the winter is forbidden til December, and exits March the 2nd on the dot.

The month of December has been an in-between month, a month of transition. I’m coming out of it in a very different place than I started.

The month began with a lot of boredom at work, and a feeling like I wasn’t growing or learning so much. I resolved to solve this by applying to volunteer at the Academy of Natural Sciences in an entomology lab, after attending a wonderful lecture on the ‘superorganism’ by Bert Holldobler and E.O.Wilson, two luminaries in the bio world that I really respect and find particularly inspiring. While volunteering at the academy would have been lovely, it was not to be.
You see, earlier in the month of November I had applied for a few jobs I had seen on idealist.org, including one at ACEEE, the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (longest name ever, right?), doing research and program assistance for the three directors of the organization. In the second week of December, I had a lovely phone interview, and then the next week I came down for an inperson interview, and three days later, I had a new job! It all happened very quickly, and I’m quite excited about it.

This means, of course, that I’ll need to move down to DC, an exciting prospect for me as I’ve always liked DC as a city. Plus, it’s my sister’s city, and some great friends are down there. I was understandably nervous about finding my first apartment on my own, but I just returned from a weekend-long apartment-finding trip (and the first apartment I saw was a winner). I also looked at a few others after that and have some back-ups, but barring any abnormal difficulties, I’ll be moving to Van Ness in northwest DC in a few weeks! I’m going to be living with two other jewish women, both in their late 20s, and in a rather nice apartment and building.

Needless to say, I’m pretty thrilled about going to DC – the beginning of a new administration feels like a great time to move to the capitol, and I’m happy that I’ll be working for an organization doing something I’m really passionate about.