 I'm Mark Johnson. I'm Stella Rose Johnson. And we are a father-daughter tag team here. It's our first podcast, so bear with us as we sort of feel our way through this. But we have a lot of conversations. We have a lot to say. One would say we like to unpack. And here comes our better half, take a picture of us. So already we're already famous. All right, so we're going to have to be a little tight on time here. Time will go really fast. So we're going to get right down to it. OK, let's go and do it. OK. So big day tomorrow, moving to Washington, DC. And how are you feeling about that? Feeling good, feeling excited. I think I'm very lucky I'm going to a space where a lot of my friends in the past couple of years have also graduated from Skidmore R. So I have a support system. And I have a pal I've known since I was four months old there. I think that'll be really nice to kind of just take my friendships to like the adult world and learn, be in a new place. Washington's a very, very active place. I've heard nothing but good things. So I'm excited. But, you know, very bittersweet to leave Vermont, I feel like, especially in the summer, because it's Vermont summers. And leaving me. And of course, leaving the family, leaving the dog. And your mom and Daphne. Yes, everyone. So bittersweet, but excited. And what's the plan? Plan is to work at a restaurant for the summer, hopefully a sushi restaurant where Anisa and her mom went last night actually. And they said it was very, very good. They made friends with the sushi chef. They were getting free sushi. So I feel like we have a little bit of an in already. And then hopefully just do some policy work and social work related activities, whether it's interning or getting like a full on nine to five, but not going to rush that because I feel as though I have time to make a choice. Well, and we have a big summer of we're going to California. True, we have a wedding. Glenn's daughter, my best friend from college. His daughter's getting married in San Francisco. So that'll be, can't really take the big full time job. Yeah, that's true. You have an apartment. Anisa you mentioned is going to be one of your roommates. Where's the apartment? We have, well, we got a home. We have a whole house in Noma, which is a more, I think it's a newer area of DC. It's very up and coming. There's a university. There's a lot of apartment buildings kind of still being built or new. And so it's a lot of young people, but you know, it's very, seems very lively. And yeah, we got a little townhouse just found out it has air conditioning, which is huge because it'll be very hot. Amen. Yeah. But who's the third roommate? Brenna Green. Who's Brenna? She graduated last year, and she's been in Germany for like six months. She just got home yesterday. So it'll be a good little squad. Well, tell people about Anisa. She's one of your co-worker friends. Yeah, one of my best friends. I had my pre-orientation freshman year with her for like, it's called Scoop. We were out in the woods. And then drifted apart a little bit. We're in different friend groups. And then kind of really reconvened junior year. And then lived together this year, senior year, which was very special, also with Brooke and Will. But yeah, I feel like, you know, she's a good egg. She'll be in my life forever. And Brenna, also a very good egg. I feel like all the people I'm gonna be surrounded by in person are all very special people full of love. But then also like, you know, long distance friendships that are now occurring with, Brooke, my other best friend, going to University of Edinburgh for grad school. And yeah, you know, people will be all over, but we'll visit, we'll FaceTime, we'll be in touch. Well, you know, I think one of the coolest things you mentioned that one of your friends since you were four months old, Eli, right? It's really what's so fascinating what, you know, I found in my 62 years and nine-tenths on the planet is how people come and go. And it's really interesting how, you know, you really haven't spent a lot of time with Eli in the past years, but we're very tight with him when you were growing up. Now you kind of come back around again and you may wind up spending, you know, a good chunk of time with him now. So it's really kind of interesting how that happens. Yeah, yeah, different walks of life, but also when you can reconvene. I mean, that was something we talked about when I saw him last week. It was very much, it was very nostalgic to see someone that was such a big part of your childhood, even if you don't remember a lot of your childhood, it's just looking at pictures or videos or what your parents tell you. And then, you know, you make new memories as an adult that are more prominent, but yeah. Somebody like him, there's just a lot of explaining you don't have to do. You know, it's already, I'm using my hand to indicate that there's a base that's sort of already there, which is kind of cool. So he may be somebody, I'll be interested to see a year from now if he's somebody who you've spent a lot of time with and really kind of is one of your go-to people. Because he's, you know, he's a good person. So sorry, yeah. How are you feeling about tomorrow? Mixed, as you can probably imagine. I mean, I'm really excited for you to have this new beginning. I mean, I remember first time I moved out of my house after college, it's, you know, it's a really, you know, your whole future is ahead of you. So I'm excited for that. You know, I'm trying to take this like a lot of things just day by day and figure that, I mean, if I start to think about you moving out forever, you know, it's a little overwhelming. But, you know, same thing when you went to college, we did a great job staying in touch. I mean, you and I probably talked two, three times a week, right? That's how we got this idea, because we always talk on the phone while I'm packing, may as well share with the share the wealth. Why are we recording this? Exactly. And, you know, I'll share this with you. I mean, it was really very moving for me when you said to me, even as often as we were talking that, you know, you should call me more often. Because there are a lot of young adults like you are who, I mean, I wasn't saying to my parents, you need to call me more often. We have a, I think it, you know, it's a different generation. It's a different, we have a different relationship, I think, than a lot of parents have with their kids. And I'm really happy about that. So I'm really trying to look at your move as, well, you know, I'll see you in August when we go to the wedding. And I know you'll stay in touch with me. It's not like you're going to the moon. Not yet. You know, and, you know, but you know, part of me, it's been really great. I'm really glad you didn't just leave straight after your graduation and going out to Washington. I think that would have been a little abrupt. Yeah, I think that would have been tough to do, honestly. I don't think I would have given myself enough time to kind of process how much was changing. I mean, yesterday was really nice. We went downtown, went to the bagel place, we had lunch, we unpacked for, you know, some stuff. And, you know, we went to the bookstore, we just kind of hung out. And that was, you know, I really, I have to say, I have really valued this last couple of weeks. And, you know, your friends have come over. You know, as you know, I love your friends. You have this just incredible group of friends who are really cool, who, you know, I think you can really judge somebody by the quality of their friends. And if I didn't even know you, I mean, your friends and your friend group are an incredible group of people. You know, Annie Badell, Lily Donnelly, you know, Claire Donnelly just spent a few days with us. You know, Anisa, you know, I'm gonna wind up leaving somebody important out, you know, Will and Brooke. I mean, when your mom and I would go down and visit you at Skidmore, you know, as I've told you, when my parents, God bless them, would come and visit me at Trinity College. You know, would they take us out to dinner and then Adios Amigo, we'd... Beer pong. You know, no beer pong, exactly. You know, we were kind of trying to move them along after dinner and that's not the case with you and your friends. You really like hanging out with us and that's been really, that's been really special. So that's how I'm feeling about it. Very nice. What else do you wanna ask me? What was your first apartment? What was your first living away from home experience? Yeah, what was your first living away from home experience? So the first time after college, I went to Trinity. I graduated in June of that year and I think my brother and I went to Africa. Right, California, that story. So my brother, older brother, who was about to, had just taken the law school trying to become a lawyer and took the bar, as it's called. And we took a trip where we went to Tanzania, Malawi, and wandered up down in South Africa. We hitchhiked most of the time. I mean, I sort of can't believe what we did now looking back on it. I mean, my parents most had just been terrified. Did they know to the full extent what you were doing, though, or was it kind of a sugar-coated how you were gonna be getting around? Well, we had a plane ticket back on a date certain from South Africa. But one of the things that happened on that trip is that, and then there was a friend of, there was a person that my dad was a lawyer had done some business with who had a place that we were gonna visit in what was then Rhodesia and is now called Zimbabwe. So we had a certain date that we were gonna be there but we got there and then my brother and I, we climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro. And so then after that, we just kind of hitchhiked and didn't really have much of an agenda. And then we finally wound up at these people's house probably, I don't know, we were gonna supposed to be there about six weeks later. We were there a total of three and a half months. And we did a really poor job calling my parents. This was back before the days of the internet. No FaceTime. No FaceTime, no cell phones. In fact, to make a phone call home, you had to go to a phone like center in a downtown where there'd be a bank of phones and you'd make a collect phone call home. So about maybe a month into the trip, we were like, oh, maybe we should check in back home. And we called back home and my parents were just ripped. And the good thing for me is that I had an older brother so he got all the blame because, you know, why didn't you keep better in touch with us? Yada, yada. So that's, you know, keeping in the loop was a good thing. So then after that, we came back home and I went up, now my recollection is that it was Thanksgiving, I went to Jamie's house in my best friend's in seventh grade. I had a place in Cavendish, Vermont, right near Okimo. And I went to visit him and his older brother's wife, his sister-in-law worked at the Eagle Times. And I wound up getting a job as a reporter there and lived in Springfield, Vermont for about a year and a half and then moved up here to Burlington and worked at the Free Press. So should I tell the story of what happened with the apartment in Springfield? Yeah, what happened in Springfield? So this was the apartment where the landlord paid for the electricity, but not the gas heat. Okay. So I've told you the story. So one of the ways that I kept the apartment warm is that I would turn on the oven and then open up the door to the oven just a little bit. Okay. I've told you this before. No, you have not. So I went over, I would go over to Jamie's house some weekends when he would come up. So I would, and the apartment was really small. So I could literally open up the oven door just three or four inches that first setting and pretty much heat the whole apartment or certainly cut down on the gas bell. So one weekend I went over to Jamie's house on a Friday and Sunday morning I woke up and went, oh no. And I said to him, you know, I'm not sure I turned off the oven before I came back here. Brother. And I said, you know, and so he describes it, I just bolted out of the house. And you know, it's about a 20, 25 minute drive back to Springfield from his place in Cavendish. So I'm driving back and I'm saying, oh, I don't think I turned it off. And then I started coming up the hill around the corner to see my apartment building. And then the building was there. Yeah. So I said, well, now I've been paranoid. And you know, I'm sure I turned it off. So I walked up to the apartment door, opened up the door and got hit with this wall of heat. Oh gosh. And it was probably 200 degrees in the apartment. You know, paper looked like it was ready to sort of half catch on fire. And I had in fact left the oven on and been heating the place, you know, all weekend. And this guy who is my landlord, Jeff, I saw him a couple of weeks later, you know, clothes that turned off the oven. Everything seems okay, having let the place on fire. But then Jeff, who is my landlord, I ran into him about three weeks later and he's like, wow, dude, I just got the electric bill. You know, what are you doing there? Are you like leaving every late on 24 hours a day? And I was like, yeah, you know, I've just been really kind of, you know, careless about turning off the lights. You know, he had like a $200 electric bill just from that one weekend. So my one piece of advice to you as you move into your first new apartment is, you know, make sure you turn everything off before you leave. Yeah, yeah. Oh, and I will, because we're paying for electric and gas, so. Well, and you have roommates who are more responsible. I was living alone, so you have more. But I was paying, I was trying to remember, I think I was paying $200 a month for this apartment. Oh, it's crazy. Yeah. Yeah, it's crazy. And it was right across the street. Do you remember the Heartness House in Springfield? Sounds familiar. Yeah, it was a really nice hotel restaurant. It was literally across the street, so I would eat a lot of meals there. I was sort of my drinking spot. But it was my first job. It was an afternoon newspaper and I was working, you know, 1,000 hours a week. So I had no life other than going over to Jamie's house in Cavendish. That's one piece of advice for you. I have never. Never told me that story. I have definitely told you that story. I never told me that story. Wow, okay. Well, it seems a little classic because I feel like you are a little, you know, marching to the beat of your own drum in your 20s. And that's so fair. Lowly responsible, shall we say. Yeah. Yeah, now I'll have roommates to, you know, double check the oven, the lights. Yeah. All the things. So is there anything you're worried about? What's your biggest concern? Living in this new situation. It's not college, you know, which is kind of like living in a nest. Yeah, I think for the first time in 23 years I won't be sheltered. Like growing up in Vermont is very sheltered. The school I went to, it's very much a bubble. You know, you see the same 12 to 25 people every day and all through, you know, grade school to high school to college. It's you have your friend group of 10 people, you know your professors. There's a safety net to fall back on because everyone is kind of going through those same motions. I will say I don't feel as scared as I would be maybe if I was moving to the West Coast or to Europe or even like New York City where I might not know as many people but also I don't know, I think I just feel very comfortable in DC whenever I visited. I think I'm scared I might not get a job. Like I might not be able to pay my rent but I don't, that's kind of irrational because there's a lot of opportunity in DC especially for what I wanna do. But even just to save money for the summer there's so many places hiring so I feel like I still kind of have that cushion to fall back on. I don't know, I think there's probably a lot that I'm not fully processing not once I am in the car tomorrow for 10 hours or living there for a week. I'll be like, this is not my life for the foreseeable future. It's hard to wrap my head around the fact as I'm still home in this space to be like, oh, this is my new home. I have a house, I have a new address, like ordering things from Amazon. We need to the house to this new address and changing all of those little things makes it feel I think a little bit more real. But I don't know, it's scary because I've never really been in one place for X amount of time even in college because we had COVID so then we had to leave and then come back and then, yeah, I don't know. So now it's for the first time in my adult life sticking to something for like a year long lease and hopefully doing a little travel in between visit and pals, but it won't be like a five week long winter break anymore or a three month summer break or even like a week long spring break to break up the year. It's just now really on my time slash obviously my employer's time. You're gonna come home for Christmas? I would like to come home for Christmas if I can get a couple days off, pop out to DC if you want to anytime. Yeah, I will, don't worry. Yeah, do you think that there is, if you had one piece of advice to give to someone that was about to move out of their childhood home, what would you speak on? Turn off the oven, it would be right up there. And let me just say, I agree with you, I think that it's a little less daunting for you and probably for me too. If you're moving to San Francisco, that's a long way away. You don't know anybody. I think that what's interesting to me is that Washington DC is a place where a lot of young people are going. I think you will find when you get down there that in addition to Eli, your childhood friend, Denise, your college roommate who you'll be living with, a few of your other friends who you've mentioned that are around there, you will be walking down the street and run into somebody and say, oh my God, you live here too. And they'll be like, oh my God, you live here too. So I think Washington is even more so than New York or some other places, you're gonna find that there are other people that you know, so I think it's less of a abrupt change than if there were other places. That's very true. But I think, you know, I mean, I think this is, and I just think that, I mean, what's sort of fascinating to me being now 40 years past that experience is, you know, how exciting it is to have, you have no idea what job you'll have in 18 months. And there's, it's a little scary, but it's also really cool. I mean, you've got, you mentioned you are majoring in social work, pretty wide open field. I mean, that could mean really just about anything, right? So it's not like you majored in, you know, biophysics. There's a limited number of jobs. You could translate your degree into a thousand different things. There's so many nonprofits down in Washington DC. So, you know, you've got a pretty, you know, clear chalkboard here that you could kind of construct into whatever it is you wanna be. So that's, you know, that's, that's scary, but it's also a wide open, wide open opportunity. The world is our oyster. You know, so the only other advice I'll give you is the same advice that I gave to my class of half dead beats, which is, you know, be on time. The Coach Taylor speech? Yeah, the Coach Taylor speech, you know, be on time. So whether it's, you know, a job interview date with somebody work, I mean, and, you know, so why do I harp on that? Well, because it's a matter of respect. So, you know, you can't, if you have a job interview at one o'clock, you can't show up at 1.15. I wouldn't hire you. I mean, I'd say right there, this is somebody who's a deadbeat who I can't count on. So, you know, those are, you know, and I try to get that through to the class, you know, we had 30 classes, right? They were each an hour and 15 minutes. So that's what, 30 times 30 hours. I don't know, it's probably whatever the math is on that. And I said to them, look, you know, I know it's an 8.30 class. Your reaction to that was, wow, I would never take an 8.30 class. Sometimes you don't have a choice though. I remember some of my prerequisites freshman years in 8.10, which, God bless, God bless them that we made it through, but it's tough. But if you're five minutes late to class, I said them for every class, that's 150 minutes. That's two and a half hours over the course of a semester. That's a lot of learning quality time with Professor Johnson that you're missing. So, you know, that's, and I had one student, I think I might've told you about this student. Did I tell you about this student who would show up earlier for every class? Yeah, so there was this young woman Bridget who was not my best student, but was, I would show up for the 8.30 class at 8.10 and she would nine times out of 10 be there already. And I thought, wow, okay, huh, that's interesting. That's really... And, you know, and I asked her what the deal was and she said, you know, I like to be places, you know, early so I can get organized and I'm ready to go. And I thought, you know, she was, I had a couple of other students that were really outstanding students who will probably go into journalism. I don't think actually Bridget will, but I would hire her because she, just that attitude of wanting to be ready to go on time, the respect that she showed, not just me, but really the respect she showed for the class. And, you know, there were other kids who were probably better students. They drift in five, 10 minutes late. I had one of my better students who came in probably 15 minutes into the class. Nice kid, I think he wound up getting an A minus. He actually made it to every single class, which is pretty remarkable. I had one other kid that made it to every class. And, you know, he walked in and I would acknowledge everybody when they came in. I wasn't trying to embarrass him or anything, but I said, you know, good morning, fill in the blank his name. And he said to me, and I said, you know, I'm glad you're here. He said, did I miss anything? And I thought, you're kidding, right? You want me to recap the last 15 minutes? So I tried to do it in about four or five sentences, but I thought, well, that's just not okay, you know? I can't, you know, I just can't, you can't come in 15 minutes late and I'm gonna do the cliff notes, you know, summary of what we just, what you just missed, because that's ridiculous. So be on time, you know? I will say, I think in all four years, I really always aim to be in class at least five to 10 minutes early, oh, not the no-call ID, because I also would just learn a lot from my professors in those times, like whether it was what they did that weekend or how their family was doing, because if you show, if they're showing interest in asking you, you know, how's your morning and kind of acknowledging that if it's your first class of the day at nine a.m. that you might be just waking up, a little tired, but it's helpful to have, you know, the same way we had an hour-long conversation this morning, got the brain going, and it gets- And warm up for this. Yeah, warm up for this, and I think it's helpful also if you, yeah, if you show interest in people and your peers, you know, the adults around you, and that way, also, if other people are showing up early, you know, like sometimes Will and Aaron and I would get there 10 minutes early when we had a class together, and then we're talking before class starts kind of catching up on our days and not disrupting the whole class and doing that halfway in, because it's just, you know, the respectful thing to do, but yeah, I think I get anxious about showing up late, so I usually always aim to be there early, so I feel like in terms of jobs and whatnot. Also, sometimes it's good to be there. I've come before the storm, and you pick your favorite seat you want to sit in. And, you know, getting to work, depending on where you work, I mean, you never know. Exactly, it could be different every day. Well, or you can run into, you know, you can run into traffic, you can run into, you just missed the subway, you gotta wait for the next one, and who needs that, you know, who needs that anxiety of being, you know, kind of constantly running late? And I have to tell you, there are a lot of people in my life who are constantly cutting it tight, and I think, you know, why bother? Why not just leave, you know, and be 10 minutes early? Yeah, I'm sure five minutes can go a long way. Yeah. You know, romanticize the commute. It just make it part of the day's journey, and why can't it not, it could be so fun. You know, you put on a good song, you're on the Metro, you listen to your favorite podcast, could be ours in the car, on your commute to work, and there you go. It's a great part of the day, or it could be a really stressful and rushed part of the day, but it is what you make it to be. Now, do we have a theme, is there a theme in this? It just feels like a life update current event situation, but we could, it could be anything. We don't really even have a name for it yet. Yeah, we've been flirting with the idea of some different titles, but I don't think any of them are set in stone yet. Yeah, unpacking. Unpacking. Kind of, but I think probably that might be sort of the theme of it, but yeah. Unpacking, yeah. So anything, I'm trying to think of other things we could discuss at this time that we've been talking about recently. Well, okay, so I asked you what you were anxious, or kind of maybe even concerned about. So what are you most excited about? I think having a routine again that I can kind of curate for myself in school, for example, like you have the routine of your classes, but then you can go beyond that to decide maybe when you wanna go on a walk with your friends or what do you wanna make for dinner. And it's, yeah, like living life in a more independent way. I think being around my friends who I have missed seeing for the past year or two because they graduated before me, it'll be very nice to be back in that community. I'm excited for friends to come visit and to be able to host people in our home. I'm very excited to decorate. We've been on Facebook Marketplace a lot, trying to find rugs, just little things that I think make adulting very fun and less scary, or you kind of divvy up what might be scary and seem huge and hard to do versus it's actually just like a fun task if you look at it a different way. Do you feel like you're ready? Yeah, I do feel ready. I think originally we were gonna move in September to kind of give the whole summer to just reset, but knowing myself, I think I would just be, I'd be anticipating the move for these three months instead of fully kind of, I feel like I took the last three weeks to really be with the family, be with friends, pack, kind of do some soul reflection, post-graduating. And I think if I had longer to do that, I might, it might not be as healthy and productive because I would just know what was coming next. So yeah, I do feel very ready to go. Like it feels correct that we're driving tomorrow packing up the van today. Again, very bittersweet, like I think I could get there and in a week be like, damn, wish I had more time at home this summer, but I don't know. I mean, I think I take things as they go and... Well, and I would say, not to talk stories out of school here, but knowing you as well as I do, I think you don't really like situations that are kind of nebulous and kind of floating. And you like to know what's coming up. I mean, I used to kind of kid you when you were growing up that you'd always be asking, you know, what are we doing? You know what... What's the plan? So I think you like to have things set. So I think you're right. I think you needed a few weeks. I mean, going to college during a pandemic was difficult. That was tough. That might be our next show. But I think, so I think, having a few weeks home was great, but I think you like knowing what's coming up. And, you know, this may not be the most productive time that you have down in Washington. I think it would be difficult for you to take like a full-time big policy job. And I don't think that'd be the right thing to do, as we've talked about. I think you want to kind of get to know the city, have, you know, take a restaurant job, get yourself familiar with what's going on down there. And then you get the rest of your life to, you know, sort of find that kind of that next job. Yeah, speak up. That's so true. Do you, so what would you imagine two years from now, what kind of place you'd be working at? Do you have any thoughts on that? I'm not really sure. I mean, I think I have a pretty strong interest in working with people and organizations and doing things to be helpful and learn in a very hands-on way. So, I mean, ideally having a job where I could travel around and meet new people from around the world, I don't, I mean, yeah, I will say right now, like I don't see myself sitting in a cubicle from nine to five just behind a computer. I don't think that I would be able to bring my fullest knowledge or like best working abilities to that table or situation because I think I would just kind of be doing what I needed to do to get through the day and to pay the bills, but it's just not my journey right now. So, definitely something hands-on and kind of, yeah, with the ability to move around if I wanted to while having a set base, whether that's Washington or somewhere else. But it's very hard to say because I think things are always changing around us. And I think if I really was like, this is what I want to do, this is what I need to do in three years, I would just set myself up for disappointment because then I would be living for the future and I wouldn't really just be in the present. As you said, you know, getting to know the city, meeting new people, taking things day by day, I think you can learn a lot. I mean, when I worked in the restaurant industry during COVID, over that summer, I learned so much about different populations and how people react to a global pandemic, whether it's them not caring at all and not respecting people's space or people trying to be very, you know, support the business and still be able to like go on vacation with their families more so that was a local Vermont couples because you couldn't really travel out of state, but yeah, you know, the respect that's given to workers or when I was cleaning rooms and I just feel like you learned a lot about people in different environments and I would say it can be very rigorous to work in the hospitality industry or yeah, even just working like in a boutique, I think I've learned just as much there as I have from interning at the senior center or doing a policy job that was hybrid and only seeing the same five people three times a week. I don't know if that makes sense, but I do think it's, yeah, you can learn a lot in any environment that you're in, in any job and it doesn't have to be a traditional line to five and it could also just be a seasonal job. You learn a lot at summer camp. You learn a lot when you travel or when you start your own business and then you're figuring out who you wanna surround yourself by because I feel like growing up, you were doing your radio show. Mom, you know, started her organization since she was my age. So I was surrounded by people that were A, doing things they were very passionate about and always learning and new things coming up and new people coming your way. I mean, you were interviewing a new person essentially every day or reading books, but yeah, I think it would be very cool to be an entrepreneur, to be honest, but I don't know if I have one thing that I'm passionate enough about to really set sail at this time. So maybe that could be something, maybe I'll be a small business owner in three years. There you go. Yeah. Who is to say? Well, and you know, one of the things that I've observed about your generation and it wasn't, I mean, the generation before mine, let me put it, the comparison there. I mean, my father became a lawyer and worked at the same place his whole life. I think your mother is a little bit of an exception. She's worked at CCTV her whole life. You know, I worked at three or four different places. There are so many people your age who seem to work somewhere, take a job knowing that they're only gonna be there three to five years. Yeah, that's very true. So the nice thing is, you know, for you, even if you get a job in the fall, it's not like you're marrying the job. You know, I mean, you can do it as long as it's, you know, fulfilling for you. Did I mention to you, my brothers, Casey, my brother's, one of his sons, is leaving a job after 10 years and, you know, he's looking to do something completely different than he was working, you know, he was in sales, working for a healthcare company and you know, that's an adaptable skill that he can get a job anywhere but I think he really is looking to do something completely different. I'll be really interested to see where he lands in the next six months. So you don't, I mean, the beauty is, you know, you can have this sort of seasonal job for the summer but even if you get a full-time job in the fall, it's not, you know, it's not like the old days when people would work down at GE here in Burlington for 35 years and then retire. It's just not the way people roll these days. Yeah, I feel like my generation might also have something to do with the attention span factor where you kind of might give something your all for a short amount of time or just get burned out very quickly and then it's on to the next and while that can be fine and you can learn a lot and dip your toe in a lot of different waters, I do think, as I said before, like not being in one place for X amount of time in the past four years due to obviously, you know, global pandemic things that were out of our control but now being in control of that, I think it would be a good test for myself, like knowing myself to really try to stick something out for six months to a year and not just do three different jobs or, you know, maybe do something for the summer and I'm like, okay, that makes sense. It was the summer, now it's a new season. Let's sit down, buckle up, you know, maybe trying to do something from October and November until May even. I mean, I think our lease ends next May also, so that'll be interesting to navigate if I'm gonna stay or leave or if, you know, you're moving houses. So there will be some change that is just kind of a given within the next year. So maybe navigating that change while trying to maintain consistency. I think that will be a good challenge for myself but yeah, it'll be very interesting to see where everyone ends up and who joins us in DC, you know, who leaves. I have, yeah, I've just heard that a lot of young people do come and go. There's definitely a turnover rate for jobs there and I think people learn a lot and then move on to the next thing or they come back. So I think we're running a little short on time here but let me ask you this, I'm sort of dying to know this. So if you look back on the pandemic here which is still going on but it's sort of in a different phase. So what do you think was the hardest part about being a young adult in COVID era? I feel like the socializing being taken away from us, like, you know, going every day from seeing people giving them hugs that just felt, you know, like second nature to hold someone's hand or sit right next to them and then all of a sudden you had to social distance from the people that you loved or going a certain amount of time without seeing people. I mean, I didn't see like Clare Dawn, for example, it was like a year, maybe even more where I didn't see her and we weren't in the same space and I think that really, it's very tricky mentally to then get back into the norm of being allowed to be in the same space because, you know, we were in these pods you were seeing the same four people, you decided to see the same four people but then other people were just stuck in a dorm room or, you know, you couldn't necessarily go see some of your family members, like I know in order to see grandma I basically couldn't see anyone else which you're taking a lot of, I don't know, you're doing a lot mentally kind of to figure out what's gonna benefit everyone and be the safest when you're 18 to 22 years old which is, I think, obviously no one could tell you how to navigate because no one had been through that and, you know, hearing things from adults that had already lived their whole teenage years, young adult life, I do think it was probably the hardest in some regards for the people my age and, you know, those that were coming into college too, that their freshman year they had to isolate and freshman year is such a big part of making friends and learning and being in a place that's not home. I mean, if I had to move to Washington right now and I wasn't allowed to be in the same space as anyone that I loved or I had to distance myself and really navigate everything on my own it would be very hard so I'm aware of the fact that COVID still exists around us but I do think the capacity that it is now it's a lot more manageable and also in a very messed up way to some extent normalized because, you know, we just were kinda like, okay this is what it's like now, this is what we do but I'm sure there's so many things we could be doing better at. Well there's so many cases still it's just sort of amazing how everybody's basically said, you know, it's over. I do have to tell you, I think one of my I was so proud of you was it sophomore year when you came home at Christmas or I think it was sophomore year when you came home and said, you know this just isn't work in this hybrid thing and you wind up going off with one of your best friends from your gap year and went to all these incredibly wonderful national parks. What do you think about that experience? I think that I took, I mean, I'm very grateful I did that, I think that if I had stayed at school I would have been alone in a dorm and I know a lot of people at that time also chose to spend that semester at home which made it very easy for me to not wanna be there when all of my people were not gonna be there. And yeah, I was in a situation where one of my friends who went to a different school was also like, I'd rather be outside and, you know, take classes online than just be in a very small space and essentially be miserable because you really can't, but we chose to really have it just be the two of us for about four months and that also comes with challenges. I'm very grateful that we get along so well and travel well together but there's still obstacles that you face when you can only be with one person, kind of 24 seven and in spaces where other people weren't always respecting that there was a pandemic going on because I think at that time a fair amount of people were like, yeah, let's go be outside, go to this national park or yeah, so you meet people along the way that are kind of in the same boat but yeah, I was not, I just was not feeling like I would do my best work if I was at school that semester or I wouldn't really be able to show up as a good friend for others or even a good friend for myself because if mentally I was down bad it's kind of difficult to show up and show out so I'm very grateful I did that. What was the best part of that a few months? I think being able to be with Christian again who I was so used to seeing every day for nine months before college, I think it helped our friendship grow in a new way and I also think seeing so many incredible sites with someone where you're kind of like experiencing something for the first time together is very beautiful and yeah, I don't know, there are so many highlights, it's hard, I mean we hiked the Grand Canyon in a day, I'm very proud of us for accomplishing that. Yeah, I definitely, I think I pushed myself in a way that I wouldn't have been able to push myself at school and I honestly don't know the next time I'll be able to push myself again in that way unless I choose to go do another hike. You know, if you get a really cool job, that's gonna be hard to do. Yeah, exactly. I mean, to just be able to take months like that, I can't say I've had an awful lot of those opportunities. Yeah, so I think doing it. I mean, it's like that trip I took with my brother, to have that 14 weeks, it's tough to find an employer that's gonna be cool about that. Yeah, no for sure. I think that's also part of me knew I wasn't gonna be able to do that in the foreseeable future, kind of have a period of time where I could just go travel to a bunch of different states with one of my best friends. So I do feel incredibly lucky that I was able to do that when I did because I mean, yeah, if COVID hadn't happened, that wouldn't have happened, which is a little, I don't know how I feel about that. I feel like it's kind of crazy to think about that. There's another life lesson for you, right? Which is that bad situations can result in opportunities, great things. I mean, you're right. If COVID hadn't happened, it's not as though you could have come to me and your mom and say, you know. I'm not going back, Texas. I'm gonna go back for a semester or when I go to national parks because we would have said, yeah, that's not gonna fly. But it really was, you know, I just thought one of the things that was so great about that is that is just not a conversation I would have been confident having with my parents. I wouldn't have been able to say to them, I'm not going back to school. They would have said, yeah, you are. Yeah, you are, yeah. So that was really, I mean, in retrospect, those are experiences that you'll have had for a lifetime. So that was really great. So grab, you know, grabbing opportunities that come out of, you know, it's amazing how things that look really dire and look really bad how sometimes some of the best things can come out of them. Very true. So, you know, I'm like a walking example of that. No, I'm very grateful that you and mom gave me the space to do those things. Well, yeah, I mean, that, it was more you having the, you know, the courage and the idea and a plan and, you know, a great friend. I mean, we love Christian so we totally had faith that you two were gonna make that a productive, meaningful time. So that's, you know, it's one of the things I just, I just really, I really love your friends. So. Yeah, they love you, Ken. Yeah. Yeah. So how do you think we did? Pretty good. I feel like that was, you know, for our first run where we're not used to having these, just at the scene, we're in Lauren Glenn's place of work and there's like a little table with two really fancy mics in this back corner. So we're just, you know, sitting and chirping in a different way than when we go out and get coffee. Thank God no one's really around. I know, but when we got here, everyone was at that table. Yeah, no, I think we did well. I feel like this was a good test run. And we could probably do another at some point. Not sure how we're gonna logistically do that once you go down to Washington, but we'll have to figure that out. You can always, you know, like screen record a FaceTime call or record a conversation. That's true. Yeah. But we wanna have Travis here to be, you know, helping us out. Oh, he's gonna travel with us. Okay. Cool, cool. Yeah. No, this is a good setup. It's fun. It does, I was, as I was saying earlier, the pressure of having a certain conversation or holding a conversation when you're recording it versus just like a normal, yeah, just like sitting with your dad on the couch talking about life. It does, you're a little bit more like aware of what you're saying, but I don't know. I feel like we flowed. Yeah, I just wasn't really feeling that, you know. Okay, well you also have done this for so many years. No, but I mean, you know, I haven't ever interviewed, I interviewed my mother as part of my show, which is kind of cool. Never interviewed my dad, one of my regrets. But, you know, this is the first time you and I've done this, so. Really across the table from you. Yeah, no, I think we did well. Yeah, and you were interviewing me just as much as I was interviewing you, so, you know. It's good, it's good, back and forth. Yeah. All right, so I think we're good. Yeah, we're good. Any final thoughts, any words of wisdom you wanna part with? You know, just take the opportunities as they come and easier said than done, but don't be scared to live your best life because we only have one, and yeah. Right on, and be on time. And be on time. Yeah, there you go. Or else you'll get the Coach Taylor speech from Mark Johnson, which is a little scurry. All right, well, best of luck, and I love you. Love you too, gang. Stay in touch. All right, I'll call you tomorrow when I get there. Yeah, exactly. All right. All right, thank you.