A Capitol week!

I had the best intentions of being really on top of things this week with all the travel posts I planned on putting up, but as usual I've been distracted by work, books, laundry, sleep, and starting "Game of Thrones"/finishing "Bachelor in Paradise" with the roomies. OOPS. Delayed gratification builds character, friends - really, I'm doing you all a favor. 

I spent last weekend and most of this week in Washington, DC for a work conference - and the ever-fabulous Kaitlin was willing to join me for a quick weekend adventure before the conference started! I planned on taking a red-eye Friday night that left San Francisco at 11pm and arrived in Baltimore at 7am. Imagine my horror when Laura dropped me off and, at bag drop, I was greeted with this news: 

I was CRANKY, campers - I'm not a late-night person anymore, I had never taken a red-eye, and I was already exhausted from a super frantic week at work. What's a girl to do? First, buy some totally unnecessary but happiness-enhancing new perfume (I've gotten legit a dozen compliments on my choice, Jo Malone's Red Roses!). Then, hit the bar for the trifecta: bourbon, champagne, and books, duh. 

After a few further delays, the most hellish ride in the back row of an airplane from the 90s with a child next to me, and zero sleep + another whole book, I landed in Baltimore and finally found this girl!

We hadn't seen each other since my trip to Boston for the Shamrock Series in November of 2015 - I can't believe it had been that long, and weirdly, it didn't feel like it had been. Kait is the kind of friend with whom I can fall right back into our usual habits and rhythms - our inside jokes are never forgotten, our witty repartee is always fresh, and we have remarkably similar priorities for our time together. Namely, bottomless brunch. DC does an amazing thing in that they offer prix-fixe bottomless food AND alcohol at brunches, and we hit up Agora in Logan Circle for ours. Bottomless Mediterranean food and mimosas that, somehow, contained less and less orange juice as brunch wore on? Definitely recommend, friends. 

After brunch, we took a long digestive/exploratory stroll around Logan Circle down toward the monuments, and Kait came up with an amazing game: statue selfies! Below, a few faves, with Webster (of unknown origin/significance, but NOT the dictionary guy!) and my BOY Lafayette - he's taking this horse by the reins. 

The ultimate, however: the statue outside the National Geographic museum. OMG, A SHARK!

Before we knew it, we had stumbled on this dump:

We seriously didn't realize we were on Pennsylvania Avenue until we walked right into the barricades and were like "wait is this the White House? It's totally the White House." So we did what cool kids do and took a selfie. 

Honestly, I was surprised by how chill things were around #1600...with all the focus on DACA we had expected much more hubbub and maybe a protest or two. The crowd around the gates was comprised mainly of selfie-taking tourists, the lone exception a "Free Tibet" placard and this guy, which we spotted abandoned halfway to the Treasury:

We had the best intentions of walking all the way to the Washington Monument, but the funny thing about 555-foot-tall obelisks is that they look deceptively close and tend to recede as you think you're approaching them. Instead of hoofing it all the way over, we surrendered, called an Uber outside the back of the Treasury Building, and headed back to our hotel for free happy hour. 

And here's where I totally become a shitty blogger: from the point when we took the photo above to the point when we took the photo below, I didn't take a single picture. What happened? We met up with our friend Michele from Notre Dame, who is an assistant principal in a DC school, and Kait's friend Andy from her Bmore days, who had recently moved to DC from LA. 

We had beers at Drafting Table, then met up with Michele's boyfriend and a few of Andy's friends to go to ChurchKey and watch the ND-Georgia game. After a few more beverages, a quick, late dinner, and freezing our asses off until the third quarter, we headed home to the comforts of our hotel, the Kimpton Rouge. 

A quick aside re: the Kimpton Rouge: Kait and I are pretty sure the theme was "bordello chic." The walls, as you can see below, were upholstered in red leather. There were twenty statues of the same coyly naked woman outside the entrance. The minibar was stocked with a "pleasure kit" (details NSFblog). And the suite we stayed in came with these bad boys: 

If THAT sight doesn't put you in the mood for romance, I don't know what will. Much hilarity was had. 

On Sunday, we slept in a bit and walked over to Dupont Circle for coffee and a breakfast sandwich, admiring street art along the way...

...and then, being true adults, we headed to the Smithsonian National Zoo! 

Not pictured: bonding with elephants from ten feet away; pandas taking the most adorable waddle around their enclosure ever; a baby orangutan that absolutely made my entire day with his antics. 

Pictured: a lioness brunch squad, and a golden tamarind aka the pet that I never knew I wanted (and definitely should never actually get to have). We spent over three hours walking around and people/animal-watching - it was an absolute blast. 

From the zoo, we walked to Adams-Morgan for a street festival, featuring the best "vegan" brownies I've ever had and plenty of art, street vendors, and live music. We met Michele again at El Tamarindo for jalapeno margaritas and pupusas, which are basically little tortilla Hot Pockets from heaven. Before we knew it, Kait had to head to Reagan to catch her flight and I had to head to National Harbor for my conference! 

The fun wasn't done, though - we were invited by our independent consultants, Baker Tilly, to join them in their suite for a Nats game on Tuesday night! We started the evening in the Bullpen, an old shipping yard-turned outdoor beer garden...

...headed in with a gorgeous sunset and perfect weather to enjoy...

...and got comfy in our suite, with pulled pork nachos, crab dip, a fondue fountain, and a fridge full of beer, wine, and champagne. Our view was incredible - the game, not so much (an 8-0 victory by the Braves). Highlight, for me? The Presidents' Race...I don't think I've laughed that hard or lost my shit quite so loudly with delight in a VERY long time. I tried to take a video, but I was laughing so hard that, on watching it back, it's near-impossible to tell what's actually going on. BOO! 

All that remained by Wednesday was to wrap up the conference and head to Dulles, where I very nearly bought my dad one of each of these sweet shirts: 

...scored an empty middle seat...

...endured a terribly turbulent but undeniably pretty landing in San Francisco courtesy of Karl the Fog...

...and made it home in time for the Bachelor in Paradise finale, two pounds of cupcakes, and plenty of bubbly to celebrate the second anniversary of this girl's twenty-ninth birthday! 

Excellent DC weekend - I'll definitely be back!

101 in 1001 #18, #28 - Yoga and pilates and fitness, oh my!

Last summer I got really into yoga, largely thanks to Hannah and our very early mornings at the Lake Harriet Yoga Project. After summer ended, I spent much of the rest of my time in Minneapolis seeking out yoga classes – with friends, at our in-building gym, or even on Youtube in my apartment after a long day. Needless to say, as I made my second 101 in 1001 list, yoga had cemented a spot on the list with “#28: Join a yoga studio.” For good measure, I also threw in “#18: Take a Pilates class,” after brief exposure through the 21-Day Fix. I’ve had so much fun checking both of these off this summer, thanks to Stanford’s amazing employee wellness program!

A few thoughts on that program – Stanford’s emphasis on health and wellness is seriously unbelievable. In addition to fully funded healthcare (I seriously pay nothing for an incredible plan!), Stanford offers a holistic program called BeWell for all faculty and staff. Shortly after I started, I completed the SHALA (“Stanford Health and Life Assessment”), a comprehensive questionnaire that addressed every aspect of personal health, from eating and exercise habits to stress triggers and sleep quality. After that, I underwent a full health screening, met with a consultant on weaker areas of personal health, and worked with a personal coach to devise a plan to address those items. As the year draws to a close, I’ll complete an analysis of victories and setbacks along the way…and for doing all of that, Stanford will pay me a big fat bonus.

UM, WHAT? Sign me up.

As part of the BeWell program, Stanford offers employees free or significantly reduced fitness classes, built right into the workday. Seeing yoga and Pilates sprinkled throughout the schedule, I signed up for several classes, all for less than $3 per class. The classes, taught by Stanford’s personal trainers, were varied and engaging, challenging me every session in new ways. Best of all, the time to go to these classes is just baked into our day – no staying late, coming in early, or struggling to fit a class in around meetings…the time dedicated to BeWell classes is near-sacrosanct, and it’s the most heavenly reset in the middle of the day.

Though I’m definitely not the bendiest person in the world, and am known, if anything, for my lack of natural grace, balance and coordination, I’ve loved the yoga sessions I’ve participated in for the last two and a half months. Our instructor Patricia (a woman in her sixties who could contort her bodies in ways worthy of a circus act) taught with so much humor and patience that I felt completely comfortable flopping around with the balance of a baby giraffe. One of my favorite moments: during a shoulder stand, I overcorrected and legitimately somersaulted over my own head with legit no idea how I’d actually done that. I cracked up, half in embarrassment and half in total incredulity.

Patricia joined in, and eventually half the class (also struggling with converting shoulder stands to headstands) was losing their shit as I sprawled across my mat like a rag doll. Needless to say, I’m steering clear of headstands for the time being. That said, over the course of the classes, I’ve strengthened my wrists to the point where planks and downward dog no longer bother them…my arches to the point where my plantar fasciitis is practically gone…and my core to the point where my posture has visibly improved. Added bonus: I can stand on one foot now for like…a VERY long time. Life skills, campers!

As for Pilates…good lord, I am so in love with it and so, so bad at it. No seriously. I’m terrible. I take a Pilates-yoga fusion class every Friday over lunch, the perfect end to a week. Two of the other women in my department also take it, and it’s been a fantastic bonding experience to walk back to the office from the studio with them, bitching the whole way about how hard class was that day. Our instructor, Susan, was a petite, compact powerhouse of torture, subjecting us to every Pilates variation under the sun with the accompanying sunny smile. From accessory sets using tubes, straps and balls to full hour sessions of planks and inversions, every new segment of class offered some kind of ridiculous way to highlight my lack of strength, stamina and inherent stretchiness. That said, I loved it so much. The isometric micro-movements and small adjustments that so much of Pilates is built around seemed underwhelming to me at first…at least until I spent ten minutes in a lunge set that left me near-incapable of climbing my apartment’s stairs the next day.

Last Friday was our final class with Susan for summer session, and she came in with a vengeance ready to work us HARD. Nearing the end of class, as she held us in a one-arm, one-leg plank for what felt like forever, she laughed out loud and encouraged us to look around at how far we’d come since the first class. I peeked up with sweat dripping in my eyes and couldn’t help but grin – I am in terrible shape, but at that moment and in so many others over the last few months, I’m incredibly happy to be working toward getting in better shape. It’s absurdly fun to be able to exercise with coworkers who are all on their own health journeys (god, cheesy!)…just one more perk making everything at Stanford come up roses. Can’t wait for fall session!

Check out more of my 101 in 1001 list here!

Student life: a summer class recap

Hi friends! How was Labor Day? Mine was utterly decadent in its total lack of major activity. I stuck close to home - power-cleaning and organizing, watching football (pleased to see a solid win by the Irish to start the season!), cooking up a storm, and trying to beat the Bay Area's absurd 110-degree heat in our complex's stunning pool. All in all, an excellent three days of relaxing before a manic autumn!

One of the best perks of my job with Stanford is that, as a staff member, I get to take classes at a heavily-reduced rate. I started just a week before summer session kicked off, and my bosses encouraged me to dive right in and use my allotted education funds. So I did! While there are a plethora of for-credit classes offered that will advance my career, improve my professional knowledge, and even move me along a slow but steady road to a graduate degree, I decided to be kind to myself in a season of major transition and chose my summer classes utterly for pleasure. While they won't get me anywhere near a degree in anything but being a professional dilettante, I had an utterly pleasurable experience learning for the mere fact that I love to learn. 

I started my week with "Great Opera Performances" on Mondays. Taught by Speight Jenkins, former host of Live at the Met and the director emeritus of the Seattle Opera, the class explored in depth what makes an opera performance "great," from both a technical and emotive standpoint. Jenkins, at the age of 80, has been an opera lover and expert for decades, and brought the most incredible personal anecdotes and insights to every class. His personal friendships with titans of the opera world often left me with my jaw actually dropped, and learning about what performances/artists/stagings have succeeded or failed - and why - has completely re-framed how I look at the opera world. 

On Tuesdays, I took "The Innovations of World-Class Museums," which was far and away my favorite class. Taught by a Harvard-educated curator of Stanford's expansive museum collections, the three-hour class started each week with a thematic discussion of a development or cultural shift that affected the world of museums, and shifted in the second half to discussing a specific museum adapting or responding to that change. Some favorite combos: the rise and influence of technology, coupled with the British Museum's collaboration with Google to make their collection available digitally; the "corporatization" of museums versus government support, framed against the Louvre's controversial partnership with the United Arab Emirates; and the ethics of cultural sensitivity, appropriation, and education, demonstrated through the shifting approach to Holocaust museums, as well as debates and legal tangles over artifact ownership the world over. 

I could not get enough of this class, guys. Our professor was incredibly articulate and incisive in getting to the heart of controversial topics, and presented fact without allowing her opinion to pollute the discussion we had weekly. The accompanying course text, "Riches, Rivals and Radicals" by Marjorie Schwarzer, illuminated our focus areas even further and stretched my admittedly conventional view of what a museum should be to consider, instead, what a museum could be. 

And finally, Wednesdays found me taking a virtual class for the first time in my life with History of Wine! As we've covered extensively here, I've turned into a hardcore wino since moving within day-trip distance of Napa/Sonoma Valleys, and this class added so much to my appreciation of wine. Focused on the origins of wine, through the present day "cult" and "corporation" of wine production and distribution, I gained a totally new vocabulary around wine. While I'm nowhere near "Somm" level knowledgeable, I have a much better context for wines across the world, and can use that context to appreciate wine so much more. Plus, the flexible online format was a total kick - one of my favorite places to "take class" was at the Stanford gym on the ellipticals for a couple hours! 

I'm taking the fall semester off from classes due to our 8/31 year end, as well as a hectic stretch of travel and visitors that would make tests and papers hard to fit into an already busy schedule - but it's safe to say I've fallen entirely back in love with life as a student. I tweeted something in that vein in the thick of midterms:

Still mean that, every word, and am so grateful that Stanford is enabling me to foster a lifelong love of learning. 

Goalz

So, starting off with a joke, or rather, a funny little back story – when I was typing the title of this post, I didn’t mean to call it “goalz,” I meant to call it “goals.” At least initially, in its roughest draft form – but I just instinctively keyboarded in “goalz,” and it made me giggle, and so “goalz” it shall be.

I’m really enjoying getting to know my colleagues a bit more, particularly my two bosses (both of whom are fantastic so far). In a one-on-one touchbase earlier today, one boss (we’ll call her “K”) and I got on the subject of performance measurement and goal-setting. K, like me, is relatively new to Stanford, and is very achievement-oriented. We’re entering the performance/goal-setting phase of our year as employees, and I was asking her about goals to set. We ended up on a huge tangent, talking about how people measure success, what makes people feel satisfied, and whether an accomplishment has to have a tangible outcome to truly be called an accomplishment.

K encouraged me to set personal, private goals outside the formal performance/development module, and shared that it was one of the best ways she’d managed to feel like she was making progress onboarding here. Hers weren’t all business-based, either – they ranged wildly and covered a huge gamut of areas that are affected when undergoing a job change. She was quick to point out that the changes I’ve elected to make recently are much more far-reaching than merely changing jobs – moving cross-country, starting a new job, trying to make new friends and establish a routine and build an entirely new life. These changes and choices all conflate to create an environment that could easily feel unsettled, transitional and insecure. Goals (goalz, hahaha), in K’s eyes, provide a framework by which to reduce some of that uncertainty.

And so here I am, sitting at my desk and writing a blog post about goals, with my boss’s permission and, moreover, encouragement. (What is my life?!) It feels like I’m preparing to set New Year’s resolutions again – and I think that this fits right in with my big theme for 2017 of trying to be intentional.

Without further ado:

Lizzie’s California Goalz

1. Get to know my coworkers. Have lunch with someone new at least once a week, and ask someone at least one non-work-related question a day.

2. Move every single day. Keep taking two quarterly fitness classes through Stanford, and keep making use of the on-campus gyms (bonus: I can get in the athlete gym, and watch football/basketball boys work out while I work out. Eye candy for days.).

3. Explore one new neighborhood in San Francisco, or one city/town, every weekend that I don’t have company. Get to know my new homeland.

4. Have regular phone dates with Kelsie and Hannah, my Minnesota loves, on designated/scheduled days if possible, to ensure that we stay in the best touch that we can.

5. Write or journal for at least ten minutes every day.

6. Get involved in one community/club/interest group of some kind outside of Stanford.

7. Make it back to Minnesota at least three times a year.

8. Create and stick to a balanced, conservative (but fun) budget in this land of insanely high cost of living.

9. Take some time every month to look back and reflect on how things went last month, and to plan and prioritize and set mini-goals for the next.

10. Remember to be excited and happy and positive about this change, and grateful for everything it brings. Change leads to growth, and it’s scary and unsettling, but it brings so many good things, and I can’t wait to see what those will be for me!

My day as a mad scientist

One of my favorite aspects of my job at Stanford is that I get to go on adult field trips on the regular. My first, last week, was probably one of the coolest I’ll get to attend…the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, also known as SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. SLAC was founded in 1962 and was, at the time, the longest linear particle accelerator in the United States. Today, it maintains a partnership with Stanford, and is fully funded by the Department of Energy. Scientists from all over the world apply to perform experiments there, and we, as Stanford employees, got a major peek behind the scenes at some of the amazing experimental science happening there!

Our tour started with an informational video that lasted about 15 minutes – 15 minutes that officially proved to me that, while I’m pretty smart by layman’s standards, I’m actually pretty freaking average. We all kind of looked shell-shocked at its conclusion – I’m pretty sure I only understood the very barest minimum of the topics that were barely touched on in the video. SLAC’s scientists/work have earned 4 Nobel prizes, and discovered 3 of the 6 known quarks today, among dozens of other major scientific advances and achievements. As we all exchanged totally incredulous “wow we’re idiots” looks, our SLAC guide, Enrique, loaded us onto our fancy coach bus for our first stop – an open segment of the Linear Accelerator!

What is a linear accelerator, you ask? Well, campers, in Lizzie terms, it’s essentially a racecourse for atoms, and when they hit the finish line, they smash into a target and create collisions or impacts that are study-able. SLAC is home to the longest linear accelerator in the world, although these days, only about 1/3 of the original accelerator is still in use. The accelerator cost $100 million to build in the 60s, and would cost well over $1billion today.

We were able to view a section of the accelerator designed for models/demonstrations – the actual accelerator emits too much radiation to make casual tourism possible. The accelerator itself is 30 meters below ground, insulated by a layer of loose rock and dirt to minimize seismic impact. Even a shift of a few millimeters can shut the accelerator down, which is costly and detrimental to those doing research. When one factors in the length of the accelerator – 2 miles – and the level of precision required, the results are staggering. SLAC is officially the longest, flattest single building in the world, and when it was constructed, they built a highway bridge for Highway 280 over it before Highway 280 even existed. The level of exactness is necessary in order to ensure that the accelerator can force electrons to hit speeds of 99.9999999% of the speed of light (that’s right, 7 percents!!).

Hitting that absurd speed requires an enormous amount of energy, of course. SLAC is on the Northern California power grid, and pays an energy bill monthly just like everyone else…theirs simply runs to the tune of tens of millions of dollars every few weeks. These guys are largely responsible: invented at Stanford in the 30s, the “klystron” microwave generator was named by the Stanford Classics department from Homer’s Odyssey. The term klys is ancient Greek for “waves crashing on the floor,” appropriate for a microwave, huh? These 2 miles of microwaves, however, have the collective power of 14.7 million American home microwaves. (I think my jaw actually dropped when Enrique shared this factoid.)

Nowadays, the majority of the accelerator has been decommissioned and is being redeveloped into an entirely new form of accelerator that is based on cryogenics…with the idea being to eventually to create a plasma Wakefield accelerator, which packs a lot more power into a lot smaller space. Once developed, these accelerators, per Enrique, could someday enable hospitals to zap single cancer cells rather than using radiation, to make particle colliders accessible to college science programs and smaller research facilities, and to revolutionize general approaches to particle research worldwide.

Our second stop was at SLAC’s Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Light Source (SSRL), the most powerful x-ray laser in the world. Most of the science behind SSRL went way over my head, but essentially the SLAC crew noticed that the accelerator was throwing off x-rays that were up to 10 million times more powerful than traditional hospital x-rays. Using undulators (magnets that force electrons to wiggle, for lack of a better term), those x-rays can be further amplified to 30 billion times more powerful.

One of the most exciting uses of the SSRL is as a high-powered camera, essentially, using x-ray diffraction images to see things that would otherwise be impossible to study. Think of it as the fastest aperture speed in the world…a femtosecond exposure. To put a femtosecond in perspective, a femtosecond is to a second as a second is to 32 million years. Again, jaw dropping. The lightning-fast speeds of the SSRL enable scientists to photograph infinitesimal reactions, like atoms actually splitting or photosynthesis in process. I wish I knew more science-y things and could better explain this - it was incredible to hear it firsthand from SLAC scientists, who actually know what they're talking about!

So what’s a SLAC tour guide to do for a big finish? Let a bunch of finance people play with a gamma ray, of course. SLAC is experimenting with using diamonds to further amplify x-rays, and as beam splitters to enable multiple beams from one laser. We got to witness this in action, from within a lead-lined room, and yours truly got to push the button. I literally fired a short-term molecular gamma ray laser, guys. If I knew what that actually meant, I’m sure I’d appreciate the experience even more – but as it was, it was pretty freaking crazy.

Having watched the insane data spikes after firing (sorry crew, no photos of the action allowed), we loaded the bus up again and headed back to our decidedly less mad-scientist desk jobs, visions of laserbeams dancing in our heads (or at least in mine, anyway!). As fascinating as our SLAC trip was, knowing we barely scratched the surface is the most fascinating aspect of all to me…looking forward to following SLAC’s research in campus and world news now that I’m basically an expert!