Parting is such...a horribly unsatisfying moment

You know what I really suck at? Ok, don't go off listing all my faults (though that might be interesting to hear sometime). I really suck at the professional goodbye. You know, when you're leaving a job and you go to say goodbye for the last time to your superior with whom you are friendly, but do not have a loosey-goosey super-casual relationship that would allow you to give them a hug and weep on their shoulder (not that I've ever done that)? Yeah, I suck at that. All I'll allow myself is a handshake, a smile, a few half-mumbled words about how grateful I am for everything, and then...just walk away. But that hardly seems like enough. Ever. So instead of walking away feeling happy that I'm done and grateful that I had the opportunity, I walking away having an anxiety attack thinking about what I should have said that would have felt more complete to me. I eventually have to force myself to do something meaningless to distract my mind, and that usually ends up with me (picture it if you will), walking down the street, focusing very hard on counting every step until I get to the car and can drown myself in mindless public radio.

Oh my life.

But really, thinking about this, I've realized that I just suck at saying goodbye to people period. Nothing I can do in those few minutes seems able to express everything I want to say, even if what I want to say is just "it's been great, k bye!", or "hey you were a bizarre roomate, thanks for messing up my laundry!" Don't worry, if you're reading this and we were roomates, that is not directed at you.

Unfortunately, I've had occasion to say quite a few (probably permanent) goodbyes in the last year or so, what with ending internships and practicums and volunteer work, etc...Maybe I just need to get a more stable, permanent job, and then I can just avoid goodbyes altogether. Awesome plan, me.

P.s. As I was adding tags to this post, I had to create a whole new one for "awkward". It wasn't already in my list of tags- can you believe it, with all the awkward things that happen to me? Well, I should probably say all the awkward things that I do, but anyways...

Recent events

I'm continually making note in my phone of crazy things that happen each day that I can put on here, and I inevitably forget and the humor passes. Here are a few that I can remember:

1. On Monday I waited for an incredibly long time for the train because of an "incident" two stops away, and when it finally came, I got on, sat down, and saw...a woman wearing a halloween candy sack shaped like a pumpkin/cat (yes, both at the same time). It was sitting upright, well really she was holding it up with her left hand, which was also holding a tall plastic mug. She started yelling at everyone who had just gotten on the train, ranting on and on about how she couldn't get any sleep, no one would let her get 8 hours of sleep, especially not since she got out of prison. This continued (I'm sure)after I got off the train.

2. Right when I was getting in the checkout line at Tarzhaaaaay the other day, "Cry Me a River" came on. I have so many wonderful and ridiculous memories about that song. It made me so happy, that I didn't even care waiting for ten minutes while the woman in front of me rang up and entire cart-load of items and then couldn't find her credit card. I even felt sorry for her.I've totally been there. Hope she found it.

3. One of my roomates is writing a paper about Washington scandals and started asking all of us which we thought were the worst and why/why they were so interesting to us. Her friend cited the Watergate debacle, and as for why it so gripped her? "It's just, like, really fascinating to me, like, the level of technology they used. Like, we still use wire-tapping today in the government" (and then she went on about how advanced wire-tapping was back then and how crazy it was that they were using it) What? Pretty sure telephone tapping was not the main issue there. It was burglary, manipulation, and Nixon's recordings of people without their consent. Not by tapping into phone lines, but just using a tape recorder. Wire-tapping has been around almost as long as telephones themselves. And that's all I'm going to say. I really do like her.

All for now.

I think I posted about this earlier, but I was going to take an internship this summer at a national lab in WV. It wasn't the ideal internship I had been hoping for, but it was really good nonetheless. Then, after I had already accepted and turned in all my paperwork (because the due date was approaching and at the time it was the only offer I had received), I got a phone interview and several hours later an offer for another internship in DC. It also wasn't exactly what I had been hoping for, but was a good opportunity. So I had two great internships that I was kind of indifferent about, and I spent two and a half days in frantic prayers and fasting trying to decide which was right (because apparently I was taking this decision very seriously...I'm not sure why I was so worked up about it at the time). True to past form, I didn't really receive an answer and was about to reply to DC and accept (I received the offer on Wednesday and had to accept by close of business on Friday). So I composed an email in my phone accepting the DC internship around 2 pm on Friday and was about to send it, but I still didn't feel completely convinced, so I decided to wait until the last possible minute, just in case I received a 24 style high drama answer. Because 24 is exactly like the gospel. I distinctly remember composing the email sitting in my car, and I had my thumb on the "send" button and was just about to send it but I just felt something saying "hey just wait a little while longer". Then, at 4:30, just as I was walking into Hobby Lobby, I got a call. It was from the director of the National Transportation Library offering me an internship in the archives there. This was exactly the internship that I had been hoping for and had despaired of getting. She didn't even take time to talk to me and conduct any sort of interview before offering me the position (desperate for cheap labor? I don't even care) , and she sounded incredibly excited that I was available and interested. Have you ever had an interview that went really well, and you wer excited, and you could tell that they were excited, and you just felt that click? I hope so, because it's a great feeling, but that's the way this was. I am so excited that I got the internship that I wanted, which will give me some desperately needed archival experience, and it's in DC, and housing is free (to me anyways...your tax dollars at work :) ), and it's paid, and I have something to do this summer that doesn't involve manual labor. Talk about high drama answers. I was in the "well maybe he's telling me that I need to make my own decision because they're both good or maybe I'll receive confirmation afterwards" mode. Which is not a bad mode, but I love the "hey maybe I haven't answered you because there's an even BETTER option just around the corner- just be patient" mode SOOOO much more.

Of course now it's coming up soon so my terror is increasing daily because I just GET REALLY NERVOUS, OK?!??

Anyways, it was exciting. The gospel is true.