Day 63: Durham, North Carolina...and first hostel experience

So, my flight got delayed so it's now nearly 12am and I'm not yet at my hostel for the night. Need to get decent sleep before conference tomorrow so this post will get written tomorrow!

But while I'm waiting...some WWWs today:

1. Really enjoyed seeing Duke University's campus. It is super green and beautiful. Especially appreciated their impressive chapel and the huge garden they had.
2. My plane landed safely. That is always a good thing.

Edited 14/03/14!

Here is the proper post.

We got the bus from Richmond in the morning to Durham, North Carolina. Arrived at noon, got lunch, spent a couple of hours exploring Duke's campus, then left for our flights back to DC & Philly, respectively. So yeahhhh we literally spent less than an afternoon in Durham...possibly ill-conceived (mea culpa!), but hey, at least we can tick another destination off our bucket lists! Plus, Duke actually was very beautiful. Look:

Sarah P. Duke garden!

This garden is huge!! And probably unbelievably beautiful when the flowers bloom in Spring.

Even the Admissions office is cute.

Duke Chapel.

This place is about as big as St Paul's Cathedral in Melbourne. It's HUGE!

Pretty building.

Duke apparel is cheaper than Penn's.

And if you're really keen, you can even buy Duke chairs! 

Worst photo ever. Posted just for lulz. Visited the Cameron Stadium (basketball). It was pitch-black, but at least I know that they're environmentally friendly, not wasting light when there are no players on the court!

Thought I might as well wander around the psychology/sociology building. Was hoping to get a sense of the kind of research taking place here.

Such as this. An interesting topic indeed!

This made me smile too. Mentoring should totally be recognised more at Melbourne (and higher ed in general). Mentors are awesome!

Another pretty building.

So that was all fairly smooth sailing, until the evening, when my plane got delayed for about an hour, so I didn't get to my hostel in DC until nearly 12am. And when I got there, I was greeted by an EXTREMELY frazzled manager. I mean, this dude was frazzled to the max. Why? Well, due to errors in their system, they screwed up royally and totally overbooked their hostel, because various sites kept advertising their beds even though they were booked. This has been going on for about 2 weeks. Since I'd arrived so late, I didn't get the bed I booked (they gave it to someone else), but they managed to find me a bed in the incomplete hostel they were renovating two doors away. For a moment there I was actually worried that I was not going to have a bed for the night, because they actually had to turn people away after a certain point. So it ended up ok. But the dude seriously needs to stop complaining to every single customer (he's still doing it!!) about how shit the situation is and how he needs to fix it and how it's a total nightmare...I felt like I was giving him therapy or something ("Sounds like it's been really stressful"), and it was 12am! I do appreciate his efforts in trying his best to make sure everyone got a bed though, even if it meant calling up every hotel/hostel in DC and being resourceful with using spaces that hadn't been completed yet.

What did I learn? 

• Shared shuttles aren't necessarily faster than public transport. I was totally mehhhhhing at the thought of a 1 hour journey on two buses to get to my hostel from the airport, which would have got me there just before 12am. So I decided on a whim to go for the shuttle bus that was at the airport, and it got me there at about 11.40am. So, it wasn't that much faster and at $29, nearly 10x more expensive. Possibly more reliable, comfortable and safe though.
• Travelling is definitely an opportunity to practice mindfulness and acceptance. There is great value in a mindset that I realised could be a gratitude exercise - let's call it the "could be worse/at least I have ___" exercise! "Sure, I booked a bed in a four-person dorm and ended up in an unfinished 8-person dorm, but hey it could be worse, at least I still have a bed, a working toilet, and running water!!!" Also, I realised that my 4-day hike around Lake Waikaremoana over summer definitely helped build some resilience and tolerance for not-so-ideal conditions. Bare-essentials accommodation on hikes kinda make hostels (which I just overheard someone saying, "this is like a homeless place", LOL) feel like luxury hotels. Almost. My standards for being satisfied have dropped dramatically, apparently.
• Apparently, Chicken & Waffles, together, is a thing. Weirrrrrrd!

Day 62: Richmond, Virginia

Today was a day of perfect timings for everything, plenty of nature, and good food! Although the main reason we came to Richmond was basically because it was on the East coast and we randomly picked it off the map, we found plenty of things to do here and had a pleasant day.

What went well? 

1. It was an early start. We got up at 5.50am to catch a 7.30am bus to Richmond. We got to the train station at about 6.30am and were wandering around looking lost because we couldn't find the actual station, but someone kindly asked what we were looking for and pointed us in the right direction, and we caught the train on time and therefore got to our bus on time.
2. Enjoyed sight-seeing in Richmond. We walked to Maymont estate, and walked around the sprawling, peaceful grounds and a tour of the mansion.










3. Also, went to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts! I can't believe this place was free too. Very extensive collection, and so interesting to see how much art varies according to time and place. Was also really impressed by the work they had on display from some high schoolers (the first three pictures):



The artist who drew this was 14!? Wut.



Clever.










...art?










4. Public transport in Richmond was super cheap. It was only $1.50 from Maymont to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and only $1.75 to our hotel (which was over an hour away by public transport - it would have been a 15 minute taxi ride, but we chose to save that money and put it towards good quality food since we didn't really have anything better to do in the evening).
5. The weather generally worked out really well. It didn't start raining until midday, when we'd walked around most of Maymont, so went and took shelter on the mansion tour. Then it rained while we were in the art museum and really pour when we were on the buses, but generally wasn't that bad when we were actually outside. Thanks, weather!
6. Found a great place for dinner (the HappyCow app has served us very well, showing us all the veg-friendly places close by). I got this miso tofu dish, and it was probably the best meal I've had since I've been in the US. I was inspired!

7. Satisfied my cupcake cravings induced by the sadness of Georgetown Cupcakes running out of vegan cupcakes yesterday. We walked down the street after dinner since we had some time to kill before the bus arrived, and found Carytown Cupcakes just down the street! And they had vegan cupcakes, woo!! So I got a lavender vanilla one and an apple cinnamon one. Totally savoured the lavender one, it was actually a perfect cupcake - perfectly moist, fluffy, and yummy. You would not be able to tell at all that it was vegan, and I can say that honestly since that statement does not apply to all vegan baking!!

8. Saw this on the street too and thought it was cute:

9. Our hotel was really, really good value! We stayed at Days Inn Richmond and it was only $45 for a double room. Yes, $22.50 each. Actually cheaper than an actual hostel. Including free wifi and free breakfast! Highly recommended!

• 
  
10. Proof-read the final study design for the new positive intervention we've been working on in our Positive Psychology lab!! It's actually super exciting to see it finally coming together and getting ready to be submitted for IRB approval and then unleashed onto the public!! Wheee!!

Woah that was a lot of WWW's. Hey, what can I say - it was a fab day!!

What did I learn? 

• You have to pay a $1 "exit fee" to get out of the metro system in DC. What!
• If you look sufficiently lost, people will help you :P
• Carytown cupcakes are awesome.
• Apparently, according to Victorian etiquette, it was not ok for two women to converse for more than 15-20 minutes. Bizarre!
• Just read that an Obesity gene has been identified, apparently. I find these genetic developments very interesting to follow, because it really creates questions about determinism, free will, and personal responsibility. What proportion of variance do genes account for? How much control do we really have? Hmmmmmm...

Day 61: More Washington DC!

What went well? 

1. Got a lovely dose of nature and flowers this morning at the United States Botanic Garden. It was musically themed!

























2. Visited the Franciscan Monastery. Highly, highly recommended. I'm not religious but was very impressed by the church and found the tour interesting. The interior was magnificent and gave me shivers. It's definitely worth a visit.







  

3. Visited Georgetown Uni (very briefly). It's tiny, but cute!

What did I learn? 

• Georgetown University has a dedicated meditation room/building on campus!

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• Georgetown Cupcakes is a seriously thriving business. This is how long the line was (and generally is) - about a 15 minute wait:



People wait this long just to get cupcakes?!

• Also had a very bizarre encounter in the line. This random woman behind us from Dallas started talking to us about how excited she was about the cupcakes (because I was expressing my excitement about how they actually had vegan cupcakes too - prematurely, since they'd run out, sadface), and went off on a rant about fatasses in the US and how she didn't want to pay for them...republican?? Also very, very loud and expressive. I was wondering if that was (stereo)"typical" of someone from that area, but my friends later were saying that they thought she was probably drunk because there was just no social filter whatsoever. Plus, just as we finally got to the counter, she disappeared, even though she'd been so looking forward to getting a cupcake! So. Bizarre.

Day 60: Washington, DC!

What went well? 

1. Spent the afternoon exploring the Capitol and National Mall in DC, and basically saw all the major monuments:



Metro station. Everything already looks "DC", as soon as you step outside!






Capitol building






Supreme Court






Inside the Library of Congress






Library of Congress









Capitol Building














Lincoln Memorial






White House



2. Am feeling grateful to my friend's friend's aunt, who is generously letting us stay at their place!
3. It was so warm today!! We sat in the sun for awhile in the afternoon, and it was just so lovely to soak up the rays and doze off a bit in the warmth. Ahhhhhh...... #savouring

What did I learn? 

• National Mall is HUGE. We walked all the way from the metro station to the end of National Mall, which was about 4.5kms, plus we took detours, then walked another 3 or so kms to where my friend's friend was parked...
• Most of the museums and monuments are part of National Mall. You could spend days exploring just this area.
• Apparently the Library of Congress is the largest library in the world! It also houses Thomas Jefferson's personal library.

Day 59: Starstruck

What went well? 

1. Got a pleasant surprise in my email inbox. Last week, after Adam Grant's guest lecture, I gave him a gratitude card because I genuinely wanted to appreciate him for his work with Give and Take, the most influential and inspirational book I read last year. I didn't leave my email address because I wanted it to be a genuine act of giving with no expectations of a reply, so I was very surprised when I got an email reply from him today, thanking me for the card! I was impressed that he must have actually looked me up on the Penn database to find my email address. Definitely a giver. It made my day.
2. My friend's friend is in DC next week and offered us a place to stay on Tuesday night at her aunt's! Super generous.
3. Wrote over 2300 words for my sociology of education mid-term.
4. Packed my stuff for my spring break trip, and I'm happy to say that I can fit everything for a whole week (Monday - Saturday) into a normal-sized backpack!! Travelling light just makes travelling so much better.

What did I learn? 

• I'm weird. Haha. I saw a squirrel run by and I was like, "awww..." (because they're still cute!) and someone walking by looked at me very bemusedly. It was a funny expression.
• There's a certain point with writing where you just hit the wall. I literally only started writing at about 12.15pm and by about 3.30pm I'd produced 90% of the words I was going to write for the rest of the day. I spent the rest of the day doing mindless work for my research paper (collecting data points, quotes with the word "mindfulness" on Google Books), singing practice, and managed to spend another 15 minutes writing another 300 or so words. The thing is, writing is really fast and you can produce a lot of words in a short amount of time (I write in 25-minute pomodoro blocks) when you have all the notes in front of you - it's just about summarising, interpreting, and synthesising - but the prerequisites are motivation and some quality of mental capacity available at that stage (not even just energy or concentration) that had been exhausted. 2300 words is still pretty good though!

Day 58: Mid-term time

What went well? 

1. Worked on my sociology of education mid-term (50%) all day (this is my #focus weekend since I'm away Monday-Saturday next week doing fun stuff), but had company while doing it with a friend who was doing research/programming at the Positive Psychology Center. It was definitely nice to at last get out of the dorm and have someone to have lunch with and watch random videos during breaks.
2. At the same time, I had a very productive day and got all the notes ready to write up tomorrow.



I still think RescueTime is pretty neat.

3. But also managed to get down to Charlie's Jeans in Old City and buy a new pair of jeans because both my current pairs have holes :( This was a very efficient trip though - I was in and out within 10 minutes because the sales assistant knew what she was doing and I am trying to be more of a satisficer (good enough!) than a maximiser (looking for the best! decision fatigue!) when it comes to things that don't really matter.
4. Found out what I'll be singing for Opera Scenes - a duet from Monteverdi's Poppea: Pur ti miro. It's simple, but I think it's still really beautiful and we can do a lot with it, especially with infusing it with rapture and tenderness.

What did I learn? 

• My friend at the PPC shared an app they're still testing at the moment with me, which is a natural language analysis thing where you enter at least 500 words of text you've written, and it predicts your age, gender, and personality! I decided to enter all 63 entires of my blog (including the pre-departure posts) into the box...and well, the tool was pretty far off for all of these variables, but here it is:

• So apparently, I'm nearly 29 years old, slightly more male than female, and pretty much an introvert. Haha. I'd say I'm also a little higher in conscientiousness and (I'd like to think, anyway!) agreeableness. It's a fun idea though, that we could actually predict these things based on the language someone uses.

A word cloud of exchange so far...

Also, since I'd copied all that text from my blog, I thought I may as well word cloud it: