If you want to get technical,

VODKA is practically a health drink if you just call it potato juice. . .
which it really is, anyway.

~New Year's card from my mom

Hubris

There are lots of stories about how Obamas have moved into the Hay-Adams hotel so their kids could start school at the beginning of the winter term. What remains an understated point of fact is that they were rejected from staying in the Blair House, the traditional residence of president-elects before the inauguration. They will finally be let in on January 15, only 5 days before they will be moving in to the white house.

What astounds me is the blatant display of Bush hubris. He's already been deemed one of the worst US presidents of American history. But just to rub it in a bit more, the rudeness displayed in refusing a man to take up residence for the sake of his children astounds me. And this from a "good ol' values" man just proves how disconnected he is from true Southern hospitality.

So now that the elections are over and it seems Bush will "retire" on a few boards of directors, the true New Englander returns. I wonder if the accent will disappear as well.

Resolution

I'm not normally one to make new year's resolutions. I'm very bad about keeping them. I therefore have a hard time coming up with a good resolution until around March or April and usually don't commit to it then because I've missed so much of the year already.

I've been toying around with a few things in my head lately. Of course the usualy food and fitness goals are there, but I've been bad about fully committing myself to either. But today I had a good focus on putting myself in the attitude for new year's resolutions.

I've already committed myself to slowing down and taking things easy, not let stress overwhelm me and not agreeing to do everything I'm asked and then regretting it later. I am doing pretty well on that front, picking and choosing how I want to spend my time and NOT scheduling something every night of the week and weekend.

So I picked my new year's resolution to go in line with that. I want to start journaling. Not an every day journal of daily activities, but a more occassional, personal, and emotional journal of my internal struggles and concerns. Blogging is a great way to vent on issues or share exciting ideas, but not really how I want to open myself up. I sometimes think of great things I'd love to blog, but don't really want to divulge that much or don't think anyone else would really care to read it. However, none of these things are great worries for me with a journal. Then I can take a look at what I've written over time and review how far I've come in the year, what I need to work on, or just let go.

So at last, I have a comitted, attainable new year's resolution! Now I'm looking forward to many other great things in 2009.

Jabberwocky

Isn't language a funny thing? It helps us communicate a whole range of emotions to one another. Albeit, not our only means of communication, nonetheless a vital one. Scholars have remarked on how languages change and adapt. Recently, these scholars bemoan the shrinking of the average person's vocabulary. While I would argue that the average person in modern society is far more educated and therefore truly has a much greater vocabulary than the counterpart of a century or so ago, I must admit that this brings me to another query.

Does language define our thoughts or do our thoughts define our language? Sadly, this is not my own brilliant question, but one that was raised in a particularly amazing history class that I can no longer remember it's real title and refer to it merely as "the meaning of life class." Anyway, I would tend to side with the former version of the question, having spent many instances writing a paper and trying to pull the word out of thin air. And yet, I am drawn back to my favorite poem ever since I had to memorize it for my 8th grade English class. It may be mostly nonsense, but you sure do know what it means.

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

--Lewis Carroll

Presidential Campaign Review

According to the experts, it was the economy and the environment that led to Obama's victory. At least to the 5 panelists from both Republican and Democratic camps who were talking at the Smithsonian event this evening. It was a pretty exciting sold-out event.

I was probably the only person under 30; maybe one of 10 under 50.

It was funny sitting there and hearing about how my parent's generation described mine. According to them, I am multicultural, tired of political fighting, and more focused on issues that can be accomplished than arguing about the same old things time and again. Not a bad depiction, I'd say.

One thing I was surprised about was the vehemence about women's representation. I have to admit that I'm not much of a feminist when I look around me. Howard Dean felt more passion and exuberance for representing women than I felt. I am all for the issues: equal pay, birth control, owning my own property (did you know that women in the South couldn't open their own bank accounts even into the 1960s?).

But as far as being represented in intelligent spaces in government and business, I'm just less worried. Having been a graduate student and hearing PhD candidates planning out how to space having babies between dissertation and initial placement so that it doesn't impact achieving tenure was pretty harsh. I guess working in the more nonprofit side of things, though, I don't feel underrepresented. And I'm not all that torn up about fewer women ravagers on wall street and in board rooms. Perhaps I have my own built-in sexism, but I think there are brilliant women in some of the much more important jobs than what men consider: secretary of state, director of the Red Cross, hell even Carly Fiorina got into a tech company (a strongly male-dominated area, and maybe it didn't work out so well, but it was a significant move).

I think rather than asking why there aren't more women in high positions, we should look more to women excelling in math and technical fields, provide more support for working mothers, and teach college graduates to negotiate their starting salary (which is the number one reason for women making less than men in the long term of their career).

No matter how you look at it, I just don't see a woman in the White House as a particularly significant accomplishment. We have accepted women presidents across the world, women are often favored in gubernatorial races than men, and women executives are no longer characterized as man-eating bitches like they once were. Yes it's important to break the barriers and commit to promoting smart people who happen to be women, but then let's look at the causes for why the divergence exists instead of just asking why the results don't change.

I was a brownie.

This weekend I went with friends to the Hershey Chocolate Spa. It was a fun indulgence and we had LOTS of chocolate. My favorite thing of the whole weekend was the chocolate fondue wrap. I was a brownie for an hour. I had mud and chocolate oil all over me and relaxed under a warm heat reflecting blanket.

Sadly what came to mind while I was under the blanket, was how great of an idea would it be to offer similar blankets to the homeless. They reflect your own body heat and keep you surprisingly warm and don't get saturated by rain and such. I sort of laughed at myself for thinking about such things while I was in a super luxurious environment feeling the height of self-indulgence. I guess I just can't help it sometimes.

So after floating home like a wet noodle, I'm dreading work this week which will be lots of work in a very tight deadline. It's not dreadful, and it's needed, but it's totally going to undo all my hard relaxation work. Somehow I'll have to manage.

Watching History

Today made headlines all across the nation and around the world. High turnout at the polls, excitement across the nation--makes me so proud to be an American today.

I did go vote on election day. I know, I live in DC, so it's pretty predictable. But I was still excited to stand in line for an hour and a half.

Just for a point of reference, this is my block. My polling place is about 100 yards away. I stepped out and had to walk down to the opposite end of my street, go around the corner and then stand in line. This was at 7am when they opened. Everything was moving and organized well, there were just more people than any school could reasonably handle.

Of course on my way home there was no line, but it was also raining by that point and I was glad I voted early.



So the excitement in town last night was unavoidable. People were literally dancing in the streets. Horns were honking, people were shouting "Obama" and "Change We Can Believe In." Whole groups of people just started walking the two miles down to the white house. This was all in the drizzly rain at 1am.


So today I realized just why I love living in this city so much, especially at this time. Part of it was the spontaneous excitement and celebration that happened last night, but also just the knowledge that we are living history.

We are living history in such a special way here in Washington, DC. We get to enjoy it while it's happening. It suddenly dawned on my at about 2pm this afternoon that the Newseum on Pennsylvania Ave. displays the front page of newspapers across the country and some from different nations of the world. The sight was just incredible. Here are a few images.

It's pretty remarkable.