for having the worst weather in the world.  People have died climbing it! But after trying to back out of it with Matt, he assured me I would be fine despite that it is considered a moderate to difficult hike.  I probably should have found steps to walk up or other ways to train for this hike, but I just blindly decided to increase my bikram and hope for the best!  



After buying hiking boots and a daypack (while remaining skeptical of the value of both) I boarded the train to Albany to meet Matt.  We didn't get to New Hampshire until after midnight. We woke at 6am and traveled over to the mountain.  Once we got on the trail, it was flat and wooded to begin with, and I was feeling good.  There were a few rocks to climb up/over, but I was doing good!  So much so that Matt made me slow down so as to save my energy.  After probably the 8th rock climb, I was huffing and puffing and Matt made me take a break.  Somehow after that there were a gazillion more of these rocks piles  to climb up, with only one pretty waterfall in the middle. 

I think my low point was near the top of the waterfall when we had to walk over these mossy rocks.  At this point I was using walking poles to balance myself, and there was a group of us that had lost the trail.  We were all trying to get through this crevice and up the trail but it was covered in moss and I fell HARD on my butt, poles flying.  I decided to ditch the poles, and I was rather unkind to Matt when he realized that all of our difficult walking on moss was in vain and we had to turn around.  This was quite unpleasant and was followed by 15 more of these huge rock piles to climb up.  I remember turning to Matt and barely whispering "I need you to tell me that we are almost there, and I need you to mean it".  It should be noted that Matt had been saying "we're almost there" for the past half hour.  We eventually realized that we had a 'failure to communicate' because "almost there" to him meant we had less than a mile. Right......
I finally saw the cabin which was our stoping point next to the Lake of the Clouds.  After a few more minutes of hiking, we finally got there.  I ate for the first time all day, and we assessed what the rest of the hike entailed.  We were essentially 3/4 of the way to the top, and I could see the flags in the distance.  It was only .7 miles up, but there was a lot of walking on loose rocks.  I felt my body fading after the first .3, but I kept pressing on (albeit with more breaks).  At this point, the trail was somewhat more crowded, and other people besides Matt kept saying "you're almost there!" but I was barely able to look at them.  I was out of water and mentally drained.  I kept telling myself it was only five flights of stairs or less in height we had to go, and FINALLY we made it to the top!

I was too tired to celebrate at that moment, and was somewhat overwhelmed with the sudden crowd of people at the top.  Most of these people had either driven or taken the train up, not hiked.  Once I was able to get more water, I felt better.  We went to the gift shop and I bought a t-shirt that said "this body climbed Mt Washington" which I plan to wear.  Frequently.  We were able to get a private tour of Mt Washington's weather station, which is manned 24/7, with the weather being tracked hourly.  They showed us the tracking of the strongest wind (something like 200 mph) and other crazy pressure readings.  We got to go to the top of the weather station and I got to stand at the highest point in the Northeast, among the weather vanes :)

After our tour we took some pictures, and toured the museum while we waited for the train down.  I had wanted to be able to hike the 4 miles back to base, but Matt told me that this is somehow harder than going up because it can hurt your knees.  By this point my legs felt like jelly and my body was sore all over.  All I wanted was a shower and to climb in bed!  So we took the train down, grabbed dinner, and went back to the hotel. 

The next day we headed to Boston where I got to see my longtime friend Natalie.  Since she was still at work we were able to do some of the Freedom Trail after breakfast. We saw Fanuiel Hall, the site of the Boston Massacre, the Old State House, Kings Church, the site of Benjamin Franklin's grave site, and his statue. We were not able to really explore a lot of these places as we were on a schedule to meet Natalie, and a lot of the places wouldn't let you in without paying. Bummer. I had an awesome time hanging out with Natalie, and it was an awesome trip over all!!!