every day feels like a thousand years

have you ever seen a movie where all of the action of the film is supposed to take place in one day? cinderella is a good example. yeah, that's right, i bet most of you didn't realize that the story of cinderella takes place in about 24 hours! i mean, the girl wakes up to birds singing, she does that cool thing where she ties her hair with the blue ribbon (did anyone else find that part fascinating when they were little girls?), she cleans the whole house, she gets invited to a ball, she makes a magical dress, she meets a fairy godmother, she meets her one true love, she loses her slipper, the prince finds her...you get the picture. looking back on the whole course of the movie, sometimes i forget that all of that takes place in just a day.

well that has been my life as of late.

every day feels like a thousand years! so many new sights and sounds and vistas and people and experiences and emotions! my feelings in being here change by the hour, as do my plans for the future. and all the while i'm out seeing the city and meeting new friends. i was getting after myself earlier this afternoon for being so indecisive about whether or not i want to stay out here...and then i stopped myself and laughed--i've only been here 2 days! of course i don't know what to think yet! i'm still just trying to make my way out of arlington without getting lost! (which, by the way, i made it all the way up to the washington d.c. temple in bethesda maryland this morning. WITHOUT getting lost. that means crossing two state lines. boo-yah D.C. BOO. YAH.)

brooke and i once christened the first week of january "do something you've never done before" week. the first night, i broke my arm (which i had never done before, and, as good fortune would have it, included going to the emergency room, getting an IV, and being put on serious pain meds--all of which i had never done before either!) it was truly a memorable week. well, perhaps at the end of the week i will write a list of all the new-to-me things i have done so far while in el districto.

until then, adventure! (and safety! never forget safety in all your adventuring. rest easy: spencer gave me pepper spray for my birthday--a loving brother's parting gift--and i was up until midnight last night reading "The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook. I now know how to control a runaway camel, survive a fall onto subway tracks, successfully navigate a minefield, and foil a UFO abduction.)

a man rinsing his eyes out after pepper spray. no i was not the one who pepper sprayed him.

and a little video to give you nightmares: