On Being Forrest Gump

My dad has dubbed this year the year I live like Forrest Gump. I spent the summer in Beijing, China in the midst of Olympic mania and now I'm foregoing my last semester in Chapel Hill to live on Capitol Hill and intern. I'm once again riding public transportation to work, but it doesn't require me to stand pressed up against sweaty strangers and I can understand the language of the train maps and the metro conductors. And I've learned that people are more willing to help me when I look lost instead of asking me to pose for pictures in their scrapbook.

I'll be missing a potentially winning basketball season (Hint hint boys, let's light a little fire and start stomping on people. I know you can.) I'll be here in the midst of an historic inauguration, a new presidential administration and I'm going to resume my travel-guide reading and restaurant finding ways and take advantage of everything that DC has to offer. I'm thinking that this experience isn't going to be quite so cheap as my summer abroad. I don't think I'll be brunching at the Westin or spending Sundays at my tailor, Fei Fei, but I think I can rustle up a little fun.

I'm still working in a cubicle, but it's not feeling like Office Space, like my last experience and I can hike to the Mall and visit the various museums on my lunch break. I'm no longer working for a creature that terrifies everything he walks past, and no one has given me a speech to tell me "the company is me".

And so, fair readers if you would like to know what I'm up to while I'm not in Chapel Hill attending class and driving the White Suburban around while I babysit (or drinking 50 cent beers at Country Music night and Firefly at Top O'), check the blog. And feel free to leave me a comment.