So, nothing happened today............JUST KIDDING!!!

The day began early and went by fast (when it’s dark at 5, the day’s gone fast!), but I am really tired here (like, as if it were midnight, and it’s only 8:30!), so we’ll see how far I get before I give up and decide to just post pictures...

I woke up on time (5:45)—even though I never heard the alarm ring, exactly, but I woke up exactly when it would have, if that makes any sense—and went downstairs to the game room to exercise. There was no one else there, so I decided to turn on the TV while I did squats, sit-ups, push-ups, and yoga. Unfortunately, the only channel available was Fox news. Not exactly the most exciting or informative thing...but better than nothing, I guess. It was nice to at least hear another human voice and know that other people were up bright and early! Most of the news was about concern over the weather—it was supposedly going to rain and be very icy and wet and cold and treacherous outside, and all cars would be lucky to get through the day without an accident, etc etc. However, Sis. Burton (wife of one of the counselors in our bishopric) warned us that people in Washington tend to freak out over any kind of precipitation (apparently they can close schools for as little as 2 inches of snow...?), and that those of us from the West probably wouldn’t have anything to worry about when it came to dealing with the weather.

After exercising, I rushed through a shower, through breakfast, through packing my lunch and everything else in a big handy shopping bag which I got for Christmas (thanks Sarah!) I have a feeling I’ll be using it rather consistently to carry my purse, my lunch bag, my notebook, and my map; as Capt. Johnson told us, it’s best to carry everything in one bag. I took off for my internship at about 8:10 (not 8, as I had planned...), and did NOT get lost. However, I did have to make a detour when two streets were shut down for road maintenance—I was nervous about being late, but it turned out okay. I made it to the museum and made it inside!

Now for the bad part—it turns out that my right business shoe does not get along with my right ankle. I had acquired a blister on Monday, but had put a band-aid on it and not thought anymore about it. Today, as I walked as fast as I could through the chilly (okay, it WAS chilly and windy—but I probably wouldn’t have been so cold if I had remembered my scarf and hadn’t worn hose/shoes/and a knee-length skirt!) streets, the blister rubbed itself open again, and I ended up with a blood-encrusted stocking at the museum. Luckily, the security guard who signed me in and the nice girl who took me up to the 6th floor to meet my supervisors didn’t notice. Even more luckily, my supervisors weren’t there yet, so I had time to go to the bathroom and change into a fresh pair of hose (yes, I had one in my pocket... Don’t ask why) before meeting them. But they probably wouldn’t have noticed either.

In a few minutes, Vivian (the Publications head) showed up and talked with me about what I would be doing. She was much younger and more casually dressed than I expected, but very nice and easy to get along with—I liked her right away! She told me that today would probably be a non-productive day (as far as my internship, that is; my muscles were quite productive!) since they were in the process of relocating all three of the offices (the intern’s, her own, and Michelle’s, the other member on our team). Michelle showed up a bit later, and affirmed that the biggest thing I would be doing right now would be working with Vivian on the magazine’s Art News/Culture Watch/Book reviews sections. So I guess I’d better get busy and finish that Home: A Novel!

As you can guess, the day’s work turned out to be rather hard-core. Vivian and I basically took apart her office on one floor and put it back together on the bottom, using dollies, the freight elevator, and the ordinary slow process of walking up and down the stairs with boxes and boxes of stuff (by the way, Vivian—in her own words—is a pack rat). This project alone took up a good three hours of the day, but I did try to get as much as possible accomplished in the process—such as introducing myself to other people (Nicki from the Museum Shop, Shonda (sp?) our “Web” person for managing public programs, and a few other nice ladies whose names—alas!—I cannot remember), asking Vivian and Michelle questions about the magazine and organization and my responsibilities, and taking of note of where everyone worked and what was the common routine. It looks like I won’t have as many responsibilities as I anticipated, but I still intend to make the most of them and help out with as many projects as I can while here. Both Vivian and Michelle were very nice and I am excited to work with them! :)

Michelle knew that I was from Utah, and was asking me a few questions about being “Mormon.” She wanted to know if we ever drank any alcohol at all, and I said no. Then I added that we didn’t smoke, and she told me that D.C. would be probably be a huge culture shock. I agreed and then added that most of my extended family was not LDS, so I was used to seeing my grandparents drink coffee... And then she was really astonished that we didn’t drink coffee!

When lunch—aka “hungry”—time rolled around (there’s no set break, we just do whatever we want), I discovered the rather spacious lunch room on the 6th floor. It has a nice, parlorlike wooden table and chairs, set up in, of course, a shabby room with the typical food-filled fridge, microwave, water container machine (what is that thing called? I can’t remember!), and vending machine. Michelle loaned me The Washington Post (which she said I could read every day there for free!! Yay!!!), so I read through it while I ate my lunch. A lot of it was about Obama’s projected stimulus plan, and debate over what the cutting-off point between the rich and middle-class would be. I wish I knew more about finances and how they ought to be managed wisely—as helpful (or not) as it was, Econ 110 never really educated me about all the financial issues being discussed in the news.

After my meager lunch of bread (the 45% fiber kind—tell Mom, she’ll be proud), broccoli (tell Joseph, he’ll be proud), carrots, and an apple, I was...HUNGRY. Regardless, I went downstairs and found my little workspace on the 4th floor. It’s in a much more open space (although nobody was there), and next to a copier. I wish I could be closer to Michelle and Vivian, but at the same time, I like having my own private spot and computer (even though it doesn’t work yet—hopefully by tomorrow!) and more exercise from running up and down floors never hurt anybody. Here’s pictures of my little space and me letting you know just how excited I am:

And another reason to be happy about where I work—look at this gorgeous mousepad! How will I ever be able to concentrate on my work with something so beautiful just below my hand!?

After familiarizing myself with everything, and trying in vain to get my computer to work, I went to Michelle’s new office, where she told me that I could just leave early (since Vivian had to leave for a doctor’s appointment and my computer wasn’t working). When she found out that I hadn’t visited a museum yet, she got excited and told me I could do that for my first assignment, and then she found and gave me a really nice colorful map (which has so far been waaaaaay more helpful than the stupid black-and-white one I got on my first day here!). She showed me where the National Portrait Gallery was and told me I could go spend some time there for my first assignment! I was willing to stay and work on whatever else needed working on, but I was also happy to take the opportunity since most museums close early, and I would probably need quite a while to see each one.

As it turned out, I had probably too much time on my hands. 2 hours later, it was 4:30 and I was still on the FIRST FLOOR of the National Portrait Gallery. Also, my feet were killing me—the bloody blister had decided to strike again. As for the portraits, my marked enthusiasm with the first-through-fifty batches (most of which were decent, some of which were really exciting and interesting, and some of which I forgot as soon as I passed them) deteriorated into sighs, groans, and vicious glares protruding from eyes of hate as I approached what-I-swear-must-have-been-the-hundredth alcove with “the newest” artistic style of portraiture. But I am proud to say that I got through the entire first floor. Tomorrow maybe I’ll fill up to tackling the other two floors and the American Art Museum, which is in the same building as the National Portrait Gallery, and contains lots of more—shall we say diverse—types of exhibits. It does wear on you after a while to be seeing nothing but portraits.

Here’s a few pictures from my experience; a nice lady took my picture in front of the American Art Museum side; a little ironic since I didn’t have time to see much of that museum (I did see just a few exhibits).

I took pictures of the very prominent, colorful statue outside. It’s called Vaquero.

The museum had several galleries of Civil War portraits, and I took a few photos of generals. I really wanted one of General Sherman because he looked SO much like the way I had imagined him (stern, hardened, stubborn, strong, everything!), but for some reason the camera didn’t get it. I’ll have to try again later. I took this one of Ulysses S. Grant after hearing this girl next to me say that he looked just like how she had always pictured Pa from Little House on the Prairie. That made me laugh!

Here’s one I’d never seen before—a self portrait by one of the most realistic, talented painters I know: John Singleton Copley. It looked SO real, it was freaky.

And an Andy Warhol of Judy Garland, which I liked since I had NO CLUE it was her until I read the description.

And then I had to take a photo of this one of Joseph Smith, just because it was so neat to see an LDS prophet in Washington D.C.! I’m glad they picked this one of him to display—the colors are very warm and soft, and he looks so kind and gentle. They had a much smaller, black and white photo picture of Brigham Young next to it, but I didn’t take a picture of it.

In addition to the random portraits they had lining the wall (arranged in historical order), they had a bunch of exhibits in rooms off to the side. My favorite of these was probably the one of Abraham Lincoln, which showed many of his portraits from early and later years in his life. They even had his death mask with and without his beard on! It was quite interesting, and I found it interesting how engrained his face has become in our culture, to the point that almost anyone in America could see and recognize his profile. I also thought it funny that he actually considered himself to be rather ugly!

A kind of strange exhibit featured really humongous portraits of important people and celebrities, like John McCain (it was so large you could see the various lengths of hair from where he shaved!), Barack Obama (the dot he has on the side of his face became WAY more prominent), Angelina Jolie (whose lips became about as big as my two arms), and Cindy Sherman (who looked surprisingly plain, normal, and nothing at all like the pictures I had seen of her when she dressed herself up and photographed herself in scenes from films! It was so strange that I wanted to take a picture of her, but then a guard came out and reminded me that there was no picture taking of pictures allowed INSIDE the exhibits—only outside. Oh well! Perhaps she’s on Google anyway...) Speaking of guards, I was really surprised at how many of them were wandering around, just on the first floor. At least three or four! BYU usually only has 1 or 2 guards to cover their entire museum. Of course, there was a lot more art, and a lot more patrons here, too...heh heh.

Well, needless to say, after the 40 min. walk to NMWA, moving stuff all day, and 2 hours of being on my feet at the National Portrait Gallery, I was really tired. So...I caved in and took the Metro home. And despite the crowds, it took me a mere 10 min. or so to cover the walk that would have taken 40 min. walking (and maybe more if my blistered foot had, I dunno, exploded or something).

I stopped at Trader Joe’s on my way to buy some bananas for the rest of the week and some grapes to eat tonight with my leftover pizza. When I got to the Barlow Center, it was about 5:00. I unpacked, then Valerie came, and we both messed around on our computers until 5:45, when we decided to take off for the Kennedy Center for the free concert at 6. It turned out to be very popular—the vendors were out with their stuff, and all the chairs were filled! In fact, there was a group of 20 or more people just standing behind a rope, listening. Valerie and I joined them and stood there until about 6:30, enough to get a good idea of the group, and then left. I enjoyed the music; it was a mixture of Cajun/jazz/bluegrass with two fiddlers, a bass, a drummer, and a guitarist. The group was called The Red Stick Ramblers and you could tell that most of them were from or had connections with Louisiana. Despite some of the lyrics in their songs (“I don’t like you better than my other gal, but it’s better than having no gal at all,” “I’m drinking to you!”), the rhythms and melodies were very appealing and catchy, and overall I really enjoyed the performance.

Valerie and I went shopping some more at the Safeway (well, I just checked prices and followed her around, since I hadn’t brought my credit card and didn’t really need anything urgently) in Watergate. Valerie, who likes to cook, is not too happy about the steep prices of “cooking-food” (the already-cooked food isn’t too bad) here, so she asked her mom to send her spices and cooking ingredients, and she’s going to get another relative to take her to Wal-Mart soon. I asked her to get me a dishcloth :) When we got back to the Barlow Center, I was really starving, so I ate my two slices of leftover pizza (absolutely delicious!) and ALL the grapes I had bought. And I was still so hungry I had to fix myself a packet of oatmeal! After that, I washed my dishes and unloaded my pictures. And here I am, present and all accounted for!
Tomorrow is going to be an exciting day. My list of goals is to find out about going to the gym (we know someone on the Washington Seminar staff has to do something, but the details are sketchy and so far, no one has done anything), walk to work and back with my boots (to see if they hold up better than my business shoes—also, it’s been raining nonstop for a few hours and I’ll need some moisture protection), finish the National Portrait Gallery if possible, and go to the Kennedy Center for the 6 pm concert and—EXCITING EXCITING EXCITING—the 7:30 pm showing of Legally Blonde: The Musical!