Countdown Races Sing This Song...

So this Saturday was a great day. My friends Bryan, Mike, Jed, and I drove to Charles Town, West Virginia and went to the Race Track. We got a reservation for the high class buffet and pretty much stayed there from 5:30 to 10ish. So much food equals awesome. We also made a few bucks so that was sweet. I can see how betting at the race tracks can get super addicting. The only lame part was during the last race one of the horses stumbled and broke its legs and they had to put it down right there on the track. That was kind of a downer.

The ride to the race tracks was the best part. West Virginia is just like John Denver said - almost heaven. The only way it would have been more perfect is if the "mountains" were really mountains. I could so totally live there. I don't know if West Virginia really was exceptionally beautiful or if I really, really, really miss the mountains and open spaces, but I loved West Virginia so crazy much.

We rented a car and the guy upgraded us to a hybrid so we went well over 200 miles on 5.8 gallons of gas. It would have been more if I had driven since Mack taught me well in the ways of hypermiling. It actually bothered me a little how fast Mike was accelerating and braking.

It took us a while to get out of the city because we only had google's very un-specific directions on Bryans BlackBerry but once we did it was beautiful. We got out at one point and wandered around this little river and took pictures on the bridge. This place really was great. Beautiful, open, quiet, but within an hour drive of DC. I'm totally going back.

We also went to Harper's Ferry on the way there and wandered around. There were some awesome shops and it was just a fantastically quaint little town even though most of the town was little museums and historically preserved exteriors that changed their interiors into bathrooms and stuff. I did get a fantastic hand made mug. Their website is www.westwindpotters.com. It's a crappy website, but I'm pretty sure you can buy stuff online.

Glories of the Flea Market

So a few of us went to the flea market this past Saturday in Eastern Market. It was one of the most incredible places I've ever been. I got a few cheap things and one pretty expensive one that is hanging above my bed right now and that I'm going to love forever. This guy's paintings were so amazing - totally knocking off Van Gough but putting fantastic scenes in the art. Starry Night is my favorite painting of all time and DC is one of my favorite places of all time, so this was something I just couldn't pass up. Although because of that purchase I won't be able to get anything else for a while even though my friend and I decided that going to the flea market for breakfast every Saturday was going to be a ritual (apparently they have great breakfasts).

On a more random note, I'm going to the airport in a bit to go pick up my friend James. He's staying with me till Tuesday and I'm totally stoked. We get work off on Monday and I got Tuesday off as well so this will be a nice long weekend.

Life in D.C.

Sorry about the lack of posts. Hopefully I'll be better from now on - especially now that I have more to write about than just college life in Logan.

I've been here in D.C. for over a month now, and I'm loving it. I'm living in Arlington, Virigina in Crystal City. The metro is just about a 7 minute walk from my apartment and from walking out of my apartment to walking into my office is about a 40 minute commute. The apartments are the nicest I've lived in as a college student. I have a freaking dishwasher again!! That has been one of the best things. The apartments are really big and we don't have to pay utilities. It's awesome.

So here is a day in the life of Jenna: I wake up M-F at 7. Take a shower, get ready, and leave by about 8:15. I usually have to wait a bit for the yellow line to get there and while I wait I usually bump into someone else I know who is going to work. I used to take the metro to Union Station because that's closer to the Senate side, but it turns out that even though the Capitol South stop is a longer walk, it's a prettier walk, faster all around, and 30 cents cheaper. On my way to work I pass all of the House buildings, the Capitol, the Supreme Court, and the Library of Congress. I get to work around 9, take an hour lunch around noon, and get off for the night at 6. I come home, eat a little dinner, and go downstairs to the guys apartment (I still enjoy the company of guys better). Mondays we'll go to FHE and/or half price burgers at the sports pub, Tuesdays have become pupusa night at the Salvadorean resaurant close by, Wednesdays are Costco night, Thursdays are karaoke at Bailey's, and Friday we usually go out. But I generally don't go back upstairs to my apartment until I go to bed, even if we don't do anything. Saturdays we generally spend all day and most of the night out and Sundays are generally spent relaxing at home (or downstairs in my case) or at a museum or something. All in all I have a pretty busy schedule and it's awesome. I'm loving it.

For sure the best thing here are my fellow interns which is why I don't think I'd enjoy it as much as I am if I stayed out here. There are 5 apartments of interns here from USU, ISU, Weber, SUU, and UVU (all of which rent the apartments from Utah State) and I spend most of my time hanging out with 2 of the apartments (neither of which are mine for some reason). It really has been great.

Alright. That'll be all for now, but I'll try and keep this more updated with my life here back east.

Internship and my Mac

I don't write in my journal anymore and I don't post on my blog. Not good.

My internship is increasingly getting closer. I've applied to a bunch of places so far: Harry Reid, Jim Matheson, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Institute for Policy Studies, the Atlantic Council of the U.S., the Hudson Institute, and Amnesty International. There are still several more that I want to apply for but as of now I'm hoping for either Harry Reid, CSIS, or Amnesty. I'm getting pretty excited - not for whatever comes after (cause I have no idea) but for the internship itself. The best part about preparing for this is I'm going to need to buy clothes soon. This is also forcing me to start wearing make-up. I decided I can't be professional without it so for several days in a row now I've been wearing foreign elements on my face.

I bought a MacBook about a month ago and he's a beauty. I named him Quincy and this is a love affair that will never end. At least with Macs in general. It was expensive, but oh so worth it. I'm never going back to a PC. I keep discovering amazing things about this computer. The other day I clicked on "Front Row" not knowing what it was. Basically I can watch movie trailers to my heart's content as well as videos I have on my computer. There are many other elements to this application, but really I just use it to watch trailers. I have been introdiced to several films I really want to see now because of that. I LOVE MY MAC!!

I have many other things I could say but as a college student, I need to read (then write a paper, read some more, write another paper, then skim through a book as I write a paper).

The Beginning of the End of College

So I'm up here in Logan for my last semester of classes. I won't lie - I'm scared to death. In January I'll be heading over to DC (that's the plan anyway) and hopefully that will give me a better idea of where I'm going after graduation in May. I visited the Career Center the other day and they were no help. The guy basically told me everything I already knew. So yeah, just freaking out right now, but we're going to put that aside for a few minutes.
Logan so far is great as usual. I'm only taking 12 credits again this semester. My senior research seminar class which has super intense reading but it's going to be great, a sociology class that I don't need but is very relevant to my studies called Developing Societies which again, has intense reading but will be awesome, Family Finance which has a little reading and some busy work, but I'm excited - it seems super interesting, and American Cultures in Film. This last class is a total slack off class. We watch movies outside of class then talk about them for an hour and a half each week. We also have to go eat at 4 ethnic restaurants. The best part about it is even though 6 out of the 9 movies we'll be watching are rated R, I can put them on my Netflix queue and watch them on my DVD player and edit whatever I want to edit. I go in spurts of watching R movies and right now I'm trying to ease up. Even when I do watch R movies though I filter what movies I see but this class apparently has several very R movies so I'm glad we're not watching them in class.
I'm living with my roommate from last year Andrea and her sister Sofi and it's great so far. We're living in a little house in the same complex I was in last year. Apparently the house is 120 years old. Meaning it's pretty ghetto but it's an endearing ghetto if that makes sense. It reminds me of my grandma's house in Brigham City. We're still trying to get everything unpacked and decorated. Andrea is an interior design major so she's trying to figure out how to incorporate all the posters we have. It'll look sweet once we're done.
Social life so far is good. Our apartment is the gathering place in the neighborhood after dark. Seriously, it seems like people are always over. It's good though - this is forcing me to be social and try to beak out of more of my egg. For 3 years now I've been steadily progressing so hopefully that trend will continue :) It's also great cause the friends I had before are for the most part here again. A couple of them graduated and/or moved away but it's all good. Plus one of my best friends came home from his mission about 3 weeks ago and he's back up here so that's been fun. Yeah... it seems like this is going to be a good semester.

The Joys of Summer

So today at 10 AM just when I was convincing myself to get out of bed, my friend Brianne called me and asked if I wanted to go wake boarding with a bunch of random people. After a short internal struggle I decided to go cause I've been complaining about not hanging out with single people while in Utah Valley. It was fun. We went on Utah Lake and while it was really murky, it wasn't nasty like I remember it being when I was 16 so that was nice. I of course put tons of sunscreen on and kept myself covered for the most part but I still got burned pretty badly. Granted, I could have done a better job of keeping myself covered up, but apparently I haven't completely learned my lesson quite yet.

I turned in my resignation form the other day at work and I'm totally sad about it. I'm super excited to move back up to Logan, but this is probably the best job I have ever had. I'm really going to miss the people I work with. My last day is August 20th and I'm hoping to have everything packed up by then so I can just take off that night after work for Logan. Like I said, I'm totally stoked to get back up there.

I'm just excited for August to be here in general. Exciting things happening in August (in chronological order): my worthless online class will be over, my friend Alesha who was released from her mission on July 18th will be back in Utah, one of my best friends John is coming home from his mission (August 6!!), my family is staying at our neighbor's cabin in Sundance for the weekend (apparently this cabin is bigger than our house), this awesome band called Delta Spirit that I recently discovered is playing at the Gallivan Center, my niece Tamsine is being blessed, and I'm moving back up to Logan. August is going to be an awsome month.

Well, I'm getting tired. I have a hankering for Flight of the Conchords as I fall asleep... I'm still in love with those two.

Summer Update

My mom told me that I needed to update my blog and I told her that I have nothing to update it with. But I guess that's not entirely true...


First of all - I'm an aunt! My sister-in-law Leith had her baby June 15th. Best Father's Day gift ever to my big brother, Mack. Tamsine Jane Christensen is the cutest little baby ever... She was 7 lbs and 19 1/2 inches when she was born but already she has grown so much. She also clicked the other day from what I hear.








Another blog worthy update - I saw The Dark Knight yesterday and holy crap. It was amazing. It left me speechless and during the movie I was even chewing my fingernails at some parts. Very intense, very dark, and I LOVED Heath Ledger's portrayal of The Joker. Fantastically done. I also really liked Aaron Eckhart in that film. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that Two-Face will be in the third one but I'm not holding my breath.
So yeah - other than that my summer is full of work (which I am loving by the way), doing homework for a worthless online class that I need to take for my minor, and watching movies. Therefore, I hope you'll understand my not writing very often this summer. There's just not much to write about.

Indiana Jones update

It's official. I watched Temple of Doom last night with my brother in law and I decided that I do like the Crystal Skull better than Temple of Doom. I like the general story of Temple of Doom better but that woman just drives me absolutely insane. It was a hard decision to make whether her crazy annoying character and her voice that grates on my soul was worse than aliens. As of right now, it is.

Indiana Jones *spoiler alert*

I need to vent about Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. One small defect and one very large one. First of all though, let me tell you what I liked about it. It was funny, intense, and a pretty good Indiana Jones film (despite the one large defect discussed below). I think liked it better than Temple of Doom (haven't seen that one in forever) but not nearly as much as Raiders or Last Crusade. Had it not been for this one huge defect I would have liked it way better.
Small defect - the massive amounts of overdone graphics. George Lucas had his hand in this WAY too much and (as he always does the last decade or so) has ruined a good thing. Lucas needs to either retire forever or die. He just goes way overboard with the CGI and blue/green screens and whatever else they use. In one scene especially it was really distracting. I was reminded of The Mummy and that is NEVER a good thing in any way shape or form. So my advice to Lucas: back off and let Steven Spielberg work his magic without you.
Very large defect - aliens? Seriously? Aliens!? First of all, what kind of cop out is that? Did the writers just get lazy and decide to take the easy (and crappy) way out? Second, how is that Indiana Jones? Yes, the crystal skull was kind of religious so it did tie in to the other three films but come on! There is a HUGE difference between mystical and science fiction. First three were mystical, this one was science fiction. Indiana Jones is NOT science fiction. I really want to know who's idea it was so I can shoot them in the knee cap and ask them why they had to go and do that. And what's with the other dimension? It's not space, it's another dimension. Seriously? The space between spaces? What the crap does that mean? And I honestly think I would have been more ok with aliens had it not been for the spaceship flying and disappearing to the other dimension at the end. That part was totally corny. As was Cate Blanchett getting her eyes burned out by the... was it an information overload or something? And it wasn't good Indiana Jones cheese. It was crappy cheese. Man... I still can't believe they used aliens to explain the plot.
So yeah. Those are my two main beefs with this film. Obviously though I'll own it and watch it and enjoy it because it is Indiana Jones but... not as much. I need to watch Temple of Doom again though. It's been a crazy long time but from what I can remember it was the ridiculous amounts of corn that I didn't like. I don't remember any massive plot deformities. I need to decide which is better.

Future Plans as of Now

So up until the end of this last semester-ish I've been pretty adamant about working for a nongovernmental organization of some kind doing development work. To do this I was planning on studying economic development or international economics or something along those lines. Now however, my ambitions have changed somewhat. Call me a sell-out (cause I kind of have) but I think I want to work for a multinational corporation in corporate social responsibility. To do that I'm thinking about getting an MBA that is specific in CSR. So far I've only found a few programs like this since it's such a new field but I found what looks like a pretty sweet program at Nottingham University in England. By the by, how cool would it be to live in England for a while? But it's just weird to me because I used to hear a dirty word when someone said 'multinational corporation.' With some specific corporations I still hear a dirty word but in general I now more think of the endless possibilities for sustainability, human rights, education, and economic development. And honestly, how awesome would it be to work with huge amounts of funds that MNCs have as opposed to being made to deal with the funding of a fickle Congress. So yeah. This should prove to be interesting. But fun. I've been thinking about this for a little while and I am just crazy excited about it.