DC Daytrip

A few times a year Wilmington University offers low-cost bus trips. This is a great way to offer students opportunities to experience some of the well-known attractions in the mid-Atlantic region, and yesterday we took some students down to Washington, DC. It was pouring rain when we left Delaware, but it had stopped raining when we got to the Smithsonian.

The central location of our drop-off made it easy to walk across the national mall and up toward toward the places we wanted to visit.

Once we got out in front of the Smithsonian, we walked up to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Visitors Center (especially important for criminal justice majors!), and then on to the Crime and Punishment Museum.

It's a small museum, but chock full of history and artifacts related to crimes... and informative too! For example, did you know that once upon a time it was a crime to kiss on Sundays?

Also, I can honestly say that Ed's been in a lineup...

and I have been fingerprinted...

It's a fun little museum which covers the history of crime and punishment from long ago to the present.

After the museum, we set the students free to explore on their own and had lunch at my colleagues' favorite place, the Chop House.

We worked off all those calories from eating dessert by walking a gazillion(!!!) blocks to the Holocaust Museum.

Along the way, there were some wonderful signs of spring!

Isn't this metal sculpture of a tree interesting?

These purple tulips had a bell shape and pointy-petals. Does anyone know what they're called?

We walked and walked to the Holocaust Museum... and we probably should have done this one first in the day because it was very crowded! I think every school group within driving distance to DC was there. I've been to this museum several times, and it always moves me. This museum should be visited by everyone, because is a somber reminder of genocide.

Visitors are given an identification card of an actual person who experienced the Holocaust. The card has a photograph and tells the biography of the person. Some of the most memorable exhibits for me are the shoes,

and walking though the portals of family pictures, and just thinking about how these were pictures...

   ...of family members eating dinner, celebrating life events, and the joys of being together... all before the holocaust. The video section where so many people provided testimonials of their experiences in the concentration camps moved me to tears. I have been to this museum several times, and it always gets to me. It is truly a sobering reminder of man's inhumanity to fellow mankind.

At the end of the day, exhausted from so much walking and museum-ing, we simply enjoyed the weather and sat on a park bench in the national mall. As many times as I've been to DC, I had never had time to do that. It was so very nice!

Road Trip! Destination Charleston, SC!

Day 1

Road trip! While those words generally instill groans in others... for my family it instills a sense of adventure and anticipation! We always used to take road trips when the kids were little-- to visit family in Kentucky, Michigan, Cape Cod or go to Myrtle Beach.  This time it is different-- Ed and I are on a road trip with our final destination of Charleston, South Carolina.

We left the day after Easter-- and while Easter Sunday was cold, rainy, and so gloomy that I thought winter would never end, day 1 of our road trip began with sunny, blue skies, albeit a nip in the air. Traffic was jammed all the way down, and while we thought it would ease up past Washington, DC, it didn't ease up until past Richmond.

Once we got down to North Carolina I felt as though spring really was springing (but not quite sprung!). The rest area was beautifully landscaped and we could see evidence of a few flower buds just freshly bloomed here and there. Most of all, the temps were warmed and hot a balmy 70 degrees!

Travelling down this road again after so many years reminded me of how nicely the rest areas were landscaped in the true southern tradition...

...always a memorial of some kind to those who fought for our country.

Through the miracle of modern technology I also discovered that one of my colleagues from work, Debbie and her husband were also heading south on I-95 just a couple hours ahead of us going toward Savannah. Small world...

By the time we got to Myrtle Beach it was 76!!! Fabulous! We stayed at the Sheraton with a great view! The rates were affordable and the rooms generous and squeeky clean! It's a new hotel and I highly recommend it. It's only 2 blocks walking to the beach.

The view from our window...

Once we checked in at the Sheraton at the MB Convention Center, we walked off the 10 hours of driving by walking 9 blocks to a seafood place where we had dinner.

It's right on the beach, so we had a great view of the ocean. It was crowded, so just like when we were dating (so many years ago!!!) we sat and enjoyed drinks at the bar. It was worth the wait to get a table at the window, and we watched the sun go down as we ate dinner. As for the food-- the quality is really just ordinary, but the staff was hospitable.

When I finally felt the sand of the beach under my feet, I felt content and relaxed. This is MY place! Love that MB!

Looking forward to Day 2!

Self-Absorption...A Requisite for Dissertation Completion

I've come to the conclusion that a prerequisite for successfully completing a dissertation is developing a healthy dose of self-absorption... and that without it, one is doomed to linger on in doctoral dissertation hell. My journey has certainly been a long one, and I've had some friends and family say (or wonder) what's taken me so long! Well, factor in switching careers, illneses, family deaths, other challenges, starting a whole new program (or programs-- plural) at work, taking my program into another state, taking my program online, developing a very active honor society (for which we've been recognized by the international organization, by the way), writing new curricula, building a whole new faculty, and just the nuts and bolts of the "ordinary" tasks required at work and so there you go...years fly by! But now I'm on a successful path as I defended my proposal earlier this week, and I have a great committee who like my work! That, in itself, is tremendously validating! I didn't get to this point overnight because I have written several proposals over the years and peered deep down into several theoretical lenses and research methods...but this is THE one! It's exciting to be moving forward and making progress...now just have to keep focused and not let grass grow under my feet--- which goes back to my earlier point of saying that I need to develop a healthy dose of self-absorption and selfishness so as to protect my time and energy.

The irony of this is that I have dreaded defending my proposal because I am one of those people who think much better after the fact. It's hard for me to be put on the spot and come up with thoughtful, coherent answers. However, I did pretty well! It was also nice because I was able to do this at the downtown campus on G Street instead of driving to Ashburn...

...where the Executive Leadership program is located. We completed all of our coursework in Ashburn, and I enjoyed the process but got tired of the drive. This week I was able to take what I call the "Joe Biden" train, (the 6:25 AM Amtrak train) into DC, so it made for a more relaxing trip.

After the defense concluded, my Chair and I enjoyed a celebratory lunch at Quigley's Pharmacy around the corner.

This was an actual pharmacy over a hundred years ago! Love the history of the GWU DC campus! Since my train was not for another couple of hours, I decided to enjoy a brisk walk in the cold, across campus... where I passed the professor's gate (this is the gate doctoral students are walked through when they complete dissertation defense...

... (can't wait for that!), and then stopped by to see George himself...

...and yes, you can see that it was a cold, blustery day in DC! The day before was the inauguration, so the city was still in various stages of cleaning up...

They were dismantling the viewing stands in front of the White House,

and huge vacuums stood in the streets ready to suck up the paper litter and trash strewn about.

Banks of portapotties stood at the ready waiting to be picked up--- they were everywhere!

It took about an hour from the campus on G Street to walk to Metro Station... and it was great exercise. Yes, I could have taken the metro back from the Foggy Bottom Station to Union Station, but this was much more fun, and the walk provided time to process and think through the morning's events. It was a good day, now on to completing the IRB process, making the edits, doing the pilot study, and waiting for the go-ahead to collect data! I can see the light at the end of the tunnel! In the meanwhile, yes, I will learn to say "NO" to anything asked of me and just focus on my research. Happy days!