Turkey Trot

Hello sweet friends!

Hope you are all having a stress-free build up to Thanksgiving (or, as they call it in France, Thursday, November 28)!

I didn't really think I had any strong sentimental attachments to Thanksgiving (I don't care for turkey all that much anyway), but I was talking to my mom a few weeks ago and realized this will be the first time I'm away from my family for Thanksgiving. So that makes me a little sad, but I'm going to try to see what fun things I can still do that day, since most things will be closed (but the Smithsonian museums will all be open!) I'm also debating trying to do Black Friday shopping, but I've never done that before so I don't know how that will go.

So! Last week was super crazy. I feel like I'm still recovering but this week is honestly even busier so it's been a real whirlwind. On Monday I had a very reassuring chat with my advisor, who told me she thinks I'm on an okay path and not behind, like I've been feeling recently. Then on Tuesday, I interviewed this woman who I wrote a paper about in first year. She was a really cool lady and gave me some books to take home. The interview definitely wasn't perfect and there were some awkward moments. I felt a little unconfident in my abilities but I'm trying to be fair to myself since it was my first time doing it. I want to try to get better at oral histories in the future and overall I think it was a positive experience.

Saw this outside of a glasses store in Dupont Cirlce. I feel for the little dude

The week after that is a little blurrier and wasn't as eventful. Mostly I've just been working on my longform research paper (which I'm really excited about but it's still super hard to write!!) That means a lot of late nights at the Library of Congress on the horizon. And next week I have an appointment in their motion picture room to watch a film, which I've always (ok, like, since first year) wanted to do so I'm super excited for that! It's ~research~ but mostly I just wanted an excuse to go watch a movie there.

Then on Friday, after class I went to this tea shop called Teaism with Kira and Laura. Earlier in the week we had met a Smith alum who works in our museum as a fellow and she recommended it to us. It was really nice and they had a lot of tea options. It's getting to be that time of year where all I want to do is have soup or hot tea so it was really nice.

We also stopped by a little holiday market they're doing for a few weeks outside the Portrait Gallery! It looks prettier at night but it was nice!

Then on our walk home, we walked by this big map by the Navy Memorial, so we decided to get some images of ourselves in the countries we're going to next semester, and "in" DC. It was a nice evening with nice friends :-)

(Spring 2019) Me: South Korea; Kira: Tanzania; Laura: Northampton

And this is us in DC :^) (peep Long Island and the Cape!) Laura said this was "a very middle school picture" hehe

*images/geographic approximations not to scale

Finally (my organization skills for these posts are so poor, sorry for the rambling always) on Sunday I got to see the one and only Clara! I was grateful that we got to hang out for a couple hours and catch up - we went back to Teaism hehe - and see Meg and Mo too. Clara pointed out that if we hadn't met up, it could have been almost a year and half that we would have gone without seeing each other, so I'm glad I got to see her.

I'm really grateful that I've gotten to see so many people I love this semester too. There's many people that I miss greatly, who I'll miss even more next semester, but it's been such a pleasant surprise that so much of my friends and family were able - and willing - to come visit me this semester. I guess that's what I'm most thankful for right now. There's a lot of love in my life. I'm going to work harder to give it back as much as I can.

Also I know that there are a lot of valid criticisms of the Christmasification of everything this time of year but I privately like seeing all the pretty lights and wreaths go up :')