Hungarian Dancing and Simulators

At work Wednesday I spent the day doing more research on Discovery's, the Space Shuttle, missions. That also carried into today and will continue tomorrow. At lunch one of the curators did a talk on Lovelace who was a scientist working on space flight in the late '50s through the '60s. This man started thinking that it might be more efficient to send women into space. Women are lighter, smaller and were thought to have a higher pain tolerance. However, his program was shut down by NASA when they learned what he was doing. After the talk another female intern and I went and explored the Smithsonian Folklife festival that started that day. We just wandered up and down the festival because we had to go back to work. We did quickly stop to see some Hungarian dancing. It was really interesting. These guys were using their bodies like drums as they jumped and danced their way around the stage! You would think it would hurt!

I returned to the festival after work with my Canadian friend. We stopped at the Indian food tent before wandering over to the Hungarian music and dance tent. We sat for almost an hour listening to Hungarian music before we decided to try to finish the American History Museum. We only had two exhibits left and 45 minutes. We were sure we would get it done, but no! We still have half an exhibit left. I think we're just going to give up! We returned to the Hungarian music tent and caught the end of some traditional dancing. It was so spectacular! I really like watching dancers because I know I could never do that!

Today at work us Space History interns went and tried out the simulators. We tried a fighter mission. I flew the plane while my fellow intern shot enemy airplanes. We only got three of them. At one point I got us stuck upside down and at a slight angle forward so that we were flying towards the ground! After some panic I was able to turn us right side up. Out of the four pair that played my team came in third!!! That sounds much better then second last. Not much else happened today. I came home and did some laundry and then Skyped with my boyfriend and then my mom.

I realized that I forgot to mention some stuff I did yesterday. I guess that means that there is going to be another forgotten story time soon! Whoops!

One week!

Wednesday my fellow intern and I continued our project. It was supposed to take us at least a couple of days, but we were done by 2pm. Both of our supervisors were happily surprised. We were both assigned to do research on awards, but I had a meeting and the other intern had another project, so we're going to start that tomorrow. I had a meeting to learn about copyright. I'm going to be contacting companies to get their permission to use their images in an exhibit. It sounds like it will be a lot of administrative work. For lunch I went to a food truck. It was called DC Ballers. It was okay. I had a hummus sandwich and watermelon lemonade. I would recommend never having watermelon lemonade! It was bizarre! I had a hard time focusing in the afternoon because my family was arriving! I got to meet them at their hotel at 6pm! I was so happy to see them! We went out to have Mexican tapas. It was pretty good. The guacamole was amazing!

Thursday I had to get up really early! I got up at 6am because I had to be out of the house by 7:10am in order to meet my supervisor at the end of the orange line by 8am because we were going to the Udvar-Hazy Center. That's the other Air and Space Museum's facility. It is two or three air hangers put together to form a huge building. The building is one big open space with walkways on three levels in order to be at the same level as some of the planes higher up. After we got there and dropped our stuff off my supervisor took me to see Space Shuttle Discovery. When I saw it my breath was taken right from me. It was magnificent! The Shuttle was much bigger then what I had expected and how the Shuttle looked it general was amazing! After I saw the Shuttle we went and saw a plane called Solar Pulse that is a solar power plane flying across the US and it had stopped at the museum for the week. After seeing the Shuttle it wasn't so impressive. Don't get me wrong, the plane was cool, but the scale wasn't the same. Space travel really out weighs solar travel in my books. Mostly when the solar travel only goes 50 miles an hour maximum. At 10:30 Valerie gave a tour to a really of the Shuttle and the Space part of the Center to a really inspiring family. The father of this family used to work for NASA and has three patents concerning training devices for teaching astronauts to take off and land the Shuttle. He suffered a brain stem stroke and the doctors declared him a vegetable and told the family to pull the plug. They refused and five days later the family realized he was communicating to them through blinks. The doctor didn't believe them. He said if the father really was so smart before his stroke he should be able to blink out the answer to this math question. What is the square root of 25? The father blinked five times and the doctor said that that changed everything. I guess it's a slow recovery which is understandable, but the guy and his family were really inspiring. They are advocating for better disability help and if you want to can visit their website which is www.thesquarerootoftwentyfive.com. It's really inspirational and the guy is even writing a book about his experience. After that my supervisor gave another speech about Sally Ride. We then watched a documentary called "The Dream is Alive". Its about the Space Shuttles and recorded by astronauts. Then I was given the rest of the afternoon to explore! I pretty much ran around the hangers to take everything in since I only had an hour. Hopefully I get the chance to look at some of the stuff in more depth. I met my family after work and we went to this really good noodle place called Noodles on 11th. I highly recommend it! My boyfriend and my family went to the zoo and my boyfriend bought me three stuffed animals.

Trevor Junior

Lynn Junior

Tryn Hottie Ottie the Otter

Friday was just a normal day. In the afternoon the other interns and I went to see Hubble 3D. It was really cool! After work I went to jazz in the garden with my family, boyfriend and Canadian friend. I had sangria for the first time. It wasn't to bad, but it still made me grimace. My boyfriend, my friend and I went back to Agora for supper. We then went for cupcakes at Hello Cupcake. The icing was a little sweet.

Saturday I had a lazy day with my boyfriend before he left. He caught a cab at 4:45 and I went to hang out with my family. We went for Spanish tapas for supper at La Tasca. It was pretty yummy, but a little loud. I had to buy a new pair of shoes after supper because I was developing huge blisters. My brother and I then went to get cupcakes at the Red Velvet Cupcakery after I got shoes. I had a hazelnut cafe cupcake and it was delicious! Seriously!  I stayed with my family that night in order spend more time with them.

The next morning we went to Point Chaud Cafe and Crepes for breakfast. I'm going back because it was so tasty and satisfying. When we left the cafe it as pouring! We ran back to the hotel to get ponchos and umbrellas for everyone. Following that we headed to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. I gave my family a brief tour of the places and objects I know. Some of the highlights were the space station, Hubble, shuttle tiles and Sally Ride's uniform. By 12:30 most of us were done so we headed to Merzi for lunch. It was no longer raining and sweltering hot outside! After lunch we hung out at the Spy Museum and then had supper at Chop't which had huge salads!  I left my family after this giving them all hugs before I left because they all headed home the next day.

Monday I was feeling lonely with everyone gone. Work seemed to go slowly. The Space History interns have decided that Mondays will be dress up Mondays, so I had to wear a dress which didn't make me feel any better. At lunch we went to the Brown Bag Lunch and watched some other interns present. Then the guy interns started to make paper airplanes and throw them at each other and became a hazard! After work I had to make the trek to Trader Joe's for groceries for the week. I really shouldn't go grocery shopping when I'm hungry because I end up buying extra food like granola bars and lemon turnovers. 

Today my supervisor was out. She had assigned me to do research, but I seem to be on a down hill trajectory when it comes to be lonely and missing my family. That means that I wasn't as productive as I could have been. Don't get me wrong! I still got work done, just not as much as I normally would have. I have been assigned to do research on Discovery's 39 missions. 5 were already researched and I got 5 more done today. Hopefully I'll get back on track tomorrow! After work I saw my friend and we almost finished the last floor of the American History building! We have two exhibits left! Our plan is to finish it tomorrow!! We then went out for burgers, fries and shakes at Shake Shack and it was pretty good. The fries were okay, but I had a strawberry shake and 'shroom burger and quite liked them.

That's all for now! Sorry it took so long to get out! With my family here and nothing to exciting happening I haven't felt motivated! However, I shall figure out a way to get back to my every two day schedule! Wish me luck!

June 17th and 18th

Monday was an exciting day. In the morning I went to an exhibit meeting. I'm going to be dealing with the images for the exhibit, so that will be really fun to do! After I went to a the planetarium with my male supervisor and his other intern. It was a show on why Pluto is no longer considered a planet. Rest of the morning was spent reading. At lunch the interns had to attend another brown bag lunch. This week interns started to introduce what they are doing during their internships. One girl in education had us build candy airplanes. One of my fellow Space History interns build the Wright Flyer! Mine wasn't as impressive. After seeing the other interns presentations the eight Space History interns decided that our presentation will have to be the best. To achieve this we plan on making a movie, a powerpoint, dress up in costumes and preform a secret handshake at the end of our presentation.

For supper my boyfriend and I went to Dupont Italian Kitchen. It was alright. Not as good as the Sicilian Pasta Kitchen in Edmonton! 

Today I spent the morning going through name tags and making sure the information was all consistent. At lunch we watched a silent film from 1903 called "A Trip to the Moon". It was really funny, but also quite confusing. It was interesting to see how they conceptualized space and space travel at the beginnings of the 20th Century. We started watching a TV pilot from 1959 called "Destination Space". In the afternoon another intern and I were started on a project to renumber over 300 photographs. We got through about 90 of them. Hopefully we can finish it tomorrow! Go intern power and having nothing else to do! For supper tonight my boyfriend and I went to this place called Circa Circle. Again, it was alright, not the best or worse. 

My family comes tomorrow and I'm really excited!! 

I'm getting worse at blogging regularly!

Well, I haven't blogged since Wednesday, but don't worry! You haven't missed much.

Thursday I finished my project for the week, so I read a book about space shuttles. I was told that it was a very popular book when it first came out because it gave people the opportunity to feel like they were flying a shuttle. In the book there was a section on the Canadarm. I didn't realize that was what the book was discussing until I saw the Canada flag.

After work my Canadian friend and I were going to go finish the American history museum because we thought it was open until 7:30, but it closed at 5:30. Instead we got frozen yogurt from a fro-yo food truck. I had a mixture of vanilla and strawberry yogurt and the strawberry was much better. Thursday there was a terrible storm predicted and a lot of people went home early just in case. There were periods of heavy rain, but for the most part it was sunny out!  The rest of the week weather warnings have still been up. It was been mostly relating to rain storms, wind and potential tornadoes. Both my Canadian friend and I had the same reaction when it came to the rain, it can't be that bad! I guess growing up in an area that doesn't get that much rain it doesn't seem like that much of a threat.

Friday I reviewed my work and read some more. In the afternoon six of us Space History interns went to the Imax movie Space Junk 3D. It was pretty good, but a little depressing. It described how the space around Earth has been clogged up by satellites that are now running into each other which is causing a lot of little pieces that cause more problems. Us interns left the movie in silence and were silent until we reached our offices before someone commented on how serious and depressing the movie was. After work I met my Canadian friend and we went to jazz in the garden. Every Friday there is jazz music in the National Gallery of Art garden. The music started out really good, but after being there for 45 minutes the music stopped. We waited for 15 more minutes, but something must have been wrong with the system because it looked like there was no music in sight. We decided to head to the monthly food truck festival, Truckeroo. We tried DC Empanadas. Their empanadas were pretty good. For dessert we had Goodies. My friend had a peanut butter shake and I had a root beer float. They were quite tasty! I then bought a cupcake to take home with me for breakfast. I don't remember the name of that truck. It's cupcakes were alright, nothing special. They had live music there. The band was good! When there set was done a new band was supposed to take their place, but they took to long to set up so we left. 

Jazz in the Garden

Food Truck festival

Saturday my boyfriend arrived in Washington DC at 4:30. To occupy myself in the morning the CF (Canadian Friend) and I went to the National Museum of the American Indian. The architecture was amazing! The exhibits were done really well. It was refreshing to see the US admit that they did something wrong when it came to their Native American population. I found it awkward that Native Americans were referred to as Indians. Every time I cringed. I also wanted to change all the exhibits that stated that in North America we have buffalo. No! We have BISON! For lunch we tried the cafeteria in the museum and it was good! I would recommend eating there. I had to leave the museum before we could finish it to get my boyfriend from the airport. I was so happy to see him! For supper we went to the Good Stuff Eatery and ha burgers, fries and shakes. The burgers were delicious, but the fries and shakes were average. I'm over joyed that my boyfriend was able to join me! He's staying until Saturday. I work all week so we have to figure that out, but it will be nice to have him here with me!

Today we went to the zoo in the morning. We were there for about two and a half hours and then it got to hot so we left. The International Spy Museum was next on the list. It was really cool! I want to go back because we didn't get to see everything or do the one hour spy interactive.  For lunch we went to a place down the street from the Spy Museum called Merzi. It was like a build your own Indian food bowl. It was pretty good, but I would suggest having a rice bowl or a salad and not the naan bowl. The naan wasn't the greatest. We then returned to my boyfriends hotel before going to Agora for supper. Agora is a Mediterranean place where you order a bunch of little dishes to share. IT WAS YUMMY! We're going back there for sure. The service was fast and food tasty. 

I can't wait for my family to come Wednesday! It will be a party!

Stories I've forgotten to tell!

I've realized that as I've gone along writing this blog that I forget to tell the most interesting stories or things that happen to me during the day! Now there isn't that many of them and I'm sure I'll have more of these types of blogs, but here are some of the stories I've forgotten to tell!

The day I went to the National Gallery of Art I was wandering near the back of the museum and there was only a few people around. Going from one room to the next there was this security guard and me being nice said hi and he took that as an invitation to talk to me! Now he told me his job was a little boring and it was a slow day so I understand why he would want to talk to a friendly face, but he was asking me some personal questions. They weren't bad question just like what am I doing in Washington DC, where am I from, what school do I go to, what did I think of the weather, how is it in the US compared to Canada, things that you ask people when you first meet them. He seemed like a very nice guy, but everybody else around us had left and I was feeling a little awkward standing there with a complete stranger I'll never see again by myself. He told me about being a security guard and that he was going to school and wasn't really into the whole art thing, but it was a job. After about ten minutes people showed up again and I was able to slip away. Wherever I go strangers talk to me or ask me for directions. Do I have a face that says I won't murder you if you ask me something?

When my friend and I went to the Pride parade there was a car for Geico. There was a guy in a gecko suit inside the car waving a rainbow flag. It was a funny sight to see. I felt bad for the person in the suit because it was really hot out and the parade was about two hours long! Another funny float was for this restaurant. It was a Mexican restaurant and it had a guy riding a burrito wrapped in tinfoil like you ride a mechanical bull! It surprises me what people come up with! I guess as long as it's memorable it worked!

June 10th: Every Monday all the Air and Space museum interns get together for lunch to have a brow bag lunch and we do some sort of activity. This Monday we learned how to operate a fire extinguisher. They brought in this fire extinguishing game. There was a screen about the size of a fireplace opening that would show a fire. Then there was like a Wii controller inside a hose of a fake fire extinguisher. When the fire started to had to pull the pin on the fire extinguisher take the hose aim at the bottom of the fire, squeeze the handle and sweep along the bottom of the fire. Some people were terrible! One girl squeezed the handle while the hose was facing her! Good thing the extinguisher wasn't real or she would have been covered in foam! The best time of the day to put out the fire was 9.6 seconds. I tied for second with 11.1 seconds. I had the best time out of all the Space History interns and we've jokingly designated me as the person to put out fires and the leader of our group. When I got home from work there was a big bug in my room, so I opened my patio door and hid downstairs. When I came up later it was lying on my bed, so I grabbed the closest thing at hand and smacked the bug twice. I realized that I had picked up my computer to use as a weapon and I was lucky that the bug was on my bed and my computer wasn't harmed!

We're now up to speed with where we should be! The next day June 11th, my house was woken up to the fire alarms going off! I rushed out of my room ready to grab the nearest fire extinguisher because I had learned how to use one the day before and I was pretty sure in my half asleep state that I was just as good as a firefighter. It turned out to be a false alarm. Someone had just burnt eggs. However, now I know that I would be willing to fight a fire anytime! Maybe if I don't become a curator I can be a firefighter. That's close to what I wanted to be as a child which was a fire hydrant. I had to be to work early yesterday because the interns and their supervisors had breakfast with the head of the Air and Space Museum, General Jack Dailey. He gave a really nice speech about the history of the museum and what they have done and what still needs to be accomplished. He also thanked us interns for putting our time in to be there at the museum for free. It was a nice breakfast and after I was quite full on banana muffin and orange juice. After some of us interns and supervisors related to space went to the planetarium. They wanted to get our opinion on a potential show they're thinking of bringing in. It was okay. It was a little disjointed and all of us had a hard time following it. At lunch we watched the end of Destination Moon and it was cheesy as can be! If you ever watch any of those old movies I suggest watching them with a curator of space history! They have the best comments that make the movie so much more enjoyable. Maybe, to my family's horror, I'll be like that one day! After work I had a WISH dinner I had to attend. The food was fine, but the desert! I had so much desert that I still feel sick, but it was so good! There was so much that one of my roommates and I took our desert home to finish it! We did leave early, but had to come with us!

Not much happened today. I went to work and almost finished my project that was supposed to take me all week. I'll probably finish it tomorrow and then work on something else for my other supervisor. One interesting thing I did today was I got an email from my supervisor who is away asking me to check if we had a certain object. I know it doesn't sound that exciting, but I spent and hour looking. I found the answer in five minutes, but all the objects were so cool and I wanted to really make sure that I had gotten my answer right, which was no, we didn't have that object. I walked part way home today with a fellow intern. She lives more East then I do, but it was nice to walk with someone and chat and get to know them. I'm not very good with meeting and talking to people, so I'm making a real effort to make some hopefully good lifetime friends this summer. We'll see if it happens because I don't want to force anything or be someone I'm not.

Sun when it's supposed to rain and bipolar weather!

Yesterday the Pride festival was on to accompany Saturday's Pride parade. It was okay. Truthfully it wasn't what I expected. I thought there would be games and activities, but it was mostly businesses and churches showing their support and producing propaganda. There were two stages that had performers. Not just singers, but dancers and lip singers who performed Lion King and Rocky Horror Picture show.

It was also really hot which didn't help. My Canadian friend and I decide to go to the National Gallery of Art sculpture garden and put our feet in the fountain. It was quite refreshing! After we checked out some food trucks for future reference. It still was a pretty good day. After I went back to my place and did my laundry.

This morning when I woke up it was cloudy out so I packed for rain and sun. I was half way to work when it started to drizzle, so it was good that I brought my umbrella. Today was exciting because I got to get my badge! I finally can go watch one free IMax movie a week and be in the museum without feeling suspicious! I worked on my week long project today. I'm cataloging a bunch of objects and I have to say what each object does. It takes a lot of work to research figure out what some of these things do. After work I went to the bank to see if I could get money out. The American version of my bank didn't take either of my cards. I guess no money for me! That's okay I don't have that much money anyway!

Short blog posts are the best! That's all for today!

Whoops! I missed some days! Days 10, 11 and 12.

Sorry! I missed a couple of days there! Thursday didn't seem interesting enough to post by itself and then yesterday I was to lackadaisical.

Thursday my supervisor was out. She had given me a project for the day, but being the fast efficient keener I am I finished it in the morning. It would have taken less time, but I triple checked my work in order to have something to do. In the afternoon I continued reading. My supervisor came into work at 4:30ish and asked me if I had rain equipment. Now, I had bought an umbrella specifically to come down to Washington, but they don't sell rain coats in Edmonton. I don't think anybody knows what a real rain coat looks like! I told my supervisor that I had an umbrella and a wind coat. She informed me that it's hurricane season and an umbrella won't always work! She said I needed to get a poncho! I had no idea where to get one, but she told me they sold them at all museum shops. However, she had one in her desk that I could have. Now I'm armed with an umbrella, a wind coat and a poncho! Hopefully I don't need much more! My supervisor was also telling me that at least once a hurricane season someone is killed by the wind snapping a branch off a tree and that branch landing on someone or their car. She also said that it's common for during thunder and lighting showers for people to hide under trees and then be struck by lighting! I'm now quite scared of the weather here! Hopefully it isn't to bad while I'm here! After work I decide that I again needed caffeine. However, I want to try as many places as possible. I chose a place called Ebenezer's Coffeehouse just because of the name. It was a little out of the way and even though it was nice, it wasn't good enough to go back. The building was really interesting looking, but the white mocha I had was to sweet and made my teeth hurt! On my way back from coffee it started to rain, but I had me handy dandy umbrella and therefore was fine!

One thing I've recently realized is that I still use google.ca and not google.com even though I'm no longer in Canada!  I guess some habits are hard to break!

Friday I woke up to it pouring rain outside! It wasn't bad enough for my poncho, but I did wear my wind coat and use my umbrella. I guess I don't know how to use umbrellas because by the time I got to work the left side of my body was soaked because I wasn't holding my umbrella right. I was also wet up to my knees! I'm happy that I sit at a desk all day so no one could see how wet I was. I read most of the day yesterday. In the afternoon my supervisor set me up on a project for next week because she'll be gone most of the week. There are eight interns in my division. In the morning all eight of use showed up, but by four in the afternoon only one other girl and I were left. I heard two of the non-interns talking about how they felt bad that only the two of use stuck it out all day. Soon after someone came around and gave us chocolate as a little thanks. It's good that they noticed our dedication! I really want to do well in this internship even if it means just reading all day long! For supper my house and another WISH household decided to go to this restaurant called We The Pizza. It was really good! I had a piece of spinach and artichoke pizza along with a piece of regular cheese pizza. They were both really good and I would totally recommend it! They did take a really long time with one of our group members orders, but they handled the situation well and professionally.

Today, Saturday, I started my day off my going AGAIN to the Eastern Market with a roommate. There I bought peaches for the week and I browsed in the flea market. There was some really interesting old posters and maps and I think I'll go back and buy some. There was also this vendor selling unique postage stamps and there was one from 1969 commemorating man landing on the Moon. I might go back and get that because I think it would be a good way to remember this whole experience, even though I just started it. On our way back to the house we stopped for brunch. I had a pretty good waffle, but our waitress was one of two and was so stressed that she was almost in tears! If I go back in might be during the week when they're not so busy.
In the afternoon I met up with somebody else from Edmonton. She took a class with my boyfriend and is also interning at the Smithsonian, but at a different museum. We started out by going to the Museum of American History. It was nice to go to these places with someone else! We went through the main floor and the bottom floor. I would eventually like to go through the top floor, but I don't know if I would go back through the rest of the museum. It's nice, but it isn't my type/passion of history. It was interesting to see the Star Spangled Banner and the piece of the burnt down White House that the Canadians burnt down in 1812 before we were Canadians, but I don't want/need to see it all again.

  After we had gone through part of the museum with both agreed that we were hungry. In the museum it had mentioned Krispy Kreme, so that's what we both wanted. The nearest Krispy Kreme was a 40 minute walk away. We decided to walk instead of take transit in order to burn of the calories we were about to eat. On our way to the doughnut shop we passed by the White House. I have been here over a week now and this was the first time I had gone by the White House. There were protesters outside who were pro-marijuana.

We eventually got to the doughnut place and they were pretty decent doughnuts! I had a glazed doughnut with raspberry jam filling. When we were about to leave we saw all these people with rainbow pride flags. We didn't know what was going on. Then we saw this big crowd about a block away. It was the Pride Parade which was kicking off a week long festival on the Mall. I've never been to a Pride Parade, but it was really cool and the atmosphere was quite nice and jovial! 

I marveled at this lady's hair! It was so big!

This guy was riding a burrito! How do people think of these things?

This is a car with a wheat Mohawk!

I have more photos. Some really good and some just plain funny! I can't show everything on here or I'll have nothing to tell my family when I get home! We had been at the parade for an hour when we decided to leave, because there was no end in sight. All in all I spent six hours today with the Canadian friend and it was a very pleasant/great day! Tomorrow we're going to go to the Pride festival on the Mall! I'll take more pictures of that!

Day 9: I Think

Today was about the same as yesterday. I spent the morning reading. I would have gone to this Smithsonian intern gathering at the Natural History Museum, but I don't have a security badge yet, so it said in the email those without a badge couldn't attend. Therefore, I read all morning. Except I had a little break to wander downstairs to see how the installation of the exhibit was going. Since yesterday they have done a lot and it is looking more and more complete every time I go down! This is one of the reasons why I want to be a curator. That way I have the opportunity to see a project on such a huge scale go from start to finish and have input into it! Every Wednesday at lunch time the museum has "Ask an Expert" where an expert on an artifact comes in a gives a twenty minute talk about it and then takes questions. Today the expert talked about Skylab, the U.S. first space station. It was interesting to hear an expert talk about the artifact directly in front of you. The audience was mostly full of interns and curators which is not to surprising. When it was question time some of the curators didn't really have questions they just had comments or asked the speaker to give his opinion on certain events or topics. One thing that I found really interesting about the talk was when the expert told us about how NASA had two concepts for the space station., wet and dry. The difference has something to do with fuel. They eventually chose the dry concept, but NASA kept the grated floors of the wet concept. Therefore, when you go into Skylab, which is possible in the museum for they have it open to the public, you should look up. Above the ceiling there is a whole other room that is visible and that is quite big. After lunch I did some more reading and then got set up on my first task which is to input some data about shuttle tiles. I started on my job right away because it was nice to have something to do other the read! I was efficiently filling it out when my supervisor reminded me not to do it all today because she was going to be at the Dulles location tomorrow, so she wouldn't be around to give me jobs or for me to follow around. I reluctantly stopped working, but tomorrow I guarantee you I'll get it all done!  

After work I was very tired and wanted some sort of caffeinated drink. There are some coffee places by the museum, but I wandered twenty minuted away to this place called Port City Java. I think it is a small chain, but the staff was very nice. The man helped me choose a drink and we agreed on Mocha shake which is an espresso shot with chocolate and vanilla ice cream with whipped cream on top. It was really delicious! I was feeling a little lonely so I talked to the guy about why coffee companies used such silly sizes and no longer just use small, medium and large. A fair amount of coffee places, including this one, just use different words meaning big! It confuses me!

Tomorrow I get to go more in depth in my project! It will be nice to have something to do all day!

A Reading Day

Today was my second day of work! That means I got to do a little more then just sit there awkwardly! Today I started reading a book about space travel as background knowledge for my project on space shuttles. Also, today I got to go and see a gallery they are installing at the museum. The first time I went down the layout was explained to me and why they made certain decisions. The second time I went down later in the afternoon I got to see them put two space outfits- not space suits - into a case! It was really cool how they adjusted the light so it illuminated the clothes correctly while not damaging them. I also go to see the things they installed that morning and it was explained to me how this one small cabinet took a long time to finish because everybody had to put in their input and they changed how it looked a little. Some of the mounts the objects are on are so small! It must take a lot of hand eye coordination and stable hands to work with some of these small things. I was also told how they set up galleries in order to accommodate all types of learners and people who read everything or just quickly walk through. The other thing I did at work today was I built a bibliography on the Skylab. Now that I have computer access I'll be able to start more complex work tomorrow. Tuesdays at lunch the Space History department has a science movie watching. By the sounds of it only two people really consistently participate. However, today there were all of us eight interns in this small room with two curators who stayed the whole time with other curators coming and going. Today we started watching Destination Moon from the 1950's. We only got part way through, but it was quite fun. The whole time we were commenting on the inaccuracies of the movie, the special effects, what they got right, the actors, the background and pretty much anything. The one part I really thought was funny is when the crew is taking off in their space ship they are laying down and the force from the take off is pulling the skin on their faces down making it tight. One of the curators was telling us that how they filmed it was by attaching skin coloured tape to the actors faces and fishing line. A movie crew member would then lie underneath the actors chair and pull on the fishing line to tighten the actor's face. That must have hurt! It surprises me what people will do for entertainment! Another funny thing is that the astronauts floated in space, but none of the other stuff did. When they opened drawers everything stayed inside and nothing floated out! It will be interesting to see the exciting conclusion next week! 

After work I went to a used bookstore and bought three books. One called Mistress of the Vatican by Eleanor Herman. It's about mistresses of the popes and how it was the women who sometimes were the real popes/rulers. One is called The Medieval Underworld by Andrew McCall and that  book covers a whole array of topics. The last book is called Twilight of the Habsburgs: The Life and Times of Emperor Francis Joseph by Alan Palmer. That book is of course about Emperor Franz Joseph who ruled the Austrian-Hungarian Empire from 1848 to 1916. When the lady was calculating the sum of my books she was quizzing me on Habsburg facts. She asked me who was the Habsburg murdered at the beginning of the First World War, which is Franz Ferdinand. She then asked me who was the second Maximilian of the Empire, he was Emperor Maximilian of Mexico who was killed by the Mexicans and they now have Cinco de Mayo on the day they killed him. It was almost as if she was testing me to see if I deserved this book or not. I guessed I past the test because she really warmed up to me and I might go back there while I'm DC and make it my go to book store.

On my way home from the bookstore I wanted to buy vegetable oil so that I could cook my meal. I was going towards the grocery store when a lady stopped me and asked if I would buy her a meal. I truthfully told her I couldn't really afford it, but I felt so bad that I went home without buying my vegetable oil and just ate samosas for supper instead of pad thai. I feel bad for saying no to people who ask for food or money, but certainly this summer I have to be careful with my money and I can't help everyone who asks. That doesn't stop me from feeling horrible when I turn someone down.

First Day as an Intern

Today marked my first day as an intern for the Space History division of the National Air and Space Museum. I'm obligated to say that all opinions expressed in this blog are my own and not those of the Smithsonian. When I first arrived at the NASM all of us interns, 20ish of us, from all over the museum were debriefed on the safety protocols and then given a brief tour. There are eight of us interns working for the Space History program, three girls and five boys. I got to meet my supervisors who seem really nice and will be a pleasure to work for. All of us Space History interns got to sit in on the Space History curators weekly meeting which was a treat! It was interesting to see how the curators interacted and to see who was working on what. After that we all had lunch and us interns were drilled on what we wanted to do with our lives, how our supervisors could help and what we were passionate about. One curator was saying that you really needed to be passionate about something to be able to make the museum experience for visitors more meaningful. It's all about your passion for what area of history you focus on. It affects how you present things and see events and objects. It made me start thinking about what I'm passionate about. I know I love museums and really want to work in them, but what area of history do I love to study? I know I like medieval Scottish history and I really enjoyed researching the Exhibitions in England and the evolution they went through. I also really like the history of astronomy. That's one of the reasons why I'm at the NASM.

My history of astronomy interest is more new and not as well developed. It started when I took the History of Cosmology and Astronomy from Stonehenge to Space Age. The professor, Professor Smith, was so enthusiastic that it made me feel excited about learning about this subject and made me want to learn even more.

This whole thing about passion has gotten me thinking not only about what my passion is, but also do I really want to do a Master's in Museum Studies or do I want to do an Master of Arts with some sort of history topic? The Museum Studies program gives me exactly what I want, the information to be a curator in a small or medium sized institution. However, what if I want more? With a Master of Arts I would probably eventually need to get a PhD, but I would be able to work in bigger institutes, have more power and make more money. Another thing to consider is that if I got an MS I would probably do a coursed based master's, but if I do a MA it would be best to do thesis based. Now my academic writing style has greatly improved, but it still isn't the best and I wonder if a hundred page thesis would be to much for me.

I've only had one day and I already have all these question to contemplate. When it comes to deciding my master's I have until November or January to decide. That's not that far away, but hopefully the rest of this summer will help me solve some of these questions and not just create more.        

Lazy weekend: Days 5 and 6

I went to ANOTHER grocery store yesterday. One of my roommates and I headed to Trader Joe's. We were able to catch the blue metro line at Capitol South and take it all the way up to Foggy Bottom. Trader Joe's was about four blocks from the station and my living space is about ten minutes from the Capital South station. I'm so thankful to my aunt for suggesting this place! I bought seven really nice looking frozen dinners. I got a quiche, samosas, enchiladas, lasagna, two types of pad thai and ravioli. I also got sandwich makings and salad makings for lunches this week along with A LOT of yogurt and granola. I got more and it all came to 57$. I couldn't believe it! That adventure took most of the morning because I was unsure of where I was going. In the afternoon two of my roommates and I headed first to the Botanical Gardens, with other people around I didn't take and pictures, and then we went to the Eastern Market. On the weekends the market is much bigger and there is even an accompanying flea market.

For the evening I had a ticket to the #nofiltershow at the U Street Music Hall. It starred Grace Helbig, Mamerie Hart and Hannah Hart. I had a VIP ticket so I got to go in early and I got a poster. I sat forth row from the front and was able to see everything really well! It was funny and I thoroughly enjoyed it! It was a really raunchy, but I knew that would be the case because I had watched these women on youtube and I really like their humor.

Today I went and bought sunscreen because when I woke up the left side of my body was a little burned.

Me in my new blue hat! It has sparkles on it!

Rest of my day was spent doing laundry. Whoever is doing laundry is not permitted to leave the house while the washing machine or dryer is on. Therefore, I was stuck in the house for three hours to do only two loads of laundry! The washing machine is horrible! The washing machine and dryer are built into one stacked unit and are ancient. The washing machine left undissolved soap on some of my clothes, so I had to hand wash them and it also made a horrible thunking noise like a herd of elephants were walking over head because it was shaking and rocking so much! With six girls that horrible washing machine is going to be used a lot and there's nothing we can do about it!.

I start my internship tomorrow! Hopefully that goes well! I'll also try to work on my blogging so that it's more interesting.