Name that Monument/Memorial Part 3

Tonight's run included a stop at a memorial for a president who emphasized the connection between light and liberty. Besides saying "Light and liberty go together," this president also said, "I know no safe depositary of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power."

Any guesses? I suppose a "no googling" rule would be difficult to enforce, but it's less fun if you google the quotes.

The Science of Conversation

I just had a discussion about this with my roommate earlier this week. Turns out the internet really does have answers to just about everything. See this link.
Stay tuned on Friday for a "Name that Monument" post.

Happiness

On Monday I went for a run (just through the neighborhood, hence no "name that memorial" post) and to the gym in my building afterwards to stretch and lift some weights. As I was stretching, an old bottle-redhead European woman decided she wanted to stand where I was standing. I was absorbed in listening to "Break Your Heart" by Taio Cruz (feat. Ludacris--"ain't nobody as bomb as me"), so I didn't hear her screaming at me to move. From that moment on, she wanted to be wherever I was in the gym. I went to the weight rack; she came and started swinging a 35 pound dumbbell over her head and too close to my face for comfort. I went to do sit-ups on a mat; she followed and almost gave herself a concussion with her vigorous, though short ab workout. I returned to the weight rack; she bypassed an entire row of ten pound weights to reach in front of me and then throw the weights in front of my feet. That was enough. Considering this woman literally pulled the plug on the treadmill when my roommate was running, I left the gym valuing life more than exercise.

Fast forward to today. I came home, stopped to chat with Harry, Tom, and the other lobby regulars, then rode the elevator up with a woman who had overheard my conversation about my last week of classes. She asked me (her very first question) if I would be practicing family law. I said no, patent litigation. In a voice full of pity and edge she informed me that patent litigation is suffering these days but family law is booming: "Divorces are very lucrative, especially when you have ex-husbands like the one downstairs..." (She works for a graphic design firm...) We reached her floor. As the doors closed she half-heartedly apologized for her sarcasm. This was sarcasm in the strict wikipedia sense ("A characterization of something or someone in order to express contempt"), not the mere irony we typically call sarcasm. In all fairness, one of her young twin daughters was crying loudly while she was waiting for her ex-husband to come get the girls, and then one of the twins spilled dirt from a plant on her. Not her favorite mothering moment, I'm sure. But I got the impression she would have been equally open about her divorce with a perfect stranger absent the stresses of motherhood.

Abraham Lincoln supposedly said, "Most people are about as happy as they make their minds up to be." Being upset takes so much energy. I do my fair share of horn-honking and hitting my head again the steering wheel. The New Yorker inside this LA-native/DC transplant comes out whenever tourists stand on the left side of the metro escalators. But I can't imagine spending so much energy hating the people I interact with day to day. I purport that happiness, patience, and love are really easier than the alternative anger, intemperance, and hate. But even if the short term costs of these noble goals exceeds the short term benefits (that instantaneous gratification we human beings get from insisting on fairness, efficiency, and strict adherence to the rules), the long term costs of developing a happy and patient, merciful and kind character are far surpassed by the long term benefits. Whoever said the quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln, got it right. We can be happy if we decide to be. Every time we decide to be happy, our nature becomes more prone to choose happiness more easily.

Tribute to the Farm

There aren't many places where I am comfortable with silence, not many people I'm content to be quiet with. But the happy, contented silence and quiet has a way of standing out in my memory longer than most conversations. To honor the farm, this picture and this song will suffice.

The Killers, Coldplay, and Six Miles: aka Name that Memorial Part 2

Congratulations to Joyce Tam for winning Round 1 of "Name that Monument." She posted the correct answer (Iwo Jima/Marine Corps Memorial) on my facebook wall. Are you ready for Round 2?

This morning's run was themed, "Hills." The monument/memorial offers a beautiful view of Washington D.C. Here are your clues:

1) This site was high on my list of places I would like to go on a date, and I recently actually did go on a date to this place.

2) "There will be demands upon your ability, upon your endurance, upon your disposition, upon your patience...just as fire tempers iron into fine steel so does adversity temper one’s character into firmness, tolerance and determination."
-- Senator Margaret Chase Smith

Good luck!

Name that Memorial: Part 1

What do you get when you combine half-marathon training with tourism and blogging? "Name that Memorial!" Here's how it works--I go for a run to a local memorial or monument. Then I come home, write a blog post, and readers guess where I ran based on quotes or other random pieces of information about the memorial. We will play as long as readers participate.

So, yesterday I ran to a memorial that 1) has the quote: "Uncommon Valor was a Common Virtue," 2) has by far the best drinking fountain of the three I passed to get there (measured by water temperature, taste, and pressure), and 3) is close to a tulip garden I wish I had discovered a week earlier.

First one to get it right wins! (What you win is yet to be determined.)

Ain't Nothin' but Love Here

We walked half-a-block from school toward the homeless shelter. A woman came out to greet us waving her hands and exclaiming, "You must be the volunteers!" How did she know? Was it because more than half our group was white, and we were the only white people in that square block? Was it because we were walking with purpose rather than loitering or hanging out?

She walked us to the back of the building, to a room where we waited for our orientation to begin an evening of work in the D.C. Central Kitchen. Another woman, a large black woman, came into the room. "Who has been here before?" A few people raised their hands, unknowingly volunteering to share what they knew about the history of the D.C. Central Kitchen (DCCK). When the volunteers ran out of tidbits of information, our orienter added, "When I first came here, I had been incarcerated. They gave me trainin' and they gave me a job. These people are amazin'. They can take a... a potato, off the shelf, and they... they can turn it into a gourmet meal. A gourmet meal. And not just that. The people here, they care. Ain't nothin' but love here. Ain't nothin' but love."

We washed up, donned gloves, and received assignments. Greg, aka "the G-ster", was my boss. He told me how to blanch broccoli, made me change my gloves anytime something dropped on the floor, and told me how to use the vacuum-pack machine. After a few hours of work, I gathered the courage to ask, "Greg, what's your story? How did you come to the DCCK?"

"Do you want to know the real story?" he asked as if he thought my blue eyes, pale skin, and Gap outfit couldn't take it.

"Yeah, I want to know!" I replied.

"Well, I was incarcerated in the federal prison in Butler, North Carolina..." he began in an accent typically heard on green line metro trains. He told me stories about the DCCK training program, excelling, and being hired full time at DCCK. He emphasized his skills--his creativity, his strict adherence to high standards of quality and cleanliness, and his success in progressing through positions at the DCCK.

At the end I walked back to school, pondering how an ex-felon had been my boss for the past few hours. By the time I gathered my backpack from the locker room and started walking to the metro bullets of rain were pelting my body and armies of winds blew and twisted and bent my defenseless umbrella while making it impossible for me to walk. The people sitting on the street corner just hours before had vanished. By the time I reached the metro, my clothes and my body were as wet from rain as my eyes were wet from tears of fatigue and concern for how I would get home with wind and rain pushing against me. As miles of underground tunnels brought feelings of safety and reprieve from the elements, I began to think how fortunate I am to have a home to go to, another pair of clothes to change into, and leftovers waiting in my refrigerator. I have constant access to a refrigerator! More than that, I grew up in a home that allows me to say, "ain't nothin' but love here."

How to Take a Social Vacation

Compliments of Nate J.

1) You just stop
2) You don't go to things
3) You don't call anyone
4) You don't return a lot of calls
5) You leave right after church
6) You get a pile of books
7) You do some rude things to your roommates so that a coolness develops between you
8) You might want to trash the bathroom... and then be unresponsive when someone says something
9) You don't do your dishes
10) You eat someone else's food

There were a few others, but these were some good ones that made me laugh.

Woman up!

"We want to be ladies in very deed, not according to the term of the word as the world judges, but fit companions of the Gods and holy ones. In an organized capacity, we can assist each other in not only doing good but in refining ourselves, and whether few or many come forward and help prosecute this great work, they will be those that will fill honorable positions in the kingdom of God. Women should be women and not babies that need petting and correction all the time. I know we like to be appreciated, but if we do not get all the appreciation which we think is our due, what matters? We know that the Lord has laid high responsibility on us, and there is not a wish or desire that the Lord has planted in our hearts in righteousness but will be realized, and the greatest good we can do to ourselves and each other is to refine and cultivate ourselves in everything that is good and ennobling and qualifying for those responsibilities." -- Eliza R. Snow, as quoted by Julie B. Beck

Listen to Sister Beck's talk here.

Question for my readers: What do you do to become refined and cultivated?

Flip Flop Degree Days

The energy industry uses "heating degree days" and "cooling degree days" to predict anticipated energy costs for large buildings in particular locations. The way it works is, you pick a temperature, say 65 degrees Fahrenheit. If the temperature outside falls below 65 degrees, then a building will have to turn on its heater. The "heating degree day" could be calculated by taking a particular day of the year in a particular city--let's say January 20th in Chicago. Pretend the average high for January 20th in Chicago is 20 degrees F, and the average low is 14 degrees F. So the average temperature for that day would be 17 degrees F. A building in Chicago will have to heat up air from the outside 48 degrees F in order to reach the mark of 65 degrees F. So for that one day of the year, there are 48 heating degrees. You could do this calculation for each day of the year (in summer you set a bottom temperature and do a "cooling degree day" calculation). The sum of all the heating degrees for all the days in the year gives you the "heating degree day" value, which can then be used to anticipate the energy demand for a particular region for the year. Brilliant.

Well, today I was thinking about heating degree days and cooling degree days because I noticed that our air conditioning had been turned on in the apartment building one month earlier than planned, I'm assuming because we are supposed to get 80 degree weather this weekend. And then I thought about how awesome it was to wear my flip flops for the second day in a row. And then I thought, how awesome would it be to keep track of how many days out of the year I wear my flip flops in any given city!? What a great measure of quality of life?! Unfortunately, I have not taken advantage of past opportunities to measure my flip flop wearing days thus far in life, and I will soon be exiting the student phase of life to become a professional, who will likely be unable to wear flip flops even when the weather is appropriate. (Don't remind me or bring this up, this whole transition and all it entails is a sensitive subject.) So, absent scientific data collection, I think it is safe to rank the cities I have lived in in the following order (from most flip flop degree days to least): Los Angeles > Houston > Washington, D.C. > New York > London > Provo (brrr...).

However, I lived in Los Angeles prior to discovering the joys of flip flops (thank you, Andrea). So, I have no long-term experience with Los Angeles (though I frequently take ONLY flip flops and running shoes home for visits regardless of the time of year). On the other hand, I have probably worn flip flops the highest number of consecutive days in London, seeing as how I wore flip flops almost exclusively for two months (May and June, not exactly warm months in London), and even had one of my flip flops rescued (thank you, Tiffany) from the Tube tracks. Yes, it is important to "Mind the Gap," but that's a story for another day. This much I know: Higher frequency of flip flop wearing leads to greater happiness. Welcome Spring!