Reflection on 12 months in DC

I started this post about three weeks ago. "One month left in DC," I wrote. Now it's down to 10 days. And I'm still not ready to leave.

As I wrote in the first post...Now that I've told my coworkers, I can say it on here -- I'm moving to Cleveland, Ohio to start medical school at Case Western Reserve University (aka "Case").

The last month has been pretty complicated, to say the least. I'm making a major life transition so I've been reflecting on my DC experience as well as my entire East Coast experience over the last two years.

• This year I've been frustrated with the people I know from Johns Hopkins; it seems like many of my friendships have deteriorated and that I'm not really in touch with that group of people anymore. I'm used to maintaining friendships pretty well, so I'm not thrilled by the fact that these don't seem to be lasting. I'm developing some good friendships with people at work, but the day after tomorrow is my last day on the job.
  
  
• It's a cliche, but it's true -- I feel like I just got here. More specifically, I feel like I just got settled. After spending months on med school applications and now having much of life, I finally feel like I have a solid network of friends, a job I enjoy, and a city I understand relatively well. And now, of course, I have to leave.
  
  
• Dating. After going on a respectable number of so-so dates, I seem to have finally figured things out in that regard. Or at least I've remembered how dating works. And now I get to leave and start anew.

I'm already planning to return to DC next summer to work on research for school. I'm expecting just a tiny bit of separation anxiety. Not a good sign!

(sigh) I'm sure I will look back in a month and laugh about how stressed I was about everything. I'm excited about school and am sure it will be a great experience, but for now I'm just sad to be leaving DC.

Mood: Nervous, excited, worries, a little overwhelmed.
Songs: Jason Mraz, "Wordplay" / Carbon Leaf, "What About Everything?" / Alabama, "I'm in a Hurry and Don't Know Why" / Coldplay, "Fix You"

When Effort Goes Too Far

The purpose of weight lifting is to develop muscle mass and build strength, right? More specifically, weight machines can help people isolate certain muscles and (ideally) develop them with smooth, controlled motions.

Apparently there is a guy at my gym who doesn't understand the latter half of this. While most people occasionally look a little strange when they're working out (myself included), this guy takes it to a whole new level. Think of a leg curl machine like this. Instead of merely curling his legs, this guy gets his whole body into the motion. He lifts up his head and arms, then slams them down onto the table/machine in an effort to gather momentum for his legs. It looks ridiculous and you can hear it across the gym.

That's it. No profound message...just people looking silly.

Time Management

Certain people at work don't seem to communicate very well, especially the managers. At first, my schedule this week looked something like this:

South Dakota project - 50% of time
Delaware project - 50 of time
Ohio project - 75% of time
California project - 75% of time

Hmmm. That's 250% for the week. Recognizing that this would be quite difficult, I politely sought out each of my bosses/managers and explained that I couldn't actually work 20 hours per day. They agreed that I'd been given too many tasks on some projects and that things were certainly more flexible that that.

After consulting with each other, the four different managers indicated that I should spend my time this way:

South Dakota project - 50% of time
Delaware project - 50 of time
Ohio project - 75% of time
California project - 75% of time

Yup. Same thing. With my 17-hour workday today, that sounds about right. Keep in mind, I should have seen this coming about a month ago (oh, wait, I did). It won't be the end of the world when things don't get done, but they won't be happy.

For the next 5 hours, my schedule is as follows:

Sleep -- 100%

Much better. :-)

Mood: Overwhelmed. (Really?)
Song: Jimmy Eat World, "Pain"

Graduation!

I graduated! It was fun but a little strange -- I haven't taken classes in a year, and now I'm graduating? Nonetheless, it was good to see everyone, take a lot of pictures, and reflect on the last two years. It's the end of an era for me.

Mood: Cheerful
Song: The Postal Service, "Such Great Heights"

MIT pranksters succeed again

You've got to hand it to the kids at MIT...for a science nerd like myself, this is pretty funny.

CNN:

In a victory for pranksters at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a bunch of computer-generated gibberish masquerading as an academic paper has been accepted at a scientific conference.

The paper itself:

• Rooter: A Methodology for the Typical Unification of Access Points and Redundancy (pdf).

Washington and Jefferson

Here's a photo from the south side of the Tidal Basin. The white flowers you see are the cherry blossoms. 

Scenes from DC

Saturday was a beautiful spring day in Washington. I was at the annual cherry blossom festival and took this (slightly tilted) photo of the Jefferson Memorial.