Happy 12th Birthday, Emma!
I couldn’t be there to celebrate, and you
might think that our first day of adventure and fun in Washington should come
ahead of birthdays back at home; but my family and friends will always come
first for me. Hopefully Emma’s had a
great day; and I hope she likes the gift Michael and I left for her.
My day started out great when Michael and I
went outside for Tai Chi at sunrise.
That earned us some attention from other hotel guests and staff; and
that was as much fun for us as always.
After that – and a few good morning kisses – I had to share bathroom
time with my roommates in a mad dash to get ready for the day – starting with
breakfast for twenty-six. We were all
fired up about our first day in the Capitol, and while I’m still looking
forward to our visits to two of the Smithsonian museums; I was okay with the
change in our itinerary that Uncle Nick and Principal Jacobs made for today due
to the weather forecast for the rest of the week. Basically, we’ve switched our Monday and
Wednesday schedules for the morning and afternoon; and we went on the Memorials
and Monuments tour today.
There are some advantages to mostly
self-guided touring!
Breakfast was decent, if no comparision to
Jacob’s cooking, and then we were on the go and off to the National Mall and an
all-morning tour of the monuments and nearby Memorials.
Before I get to that, let’s just mention
for the record that the girls in our class – who shall remain un-named here –
were hopefully joking about being devastated after finding out that the
National Mall is a park and not a shopping attraction. There has to be at least one or two in every
group; but that doesn’t make it any less scary.
Now, on to my impressions of everything we
saw today.
My perspective is definitely affected by my
education, and in this case; the millennia of history that I know in details
far beyond anyone else except Mom. That
doesn’t make architecture like the Washington Monument or Lincoln Memorial any
less impressive; but that is still in context of comparing history that is only
decades or centuries old to thousands of years in the past. The Washington Monument will be open again
soon after undergoing years of repair from the earthquake and storm in
twenty-eleven, so we didn’t get to go into it; but it’s still something to
see. The Lincoln Memorial had more of an
impact on me; though that was more from seeing the inscriptions of Lincoln’s
famous speeches – and the history that surrounds the place. With all of my abilities, and knowing a lot
about history, doesn’t change the fact that there’s something special about
personal, hands-on experience – and the undeniable feeling of being in a place
where great people have stood and history has been made.
Those feelings don’t change who I am, and I
can’t help but also point out that there is not a single monument or memorial
anywhere in the world for any Magi of the Light. Many of those Magi did far greater deeds than
any President or leader of any kind; yet most of those events are lost to
history – intentionally. Any Magi
reading this will understand why that happens, and I certainly do too; but I am
also thinking tonight about why I’m still so deeply affected by some of our
nation’s great displays of hubris. I’m
sure that perception would be ridiculed by the masses, but if we were truly the
greatest nation on earth; we’d have been solving world hunger and there would
be peace everywhere instead of palatial homes for our leaders and billions of
dollars spent on what’s essentially idolatry.
Time to step off of my soapbox and move
along.
The second half of our day was more somber –
which is why Uncle Nick hadn’t planned this for our first or last day in the
city. I can assure you that my
perspective on Memorial Day at home in Witch Falls is going to be different
this year after visiting the war memorials and Arlington Cemetery. I’m also not going to step back up to the
podium for a rant on the futility and waste of war. Instead, I’ll just be quietly horrified and
saddened for all of those men and women who have been lost to war; and the
families that have suffered from those losses.
All of those deaths over the centuries is mind-numbing; and the lost
potential for our country is incalculable.
It seemed appropriate to me that the rain
started to fall as we neared the end of our afternoon tour; though I was also
okay with the fact that it didn’t start raining harder until we were on our way
back to the hotel. We – okay, the girls –
were given a half hour to freshen up before heading out to our dinner and a movie
night; and then we were on the go again.
I love Chinese food! We don’t
exactly have many opportunities to have it back home; but I was reminded
tonight that I seriously need to find a good Chinese restaurant in Crystal Springs
and put meals there onto some of our shopping itineraries.
The food was great, though we didn’t really
have that much time to eat before needing to move on to the theater for the
early show. There was nothing
educational about our evening entertainment, and teens from cities would
probably think it was a boring way to spend an evening in the Capitol; but that
wasn’t the case for most of us – and it wasn’t as if we could have had any
outdoor fun with it raining anyway.
More than half of our group picked Captain
America for their evening entertainment, including some of our friends who had
already seen it with us on Gil’s birthday; but the rest of us opted for
Transcendence – including a few girls who were happy to see anything with
Johnny Depp in it. I wouldn’t dream of
criticizing Johnny Depp or anyone else involved in the movie – particularly around
my Depp-fan friends – so let’s just say that Transcendence wasn’t; and leave it
at that.
The cuddle time with Michael was very nice,
though; so it wasn’t a total write-off of our time! ;^)
We went straight back to the hotel from the
theater, and were left with just a little time for socializing before our eleven
o’clock room check. I’m sure that it was
just random luck that put Michael and me alone in my room for nearly a half
hour while the rest of our roommates were either in his room or off having a
snack break with some of the other teens.
I’m sure that our parents will hear about it, but my Magi chaperones pretended
not to notice that we were alone and unsupervised in a hotel room. I’m not going to write anything more about
that little blast of fun either; other than to say that we took advantage of
the opportunity – and are both very happy campers.
Don’t be shocked – and we weren’t the only
couple looking for some alone time either.
Speaking of couples, though, I haven’t
mentioned the teen drama from last night that most of us didn’t find out about
until this morning. Kris Robinson broke
up with Denise Burroughs sometime last night between dinner and our bed
check. His timing sucks, and Denise was
upset today; but then she also seems to be getting past that fairly quickly
too. We’ll see, but maybe they’ll be
happier this week than they would have been hanging out together when they
weren’t really getting along anyway.
That is two of the troubled couples down with just one to go. I’ll guess there will be more to come on that
soon.
There was some tub time going on in our
room tonight, but Rowen and I weren’t in on that; and instead left the bubble
baths to Gretchen and Sally to take turns having while we spent some time on
our computers and chatted about everything from our adventures so far and plans
for tomorrow to boys and YouTube videos.
It was past midnight before we were all in bed, and I waited until
Gretchen and Sally were sleeping before doing the bit of family business work
done that had popped up in my email. I
did a Hathorne Industries check too; and they’re all in New York with no listed
plans to travel to Washington this week.
Mom’s checking that more often for me; and will let Uncle Nick,
Principal Jacobs, or Tracey know if that changes during the daytime while we’re
out and busy. I’m not getting any bad
feelings, but then that doesn’t always happen with much notice either; so we’ll
be careful.
As I’m getting ready to wrap this up for
the night, it seems as though my reporting on our trip so far has been a bit
under-whelming – particularly when I’ve written almost nothing about the
city. All of my classmates share
feelings of pride and awe for our Capitol, and there are lots of comments about
what we see as we’re driving around the city.
I have that sense of pride too, but to be honest; I’m also often a bit
overwhelmed by the empathic vibes around here.
I have that problem to a certain extent in all cities, but it’s
particularly tough to handle in big cities and crowded areas – especially when
the bad vibes outweigh the good ones.
That’s definitely the case here; though
there’s a contrast between tourist crowds and the locals and visiting
dignitaries and businesspersons. Since
we’re going to be at the White House and on Capitol Hill tomorrow; I’m probably
going to be in for an interesting day.
I really should wrap this up now; though I’m
not sure that sleep is going to come easily tonight. Rowen’s still fired up too, though, so we’ll
eventually talk ourselves out and crash for a few hours.
Until next time; live long and prosper,
fellow Magi of the Light!
