Continual State of Becoming

I've have been making careful observations about how to commute into DC from the suburbs. I want to make sure that I follow proper procedures and ettiquette so that no one can tell how absolutely lost and confused I am. So now that I've been doing this for about a month, I am going to share some of the important things I've learned... Driving: Pick a lane, and stay in it. Drive as fast as the rest of the cars in that lane. We're all going to the same place, so working together is probably more effective than constantly cutting each other off. For the most part driving isn't much of a problem, so long as I'm clear of the toll road by about 7:10. After that it turns in to a parking lot (especially around Reston). And in all honesty, driving on the Beltway now feels much safer than driving down Route 7 and some of the local roads. Metro: Here's where I had the most to learn... -Morning Commutes: Monday - Thursday are pretty predictable. I get on the ...

On Thursday I was at the College Park Starbucks, meeting my friend Melissa for a cup of coffee before classes resumed. I got there a little early (thanks to the absolute lack of cars on the road) and went into the store to get my cup of tea. There was an older woman in line in front of me who ordered a tall coffee. Unfortunately, just as she did so, the timer on the coffee went off, meaning it was expired and had to be dumped out so they could brew a new pot. Well when the barista explained this to the woman (instead of just serving the old gross coffee... how nice of them), she went into an absolute tirade... on and on about how they should have been brewing a new pot already if they knew the old coffee was going to expire, and how ridiculous it was that she was going to have to wait a whole 3-4 minutes for her cup of coffee. The baristas did exactly what I've done in that same situation, they explained the reasons for what was going on, apologized for the inconvenience, and...

You have to watch this. It's incredible. (thanks to matt for sharing it with me). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjyKc95upoM

It's snowing!! First time all winter (if you can call it that). I heard there was a chance for snow today, but usually those kind of predictions don't come true. Or if they do it only flurries for like 5 minutes and that's it. But it's been snowing for a good 5 hours at least, there's not a whole lot on the ground, but that's okay... it's snowing :) Other firsts... I got the flu last week for the first time since elementary school. That was awful. I spent most of the week sleeping and eating apple sauce (which was one of the few things I could keep down). The worst part was that the previous week at work I had made the comment to my boss's boss that I never get sick... and of course Tuesday rolls around (because we were off monday... did I mention how much I love my job?) and I had to call in sick... and then again on Wednesday... and again on Thursday... but I did force myself to go on Friday. I just couldn't miss an entire week. I felt SO...

Here's a new local artist I came across at work. Her images really stuck out. They're all done with colored pencil. www.amylinart.com

I recently realized that I've never really lived any where long enough for a radio station to change. In fact, until recently, I didnt even know that they did change. I just thought once a station established itself as an Oldies station, it played oldies music forever. I know that 99.1 had a big change a few years ago (though I just recently took it off my presets), but I thought that was controversial and rare. I guess not. Hmm... I wonder what other things change over long periods of time. The other day I made the comment that I had seen or done something about 10 years ago. Then I realized that 10 years ago I was in high school, and that made me feel old, because it doesn't seem like 10 years have passed since then. I nearly went into work on Tuesday. I know that Bush declared it a national day of mourning for Ford and therefore it was a federal holiday, but I couldn't get any information to confirm the fact that I didn't have to work. So early Tuesday morning...