this is a tshirt design i found on threadless. com titled "The Last Days of Summer"
i like it because it has the barn and the watertower.... because. well. it reminds me of the last few days of my summer.

-mere*

Last night I really buckled down and started writing the paper I had due today at one at...like... 10pm. And stayed up till 2:30 working on it. Then worked on it this morning from 8:30-12:30, only taking a break for a shower. So. Once again, Meredith barely made it.

Procrastination. It's like my job.

But, the paper was darn good if I do say so myself. And it was seven pages when it was supposed to be four. whoops.

So yeah, working like crazy on the paper, and then adding in class from 1-8:30 made the day really. really. crappy. I was half asleep all day and doodling was the only thing i could do to pay attention.

In Counseling, its pretty normal for us to do role plays with a partner to practice patient/therapist relationships. Well, today I got to be the patient and Corinne was my therapist. Anyways, I'm sitting there coloring and talking about whatever. So I jsut decided to play up the whole 'oh-i-just-moved-to-a-big-city-where-i-live-alone' thing... so i'm just rambling along as i'm prone to do... and i'm talking about how i'm really close to my family and how my friends are like my family... and how i'm a hugger... and how i haven't had a hug in like three weeks (which, is a lie, because my family came, but. before that it was true). But it ended up sounding really sad and pathetic and I totally didn't even mean for it too. So after class, we were all walking back to the metro(well, i was just walking home) and when it was time for Corrine to branch off she said bye... but then gave me a hug! I mean, she was joking around partly, but it was still nice and touched my heart ... silly, huh?

I walked the last few blocks home alone... BUT. I love walking thanks to my mp3 player. It's like hanging out with friends. I just rock out the whole time i'm walking. And resist very hard the urge to dance. or twirl. ok, sometimes i do twirl, but only when no one is around. I'm totally the people in the commercials whose shadows and reflections are dancing. And I wonder how people would react if i danced and sang along like i want to....

Sometimes, I get inclinations to check my mailbox. Not everyday, just some days I have an urge to check. All this week I felt like I was going to get mail.... sure enough, I checked tonight and found not one, but TWO letters. One was from Libby- who fully appreciates getting mail, especially when you're far away.... and the other from my grandmother Graham... who's letters always end up being really long and encouraging. And a check with $25 makes it even nicer.

I totally started out today in the absolute worst of moods... and in the matter of hour, I'm now just really in a wonderful mood. Totally exhausted. But. Happy. Thanks for the biscuit God, your timing is perfect.

listening currently to the new Thrice CD. They put the entire thing up on myspace for anyone to listen to. I really like it... its way different than everything else they've put out. But, in a completely awesome way. I'd read the lyrics, so I was excited to actually HEAR the album, check out these lyrics:

we're more than carbon and chemicals
free will is ours and we can't let go
we can't allow this, the quiet cull
so we sing out this, our canticle
we are the image of the invisible

we all were lost now we are found
no one can stop us or slow us down
we are all named and we are all known
we know that we'll never walk alone

They're my favorite. and christians. amazing. they make me happy.
check out the new album if you want: http://myspace.com/thrice

But yes. That's your daily update.
At least for Becky, because i don't know who else reads this because no one else leaves comments (hint, hint)

live from our nation's capitol, meredith*

ooh. blog makeover. because i'm supposed to be writing a paper.

This past Saturday, the TWINS came to visit!

Do you see my excitement? I was excited. Marie felt the need to stick out her tongue, and Ren thought eatting his rice was more important than photo opportunities in the food court of the Reagan Building.

Unfortunately, it was the first rainy weekend I've seen in D.C., and the worst rainy day we've had. So, of course, it happened to be the day my family came to visit.




Here's a nice picture of the twins in their rainy-day apparel. You missed the clear poncho that was draped over them as a rain shield. Mostly it looked like we stuck them under a plastic bag and we're breaking the first rule in every child-care handbook.

Due to the rain, my plans to take everyone to the National Zoo weren't going to work out (I'll take comeone else, hello, its FREE). So, we went to the National Aquarium instead.











Marie checking out the fish. The National Aquarium was actually the first aquarium in the US. You can tell.



The exhibits were cool though, and we saw them feed the sharks. Most importantly, the kids seemed to have a really good time.






Yay for camera phones that work in basically darkness. Marie, Ren and my dad "trying to find Nemo"










Marie and I making fish faces. Because, yes, I am twelve. And at this point they're coherent (and gullible) enough to do what I tell them too.

But only for the sake of really cute pictures, of course.

After the aquarium, the twins basically passed out in their strollers, so we (me, dad and mary) headed to the Holocaust Museum. It was really amazing, I want to go back, we got there too late to see the main exhibition. I pretty much held it together until we hit some photographs of some kids that had been euthanized for various reasons.... What's cool is that there is scripture all over the place (old testament, of course).



Deuteronomy 4:9
"Only guard yourself and guard your soul carefully, lest you forget the things your eyes saw, and lest these things depart your heart all the days of your life. And you shall make them known to your children, and to your children's children."






After dinner, everyone headed back to North Carolina. Well. Except me. It's hard because the twins don't really understand that I live far away... Ren kept saying "See you Sunday." And they don't really grasp the 'no, you won't' part. Aside from when Dana and Emily helped move me up here, no one has been to visit yet. The difference is that when I visit North Carolina and then leave, i'm occupied with driving back and all that... but when people come here, they leave and its really really obvious that I'm alone. And that's the hard part. I'm glad they came, don't doubt that... its been a long three weeks.... but i wish they could've stayed longer.

Two weeks though until I head home for Meg's wedding, so I suppose I'll survive :)

That's more than enough for now. -mere*

I really like Thursdays, in general. The one class i have is really... fun. Maybe because its just one class, and we're all a little crazy since its so late at night... and out professor is the ONLY GUY in the entire apartment. And he's hilarious.

and we always go to a movie afterwards. (we being me, Vanessa and Mary. And usually other random people- tongiht Allison and Chandra came along too)

and we saw MURDERBALL tonight. um... amazing

i was really excited about it and it definitely wasn't dispppointing. If you don't know- quadriplegics playing rugby. in like. armored wheelchairs.

absolutely amazing. and really funny.

it reminded me about how much i LOVE documentaries. and really made me want to watch Spellbound again (documentary on the Spelling Bee. Probably one of my favorite things.)

Tomorrow is Firday. Good times. Should Probably use it to get ahead on school work. And clean my room. which is super boring.

but.

SATURDAY, my dad, mary adn the TWINS are coming for the day.... so i'm really excited. It's been three weeks since i've seen anyone. No clue what we'll end up doing but i'm sure pictures will be involved!

have a good one! mere*

I got a shout out in Becky's blog. She's the amazing one I talk about who's in Argentina and getting married in December. I like to read about her Argentinian adventures, we also have conversation via our comments, which amkes me laugh.

in other news, its like 1 in the morning. and i have like eight things due tomorrow. and i've been home since three.

tell me again why i'm in grad school? i think i forgot that i'm not really good at school, and that my last few semesters of undergrad were ART STUDIOS. dangit.

um. this is a fun passage from "Self Reliance" by Emerson. You read it in high school. You were just too dumb to understand it then, I was too. But now you get it. Read it. You'll feel smarter.


To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, - that is genius. A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. Great works of art have no more affecting lesson for us than this. They teach us to abide by our spontaneous impression with good-humored inflexibility … when the whole cry of voices is on the other side. Else, tomorrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another.We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each or us represents…but God will not have his work made manifest by cowards. Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.

These are the voices we which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world. Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its member. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is it’s aversion. [Conformity] loves not realities and creators, but names and customs. Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness.
What I must do is all that concerns me, not what people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and intellectual life. may serve as the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find people who think they know what is your duty better that you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.
The objection to conforming to usages that have become dead to you is, that it scatters your force. It loses your time and blurs the impression of your character.
The other terror that scares us from self-trust is our consistency; a reverence for our past act or word, because the eyes of others have no other data for computing our orbit than our past acts, and we are loathe to disappoint them.
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today. ‘Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood,’ Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

night, all. -mere*

Weekend in summary...

Friday, the other CF's adn I hosted a Luau for City Hall and the Aston residents. It went over pretty well and a bunch more people than i thought ended up coming out. We had a ton of food, silly outfits and tropical decorations.

Here are the other CF's in my configuration that i've talked about:

l to r: Stephanie, Heath, Spencer, Jessica, Titi, Miki, Jeff (my old supervisor) and Nikki.

These are the first people I really met coming to GW and continue to be some of my favorites... I'm really lucky that I get to work with such fun people.

Friday night was spent basically working obsessively in my journal on this:



Saturday, I met up with Vanessa and Catherine (two girls that I know from the Art therapy department) and we climbed onto the bus and headed to Leesburg, Virginia. First, we headed to some outlet stores... ended up buying stuff i probably can't afford... but got anyways. Found a fun corderoy jacket for twenty bucks- really practical. And based on the weather we've had thus far, the more jackets i have the better. Got a black sweater too. Because. I love black sweaters. It's a problem. Found a pair of jeans too and got a vegetable peeler for a dollar fifty so my carrots can stop mocking me in my inability to eat them. At least I get paid on Friday.

Next, we headed to the Tarara Winery. Interesting fact- the owners called it Tarara because according to the story in Genesis 8 and 9; when the ark came to rest, it was on the mountains of Ararat, where Noah planted a vineyard. Ararat backwards is Tarara. Fun, huh?

Anyways, we tried ten different wines. I really don't know... well... anything about wine, so i learned a lot. I did the whole twirling and sniffing thing... felt very cultured, haha. I'd really never noticed how DIFFERENT wines taste. I really don't like red wines, as it turns out. The Cabernet Sauvignon was the only one i really didn't mind. The Pinot Gris was my favorite, but they have a dessert wine called Wild River Red that was pretty amazing too.

They took us into the cave where they age the wines, and I had fun taking pictures of the barrels, especially the vendor markings they had on them:


They showed us some of the pressing machinery (unfortunately, no Lucy-esque grape stomping):
:

And the last thing we did was take a hayride through the vineyard. Which was probably my favor part. Because, lest us not forget, I'm still five.
Unfortunately, my camera died during the heyride, so i really didn't get any pictures of the vineyard. But we really didn't stop ever, so they probably wouldn't have been that great. Would really like to be able to go to one at some point and jsut wander....

hayride picture:

Vanessa (graduated from RIT, and her family actually owns a winery in Pennsylvania)
Catherine ( was an art history major that's from Little Rock, Arkansaw)
And I'm squinty with busride/hayride hair.

Vanessa in the caves:


Overall, it was a really really fun day. Definitely exhausted when I got back. It was really the first touristy thing i've done since coming to D.C. and it was only fifteen bucks. hard to complain.

Sunday:
For some reason I started feeling really sick at like 7:30 this morning. Didn't exactly make it to church. And woke up still feeling pretty crappy. Lucky for me, both Capitol Hill Baptist and Providence put their sermons online, so I just listened to a sermon at home instead. Like church, just in pajamas ;)
links of interest:
More of my pictures of the luau/winery
Tarara Winery
CHBC sermons
Dave O & the College Class sermons

Prayer requests:
-that i feel better. being sick is nooooo fun.
-Allison is going to Vermont for an extended stay. That she gets the help she needs.
-I need to take school more seriously than I have been.
-I utilize my spare time more effectively

-meredith*

"What do you have that you did not recieve?"