yeah, Minnesota

so, i thought that being Lutheran i would've gotten my behind to minnesota far earlier than this. i seem to have failed in that regard.
instead, i was drafted to go to a fundraising training conference for torture treatment programs, talking about sustainability in the sector, yada yada. it was good - there were a few sessions that were extremely helpful, especially the one about federal grants and how to position ourselves in the current discussion of "bending the curve" of healthcare costs that are currently driving the healthcare debate/reason behind support for the legislation and how we need to move toward a more piecemeal approach to fundraising for our issue instead of assuming that we will get all of our funding from ORRandthefactthatwecannotcontinuetostaywiththestatusquoifwewanttoreceivefederalfundinginthe futurewemustmoveforwardwithpartnersinsteadofremainingisolatedinourcentersifwearetogaintruesustainability. AAAAAANNNNND, YOU ARE NOW ASLEEP.
back? ok.
anywho, there was one fundraiser who raises $6+ million dollars a year from private foundations alone. she is a ROCKSTAR. she is even more of a rockstar because of the fact that foundation giving in the last two fiscal years has been in an insanely sharp decline - they're dropping faster than allies in Operation Iraqi Freedom circa 2003.
in the most frank and optimistic protrayal of our chances at private foundation funding in the future she gave us this gem,
"rich people are dying every day -- and you can get their money."
i haven't been this inspired in a long time.

a different kind of scary

there are times when i question why i moved to baltimore. those are few and far between. unless i'm at the DMV -- in which case i incessantly question why i moved to maryland.
if i've talked to you on the phone recently, of you've been keeping score on facebook, i've been to the Maryland DMV (they call it the MVA here) more times in the last three months than i ever want to in my entire life. i've lost my wallet, therefore having to get a new maryland state license, which took 5 trips.
and now, because i had to get a new maryland license, it is against the law for me to have a car with a title and registration in another state. another bureaucratic hurdle to get over. so far, i've had to go to the DMV four times, still no new registration (with far too much detail of the saga to write here.)
i decided on the most recent trip to go to another MVA place, this time in Essex, MD a little northwest of the city. maybe it would be better.
the Baltimore City MVA is not a pleasant experience - mostly because I feel that I could get stabbed there at any moment if for some reason I cut in line. positioned squarely in the ghetto (near joy's school, in fact), the MVA people are not only snarky, they are outright rude. uncomfortable, to say the least.
hoping the Essex office would be better, i got in the car with the sincere belief that this time, this time will be the last. i get in the insanely long line at 8:30 am and mind my own business. there is an old woman who's decided to tell her whole MVA situation to anyone who'll listen (you know those people in line), and looks for someone who will respond. it sure as hell isn't going to be me. too early for that crap.
instead, it's a rather portly middle-aged man behind her with a tigger-appliqued green polo shirt and terrible mandals. they talk about MVA business for a bit, then they talk about the state of the world.

a short paraphrase:
man: well, i think the world is coming to an end pretty soon, the signs are here. we're going in the wrong direction. do you agree?
woman: yes, but those are my personal opinions.
man: well if you agree with me why don't you tell me?
woman: because those are my per....my opinions that no one else needs to know.
man: you do agree with me -- let me hear it!...well, i'll tell you why...
sarah (in her head): oh crap, here it comes. Obama's ruining the world and he's making us socialists. i'm so not ready for this.
man: it's because the U.N. is going to shut down all the churches. i believe in the Truth. do you know the Truth...i'll tell you.
sarah: oh no...takin it the religious route. this line is far too long.

i won't go any further, but here's what it boils down to -- i couldn't escape a jehovah's witness telling this first old woman and then another woman with 4 children for two hours (!) that they are wrong, they don't know the Truth (note the capital T) and that they and their children are going to hell if they don't follow the Truth. the Truth tells them these things, the end is near.

did i mention the Truth? and that i'm going to hell?

i would've rather been rudely treated by the counter attendant and had a fear of being stabbed.

i can't win.

uh-oh (dirty words)

i'm taking it easy today - no need to do more work than i'm getting paid for, so today i'm attempting to hunker down and write this fatty scholarship application for george washington (clearly from this blog post i'm not making a lot of progress). scholarship applications are always a bunch of b.s. anyway, but this one is a career development scholarship, so i have to analyze the course i'll be taking in the fall and connect them with my current job and so forth. in two pages i have to tell them: 1.) why my coursework will enhance my current position, using specific examples from the courses as evidence (mind you, these are course i have never taken) 2.) why the duties performed in my current job will make me a better student (in courses i have never taken) and 3.) how this relationship will get my further towards my career goals (which i'm not quite sure of yet).
don't they understand that people go to grad school when they don't know what they want to be when they grow up? get with it, george washington -- don't play dumb with me.
regardless, i dug into the course descriptions and the classes i'll be taking in the fall and i've come to a few conclusions.
- i am not jazzed about taking economics AND applied statistics in the fall.
- i don't want to be in nonprofit fundraising FOREVER...it's nice now, but i dunno.
- i want to do policy research to help push for better urban education programs (a big dream, i know) and convince legislators to actually do something about it instead of letting kiddos in shitty schools with untrained and not good teachers continue to flounder.
- i want to work on Capitol Hill (or at least be involved in it for a good long while).

i took a look at a couple of policy research organizations in education, and i liked what i saw. problem is, this might be the nail in the coffin for future family gatherings with the Weakley clan. i might want to be a....LOBBYIST.
crap.
oh. good. lord. i hope andy won't disown me.

falling down on the job

the job of reading, that is.
i finally pushed through (and loved) Lush Life by Richard Price. he is one of the co-writers for The Wire (which did nothing for Baltimore's reputation), and you could tell. the dialogue was snappy and slang-filled -- it was like watching a very very well written version of a cop show. my dad would most likely like this book, as my childhood was peppered with almost every cop/detective show that has come out in last 15 years. i was pissed when they canceled Homicide: Life on the Streets. i'm pretty sure i was the only 12 year old to mourn its passing on network television.
but more than that, the book was able to follow the tracks of two detectives in New York through their frustrations: with the friend of the victim who they thought for sure did it, canvassing the housing projects for witnesses, going into the projects filled with 10 Filipino men crowded into one room, dealing with the press, the victim's family. the novel was...grimy. my junior year English teacher told us to never say, "they painted a picture." but if Price's writing is that of an artist, he would not be Bob Ross. perhaps Pollack. lots going on, slightly upset, spattered with meaning in every paragraph. and also, i haven't read a book where i have to work to figure out the mystery myself - i love putting the puzzle of a book together, and this one was excellent.
mmm...books. i've missed you.
currently reading: John Henry Days by Colson Whitehead. i LOVED his debut, The Intuitionist. read it.

ashes (happiness)

i finally was able to go to a lutheran church for ash wednesday. big ups to my Presbyterians, but i'm a Lutheran through and through.
Ash Wednesday is my favorite day in the church year for many reasons. mostly, though, it brings me back down to earth, knowing that i'm not perfect, never will be, and that i'm human. it also reminds me to come back to God, knowing that I know nothing. the ultimate humble pie-eating moment, Ash Wednesday.
this Ash Wednesday the Bishop of Delaware and Maryland, a short old guy named Theodore Schneider, gave the message. he talked of our mortality without God, not taking the grace of God in vain (which i do A LOT), and our selfishness as sin.
what i like about his section about selfishness as sin was this: that Sin is ultimately when our selves, our happiness, our fixation on "finding ourselves", doing things our way, comes before others. i am at a moment in my life where these questions come up all the time: what do i want my career to look like? do i want to move? what makes me happy? these Oprah-questions (which at her age i hope she's at least attempted to answer) are constantly around. it seems that a lot of the time i'm thinking about MYSELF. it gets exhausting.
what to do, then? how am i going to be happy? Rev. Schneider reminded me in simplest terms: happiness is not a goal, it is a byproduct. when we lose ourselves in service to others in any capacity, happiness is created. also, when we think of others first, we feel better. there is nothing more rewarding than being there in happy times, funky-blech times, sick times, and celebratory times for the people i love. i'll take those moments and conversations over constantly questioning my self and my motives. it's hard to do. and i suck at it most of the time.
but, as Rev. Schneider said, we can't look up to Him and others when we're looking at our belly button. we must remember we're not great and that others are.
ashes as a path to happiness. i like it.

the big (small) city

joy told me before i moved to baltimore that it has a reputation of being a big/little city. basically, everyone runs in the same sort of circles regardless of where you work or not. there's a federal hill crew, the canton people, the fell's point people, etc., and you always end up running into the same people if you go out on a friday night to your same spot. it's understandable, i suppose, but not expected.
living in pullman for almost four years made it impossible to go out without having some sort of semi-awkward "don't i know you?" exchange, thus considerably cutting down the pool of available date-worthy men.
but moving to baltimore gave me a clean slate. no more would i be shackled by the concept of "bro codes" that would effectively cut off a whole subset of men for me to casually date.
false.
the example is last night.
i have gone on a few dates with sweater steve. he's nice, is an engineer, got his life together. but i don't want to be his girlfriend. he works at a GINORMOUS engineering firm down here, literally 10,000 employees. so doing the math, that's roughly 5,000 to 2,500 single men. (but i digress). meanwhile, i'm pretty sure he thinks we're in a committed relationship and we're headed towards relationshipville. meanwhile, i'm running for cover. i rain-checked the poor guy this weekend to avoid any valentine's day situation, and went out last night with a friend.
the bar had slim pickin's for attractive males - they were mostly skeezy, slightly pudgy mid twenties dudes. so sarah and i just danced and had a great time by ourselves- it was excellent. then, a devastatingly handsome man approaches me and we start dancing. score one for sarah.
turns out he's an engineer at the same company as sweater steve. but who isn't, really?
we do the banter, tell him i'm from washington state, this is my friend sarah (little cute cheerleader from ohio state), yadda yadda.
well, turns out at the end of the night we get to talking again he goes, "i think i know you..." weird. i've only lived here for four months, there's no way. BUT YES. he's work friends with sweater steve, they have lunch together EVERY DAY and steve has mentioned me (the sarah from washington state). meanwhile, i have to tell him not to tell steve anything about what's conspired. but i'm honest with him, "so basically, because i've gone on a few dates with steve this will never...happen...will it?" and he replies with, "it might just be weird because steve hasn't had a girlfriend in a long time...and i see him every day..." yep, yes. opportunity squelched.
potentially going on a date with the most attractive man i've talked to since i've been here?...GONE.
i rarely have awkward social situations - i thrive on bar banter. but this situation was not salvageable. little sarah mentioned to me, "that was the most awkward conversation i've been witness to...and it wasn't even my conversation."
looks like i'm back in pullman.

snowmageddon

you all on the west coast have most likely been looking at the weather around the mid-atlantic -- shutting down DC, state of emergency, etc. yep, obama has deemed it snowmageddon. i like snowpacalypse.
either way the snow has stopped falling and the plows have begun - i'm not precisely sure where the snow will be plowed to, per se, but i'm assuming it will be plowed right over poor blue steel. she's already buried outside of charita's apartment complex because of the downfall, but there's absolutely nothing to be done. my only hope is that they don't have school tomorrow, because that means i'll have to dig my car out (which is blue steel, if you didn't already know). which i'm not jazzed about.
thankfully, though, i prepared for this event. charita's actual roommate doesn't really live here (she's with her boyfriend in fell's point most of the time) so i've moved in. charita's accepting payment in the form of me doing dishes, we both made snow weekend to-do lists, and i've introduced charita to a few new things in the past few days that i feel pretty pleased with:
1. almonds in green beans. i'm still trying to come around to the idea of canned green beans (which i think are pretty gross) so i had to add sliced almonds to the mix. mom would always put it in the frozen green beans growing up and i hated them. now, each bite of almonds made the canned version more bearable. concessions were made.
2. when harry met sally - i still have a friend here who hasn't seen it, but more importantly, this movie is beginning to be a prerequisite for my friendship. there are so many references i make on a daily basis (e.g "the white man's overbite") that no one would understand if they haven't seen the movie. i also don't enjoy making reference to something and getting to confused and awkward look in the middle as i begin laughing -- it's selfish, i know. so sue me. i've seen the movie roughly 20 times and i still get choked up at the end when she says, "and i hate you harry, i really hate you."
3. peanut butter and honey sandwiches. if it was awesome when you were seven, it will be awesome forever.
and what have i been introduced to this snowmageddon?:
1. the beauty of consulting jobs: yep, i'm getting paid sitting on charita's couch researching foundations. it really is the way to go.
2. the convenience of the Keurig single cup coffee/tea maker - i have been enjoying this for the past two days because charita doesn't drink coffee, and i'm understanding the craze. while the coffee is stronger than i am used to, it makes me only have one cup instead of 5. this is helpful.
3. the pot-smoking scene in The Breakfast Club. i've only ever seen this whole movie on TBS, not the full thing on DVD--therefore, it was censored. i now understand that Emilio Estevez dances around like a crazy person in the library because he's high. i thought it was a footloose-esque moment (which gets old quickly), but there is a reason. this enlightened me more than i thought it would.