A is for astronaut, M is for monuments, R is for Russion Ballet Dancers, S is for sick with a cold

Monday I woke up feeling terrible! I couldn't breath through my nose, go three minutes without having to blow it or move without feeling dizzy. Therefore, I stayed home and had a sick day. I guess this reinforces the idea that I don't actually do any work which isn't true!

Tuesday I was feeling much better so I headed over to work for a fun and work filled day! I spent my day revising the spread I wrote for my supervisor's book, imputing alternative artifact numbers into TMS and I started reorganizing my supervisor's do to list so that she can go through it more efficiently. For my male supervisor I went to a hour meeting about his exhibit and learned more about the layout and how the are planning on putting things together and how much things will cost. I'm in charge of getting copyrights for images and getting a Hubble tool with the help of my female supervisor. It was Tuesday lunch movie with the curators. We started watching "When Worlds Collide" last week and finished it this week. That movie was so stereotypical in its gender roles which makes sense because it was made in 1951. I left at 3:30 Tuesday because I was heading down hill health wise and my supervisor sent me home because she was worried about me.

Wednesday I continued my work from Tuesday. I finished going over my spread and reorganizing my supervisor's to do list. Her and I also wrote a letter to someone at NASA asking if they had any Hubble tools that we could use in the exhibit. Wednesday lunches all of us Space History interns go and listen to the curators give 20 minute lectures. This Wednesday's lecture was all about how the developed ways for astronauts to urinate in space. It was actually quite interesting, but a little odd. If you want to learn about it Hunter Hollins, or the Air and Space Museum, just published and really good article about it that is getting a lot of media coverage. I stayed at work all day Wednesday and was feeling great and all better by the end of the day!

Thursday my supervisor realized she needed to find something new for me to do since I seem to finish everything else really quickly. She has a storage room full of boxes with papers in them that she needs to go through, so she decided that I would start on that for her. We went down into one of the galleries and got to climb into an exhibit because behind a plane there is a secret door that leads to a storage room. We took four out of thirty-one boxes for me to start with. I only got through about 3/4 of one that day because I had other things to do. My supervisor and I also inspected an object. I then cataloged it and put the information into TMS. The object was a Discovery flag flown on the pad while Discovery was on a mission. The other thing that took up a big chunk of  my day was that the astronaut Thomas Marshburn, who was on the Space Station with Chris Hadfield, came to the museum and gave an hour long presentation and then answered questions. It was so cool! I never thought I would get to see a real live astronaut! I even got a picture of him with the other interns. I wanted one just him and I, but us interns we scurried away so that the public could meet him. He shook my hand and it still feels tingly and magical! Don't worry I have washed it, so all of the space germs are probably gone.

Friday I was left all by myself. Both of my supervisors were out, so I spent the day going through two boxes of files and started going through and organizing a box filled with shuttle images from NASA. During our lunch break us Space History interns went to the Ministry of Agriculture's farmers market. It wasn't very big, but I still got some peaches and two bags of popcorn, one kettle and one white cheddar. Most of the afternoon was spent working except for half-an-hour when we went and watched a planetarium show called Journey to the Stars. Usually that half-an-hour is nap time for us interns, but there was this little girl every time she heard the word star would sing twinkle twinkle little star and she kept yelling out that she wanted to be Whoopi Goldberg, who has narrating the show. After work I went to Jazz in the Park with my Canadian friend and one of her work friends and we ate popcorn and drank sangria. We finished off the night with Thai food and cupcakes.

 Saturday was monument and trolley day! Erin and I bought tickets for the Old Town Trolley at Union Station and hopped on it at 10:00. The trolley is a hop on and off system, so we stayed on the trolley for the first nine stops and just listened to the driver give his tour. When we pulled up to the Air and Space museum the trolley driver said it was one of the most visited museums in the world, but he got his fact wrong. It is the most visited museum in the world, so I told him the correct answer and everybody looked at me and laughed along with the driver. Erin smacked me a bit because I think I embarrassed her, but hey! You need to get your facts right! We got off at the trolley at the Jefferson Memorial and walked our way around that area. We went to the George Mason Memorial, the Roosevelt Memorial, the Martin Luther King Junior Memorial, the World War Two (Second World War Memorial), the Albert Einstein Memorial, the Vietnam Memorial Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial and the Korean War Memorial. It was really busy which was expected. My favorite memorial was the Albert Einstein Memorial! It was in front of the Academy of Science. We got back on the trolley about 1 pm hungry and tired. We got off at the Shake Shack and had lunch there again. Deciding that we still had some energy we wandered down to the trolley's welcome centre and got on another trolley that went on a different loop. On this loop there were two things we wished to see, the National Geographic Museum and the National Cathedral. When the trolley pulled up to the National Geographic museum Erin and I got up to leave the trolley after the driver asked if anyone wanted to get off, but before we could reach the front, about five steps away, the driver started moving again. We fell into some random seats and in the end didn't get to go there. We were both disappointed, but we're going to try to work it out so that we can go there some other time. When we reached the National Cathedral we made sure the driver knew we were getting off. This church is one of the most pretty ones I've seen. The stain glass is spectacular! My favorite one was the Space stain glass. After Apollo 11 someone donated a moon rock to the Cathedral and they built a stain glass window with it. The other window that was really pretty was the Rose window. We didn't get to see it because the catacombs are being repaired, but Helen Keller is buried there and we wanted to see her, but didn't have the chance. After seeing the magnificent stain glass we got back on the trolley and headed back to the welcome centre. The trolley took us down Embassy Road and the driver was pointing out Embassies and living places for ambassadors left and right! I was swiveling my head so much that I thought I was going to unscrew my head! Once we got off the trolley for the final time we were both exhausted and suffering from dehydration, so we just headed back to our homes. It was a good day, but it was so hot and I definitely didn't drink enough water, so I tried to make it up and made sure that today, Sunday, I drank water throughout the day.

Today was a little more relaxed then yesterday, but it was still a long day and I'm now really tired. Erin and I didn't start the day until 10 when we met at the Eastern Market to buy some souvenirs for our families. We stopped for lunch at this taco place called District Tacos and it was yummy. I had a black bean quesadilla, but it was so big that I couldn't eat it all! After we took the Metro down to the Mall and headed over to watch the Russian Ballet dancers at the National Gallery of Art East Building at one. However, we got there to late and they had already closed that floor off so we couldn't go up! There was one mare show at 3:30 and we promised each other that we wouldn't miss it no matter what! We had two hours to kill, because we wanted to be back by three, so we decided to head over to the Sackler Gallery and start it. On our way across the Mall we got distracted by this guy selling ice cream slushies. I'd never had one before, but Erin said they were delicious which they were! By the time we were done with our slushies we had an hour and a half. We weren't sure if that would be enough time to do the Sackler, but we headed over anyway. The Sackler has three stories underground. We thought we could get through maybe one and a half, but the two bottom stories we just one small room each, so we got through the whole museum no problem and got back to the National Gallery of Art by 3 pm. The Russian ballet dancers were so pretty! There were four dancers and they did six excerpts from five ballets. Two of those excerpts were from Swan Lake and one from Sleeping Beauty. Sorry, I don't remember the names of the other three ballets, but they were beautiful! I wish I could dance like that and make it seem so effortless. When I dance it is more of a flaying around of my limbs! The dancing was an hour and a half and Erin and I stood the whole time. By the end of the dancing we were both exhausted again and went our separate ways. Now I'm just hanging out in my room enjoying being off of my feet!