Greetin's from Virginee

Hey, so #1 it's been a while since I have posted anything here, and so I have a wee bit of catching up to do. There have been a few momentous occasions that have happened since my last post. The first of which is my one year anniversary of my arrival in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

You see, I had never been to the east coast of the US until fall of 2005. I interned here through the Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah. Though the job itself wasn't all that exciting--as I understand it, many internships aren't--I fell in love with the area, just cause it's such a change from Utah. Upon returning from the internship in December 2005, I decided that I wanted to move back to DC. I had to finish my last semester of college, but then I would be free.

Meanwhile, I had to live for the last four months of school, and doing so required me to get a job, which I did--the worst job ever, EVER!! I worked as an "account manager" at Discover card. I had to try to convince people to keep services that they had on their card, like identity theft protection, and a service that calls and cancels your credit cards if your wallet is stolen--like I couldn't do that myself. Anyway, I had to try to smooth-talk irate people everyday on the phone and give them specials to keep these things. It probably would have helped if I believed in them. I also thought it was kind of underhanded how the sales people pretty much duped elderly folks into signing up for the services--but I digress. I hated the job, but saw no real way out of there that would allow me to get a better job, or to get me out of Utah.

Then, one day, my best friend, Kade (you may not know him, but one day he'll probably get his own posting here) called me and told me he had gotten fired from his job. Long story short, he couldn't find another job in Utah easily, and he decided to move to North Carolina. He was going to leave on June 16th, but I said, "do you want to wait for one week and I'll go with?" This gave me two weeks so I could quit my job, and square away a place to stay when I got here.

So we loaded up Lafawndah the Honda (Kade's Accord) and drove cross-country. We saw many sights (including the world's largest truck stop as seen on the right, laughed a lot, nearly vomited from the stench of a cattle slaughter yard or something like it in Nebraska, and only had one argument on the way out.

We arrived safely in Arlington, VA at my friend Rachel's (side note here, Rachel is probably one of the nicest people around to be willing to let me crash at her place 'til I got a little bit of stability)place on June 25, and I have been here ever since.

It hasn't been the most easy thing, but with the help of some great folks, it's been a lot of fun. I have a job. I am in a decent apartment (my second house here in the area), and have met a lot of interesting people. I think I can be considered a Virginian almost--Northern Virginian that is.

In my humble opinion, a cross-country move was one of the coolest things I've done, and I am glad to have been here a whole year.