Wow, I guess it's time to unload some stuff. Let's see if I can remember what's happened the last two weeks...

Ah, yes, Close-Up. It went well. I think it will be easiest if I do things by day:

Sunday: Holy CRAP was I tired. I didn't sleep at all on the plane that night, or during the day. By the time 9:00 rolled around I was what Dad calls "sleep-drunk". This is quite the accurate term. I have never been drunk, but I would imagine it'd be just like how I felt, but with also feeling queasy from all the booze I just downed (and without feeling like going to bed I think too). It was weird, I couldn't think straight, yet I could put forth a completely normal argument together about... supply-side economics I think it was. I thought it would work, and even though I felt dead and all I was able to argue my point pretty well. It was strange. I also met my roomies, two kids from Minnesota, and the kid that disagreed with me about supply-side economics, who turned out to be pretty cool (JohnAlex). I also met the other Alex, a girl Tyler called "Britney Spears" for most of the week because what she said about the war was practically VERBATIM to what the real Britney Spears said in "Fahrenheit 911". She also had a band shirt on for a punk band, another negative check in Tyler's book.

Monday: According to my notes, I went to see both the Jefferson Monument and the WWII memorial. By this time I was definitely feeling better. I really liked the Jefferson Monument. The dome part is quite impressive, and it contains skilful uses of his quotes. The WWII one was alright, quite proud and with the same sort of metal wreaths as the one(s) on that WWII memorial in Alaska (near Byer's Lake?). I don't remember what else. We might have had that large group thing where we pretended to be the government reacting to a nuclear terrorist attack... yeah, I'm pretty sure it was this day. That wasn't too much fun because as a whole we were too dumb to do anything right.

Tuesday: Ooh! I saw the AWESOMEST neighborhood ever! Well, at least a pretty nifty one. It's called Adams Morgan. Apparently, there's a lot of ethnic groups that have moved there in the past, and the commission is pretty good about not letting the neighborhood turn into a pile of commercial shit. It reminded me of some of the settings in Daniel Pinkwater's books. This might have been the day, too, that we visited the Islamic Center. It's a nice building, and I learned some about Islam. I can totally respect that religion.

I'm also pretty sure that this was the night I lost my backpack. They had taken us to the Pentagon City Fashion Center (A mall full of Abercrombie clones = gross!) for food, and I took off my backpack to eat. Then, I forgot to get it when I followed Tyler into a movie place. By the time I remembered to go back and get it, some asshat had already taken it. In Alaska this pretty much never happens--seriously. I am NOT kidding. So, I lost a game I bought my brother as a souvineir, my jumpdrive, the pen to my tablet, and my parents' digital camera. So, until I buy a replacement pen, all my newly-drawn comics will be in regular-type ink.

Wednesday: I went to Capitol Hill again, this time to meet up with my senators/their staff. That went okay. I also got to watch the senate in session. The senate clerk has an awesome voice. He should be on radio. Sadly, I forget his name. Most of the senators were off at committee meetings, and so only came to the floor when it was their turn to vote. Still, we saw some celebrities, such as Hilary Clinton, Bill Frist, Ted Kennedy, Ted Stevens, and John Kerry. Kerry had broken his leg, so we saw him hobble in, make his vote, and hobble back out. Certainly entertaining. We might have also gone to the Hard Rock Cafe and Ford's Theater that night. There was this bastard beggar that passed the line TWICE. The theater's the one where Abe Lincoln was shot. The play they showed was specially designed for both deaf and hearing audiences, so half the actors were deaf and signed their parts while other people did voices for them. It was pretty nifty.

Thursday: We saw the Iwo Jima memorial and the Lincoln memorial. We also went to Arlington Cementary. It's big. A necromancer would have a ball there. We also saw the changing of the guard at The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Those dudes have way more discipline than I ever will. This is also the day we ate at the pizza place and found out that John Alex and his friend Ryan were amateur hackers. They are way more 1337 than I am, with their knowledge of such things as "Ess Kew Ell Injekshins".

Friday: We ran through the Smithsonians. Triceratops skulls are huge. I mean, F**KING huge. Also, Da Vinci paints really goddamned small--I mean, photograph portrait size. I think today he'd totally be one of those guys that works on printer paper. :P Also, the air and space museum is nifty. This is also the day we had the big ol' farewell banquet. Woo.

--------------------------------------------------

OKAY, so... then, when I got back. Mom signed me up for this yahoo! group for the science camp I'm going to this summer. She was flooded with, like, a hojillion emails, like everybody else. :P Anyhow, these other kids seem waay smart and cool. I worry I might be out of their league mind-wise (as in, I'm the dumber one). :( Still, a cool group of kids.

This weekend I'm at UAF, getting a campus tour. I'm actually typing this Wednesday afternoon because I'll be gone Thursday and Friday. We'll see how that goes.

Finally, I finished that god-damned paper. You can get it here (Rich Text).

--Josh