my last hump day here, day 18

i did it. i got up early this morning and went for my run. actually, when i woke up i had totally lost my nerve and decided not to go. but then i thought "what am i going to do instead?" and anyway i would have been really pissed at myself for being up and not going. so i braved the road with running shorts and a baggy usuhs rugby t and hid my camera in a sock that doubled as a sweat towel and took off down the stairs and out the front door. so i just leisurly jogged along and pretended like i do this all the time and it's no big deal and people pretty much gawked at the white chick in shorts running along the street. but most people said hi or good morning which is more than i ever get from fellow runners in bethesda, but these guys were probably walking to work instead of getting their morning sweat session in. so i crossed over into mellinium park to check it out and i was pretty disappointed. first of all, it was really hazy so i didn't really have a view of any of the rocks or anything. but the park wasn't that nice. it was a combination of scrubby grass, attempted manicured landscape and trashey areas in the process of being cleared. there was nothing resembling a trail so i just ran wherever and ended up on the other side of the park pretty quick. and then i looked around for any people nearby before slipping my camera out of it's sockey confines and snapped a couple pics of, well, nothing really. but i wanted to document the fact that i actually made it out. and then i turned around and ran back. it was actually really uneventful and not very interesting. there really wasn't anything to look at. and no where to really go. and when i mentioned it to dr singer tonight he worked into about hald a dozen of our other conversations about how careful i need to be and that it's kind of risky and all that kind of talk. so i went for my run. and nothing bad happened. i don't know if i'll go tomorrow. it feels, i don't know, unfun. i wouldn't run through the park again, i'd probably run on the sidewalk between the park and highway. which means i'll be in full view of every honking taxi for my entire run and i'll pass A LOT of people walking into the city. so those are both pretty annoying and pretty likely to keep me confined back to my room or the gym. i'm going to just wait and see tomorrow. i've also decided i'll just go out the side gate of the hotel (where employees come and go) so i don't have to deal with all the comotion at the main enterance. so maybe... but today was ok. worked a little on more data for my spreadsheets and went to another weekly meeting but other than that i didn't so too much. read more of that aids book too. and then i came back to the hotel and met darryll in the lobby at 6:30 to go to his place for dinner. and it was nice. he lives in a cool place (3 homes within one wall) with some other expats as neigbors. i met his house boy who cooked up some thai beef and rice (with parmesean cheese on top?) for dinner which was very tasty. it was the best beef i've had here and apparently that's because darryll brought the meat in with him from a butcher in germany. but then we had fruit and protein smoothies for dessert and talked about his career and prev med and other workish stuff. but it was encouraging as far as the things i may be able to do in the future if i do a fellowship and get my MPH. apparently if you're a doer you can make things happen so you can go places you want and work on projects that are important to you. so that was encouraging. and he's a cool guy. so that's it. and now i'm going to relax for the rest of my night (or what's left...)

the picture on the top was taken during my run, the girl is dooshima and she's uncharacteristically dressed in more "traditional" wear than her usual trendy duds, and the bottom is aso rock and the moon on the way to darryll's car in the hilton parking lot (it was hard to keep still for so long so it's blurry)