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!