Another Random Picture Post!

I was not sure what to make of this contraption outside the Hirshhorn Museum. It's big and red, but IS IT ART!?

These are my two supervisors, Vivian (Publications, on the left) and Michelle (Communications and Marketing). We celebrated Michelle's birthday with cake, lots of chatting and socializing (something unheard of while I was living on the 4th floor!), and a trip to Chinatown for yummy Chinese food.


I came across this walking down Pennsylvania Avenue one day. It seemed kind of dumb when I saw it - seems like the last thing we need is another monument for FDR after the humongous conglomeration of statues and waterfalls and walls created in his memory down by the Tidal Basin - but after reading the enscription, I decided I rather liked it after all. What do you think?

After Conference on Sunday, a group of us went walking down by the waterfront in Georgetown. It was a very nice day, and the walk was very lovely. Here's a view of the Kennedy Center across the Potomac River. Pretty!

It's like a cross between the beach and the city! That's the Watergate Hotel in the far off right.

Someone got an official picture of us smiling and standing together in front of the river, but I decided to go for the natural, un-posed look.



I walked past Ford's Theater and the House where Lincoln Died, but there were such long lines to get into both of them that I decided to bypass them for today. Maybe another day... or maybe not. The House wasn't THAT impressive when I went in it, and Ford's Theater...I can always watch National Treasure 2. Ok, ok, maybe I will see that one. Anyway, in the meantime, I took pictures of the outside of both buildings.

I went to the National Gallery of Art today, and couldn't help taking pictures of this gorgeous main room, even though I think I've already taken two other pictures of it on two separate occasions. It's just begging to have its picture taken, really.

I think we have a winner for the biggest calf muscles ever seen on a female sculpture!

Cute baby sculpture! Eddieflooskers reaching for a pine needle...

There was one room with four huge pictures - Thomas Cole's "The Journey of Life." Cole is one of my favorite paintings, not only for the beautiful colors and details in his paintings, but for the themes and deliberate planning he puts into his paintings. I love his series about the growth and decline of the world as an empire, and this one is just as beautiful and symbolic. I took pictures of all the paintings, but some turned out blurry. This one is my favorite - it's the first one, and represents the beauty and innocence of childhood.

A memorial to Robert Shaw and his troops during the Civil War. I remember having to put this one down in a powerpoint slide for the Humanities 262 class, but I thought it seemed pretty boring at the time. Seeing it in life is MUCH more impressive, I must say. It's huge and very shiny, almost golden. And it brought back memories of Gettysburg (the most touching of all the historical sites I've seen) and of the "Glory" movie Joseph and I watched together for AHtg 100. So I really liked this piece. When I'm a teacher, it's going on the test!

James Whistler's Symphony in White. It's a little larger than life-size, and they had it hung up pretty high - it was easier for me to meet eyes with the bear than the girl.

This is what I spent the last half of my afternoon doing....

Just kidding! Things are starting to wind down at work, however, as you can probably tell from the fact that I spent a good two hours at the National Gallery of Art (on “lunch” break) and had time to give my professor an hour-long tour of my museum today!

The rest of the day was pretty quiet. I walked home, went shopping, and went to Institute. It was supposed to be on the presidents of the Church and the United States, but since we had just had General Conference, we talked about our favorite talks instead. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland’s was the first one mentioned, as I expected. If you haven’t listened to it yet, go to this link (http://lds.org/conference/sessions/display/0,5239,23-1-1032,00.html) and scroll down to the Sunday Morning session. It’s a wonderful talk for anyone wanting to know how Latter-day Saints feel about Jesus Christ and the Atonement!

Well, that’s it for tonight! Thanks for keeping in touch and supporting me, through the comments, phone calls, Gmail chats (well, to Daniel, anyway!), and everything else. I’ll try to do and write more tomorrow!

P.s. By the way, it looks like the last three paragraphs ended with exclamation points—that ought to tell you something about my state of mind right now ;)