A Million Years Later

Oh, weblog...what has happened to you?

I have been on two trips since we last spoke and started working 40 hours a week. Ah.

In a nutshell: May 18-23 was National Convention in St. Louis. Convention was fun! I always love seeing old friends and meeting new people. This year I had the added excitement/stress of presenting a report on Red Cross youth involvement to the Board of Governors. It was pretty crazy--I woke up at 4:00 AM to get to the airport by 6:00 AM and it was pouring rain as I took the metro into the city with all my bags. It was pretty cool after that, though, because I got to hang out with my National Youth Council friends. We saw the arch and went up inside, had dinner, and visited the nicer areas of greater St. Louis. Unfortunately, I don't believe we have any pictures.

Oh wow, I'm really distracted. This is like junior year all over again when I first discovered AIM.

So, yeah...back to Convention. It was craziness because we had to meet all day Thursday and then we had the Pre-Convention Session (the Red Cross Eye for the Apathetic Guy skit was iffy...) and in the middle of it all was the board presentation. Then Kathy and I had to do our poster on the de-cal class late into the night and the next day I presented at the Preparedness session. Finally on Saturday afternoon I was able to attend a session as a normal Convention delegate. The youth dance was AWESOME on Saturday night and then Sunday was crazy again going back home.

Then I was home for a week working and then we attended Lani's wedding and Paula and I flew off to Washington, D.C. We spent four or so days there seeing the sights like monuments and such and luckily spent time in Georgetown since I hadn't really explored there before. Then it was on to Philadelphia via Amtrak (where we met some super nice people from Indiana). Philly was nice. The hostel was iffy and the people of the city were kind of mean but the Liberty Bell and downtown were nice. We didn't get a chance to see Penn but hopefully we will visit again...with a car and the desire to bar hop.

We then spent a day and a half in Central Pennsylvania. They refer to the area we drove through as Appalachia II. I have never seen so many adult shops in one rural area. Ever.

The training institute was fun and we met a lot of nice Red Cross people from various parts of Pennsylvania. Then it was back to Philly for a night and then on to New York via the Chinatown bus. I was skeptical, to say the least, but we made it to New York Chinatown all in one piece with all of our luggage. We then took a comforting $25 cab ride to the hostel and proceeded to explore Manhattan. We did everything. Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, SoHo, Chinatown, Little Italy, Empire State Building, Central Park, Grand Central Terminal, 5th Avenue, museums. I don't even think that's everything. Thanks to a handy map and our Zagat's we got along just fine. Pictures can be viewed here, thanks to Teddy and his iPhoto/html wizardry.

I might post more details later. I might not. It has taken me a good 2 hours just to post this much.

I am boring now. I work, I commute, I sleep. Next week I will start working, commuting, and going to class. Sleeping (and any chance of blogging) very well may be nixed.