Archive for April, 2010

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A Professional Digital Identity

April 25th, 2010 by Manda | 5 Comments | Filed in Online, Work

Last summer, I registered my name as a .com domain. I made a half-hearted attempt at housing my creative writings at that domain, but that quickly ended when school began and I had little time to write and even less desire to deal with an online writing portfolio. I ended up deleting the writing portfolio, but I still retained the domain name.

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about using the domain as an extension of my “professional” identity. You know, so that I’d have my own little niche of the World Wide Web devoted to, well, me as a professional. I’ve been seeing more of these professional-type domains popping up amongst my peers; it seems as though creating and maintaining a professional digital identity is the next big thing in the career world. Even if it isn’t, I don’t think having one would hurt.

I’m not a graphic nor a web design student, so it’s not like I could (or should) use the domain to showcase examples of my digital work and/or expertise. I am a communications student; therefore, I have writing samples and a list of links to articles and/or web pages where I’m quoted or featured. I also have a pretty solid resume. These are all things I could put on the domain. That’s a start, right?

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A Crepe, Books and Froyo Adventure

April 24th, 2010 by Manda | 3 Comments | Filed in Food, Friends

One of my good friends and I decided to go explore DuPont Circle in search of brunch this morning. Washington, D.C. has a huge amount of well-known and delicious restaurants, but my friends and I have the tendency to go to the same ones over and over again. Don’t get me wrong, the restaurants my friends and I frequent are awesome, but it’s nice to change things up every once in a while. So, armed with nothing but the desire for good food, my friend and I set off for DuPont this morning and began our search for tasty, delicious food on this slightly overcast Saturday morning.

After some exploration around the Circle, we ended up having brunch at Crepes-a-Go-Go, a wonderful crepe restaurant I had never dined at before. It was absolutely delicious! I ordered a savory crepe with cheese, spinach and green onions; my friend ordered a sweet crepe with strawberry and kiwi that was drizzled with honey and cream. I particularly enjoyed how the atmosphere reminded me of a Parisian crepe restaurant I dined at when I did my high school exchange to France.

Next, my friend and I hit up Kramerbooks to check out the travel section for guidebooks about China. Attached to Kramerbooks is Afterwords Cafe, which is one of my absolute favorite restaurants in the D.C. area. The food is excellent and the desserts are to die for. However, my friend and I weren’t really up for pie after eating crepes, so we perused the guidebooks and came up with a tentative list of places to visit in China next year.

Once we were done checking out the book selection at Kramerbooks, my friend and I explored DuPont Circle some more. We stumbled upon Du Froyo, a frozen yogurt place that not only sells froyo but smoothies and bubble tea as well! The place is really lovely; it has a lot of natural light and a lovely color scheme with the walls and furniture. There’s a cozy area upstairs with two loveseats and some chairs, which made for a really nice area to sit in while enjoying froyo and good conversation.

For an impromptu morning adventure, this morning’s food findings in DuPont Circle were incredibly successful. (They didn’t hurt my bank account that much either, which is always a plus for a broke college kid!) I wish I had taken pictures of my food (both the crepe and the froyo) but I didn’t have my camera with me. Oh well, the memory of the successful exploration is more than enough. And let my morning’s success be a lesson to all: go out and explore to see what the area you live in has to offer!

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Sometimes, I’m Just Really Awkward

April 23rd, 2010 by Manda | 4 Comments | Filed in Life

Most of the time, I handle myself with grace and poise. I’m pretty capable in almost any situation, which is good because a lot of awkward stuff happens in my life every day. However, today my “recovery” ability completely and totally failed me, much to my embarrassment and the hilarity of those around me.

First of all, I should explain that in one of my classes, there are 2-3 people who are registered for the class but never actually show up. They were in class on the first day of the semester and took the midterm, but that was it. My class is unusually close and we are all good friends with each other, so we’ve speculated where these kids have been throughout the semester.

So, picture this: I walk into class and one of the kids who never shows up is sitting in the front row1, strumming a guitar and humming along. I am so totally and completely taken aback by this that I burst out laughing before I realize what I’m doing. But seriously? When someone doesn’t show up to class in forever and then does so with a guitar in hand, it’s kind of hard not to laugh.

The other kids in the class know why I’m laughing, obviously. We’re all close and we’re all on the same page; we’ve all tossed around elaborate and outlandish theories as to why this kid, as well as the few others, even bothered registering for this class and then not show up at all. However, obviously Guitar Boy doesn’t know why I find the sight of him with a guitar hilarious.

Me (trying to stop laughing as my friends try not to start): Oh. Well.
Awkward silence ensues. All of my classmates and I pointedly avoid making eye contact with each other.
Guitar Boy (putting down his guitar): Wait, what’s so funny?
Me: …it’s raining outside?

Yeah, I don’t know where I came up with that either. But that made everything seem 100x more hilarious and everyone dissolved into howling laughter, leaving Guitar Boy confused as ever as to what, exactly, was going on.

Also, thank you to all those who congratulated me about my scholarship! I still can’t believe that all my hard work paid off and I actually got it!

  1. Incidentally, he happens to be a really, really pretentious kid. Like, he never shows up, but when he does, he acts like he’s better than everyone else. Obviously, he hasn’t really made friends with the rest of the class. [↩]

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