Birthday celebrations begin!

A whole week without updates has gone by. But I didn't really do anything significant Tues. thru Thurs. anyway, so let's just say I went to work, toiled, returned and slept. Except for Tues. night when I had a fantastic dinner with Caitlin at Pizzeria Uno and we sat in the Secretary of State's booth. We're a lot alike, and it's exciting to begin to understand why God put us together - His plans are so intricate!

So on Friday, I was just about beat. People had mentioned going somewhere for a nice dinner, but no one had ever made any plans. Being the planner that I am, normally I would've stepped in and started researching, but when Caitlin asked if I wanted to go to the Cheesecake Factory, I was grateful that she volunteered to take care of everything. Little did I know...

There was a big fiasco at work about how many hours a week we were supposed to be working. Originally some people were told it would be a 30-35 hour/week job (I wasn't told anything, I assumed 9-5 but its actually 9-6), and they had been keeping us there for 40+ hours a week. Its not that big of a deal if they could keep us busy, but a lot of times, many of us don't have anything to do. Its frustrating just sitting around all the time when you're unpaid anyway and not have the freedom to leave when you're done.

So someone brought it up with the Intern Coordinator this week and at about 4 PM on Friday he came around and started telling us we could go home. When my boss found out, he was ENRAGED. So then he came around telling people they had to stay if they weren't finished with their projects. Of course, on that particular day I was knee-deep in some filing project that wasn't going to be done anytime soon. So the Intern Coordinator told me that Tim and Caitlin had already left and that because I was meeting them for dinner that I could leave too, as to not be late. But my boss got really frustrated and told me to "Get the f--k out of here." I told him that actually I was planning on staying for awhile to tie up some loose ends and he said "That's the right answer."

So I stayed until 5, which wasn't a huge deal because I had stuff to do and dinner was schedule for 7 so its not like I was in danger of being late. It was a really uncomfortable situation to be in, though. I'll probably talk about it with my boss on Monday. I feel compelled.

But anyway, as it turns out, Jenna (friend at work) said she was coming to the Cheesecake Factory too for dinner. It came as a little surprise to me because Caitlin hadn't told me that she had invited anyone outside of our STP group. But I like Jenna, so it worked out. We Metro-ed up to Friendship Heights and spent awhile chilling in the mall. It was uber-complicated making reservations at the Cheesecake Factory because of a lot of things but eventually we all sat down. There were 9 of us there in all, Me, Jenna, Caitlin, Tim, Christa, Shannon, Stephen, Drew, and Alexis (from work, she came late).

I knew something was up when the waitress, after taking my order, asked me for my name. We ate our food, ordered cheesecake, and mine came out with a candle and singing employees. Apparently, the reason Caitlin wanted to plan everything was because my birthday is on Monday, and she wanted to have a nice dinner celebration. She's sweet like that :) I was totally surprised and overwhelmed by the love. It was a great dinner with great friends and great cheesecake. They bought my meal and Drew even got me a card that has President and Laura Bush on the front. Its hilarious and will serve nicely to decorate my cube at work.

After dinner, Tim had everything planned out to go to a Karaoke bar. Well, as it turned out, the place was very different that we thought it would be and we ended up leaving. But let me just tell you - it was decorated as though the person who designed it was on a righteous acid trip. There was a room that looked like an ice cave. I kept expecting Mr. Freeze to pop out of the corner. It was truly an adventure though, and pretty much hilarious.

So the good news is that God has placed me with people here that love to show me love. We all have a blast together and there are no tensions whatsoever. I'm really just enjoying every overwhelming minute. And this blog is helping me to externally process everything that's going on, which is important for me.

To all of you that support me financially, by your prayers and/or by having shown me love at some point or another, I truly thank you :)

I miss everyone at home - I think about all of you - not in a creepy way!

Love,

Jess