I love large community events. I think it is important for a school, company, or city to effectively cease operations so that everyone can go out and enjoy themselves. These types of events tend to happen in the spring, when the weather first starts to warm up and people are itching to get out of their winter hideouts. In college, on the last Friday of the spring semester we celebrated Georgetown…
The Heyden Observatory at Georgetown University is the third oldest observatory in the country. The observatory was the site from which the city of Washington was surveyed, and was the home of some of the nation's most influential astronomers until the second half of the twentieth century when the program was shut down. On a personal note, I managed this observatory while I was in school and I believe that it…
Patti Stanger, the star of one of my favorite guilty pleasures, Millionaire Matchmaker, has never been shy about the fact that she hates redheads. I recently watched this season's redhead episode, hoping it would be favorable to redheads.Despite all the girls at the mixer having red hair, very few were real redheads. If the guys actually wanted a redhead, my guess is that the hair color isn't what they are after;…
The focus of this first month was to start building up my mileage. I started with fifteen, then did four weeks of around 23 miles. I've never been good about sticking to rigid schedules so I didn't try to force myself into one. I always did one long run on the weekend. One week the weather was kind of gross so I only did one other long run. The other weeks…
Earlier this year, when I decided to start running, I started searching the internet for some articles for beginner runners. However, after a lot of searching I couldn't find many articles for people like me: already relatively fit but with no real running background. Most of the beginner articles I found were "couch to 5k" type advice. I wasn't just getting off the couch; I had no problem going for a…
My week in Malaysia was probably the most stressful and painful of my whole trip. If I've been able to talk with you in person I'm sure you've already heard about the beach incident, but I'll recount the whole week here. I was looking forward to traveling to Malaysia. I had heard great things about the country as a whole. Because of seasonal rains and a lack of planning, I decided…
I would consider myself a risk averse thrill seeker. What this means to me is that I love the thrill of doing something new and apparently dangerous, but only once I am reasonably assured that I have taken some basic precautions. This has attracted me to pursuits such as roller coaster riding, free diving, and bike commuting. When I began practicing yoga, my adventurous side was drawn to inversions and arm…
As a solo traveler, I spent a lot of time meeting new people and spending time alone. I discovered that I have a strong need for alone time; I realize that I had been taking care of this need by going riding for hours on the weekends, alone, but traveling alone was definitely a different experience.One of the first questions I am asked is whether I was lonely traveling. I can't…
I've been back in the US for almost six weeks now trying to readjust to the real world. Each of those six weeks had a distinct goal and, looking back, it seems like it was a good way to get back into the swing of things. Considering that I was in Asia for only three months, a month to get back into things might seem excessive, but when I arrived in…
Among the many reasons that I decided to take off and travel was my need to find something that truly makes me happy. I was having trouble finding that in DC. I also found myself too focused on what is happening next in my life; great when I started travelling and needed to plan ahead, not so much fun when the return flight is in sight. After a trip to Malaysia…