Four Memorials in a Day!

Since I know everyone reads the blog (FAITHFULLY, RIGHT!?!?), and I’m not sure of everyone’s email addresses, I have just a few notes to put here for some of my wonderful family fans.

To Dad: Thanks for that sweet voicemail message today. Sometimes I just really miss your and Mama’s voices, and I’m glad I missed your call, because now I have your voice and special, sweet message to play back whenever I need it (which will be often). I will call you tomorrow on Mom’s cell phone number to chat about the ecclesiastical endorsement. Also, thanks for putting a little hug on all your emails.

To Grandma/Grandpa: I apologize for not responding earlier to your sweet note! Thanks for thinking of me and for being so interested in how I’m doing and for keeping me informed on your own escapades in Tennessee. As far as I’m concerned, you are the most wonderful grandparents ever, and I love you SO much! I am so lucky and proud to be your granddaughter, and hope to see as much of you as possible whenever possible!

To Aunt Shelly: Thanks for the lovely card (such a pretty painting!) and for sharing your news! You have no idea how excited I was to see that I had an actual letter in our mailbox—it made my whole day :) And I loved hearing the news about all the cousins. How is Mary doing? Is Andy still the master of all the video games? I will have to write Julie about her New Orleans trip, and definitely want to see pictures of Becky’s new haircut :)

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Happy Sunday, everyone! It’s hard to believe that next week will be my last Fast Sunday here—I guess I’d better start hunting for some spiritual experiences if I want to bear my testimony :) However, I don’t know how appropriate it would be to share my experiences of sobbing during the Gettysburg Visitor’s Center film or becoming extremely emotional while watching the Animated Hero Classics film Abraham Lincoln on YouTube. Probably more appropriate than it would be to share the number of sighs gushed and tears shed over the dazzling cast of Ocean’s Eleven, which scrumptious visual treat I also happened to watch this past week (and which I formerly thought actually had something to do with one of two large bodies of water filled mainly with salt).

Anyway, I’ll try to share what’s been going on in the past few days (namely, Friday, Saturday, and today). But I do want to assure everyone that I have not forgotten about the Gettysburg/Harper’s Ferry trip, or the Supreme Court, or even going to the National Archives all day on the Saturday before last (Just kidding—actually, I had TOTALLY forgotten about that. I had to sit here and think about it for five minutes before I wrote it down :).

I’m still taking and downloading pictures, but, due to the low quality of the camera, most of them are turning out badly. Aaaargh. First thing on my list for birthday wishes is a good camera. Did everyone hear that!?!?

Sooooo, on Friday, we had class ALL DAY. We started with a briefing by Elder Ralph Hardy (an LDS guy who works for the Church here in Washington, and also the uncle of one of our interns—Sage Hale) which was very interesting and nicely delivered. It was almost like a conference talk—he told a lot of stories about Joseph Smith and the history of the Church in Washington.

Next we had a few minutes of class, on the topic of “what are our expectations for institutions and where did we get these expectations.” A few good points were brought out, but not many. And our professor spent a long time in explaining extremely basic concepts, which I felt was unnecessary. So I was annoyed when the Syrian ambassador arrived a bit later, and we still had to stay as he went over his allotted time, just so we could finish our wonderful, prolonged class discussion on “what you believe and why you believe in and how this will CHANGE THE WORLD!”

The Syrian ambassador gave an interesting presentation, which mainly consisted of an explanation of Syria’s complete innocence in all affairs in the Middle East and the United States’ and Israel’s extreme guilt. Then he took questions from the class and reiterated his argument with quoted statistics (which I never really pay attention to anyway) and rhetoric. I would have liked him better if he had been less one-sided, more humble, and less condescendingly critical towards all the opinions that differed from his own. He also made certain issues—elimination of all chemical and nuclear weapons in the entire Middle East, the conflict between Sunnis and Shias, the solution to the current Palestinian/Israel conflict—seem much more simple than I could believe them to be. In the end, I enjoyed his speech—at least it kept me awake!—and only wished I or someone had known as much on the subject as he did in order to give us a more multi-sided perspective. The best question (labled by the Syrian ambassador as being “one of the most difficult questions I’ve been asked!”) was asked by Andi, a BYU student and native of Albania, who doesn’t live at the Barlow Center, but comes for the classes. He asked if the Syrian people were happy. The answer? More rhetoric and statistics (“We have Iraqi refugees pouring into Syria, and not Syrian refugees pouring into Iraq, so what does that tell you? People would rather be in the Syrian authoritarian society than the Iraqi democracy!”). Meh. I didn’t buy it.

These two presentations, combined with class, lasted over three hours. We were scheduled to meet for a third briefing at the D.C. District Courthouse at 2 p.m. And it was already past noon. Grumble, grumble, grumble. I had enough time to rush to the computers on the second floor (the wireless Internet has been down in our rooms again for the past few days) and print up some stuff for my Gallery Talk presentation at 7, and then grab a few bites of lunch before putting on my coat and heading out the door.

I was tired and hungry and grumpy, and late on top of that (we were supposed to be there 15 minutes ahead of schedule, and I left the Barlow Center—with some other people—almost 20 minutes late), and I knew it would be too late to do anything between the briefing and my museum Gallery Talk, so I was strongly tempted to just skip the briefing, hit a museum, and get some more lunch. But I didn’t. BEST DECISION...EVER!!!

The briefing was absolutely FANTASTIC. Possibly my favorite one! (After the one on torture, definitely) (Which, let’s face it, is gonna be impossible to beat). Judge Thomas (?) Griffith—who is a Latter-day Saint AND a judge on the D.C. Court—was our briefer, and definitely one of the nicest ones we’ve had. He smiled, made jokes about himself and his job, spoke truthfully and respectfully in answer to all of our questions, and made even the dumb questions and questioners seem smart. Wow. What a guy! The briefing was held in the actual courtroom, where famous federal cases like the Watergate tapes and the Clinton scandal were held, and I got to sit in one of the neat comfy rocking chairs that the 9 Supreme Court Justices were all using at the Supreme Court (And I’m not sure I can accurately describe how amusing a sight it was to see 9 grown-ups in a row, rocking back and forth in comfy chairs...sometimes, words just will not do). The rocking part was super fun, but unfortunately, my chair was stubbornly set at a height for a somewhat tall person, leaving me dangling my legs or sitting on the tippy tippy edge of my seat. A minor problem, all in all, but I do wish that I had been able to figure out how to adjust the height.

After the briefing (and I took notes, believe you me!), I was impressed enough to want to shake Judge Griffith’s hand, but he was pretty popular with the other interns, and we all got shooed out of the courtroom before I could get the chance. A lot of the interns took off once we were out, but I still hung around. At this time, someone had realized that we hadn’t had a photo with Judge Griffith yet, like we usually do with all of our briefers. Luckily, Andrew Dougherty had a camera, so we posed in the hallway and got a picture. And after that, I got to shake Judge Griffith’s hand! A photo and a handshake—staying later DOES pay off!
It was well after 4 p.m. by this time, as I knew it would be, but it was SO WORTH IT to go to the briefing that I didn’t really mind at all. I enjoyed a leisurely walk home, where I ate, changed, and took off for NMWA to give my Gallery Talk. I took the Metro to get there a few minutes early, although I ended up starting my presentation a few minutes late since there wasn’t really anyone interested in a tour from 7-7:05 ish.

My Gallery Talk went very well. Hooray! To my surprise and delight, the following things occurred:

1. Nobody minded that I mispronounced/butchered the Hungarian names.
2. Only about FIVE people were officially listening to me. However, there were other people wandering around in the exhibits, and some of them afterwards commented that they had overheard and enjoyed the presentation. Zoom—there goes my self-confidence!
3. There was an actual guy from Hungary who attended the exhibit! Aaaaaand, instead of being snotty or inclined to only speak in French, he was really nice: Instead of contradicting or correcting me on anything, he expressed gratitude and appreciation for my and the museum’s promotion and support of his country’s artists. And he helped me pronounce a few names when I asked him. And he was cute (but that’s beside the point, especially since I didn’t get his name or number).
4. Other Ruth (I call her “Other Ruth,” and she calls me the same, I imagine. She works in Member Services at the Museum and is super super nice) attended for moral support. Vivian, my supervisor, wished me luck. After the talk, Karen, one of the guards, chatted with me for a while about both the exhibits. It was like a family reunion!
5. Despite completely losing my place in my notes and forgetting half of what I wanted to say, I got through 30 min. of speaking about photographs and themes and artists and ideas, and still somehow managed to stay on track and make it sound like it made sense.
6. The 5 people—bless their hearts!—didn’t have hard questions and were very nice and said “Thank you” and didn’t complain about what a shabby small collection we had! (Note: This is my biggest fear)

Anyway, I was very very happy after it was all over. I spent some time looking at the Mary McFadden exhibit and then went upstairs to do some computer stuff on my new office computer, and then walked home on Cloud 99.

I can’t remember exactly what happened Friday night... sighing, swooning, crying... Oh yeah. Ocean’s Eleven.

Saturday was another super duper day, from beginning to end, but I’m going to have to write about it tomorrow, since it’s midnight now and I want to get to bed. Just know for now that Saturday involved the following things:

-tour of the U.S. Capitol
-visit to the White House Visitor’s Center
-tour of the DAR
-yeah John Adams!
-Happy Birthday to Brad...
-in which I learn that playing Mafia can be either pretty fun or pretty boring

Lest Sunday feels left out, here’s a quick summary of how I spent my time today:

-woke up
-including traveling time and a few minutes at the Munch-n-Mingle after church (mmm, pizza bagel bites!), church = 10:00 am – 3:00 pm
-lunch, rest
-1/2 dinner
-loooooong walk to and back from the FOUR MEMORIALS mentioned in the title (Einstein Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, FDR Memorial, and Jefferson Memorial) and looooooong phone call, mainly to Sarah, during which phone gives out and has to be recharged
-other 1/2 dinner (the alfredo pasta is gone, but the cheesy pasta remains to be devoured! I’m on it!)
-looooooooooooooooooooooooong blog entry, culminating in the words “looooooooooooooooooooooooong blog entry” and “Good night—I love you.”

Good night! I love you!