Monthly Archives: July 2012

The end of July brought the 2012 Olympic Games from London and, therefore, another edition of my Olympics Opening Ceremonies Party! Yay!

Perhaps the main thing I will miss about working at MSNBC is the Olympics. The 2 Games I spent at the network involved sitting around the office “in case something happens” that would be worth preempting billions of dollars worth of Olympics programming. Fortunately, the news kept quiet-ish, so I mostly just got to watch the Olympics. (Note: I am told this did not happen in 2012 for the show I was working on. The staff still had to do regular shows. This is a tragedy. I got out just in time.)

ANYWAY. I love the Olympics. Summer, winter, swimming, gymnastics, archery, skiing, shooting, curling…I love it all. (Especially the curling. Trust me. Once you learn the rules, it becomes awesome.)

For the last few Olympics, I’ve thrown opening ceremonies parties, and this year was no exception. The rules are as follows:

1. Pick a country.
2. Bring an item of food or a beverage from that country.
3. Wear some form of costume relating to that country.

As the “host”, I was China in 2008, Canada in 2010, and Great Britain in 2012. Get it? Here are some photos:

In 2008, I went all out – especially where balloons were concerned…

2008 Beijing Olympics

1.5 years later, there were decidedly less balloons for the 2010 winter games. BUT there was Sink the Biz…which totally makes up for it (click here if you haven’t been introduced to the glories of Sink the Biz – hint: it involves Indiana University being awesome)

2010 Vancouver Olympics

2012 London Olympics

This year, the pendulum swung back to the borderline-overly-decorated side of things. Plus, there was a well-stocked bar, and cake pops!

Here’s a life tip: if you ever have the chance to go whitewater tubing with a group of fun people on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, DO IT. Especially if a floating cooler full of beer (or two) is involved. I know this because on one toasty weekend in July, a gaggle of us escaped the steamy swamp that is Washington, D.C., and headed to Harpers Ferry, WV for a lovely, lazy afternoon drifting down the Potomac.

The day started at about 9am, when we pulled away from Ballston and pointed the car toward West Virginia. After a coffee pit stop, we eventually made it to our tubing destination, where we got our super cool tubing armbands, rented a buoyant cooler, slathered on the sunscreen, and were finally ready to go!

BUT first, they made us watch a safety video. This was billed as a whitewater tubing trip, after all. The video taught us how to navigate the rapids, how to prevent ourselves from getting sucked under, and how to generally avoid getting impaled on the rocks. They also warned us of the dangers of drinking and tubing – 10 minutes after they rented us a cooler that was clearly going to hold many cans of beer! 🙂

Finally, they doled out the life vests, packed us onto a blue school bus (which means no A/C, and YES, it was HOT), and we trundled down to the river, where we found out all the talk of the dangers of whitewater rapids was slightly overstated. The water was pretty still. And by that, I mean completely still. Barely a ripple. Which meant our arms got quite the workout as we propelled ourselves down the river until we encountered some movement.

We spent the next few hours blissfully making our way down the river – a handful of us formed a “flotilla” by grabbing onto each other’s tubes, legs, and ankles, so as to better socialize throughout the afternoon. The beer cooler was rarely far away. We encountered a few minor “rapids”, but fortunately there was no getting sucked under or getting impaled. After we finally made it to the exit point of the river and squeezed into the air conditioning-less blue bus for the short ride back, they fed us hot dogs, hamburgers, potato salad, and lemonade. One of our super cool armbands apparently entitled us to a couple of beers, but most of us passed (the floating coolers served their purpose!)

After stuffing ourselves on all that yummy Americana fare, we crammed ourselves back into various cars for an uneventful ride home. So all in all, a successful trip and a great way to spend a summer afternoon!

149 years ago this month, the bloodiest battle of the Civil War took place about an hour and 45 minutes from Washington, D.C. I always thought that dubious honor went to Antietam, but apparently not. Evidently Antietam was the bloodiest one-day battle, Gettysburg lasted 3 days and had tons more casualties. This is all according to Wikipedia, so take it for what it’s worth. I’m not going for a term paper here.

SO, back to 2012. Some enthusiastic Civil War buffs from my A-100 class organized a group to go watch a reenactment of the Gettysburg bloodbath.

The infantry prepares for battle

I wouldn’t say that I’m naturally inclined to be fascinated by grown men (and women, it turns out), playing war. I generally feel like there’s enough of that going on in the real world without creating more of it, even if it is pretend. HOWEVER, I know the whole battle reenactment thing is a part of American culture, and since I’m supposed to be representing all of America, I figured I should check it out.

One key thing I forgot: July is HOT. And Civil War battles generally took place OUTSIDE. By the time we arrived at the battle site (which I was disappointed to learn is not actually the site of the real battle, but a few miles away), it was in the 90s and the humidity was through the roof. Another thing about Civil War battlefields: not so much shade. BUT, armed with copious amounts of sunscreen, we braved the heat.

Throughout the day we saw 2 battles and listened to “General Lee” and various other “Confederate Generals” discuss their battle strategy (which failed, by the way – Gettysburg was a crucial Union victory.) But I had to hand it to them – they stayed in character and remained completely confident of their battle plan.

“General Lee” discusses battle strategy in his tent

The Cavalry Arrives

Back to the battles. I have to admit I had a hard time following what was going on. We were kind of far away from the action, and it was really hot. The ravines of sweat running down my back made it hard to concentrate on the soldiers pretending to shoot each other. (Although they did fire loud blanks from their guns and cannons. That was cool. And the horses were really impressive – they were weirdly calm and unfazed by the whole thing.)

After-effects of cannon fire

The first battle was a little disappointing. Nobody died! It was so weird. For people who supposedly are so into the Civil War that they dress up in wool uniforms on a 90-something degree day, I would have thought some of them would want to honor the reality of the bloodiest battle in the Civil War, take one for the team, and pretend to die! I apparently was too obsessed with this point; my friends did not enjoy my indignant references to it. BUT, good news. The reenactment participants must have heard me, because during the 2nd battle in the afternoon, lots of them “died.” So that was a win. Unfortunately, they “died” too far away for me to get a good picture.

The army camp

In between the battles, we wandered around the area, where “camps” were set up with people in period dress (including women in hoop skirts – I guess I shouldn’t really complain about the heat, since I was in shorts and a tank top). We also saw a medical tent with a dummy laying on the operating table that looked as though he had had better days. Let’s all be happy we didn’t have to get operated on by a Civil War surgeon on the side of the battle field.

Medical Tent

There were also plenty of tents filled with all the Civil War paraphernalia anyone could ever want. Books, belt buckles, guns, uniforms, straw hats, whips, and bayonets to name a few.

And of course no event in America is complete without food stands filled with turkey legs, funnel cake, and Domino’s pizza (Fun fact: Civil War soldiers often subsisted on nothing but slices of Domino’s).

Overall, my day at fake Gettysburg was an experience I’m glad I had, but it wasn’t necessarily one I’m dying to repeat. I’d like to take a moment to thank my parents for not taking me to this particular “cultural experience” as a child. And I’d like to close with a recommendation to anyone who is interested in attending a Civil War reenactment: pick a battle that took place in the spring or fall. Trust me.

After 5 years in New York City, changing the world one cable news viewer at a time, I’m moving on.

Nearly 2 years after first taking the FSWE (Foreign Service Written Exam), I finally got the job. First stop: the exotic city 227 miles south of NY – Washington, D.C.

The C.A.R.’s flag

I recently finished A-100, the 6-week orientation class for FS generalists. My first assignment will be Bangui, in the Central African Republic (a country with a truly awesome flag), where I will be doing Public Diplomacy work.

I have several months of training ahead of me, so it’s back to school (homework and everything!) But don’t worry, I’m still squeezing in my fair share of socializing, especially with my fantastic and wildly impressive A-100 classmates! The range of experiences and accomplishments among my 92 brand new colleagues is truly amazing – the State Department really seems to know what it’s doing when it hires future diplomats. (And they’re really fun people too!)

An example of said socializing: today a group of us went to Gettysburg for a Civil War reenactment! A new and interesting experience for me to which I will dedicate a separate blog post soon.

But this is it for my first post, so stay tuned…