What have the Petersons been up to?

Life the Past Few Months...

Farewell, Corporate America:

After two years of pining for academia (I think I might have been the only person crying in a corner instead of celebrating at graduation), I was accepted into the Health Communication Master’s program at George Mason University!

My first year, I will be going to school full-time on a (pseudo) research assistantship. My second year, I will be on a (real) teaching assistantship teaching introductory communication classes to little freshmen – although, let’s face it, they are probably going to look/be older than me.

I do like my job, and I’m grateful to have a job, but I really feel like academia is where my heart belongs. I’m excited to join Richard as a fellow Patriot!

Richard the Litigator:

Doesn’t that have a nice ring to it? Richard was offered a full-time job working at a prestigious employment law firm in Washington, DC (only about 4 blocks away from where I currently work!). He will continue working there full-time next year, and switch over to GMU law’s awesome part-time program. He will be really busy come fall (did I mention that he is also going to be managing editor of GMU’s law journal and on the moot court team?), so we’re going to try to make the most of summer before life gets too crazy!

Because he’s switching to the part-time program, Richard will be extending by a semester, which means…. we get to walk together! (Walk, meaning “graduation walking”). I smell parental trips to DC right around May 2012. Mom & Dad, I’ll get Richard to draft up a Letter of Intent to Visit Your Youngest Daughter at Graduation form for you to sign. That will be $800, please.

Born to Run

I recently finished my second half-marathon in Champaign–Urbana, Illinois. I ran it with some high school BFFs (shout out to Katie, Sara and Molly), and we had a blast! The course is touted as “the flattest race in America” (or something along those lines), and it didn’t disappoint! There was supposedly one “big” hill in the course, and we kept on saying, “hm, I think this might be the hill coming up?” but we never quite found it. I was surprised and happy to finish in 2:19:30 (about 20 minutes faster than Baltimore).

Of course, there were also several GREAT Hills in the area (I love Hills in Illinois jokes – funny every time). I stayed with my sister (last name, Hill) and her husband and two adorable little boys for the weekend. It was a great vacation!

Richard and I are signed up for a 10k over Memorial Day weekend, and then I am going to be running the Seattle Half-Marathon with my sister in June! Next up, full marathon? That’s for me to know, and you to find out…

Pack up the handcarts, we’re going to Utah

Since Richard has a couple weeks off between finals and work, he’s going to go visit family in Utah for a week in May. I will also be joining him for an action packed weekend (I couldn’t take any days off work, boo). Are you also planning a trip to Utah in May? If so, let us know!

Life Off Metro

Last summer, Rich and I took a field trip to Fairfax, VA to find bikes at garage sales. I found a great red bike that had been ridden with love for many years (so much that a pedal was missing). I quickly determined that it was a "bike with character" and purchased it posthaste.

Even though we got it at a good price, I was still concerned with our ROI (Return on Investment, for those in the non-corporate world). Assets v. liabilities, people!

I determined that my ROI on my bike had to be at least 2:1 to justify spending the money. The bike cost $10, and a replacement for the missing pedal cost $2. My roundtrip fare to and from work costs $5. So, for all you math majors out there, I will be riding my bike at least 5 times to make a decent profit on buying the bike (is that right, Michelle?).

Regardless, I rode my bike to work today. It was AMAZING. I watched 2 planes take off from National Airport at Gravelly Point, ate a quick bite by the Tidal Basin and got a great view of the Georgetown Cathedral while crossing Key Bridge. And, I only got lost twice!!! That's about 5 times less than I was expecting.

Other good things:

(a) I don't have to set aside any extra time to work out today - it takes me the same amount of time to ride my bike as to bus/metro in (about an hour).

(b) I'm in a really happy, endorphin-filled mood when I get to work.

The only thing about the bike is... well, it's not a road bike per se and the gears are stuck, so I have to ride the whole way with one gear. But, it's a bike with character, and I love it! Trying to think of a good name right now for her.

Life on Metro

Remember my post [http://theretimes.blogspot.com/2008/10/washington-mecca-of-metropolitan.html] from 2008 when I raved about the DC Metro, with a cleverly alliteration-filled title?

Well. It has now been about a year and a half since I posted that, and I certainly do not feel as unicorns-and-rainbows about the metro now as I did back then -- although I do still very much appreciate all of the Top 5. It's had quite its share of problems (remember the red line crashES last summer?) and an disturbingly large number of train cars break downs and fare increases.

But, despite its problems, I still do like the metro for getting me to where I need to go each day. I take the blue line (holla, fellow blue line riders!) 3-4 stops, depending if I get on at Pentagon City or Pentagon, so I'm honestly not even on it that much.

But (enter: the point of the post), I have made some interesting sociological observations while taking my 10 minute ride every morning and every night. One of the most interesting things I have found is that with each stop in the morning, a distinct demographic typically exits. I've made a game of finding a random person on the metro when I get on in the morning, and guessing at which stop they exit to start their day. It's quite a jolly time.

Here is what I have found:

Stop 1: Pentagon City. This is where I get on, so I'm not really paying attention to who gets off. I'm more searching frantically for that highly-coveted open seat.

Stop 2: Pentgon. 95% chance that anyone in military-looking clothing will exist; 50-60% chance that anyone "scary looking" will exit.

Stop 3: Arlington Cemetery, i.e. Tourist Central. In my experience, 100% chance that anyone with children will exit; 90% chance that anyone with a visible camera will exit; 90% chance that anyone with a shirt featuring Washington DC or Obama will exit.

Stop 4: Rosslyn. I would say that nearly 100% of exiters here are wearing suits, although I have yet to find another distinguishing factor.

Stop 5: Foggy Bottom/GWU. 85% chance that anyone with a backpack and/or wearing jeans will exit because of the close proximity to GW and Georgeton. 100% chance that Emily will exit here (unless she gets too caught up in reading the "Totally Lost" blog, which may or may not have been the case this morning).

I think it's kind of fun that each stop has its own personality. I should start awarding myself prizes when I guess people's stops correctly, which -- I hate to toot my own horn -- happens quite frequently.

OR, maybe I could put this sweet acquired skill on my resume in case I want to be an FBI agent or something. Hm, hm? I can be the "Emily: The Metro Hunter." YES!

Welcome, Sakura! Farewell, Sophia!

This morning as we were clearing off our car from this weekend's crazy storm (over 2 feet!), Richard gave me an impish smile and said, "there's something I have to tell you!" The big news was that our new car/Christmas present, Sakura, was en route to Alexandria from Richard's parents house! Side note: Richard had known this was coming for a whole week and did a really good job keeping it a secret from me - way to go, Rich! He is usually really bad at keeping secrets!

Only a few hours later, Sakura came in all her glory (well, there is a small part of her that is NOT glorious, but we will get to that later).

With Sakura's arrival came a sad farewell to our BMW Sophia, our wonderful companion and friend, and our primary mode of transportation since our wedding. We will miss you, Sophia!



Here is Barry, who volunteered to drive to and from Utah to bring us our new baby. We love Barry (and not only because he often travels cross-country to bring us goodies), and were happy to see him, if only for a few minutes.



The last thing we had to do before the switch could be complete was to turn in our old keys for our new ones:





Except, as it turns out, Sakura actually doesn't need keys, as she doesn't have an ignition... you turn her on by pressing this handy button:



Okay, now onto the bad news. As soon as Sakura came into view for the first time, Richard said, "Emmy, you are going to not be happy in about 7 seconds." And oh boy, was he right. Upon closer inspection, I realized that Sakura has UTAH UTES plates! (To my U of U friends who are reading this, don't take this paragraph too seriously.) Needless to say, this will motivate us to change over the plates to Virginia plates VERY quickly. Luckily, when we were doing a final check through of Sophia, I found my BYU hat, so I could take this photo to express my emotions:



All in all, though, we are very happy with Sakura! She is a 2009 Nissan Altima in black. Look how awesome Rich looks in the driver's seat!


Welcome to the family, Sakura! Love, Richard, Emily, Bertha and Kitty

PS- Here's the back story for Sakura's name: Sakura means "Cherry Blossom" in Japanese, and since Nissan is a Japanese company, and Washington DC has the famous Cherry Blossom festival each spring, it was the perfect fit!

Too Late

Saw this on the interwebs and I laughed. And so I share...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZfRaWAtBVg

Just set up my droid to blog via txt. Hope it works.

GMU Married Housing...

...so there isn't any married housing at George Mason, but it looks like it is abundant in Utah!