A Long Overdue Update!

Wow, I just checked the blog and realized it has been nearly two weeks since my last entry! SO much has happened since then; too much, in fact, for me to write about in just one entry. In order to keep my thoughts organized, I will first list the things want to blog about and then start writing; whatever is left over after today's entry I will work on tomorrow!
1. AAA adventure
2. Office of Education Strategic Planning Retreat (09/22-25/09)
3. National Book Festival (Saturday, 09/26/09)
4. Congressional Process Orientation (Monday, 09/28/09)
5. Library of Congress (Tuesday, 09/29/09)
6. Heading to Orlando!
7. Upcoming events (work)
Here goes!
So, who knew that you have to start your car every few days and drive it around for awhile so you don't kill the battery? Not me, at least not until its untimely death! Long story (relatively) short: car was dead, and after ascertaining it was likely the battery, I called AAA (which I have had for several years and never used except for trip-planning, which frankly I wasn't doing much of while teaching). Half an hour later, guy shows up, jumps the battery, and tells me to drive for at least a half hour to recharge it. I follow his directions - at rush-hour on a Friday evening, it takes at least that long to get to anywhere I need to drive to (in this case, the grocery store) - get what I need, and get back into the car. And it is dead. Again. Did I mention I had just had it jumped less than an hour ago?
Call #2 to AAA. After telling them not to send their guy to my apartment - since I am now stranded in the parking lot of Staples - and waiting for them to show up, AAA guy #2 shows up. Thankfully, the person they dispatched this time comes in their "Mobile Repair Vehicle"; he checks the battery (and a bunch of other systems, to make sure it's just the battery) and tells me I need a new battery because this one is dead and will not hold a charge. Which I kind of suspected and was anticipating: I looked up AAA's mobile battery replacement earlier in the day to figure out what the damage might be to my wallet. He installs the battery, rechecks the systems, and tells me that I need to move the car at least once a week because even a car at rest loses power from the battery. So now, instead of just being happy that I can walk to work and very rarely have to use the car, I have to make a conscious effort to remind myself to go check on it. Go figure!

On to the retreat. On Tuesday, 09/22, the entire Office of Education (30 of us, from upper management to the newbies like me) travelled to Hampton, Virginia for our annual Strategic Planning Retreat. Suffice it to say, most of the professional development I have been to in the past was NOT at such an awesome location! Our hotel was right on Chesapeake Bay; thanks to government rate, we paid very little (comparatively) for rooms overlooking the water. The hotel was AMAZING - in addition to the "normal" hotel bathroom accoutrements, there was a little bag of goodies on the bed which included such treats as an eye mask, ear plugs, and lavender linen spray (FYI: lavender is an aromatherapeutic sleep aid). Too fun!
After a quick 1:30 conference call (from the lobby - we're still gearing up for Orlando), we were shuttled to Langley Research Center, one of the 10 NASA centers in the U.S. We were immediately scooted into a windowless (grrrr) conference room, where we commenced with our "strategic planning"/retreat activities until 5:30. Then it was off to a wonderful seafood restaurant on the intercoastal waterway for dinner and drinks (then back to the hotel for bed, as we stayed at the restaurant forever).
Day two. At Langley from 8:30 - 5:30. Interesting, but absolutely exhausting being cooped up in one place for that long! After lunch, I gave a presentation called "A Day in the Life of a Teacher", which was basically an hour-to-hour walk through a "normal" school day at LHS. Everyone was SO receptive to what I had to say; I entertained a number of questions before we were finally stopped by the guy running our retreat so we could move on to the next topic. It was such a cool experience to have the attention of such an amazing group of people, and very humbling to get a standing ovation at the end! Dinner was at another seafood restaurant (after an hour or so in the bar to celebrate 2 of our staffer's birthdays) - another LATE night!
Day three. More "retreating", plus a really cool tour of one of their HUGE wind tunnels. They do a lot of aeronautics/aerospace research there (hence Langley RESEARCH Center) - in the 14' wide, 22' tall, 50' long tunnel we were shown (we actually got to go into the tunnel), they were preparing to test a model of the rocket NASA is launching in late October. Dinner was at an AMAZING (seriously - it was the best food I have ever eaten, hands-down) little upscale restaurant near the hotel - thank the Lord for meal reimbursements! - then several of us had some drinks in my sponsor's room. Day four was a half-day, then we returned to DC (I had a conference call in the car on the way home; we were laughing about "Carla and Kristen's conference call from the car" - say THAT 10 times fast!)

Last Saturday - Mom's birthday - I went to the National Book Festival (sponsored by the Library of Congress) on the National Mall. A total of 130,000 people attended the event; it was wall-to-wall (or rather, huge tent to huge tent, as there are no "walls" on the Mall) visitors, authors, and BOOKS! I managed to make it through the line to get an autograph from one of my favorite authors (Nicholas Sparks; as usual, I was boo-hooing at the end!) then headed home to read. What a neat idea!

Yesterday, we (all the Fellows) had Congressional Process Orientation in Arlington. We learned about the history of education policy (fascinating... seriously) and how to communicate with members of Congress, then got our official Einstein Fellow letters to deliver to our state senators/representatives. Since we were all going to be on Capitol Hill today anyway, we decided to wait to deliver our letters (rather than running across town and then having to go back the next day anyway) and went out to lunch. It would have been a really awesome day (and still was, in the context of the fellowship itself) if I hadn't gotten rotten news from the prosecutor in the Little Rock case; needless to say, I am VERY glad I am here and not back in Arkansas, as I have some things I would LOVE to say to some of the people involved in the case,,,

Today was Library of Congress day (actually, one of two days, as we have such a large group of fellows this year that they had to split us into 2 groups). We took a brief (but AMAZING - I was rendered speechless, and y'all know how infrequently that happens!) tour of the Jefferson Building (the main part of the LoC) and then went through the tunnels to the Madison Building for orientation to using the Library. Frankly, that part got more than a little boring - I would rather have spent more time touring than sitting in a conference room. We ate lunch, got our library cards, then headed to the various senate and house office buildings to deliver our letters. Such a neat experience to walk around Capitol Hill all "suited up"; I really kind of felt (and looked) like I was supposed to be there!

Whew, got through 5 topics tonight! Will write about numbers 6 and 7 tomorrow - exciting times ahead!