On Friday, Crystal and I were walking down the street, minding our own business, when we spotted Greg Grunberg and his wife and kids walking towards us.  We definitely did a double take.  That man looks good in a suit.

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I'm doing NaNoWriMo this year.  Anyone else?  Yes, that's right.  50,000 word novel in one month.  And next month I've got to spend a few days in PMF training as well.  Should be an adventure.  I'm prepared to write the biggest pile of awfulness ever.  But it's still a fun way to waste time.

This weekend, MB and I went and looked at monuments in DC.  It was a good time, but it proves how lazy we are.  Admittedly, I did go running in the morning, but about 2.5 miles in, we decided we were tired of monuments and just went home.

We did go running this morning though.  We're not that bad.

And now, I leave you with a hilarious picture from Erin and Jay's wedding.  I have no idea what was going on, but clearly it was awesome.

EJ215218

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Long time no post.  Good job, self.

So the basics of it are that I have moved to the Washington D.C. area, started work, had some fun, and done my best to try to get back into running.  Oh, and I found out on Monday that I passed the bar exam!  All that work wasn't for nothing.  So that has made the week pretty sweet.  No idea how I'm going to get sworn in, but I don't even care. It's done and I never have to take the bar exam again.  Well, at least not that particular bar exam.

There are a ton of great places to run here.  I'm just not so good at taking advantage of them.  When the weather cools off a bit, I want to start running the monuments.  For now, I just run in my neighborhood, hitting some crazy trails on the weekend.  It's nice, but I'm not quite back to my 16-20 mile weeks just yet.  Soon enough though.  I have to admit, I'm glad I decided not to start marathon trianing when I moved.  It just would have been too much, what with everything going on.  I'm just going to try to get back into shape, increase my mileage again, and then think about marathoning.  Maybe the Marine Corps Marathon next year?  Maybe not.  This year's is at the end of the month, and I'm thinking about going down to the race to cheer on the runners. 

Work is good.  Don't want to say too much, but the people are, on the whole, very friendly, and the work is interesting. Starting a new job is always a bit slow, but things are starting to pick up.  It's only my 3rd week after all!

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• Bar exam = death. 
  
• I learned yesterday that while the IL bar exam is incredibly restrictive (no food, candy, gum, water, flip flops, and please check your soul at the door), the Oregon bar exam is awesome (please wear shoes and no home made baked goods - though how pot brownies are going to help you on the exam is beyond me).
• New Harry Potter movie = awesome, and too short.  I would like to see extended versions of these movies a la LOTR please and thank you.
• I have an apartment in DC!  Well, in the DC area - Silver Spring to be exact.  It's in the complex I wanted, so I'm pretty pumped.  It's also bigger than I wanted, which is good and bad.  Good because it'll be nice to have the space.  Bad because more space = more money.  But it will all work out
• My brother bought a HOUSE.  How is the the more grown-up of the two of us?
• And now that the oven has finished pre-heating, I am back to the studying.  Thinking about being a lawyer?  Don't do it.  Or somehow figure out how to get out of the bar exam (I hear that in Wisconsin (?) you can just go to a law school within the state and if you graduate, BOOM, licensed.  No bar exam.  Cheese and no bar exams.  Might be the best state ever)
  

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I am still tired from the PMF job fair last week.   I think the adrenaline running through my body for two straight days caused some serious damage.

I'm reluctant to talk too much about the job fair right now until I find out what's going to happen with all my applications.  For all I know, there's already a message on my answering machine at home offering me a job.  I prefer to just sort of not think about it.

So, a brief recap of last week's trip to DC.

Tuesday:  Major storms in St. Louis.  I got to the airport just as the rain started, and then there were torrential downpours and some seriously impressive lightning.  I also learned that Lambert International Airport leaks.  Awesome.  So with a few delays, I got into DC and met Jayne at the airport.  We hung out, tried to see cherry blossoms, failed at seeing cherry blossoms, and then ate some dinner.

Wednesday:  Nothing started til the afternoon where we had a meeting welcoming us to the program and telling us how the job fair was going to work.  I have to admit, I was really disappointed after this meeting.  There were a whole bunch of PMFs and not a whole bunch of jobs.  Nothing like getting your hopes up and then getting totally rejected.  So essentially, I have no guarantee that I'll get a job out of this fellowship, but I think my chances are pretty good, having had a few positive interviews.  Met a bunch of new people that I hope to stay in touch with, and that's a definite plus.  And I got to go to dinner with Shannon, and it was really great to get to spend time with her.

Thursday:  Ball of stress.  Job fair, a few interviews, lots of handing out resumes.  By about 3:00, I was dead on my feet.  Exhausted and not wanting to think about jobs anymore.  Dinner and a drink made things much better.

Friday:  Less stressful.  Job interviews, more job fair, more randomness.  Jayne and I went out to see the cherry blossoms and wandered some of the monuments, which was a lot of fun.  I want to move to D.C. and be able to run among the monuments.  And then there was dinner and cake and tv and sleep.

And then Saturday, I came home.  I have a ton of paperwork from the job fair that I need to sort through.  I also still need to send thank you e-mails to everyone who interviewed me.  I should have done that earlier, but well, I didn't.  But it's getting done today.

And hopefully, in the next few days, I will have news of a super sweet job offer.  Cross your fingers for me.

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So last Monday, I was sitting in Crim Pro 2, minding my own business, when I got an e-mail.  I'm a PMF Finalist.  Needless to say, I paid no attention to the rest of class.

Ok, so what does that mean?  Well, here's the blurb that's being used around school:
"The Presidential Management Fellows (PMF) Program was established by Executive Order in 1977 to attract to the Federal service outstanding men and women from a variety of academic disciplines and career paths who have a clear interest in, and commitment to, excellence in the leadership and management of public policies and programs. By drawing graduate students from diverse social and cultural backgrounds  the PMF Program provides a continuing source of trained men and women to meet the future challenges of public service... There were approximately 8,000 students who were nominated by their respective schools and who went through the competitive interview process in February.  Out of that number 792 students were selected as Finalists."

In other words, I'm a pretty big deal.

Seriously though, what it means is that I have a fellowship that will allow me to work for a government agency for the next two years.  There's much more to the program than that, but that's the easy explanation.  Next week, I'm flying out to D.C. for a PMF job fair, where we have to interview with various agencies and hopefully get our jobs.  I'm so excited about this whole thing I can't even explain it.  I have always loved the idea of government work, specifically working in D.C., and while there this summer, I absolutely fell in love with the city, but never thought I'd be able to work there.  I just wasn't sure how I would make it happen.

I applied for the PMF program last fall, not really expecting to get anywhere.  I made it through the first round and took an assessment test in January.  I thought I did fine, but couldn't believe I'd end up accepted.  And yet, I did! 

Some of the jobs are outside of D.C. - but I'm going to do my best to end up in D.C., plus that's where the majority of the jobs are.  It's all very overwhelming, as there's a bunch of stuff that has to get done before the job fair, and we really only had two weeks to prepare.  Thankfully, Jayne is wonderful and is letting me stay with her again, which saves me a crazy amount of money.

So, that's what's been going on with me.  I'll definitely let you know where I end up and how this job fair goes.  Wish me luck!

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