Classical Music and a Picture Project Post--March 12 through March 19

It's quiet here tonight. So far no calls, as compared to the 5 ringing calls that started my heart beating out of control on Monday night. Lucky for me, 3 of those 5 calls were hang-ups or wrong numbers. I just finished reading through most of the training documents that were required of me, and before I dive into extensive research of the library and the on-hand DVDs, I thought I would take an early break tonight and blog. During my 12 hours at Polaris I'm allowed 1.5 hours of break. This will constitute my first of however many increments I decide to break that up into. I have neglected to take a nap during one of my shifts, and I have a feeling this trend will continue, knowing my tendency for pressing "sleep", turning off my alarm or just not being quite with it when I wake up, a 30 minute nap at 2:30 AM would probably be a bad idea. I am learning what works and what doesn't as far as staying awake. For example, I can read standing up. I can take little 10 minute stretching breaks. Or I can drink many, many, many ounces of water, forcing me to take a trip to the bathroom every 30 minutes. "Awake" tea from Starbucks also works quite well. I'm going to have to try to find a generic brand soon. The melodic voice of Nicole Lacroix of NPR's classical music station in Washington, DC just signed off, leaving me with the stoic, methodical one of John Chester for the rest of the evening. I feel a certain camaraderie with this Mr. Chester...both of us awake at obscene hours of the night. One thing I like about him is that when he signs on he lays out what he is going to play for the next 6 hours that we will be spending together. Knowing that he has planned what he's going to play somehow makes these quiet hours a little bit more manageable. Every once in awhile I switch to the Iron & Wine station that I've created on Pandora. But hearing a voice of a person who is also awake in the wee hours somehow brings a sense of calm. Don't ask me how.

I realized the other night that some of my favorite memories are somehow tied to classical music. I think one of my favorite memories was riding with my dad to the Outer Banks the summer between my sophomore and junior year at UNC. After discussing some theological questions while stuck in a traffic jam entering the Islands, we drove the rest of the way with the windows down, the classical music station turned up, and the salty beach wind blowing into our faces. It was glorious.

It was quite an eventful weekend, which means some good pictures. The week, thus far, has been fairly mundane, with the exception of Polaris overnights, Thai food outings and my TB test (no, I do not have TB, hooray!). March Madness began, and things went pretty much as I expected. Except with that dang Illinois team. Luke and I made an agreement that the loser of our brackets has to take the other one out on a date and make all of the decisions that day. This will be quite the challenge for two people who are incapable of making any decisions, and I sincerely hope that I win to save me from said fate.

Speaking of Luke, on our way home from eating Thai he stopped mid-sentence and pretended to fall asleep. After some brief prodding to get him to "wake up" he sat straight up and started singing "You've gotta feel it narcoleptic, boogie woogie woogie..." to the tune of, you guessed it, The Electric Slide. Adding to his repertoire of diseases, beginning with the embolism song, to the tune of "Rainbow Brite" as posted here. It wend something like "When you have an embolism deep down in your lungs, and it moves to your heart..." and right now I can't remember the rest. I am in love with a wonderful man and I have a feeling I will be laughing my entire life.

Well, before my 30 minutes is up, I want to present you with my picture post for this week. I know that I still owe you some ski pictures. I'll post them soon.

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March 12, 2009: The arrival of Katie, Jenny and Liz! Here we are, starting the weekend off right, with this SNL skit involving Timothy Geithner. It's a good one...and unfortunately seems a little bit to realistic...

March 13, 2009: On a walk in the cold and drizzle. We walked around Fort Totten Park and Rock Creek Cemetery. It was delightful.

March 14, 2009: Kevin arrives and after dinner and a trip to Shoppers we played a round of Cranium. When deciding which team would go first Kevin insisted that instead of playing Rock Paper Scissors we should sculpt animals out of play dough. While I clearly would have won in a normal sculpting contest, Kevin revealed his creation announcing "It's Nessie!" which made him the clear winner, especially because "Nessie" then proceeded to devour my kitten.

March 15, 2009: Everyone crowded onto the couch before everyone took off. Sad day.



March 16, 2009: My first night at Polaris! All alone in the quiet office waiting for someone to call...it was pretty suspenseful before the first phone call broke the silence...I'll be working at Polaris from 8:30 PM to 8:30 AM every Monday and Thursday night.

March 17, 2009: The sun finally broke through the clouds, casting a warm glow throughout our entire apartment. It was really, really beautiful (if I do say so myself). Unfortunately it was short-lived and the sun went hiding away again on Wednesday, peeking out only Wednesday afternoon and a tiny bit of Thursday morning.

March 18, 2009: In Bethesda, MD on the way to meet a friend for Thai (which was amazing). We saw this statue, randomly placed by the side of the road. The caption reads "Madonna of the Trail" and under that lies a more complete description: "NSDAR Memorial to the Pioneer Mothers of the Covered Wagon Days". We're not quite sure...

March 19, 2009: Let the Madness begin! The brackets are filled out, the bets are placed...I just hope I don't lose to Luke.

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Happy Friday, everyone. And have a good weekend. I won't tell you what Luke and I will be up to, but I will tell you, if it works out as planned, we will have some spectacular pictures to share!