Patrick at Work and Play

Well, I know it's been a while since I rapped at y'all but I'm back and I've got some good news.
As some of you know, all my classes are in the evening because the school expects that students will hold jobs and find internships during the day. I've devoted a lot of time this fall to applying for different positions at a lot of places around the city.
In the last couple of weeks I secured two different internships for next semester.
The first is a 15 hour per week research position at the Hudson Institute. I'll be helping the director of the political/military section with several research projects that he has going on. Most of them focus on Russia or central Asia. It's an unpaid position but is extremely flexible. I can work from home or come in to the office. Also, research work is great to have on my resume. Ask me in mid-January how it's going.
The other is a congressional internship (paid!) with Adam Smith from District 9 in Washington. He serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee so I'm looking forward to being involved in that in some way. There will a fair amount of phone answering and mail opening but that's life. Again, I'll let you know how that's going in January.
For now I only have a couple weeks left in my first semester. I have finals in two out of three classes and big papers in two out of three as well. Classes on the whole have been very good. My European Union class is fantastic and I've learned way more than I expected to. I also have an intro to Europe, Eurasia, and Russia. That class has been up and down but I'll be happy to be done with it. My last class is a history of Eastern Europe class which has been good, but I would have liked more lecture. The professor seems to think we understand things better than we do and continually looks for in-depth discussion among the students. The only problem is that we usually don't know what we're talking about. Kim here, real quick Patrick is doing really well in his classes and I am very proud of him.

Enough about work and school, on to other subjects!

Kim's family is coming this week which promises to be a great week. We're really excited to have visitors again and Kim has the whole week scheduled out for them. Kim? Making a detailed schedule? Shocking.

We also bought our tickets home. We get in on the 18th and head straight to Walla Walla. We'll get back to Tacoma on the 24th and be at the First Pres. Christmas Eve service. Then we'll be in Tacoma until the morning of the 1st. Kim is using all her vacation days to be gone for that long. Yikes. No trips home in our future after Christmas for a long time.

Tuesday Nov. 4th

As some of you may have heard, there was an election on Tuesday. Kim and I watched the coverage on Tuesday night and had a map of the US on the wall. As the results came in we colored each state red or blue. We were ready to go to bed at midnight when they showed some footage taken outside the White House. There was a huge crowd (mainly college students) celebrating outside. Kim and I threw on our coats and headed down there. We walked through the crowds and watched as people celebrated. I couldn't help wondering if they knew exactly why they were so happy. Are they just stoked to see a black president or do they really expect life to drastically improve? Or was it just a chance to be a part of something historic?
Immediately follow the election a lot of emotions came to the surface. The coverage on TV immediately turned to Barack's election as historic because he's black. While I appreciate this and understand it's historic significance, many of the comment made on TV bothered me. "America has finally put its racist past behind it." Really? And if the voters of the US had decided that John McCain had better policies and would make a better president then that would mean that we still hadn't dealt with our racism?
"America did the right thing." Did those who vote for McCain do the wrong thing? Have they refused to put their racist past behind them?
I guess I loved that race wasn't an issue during the campaign but it comes out immediately following the results. I do understand how historic it is and I hope it's a great celebration for now and quickly fades to the background. I (Kim) think it will because like our friend Liz said he did not have race as his platform and it's great to rejoice in it but I think his plans and ideas do not revolve around his race.
The other thing that Kim and I had trouble with was the reaction from the Christian community. Not the wider Christian community, just the people with whom we interact. There was such a 'the sky is falling' reaction. A couple people said they were moving to Canada, apparently betraying their ignorance about Canadian social policy. I understand why someone would be worried about aspects of an Obama presidency. But there was so much angry, unthoughtful, reaction. If we are looking to involve ourselves in society, to influence society, and to make our society a more just and godly place, reacting to this election with cynicism, sarcasm, and anger is exactly the wrong way to do it.
Obama won this election because he has a positive and productive view for America's future. McCain came across as not having a positive forward looking program, but as simply attacking Obama. I don't want to follow someone with no idea where to go, I want to follow someone who powerfully points the way to the future. That is what the Christian community needs to do. We do ourselves no good by making thoughtless and reactionary judgments on what the next 4-8 years hold. We will have an impact when we can point the way to a future that others want to be apart of. Right now a lot of Christians aren't doing that.



Kid in a Volvo: Such a beautiful example of Swedish-American unity.



This is the crowd outside the White House.

Milton Delaware

For my birthday Patrick planned a trip out to the Delaware coast. There were a few milestones on this trip. The first was that we had never been to the Atlantic Coast before. It was great seeing it and it was strange seeing the sun set behind us while we looked out on the ocean. Another milestone was while we were driving our Civic hit 100,000 miles! The bummer was that we missed it! So we celebrated the 100,010th mile, which was still ok. And the last milestone was that we bought gas for $1.99!
While we were were there we stayed at bed and breakfast called the Governor's Bed and Breakfast. It was cool, because a lot of Delaware governors are from Milton and some of them lived in this house. While we were there it was 74 degrees and beautiful. We played in the water and went to the little shops around the coast. It was a great break from studying for Patrick and a good change of pace for me.



Patrick's footsteps heading to France instead of Hawaii. That's the Atlantic for you.


This one's for you Brett Taylor! : )



Here we are celebrating our 100,010th mile!


The beautiful drive home. A week later the colors are even more brilliant.

Wow It's Almost Been a Month!

I finally have stuff to write about other than mosquito bites! Actually quite a bit so here I go:

• The Taylor's Visit
• Two weeks ago our friends from Tacoma, the Taylors (Brett, Pami, Madison and Elliott), surprised me with a visit. The story starts out months ago when I said that Madonna was going to be performing in NYC and that I didn't think that there would be many other concerts that could be better than that, Madonna in NYC. Pami was one of a few friends who I tried to talk into flying over and going to the concert with me, she told me that she looked up tickets but they were all sold out. So the hope of a Madonna concert ended there for me. Little did I know that she, Brett and Patrick were scheming up a plan. It all came to fruition on October 9th. Patrick called me and asked me to go to FedEx Kinkos so that I could sign some paper work the insurance lady was sending over for his bike that was stolen. I was a bit frustrated bc I thought that it would be better if we did it together bc the parking in that area is horrific, but I went anyway knowing how stoked he was to get his bike ASAP. So I get there and I asked for the paper. I was given on that said, "Happy Birthday for the other Washington! Love the Taylors." I was kind of mad bc I thought it was so dumb for them to fax that over when they could have just emailed it. So (with out paying, I didn't realize this until later) I turned around to walk out the door but I heard someone say "Hi Kim" and when I turned around the whole Taylor family was there. Then before dinner that night they gave me a little envelope and inside was a tickets for me and Taylors up to NYC on the train and tickets for me and Pami to Madonna! It was such a great surprise.

Brett and Elliot hiding and waiting for me at FedEx

Me and the Taylors at FedEx

• So they stayed with us in DC for two nights and about a day and a half. We saw some of DC's main attractions. One thing Patrick and I hadn't done yet was visit the Georgetown area and walk up and down M Street, so we took the Taylors there. It was amazing, all kinds of cute shops and fun restaurants. We also visited the oldest house in DC cleverly named, "The Old Stone House." There wasn't much to see other than the amazing back yard. We had a great dinner down there and the next afternoon took the train into NYC.
  
• Oh, upon Julianne's request I also feel compelled to tell you that Patrick and Brett hung out one night with Paul and Christian Werner, Julianne's dad and uncle. But really, they had a great time and it was great for Patrick to see Paul while he was here and meet Christian, who is studding at Johns Hopkins.
  

Taylors and Connallys outside the Capitol

Natural History Museum's new Ocean Exhibit

Us and the kids


The boys smoking their cigars and having a beer on the porch

• Now about Madonna. No matter what you think of her or her music you can not say that she is not an amazing entertainer. It is like not liking Alex Rodriguez or baseball but appreciating seeing him turn an amazing double play or hitting a grand slam, it's still really fascinating. Or like if you think history is really boring but being amazed at the monuments around here and being intrigued to learn more. That's how the concert was for me. I was not a huge Madonna fan, I have great memories of listening to her and Micheal Jackson with my parents when I was little and hearing album after album of hers while growing up. So I was stoked to see her and knowing that she is one of the best at her job just increased the excitement. I was just so impressed with her musical and physical talent (she was dancing and running around stage all night and played the guitar). The way that she mixed all her old music into her new music was really cool. The production was amazing. I have been to musicals in London, on Broadway and several in Seattle and I have been to several concerts but I've seen anything as elaborated and as well choreographed as this concert was. The dancers and musicians that she brought in were fabulous. Here is all the types of music she played: pop, old school rap, Romanian Folk (with amazing Romanian musicians), Latin, disco, and tecno. Crazy, right? They had hip hop dancing, break dancing, tap dancing, and Latin dancing. It was so good and fun! Thanks Taylors!

Me and Pami at Madison Square Garden just after seeing Madonna

• October Days
• Besides the Taylors coming we've had a few other excursions this month. We went for a walk along the C&O Canal which runs right along the Potomac River. There was a path that cut through to the Potomac and we explored that as well. It was a fun day.

C&O Canal

Potomac River

• We bought our first pumpkins for our house. There is a cute little pumpkin stand near our house that we visited and now we have pumpkins.

• Patrick and I decided to head into town last Saturday to see the American History Museum that we hadn't seen yet. Turns out it was closed for remodel until the end of November. So we went to the Old Post Office Tower. There is a great view from the top. We also visited Potbelly for the first time. It is the best sandwich place ever! yum. Then on our walk back to the car Patrick fed a squirrel. Cute. These are the kind of stories you get when I write, sorry.
  

View from the Old Post Office

Patrick feeding the squirrel : )

• Today we had the 4th rainfall since we've been here. Boy, does it know how to rain here. It is coming down like a hurricane right now. It's pretty cool too bc it's really warm out.

• Jack
• Times with Jack get better and better each week. We are two good buddies now. I love hanging out with him. We made tye-dye pumpkin t-shirts last week and planed flowers and beans this week. We've also explored various parks and the river as well. The kid is fantastic and fun. I have another amazing job.

Hanging out on the Potomac watching the planes fly right over us to land

Our Pumpkin Tye-Dye T-shirt

Quick Hits

Here are today's quick updates:

1. The bike saga is winding its way to a good conclusion. My stolen bike will be covered under renters insurance so my friend Jon found me a sweet new mountain bike. I'll probably have it in a couple weeks and when I do, rest assured, you will see pictures. I also got an old road bike to take to school which is really important. I ride 40+ miles a week just getting to class and back and save quite a bit of money by not taking the metro.
2. Kim is covered with mosquito bites. They drive her crazy and I never seem to get them. (my life is pretty boring if all we can find to talk about are my mosquitoes... - Kim)
   
3. My parents came to visit for six days this week. It was great to have them give the guest bedroom a test run. We went to some Smithsonians and Mt. Vernon. and did some general city exploring. They did a lot on their own also. We had a sweet BBQ on Sunday with our friends the Tifts also. It was a really good week.
4. Seattle is undoubtedly the worst place in the USA for a sports fan. The Sonics left, the Mariners are the worst team in baseball, the Seahawks are 1-2 and have everyone injured and just called me to come in for tryouts (but I took a page out of my brother-in-law's playbook and turned down a sure-fire football career), the Huskies are worse than I've ever seen them and the Cougars look like they just might be worse than the Huskies. Just to add insult to injury we also have a WNBA team. At least that's the rumor.
5. Kim's nanny work is still going well and she's working with 2 1/2 year old Jack on his reading.
6. Get your reservations in soon for staying at the Connally hotel. October is wide open but will fill up quickly, for sure.
   

That's about it.



Lunch with the Connallys and the Tifts.
Patrick's new bike.
Cute Jack at the Natural History Museum
Mt. Vernon


Roosevelt Island. Kathryn, here is the dragonfly we saved for you, then it got eaten on our front porch. Sorry.

Classes

Some of you have asked about my classes and while I've tried to give a reasonable description of each class I thought I'd give the official class explanation here. If you have any remaining questions, you are too interested in my classes.

History of Eastern Europe:
This class covers Austria-Hungary, Poland, and the Ottoman Empire (and touching on Russian and Prussia) from 1740 or so until the beginning of the first World War. The professor is great, and really knows this history well. The only problem is that he turns about 1/4 of the class time over to us who do not know this history well. He's stoked to have us present on articles and discuss them. It's fine, but he gives us a ton of time. Pretty soon I start to feel like I would rather hear from the guy who knows what he's talking about. I think I'm just not much of a discussion guy. Most of the time students don't have a lot to contribute and the professors feel like they're really facilitating a great learning experience when they're actually facilitating an ignorance exchange. That said, I am learning a lot in this class and I like the readings.

Colloquium on Europe and Eurasia:
This is my background class required for everyone in my program. Right now we're doing an intro to Europe and in the coming weeks we'll do an intro to Russia. The class is interesting and I like the other students. The notable thing about this class is the teacher. She's a visiting professor from Italy and she's a crack up. Here are a couple of her gems of wisdom:
-Never trust a Greek as they will agree to anything and then do nothing
-Belgians are ugly and have bad coffee
-Norwegians are bad dressers
-Being married to one person your whole life is boring
I'll keep you updated if there's anything I just don't think you can live without.
The class is pretty good and I feel like I'm getting more confident in class and learning what I should be learning. When we switch to other subjects we'll have different teachers which should be cool.

Current Issues in the European Union:
This is the best class ever. I'm learning so much my brain is exploding. The teacher is a Romanian professor who knows the EU ridiculously well. She seems to know the different treaties by heart and assigns a ton of reading. Her lectures are great and she doesn't let anyone get away with a wrong answer. Here's a sample in class exchange:
Professor: Who can tell me why Britain would agree to French agricultural demands?
Student: (confidently) Because they are a powerful country and they thought they could manipulate... (trails off as professor looks at him disapprovingly)
Professor: No. That is wrong. Anyone else?
I love this class because she lectures non-stop for two hours and I just try to keep up. She assigns a ton of reading but I am learning a lot. She keeps asking if she's making it too hard but I appreciate her assuming we can take a lot and learn it. We finished going through the EU structures and now we're learning about different policy areas. Good times.

French Classes:
I'm also taking two French classes at the Alliance Francaise, a local place where they do all kinds of French language promotion. I have one grammar and conversation class and one class on the EU, but given in French and from a French perspective. What I've learned so far is that I am super rusty at French, my accent is worse than it's ever been (not like it was great to start with), but I can still understand almost everything.

Anyway, that's it for classes. Thanks for asking.

General Life Update

Here's the blow by blow update of everything going on:

1. Our first visitor! Ken Rowan, of BCRA fame, became our first visitor from Washington (sorry Anna) when he came over on Tuesday for dinner. He's over for some meetings because BCRA is so sweet it's taking over the whole country. There is no escape.
2. School. Thanks for everyone for asking, school is going well. I have three classes (Intro to Europe and Eurasia, EU issues, History of Eastern Europe) and all of them seem super interesting. My professors are real experts and are also approachable and interesting. In my EU issues class the professor is from Romania and is super hard core. She lectures super fast and knows a baffling amount about EU treaties. I have a ton of reading to do, but it's all relevant and I really feel like I'm learning a lot. If you need to know something about the EU, feel free to email your question. I will then spend too much time making up an answer that sounds smart but may or may not be correct. I promise to use phrases like 'supranational government' and 'pooling of sovereignty'.
3. Nannying. Kim is doing a great job with little Jack. He's super cute and fun and says really funny stuff, we will one day write a long email of just Jack quotes. We've posted a picture of him here. If you want to know more just send Kim an email with a subject line of "Nigerian Prince seeking someone to help with bail." She always opens those ones first.
4. Unpacking: This is the biggest news that we have yet released so prepare yourself mentally: We are basically done setting up our house. Everything is hung on the walls, set up, put away (kinda), etc. If this seems less than breathtaking to you, you are forgiven, but trust us, it is a big deal. Kim did a great job organizing stuff and thanks to her tireless work, the house is now not a stress causing headache.
Here are some pictures of the place. You can see that it's not finished, but compare the 'before' picture featuring the iron to the others and you can see why we're celebrating. Kim again, for the record, the room is a disaster because I couldn't find my dress for Kev's wedding...so naturally I just threw everything that was in boxes all over the room.

Trail of Tears

Unless you're prepared to join me in my sadness, please stop reading now and go back to minesweeper. That said, my bike got stolen this week. As soon as I realized what had happened, I got angry, got angry with myself, and sat down not knowing what to do but feeling completely defeated. A little history:
During the summer of 2003 I was away for the summer and Jon Frederick, who had lent me his bikes a hundred times over the years, found me a Cannondale Super V at a great price. Since then I've had too many good times on that bike to remember. Riding at Glabraith, Whistler, places around Tacoma, and always with friends like Jon. Some of my best memories are on trails. Some of my best scars are from trails. In Tacoma I rode the bike to work whenever I could.
Here in DC, I rode it to school for the first week and a half. I would park it outside the building along with 20-30 other bikes everyday. My friend Hunter told me it might not be the best idea to take it in everyday but I felt ok about the bike being there with so many others. I had a good lock and many of the bikes there were nicer than mine and no better protected.
When I realized the bike was gone a wave of guilt rushed over me as I thought of someone throwing it in the back of a truck and getting $300 for it online or wherever. In general I hold my possessions with an open hand and consider myself unattached to what I own. But as I've been thinking about the bike situation I'm realizing that I do value what I own but almost more than that, I value the power I have to dispose of my possessions as I wish. If I had given the bike away, it would feel fine. If the bike had been run over or broke, I would be frustrated but as I would have the choice to fix the bike or not, I would be ok with that as well. But having that taken out of my hands is hard. It feels so invasive that someone can have that kind of power.
It also made me realize that the things we own mean so much more than just what they can do for us. The Cannondale was a downhill bike, meant to be used to bomb down steep trails and over different obstacles. But there's nothing like that within a three hour drive here. So I wouldn't really be able to use the bike for what it was meant for. It was ok for getting me to school but I was already looking for cheap commuter bike to ride instead. So losing the bike won't really affect me too badly here. I'll still get a cheap bike to ride back and forth and I won't do any down hill riding- exactly what would have happened if I still had the Cannondale. But it kills me to lose that bike because of all the memories tied up in it. I've been out riding with almost every good friend I have and Jon went out of his way to get me the bike in the first place. The bike really opened up a ton of cool outdoor stuff that I would never have gotten to see.
Kim and I are checking craigslist, ebay, pawnshops, etc. to see if the bike shows up, but I'm not holding out a lot of hope for that. I'll keep you up to date.

Unpacking

So our stuff finally arrived on Wed. We worked all day Thur. and left for Kev's wedding on Friday (which was great!). So today is our first real day of unpacking. It is going well, things are everywhere and we are very happy to see our stuff. I took some pictures and once I find the adapter to apple I will show you guys the mess... : )

Things with Jack are going really well. Patrick's having a great time at school, learning all about EU policies and Eastern Europe history. Lots of reading but he is loving it.

Here is a plug for JetBlue, they are a great airline to fly with. I really liked all the leg room, and the directTV, it kept us busy. They fly daily directly from Seattle to Reagan...hint...hint.

Patrick here with a couple thoughts. Kev and Melody's wedding was great and it was cool to see so many of you. Pretty soon here I'll do a post about school so you can look forward to that and check back 4-5 times per day for it.

We love you guys.

Our Cute House

Our house is awesome! Fully ready (when the moving company comes with our stuff) for plenty of people to come visit and hang out. We have 2 bedrooms, a study for Patrick, a nice backyard and patio for grilling, a new bathroom and kitchen, living room and dinning room and our own laundry room. So here are some pictures of our place for you to check out. We'll post more when our stuff is here and it looks more lived in and not camped in.








To Patrick's below post I will add that by the time you guys come to visit we will know most everything there is to know about how to get you to the places you want to be so you don't have to work through the African village man thing.

I would also like to say that we have met the family that I will be working with and they have been great! They loaned us a TV (can't miss the upcoming football season) and a folding table with chairs and have just been really helpful. I'm stoked to start hanging out with Jack, he is just too cute!

Also, our friends Randy and Vesna have been a huge help with letting us use their internet and some pots and pans and just being around to hang out with. They have two kids who are super fun too.