ONE MORE WEEK!

I am sitting inside my room alone with the window open, enjoying the lovely sound of rain falling on the roof. Ahhhhh. Valerie spent last night at her father-in-law’s, in order to go hiking at Shenandoah today. I wonder if it’s raining there.... Hmm.

Well, after spending the last two days exhausting myself in single-all-day adventures, I decided to take today easy, catching up on my blog writing, exercising indoors, probably walking to the Mall or the Jefferson Memorial later to see some of the remaining cherry blossoms, maybe going to Barnes & Noble in Georgetown to browse some books...etc.

I’ve had a nice week, and I’m really excited to think that in just one week, I’ll be on a plane flying home! The time really went by way too fast. But on the other hand, I can’t wait to see everyone, I’m super excited for the spring and summer in Utah, and I—yup, I’m gonna say it—am SO ready to move on from this internship! Don’t get me wrong, it’s been great, my supervisors are awesome, I really like the museum—BUT I am DONE with phone duty, with doing the same thing every day, with sitting in the same chair all day, and with trying to come up with new things to do now that my real tasks are done!!!!!

My goals for this upcoming week include – celebrating Easter (the Blanchards are throwing a party—which they do with practically EVERY occasion), going to Arlington Cemetery and seeing the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, going to Old Town Alexandria, going to the Phillips Gallery (I’ve been thwarted in my first two attempts to go there, and I’m not going today because they FORCE you to pay the special exhibition admission price on the weekends), going to the Old Post Office (Marie went and said it was pretty neat), going to the Museum of African Art and looking at the designs for the new African-American museum in the Smithsonian Castle, going to..............as many of the Smithsonians on the Mall as I can......trying again to get inside Ford’s Theater, and walking around in Georgetown (just to say I did it, y’know). Sounds like it’ll be a fun week!

Oh, yeah. I also have to clean my room and whatever part of the Barlow Center falls under my jurisdiction, do all my laundry, clean out all my stuff and re-pack it, figure out how to mail my big box (it’s still here in my room, so I’m hoping to use it again!), get my supervisor’s evaluation turned in, go to the Library of Congress to look up info for my research paper, and finish all the last-minute internship stuff I have to do at work, including my VERY LAST phone duty assignment. Whoopee! Though I must admit, last Tuesday was the slowest phone duty day I’ve ever had. I only got maybe three calls in the entire hour, and only one of them was mildly frustrating/awkward/embarrassing.

Ok. Time to get on to the meat of this entry. I’m sorry for not writing about the past two days, because they’ve been really great. But also really busy.

On Thursday, I went to work and left early, presumably so that I could go to the Phillips Art Collection. However, since my workplace is close to the National Museum of Crime and Punishment and I had been wanting to go there for a long time, I figured I could check it out first, and then still make it to the Phillips before they closed at 8:30 p.m. that night. Wrrrrong!

I spent $15 to get admitted to the museum (which made me determined to get the most out of my trip by missing NOTHING), and THAT was a student discount from the regular $19. Then I spent 6 1/2 hours walking through the museum. It looked small from the outside, but looks can be deceiving—that museum was HUGE! The twisty winding walkways went on FOREVER! Twice I walked my way to what I thought was “the end” of the museum, to gage how much time I could spend browsing up to that point, only to discover when I got to what I thought was “the end,” that the exhibits merely turned a corner or went down a flight of stairs!

There were three floors overall. The first one, the one where I spent most of my time (since I thought it was “the end”), and the most interesting in my opinion, was about the history of crime from medieval times to the modern era. The second floor was a hands-on CSI “Investigate the Crime” sort of deal. It was mildly sort-of interesting, but I was too tired to really get into tracing the 100 steps that must be taken to determine how this hair sample and that knife-wound and this blood sample can be used to catch a crook. The third floor was about the show America’s Most Wanted, which I knew next to nothing about, but luckily, the floor was a little less “dense” than the first two, and full of video clips rather than small print text, which made it easier to get through. I was completely exhausted by the end of the trip, but also happy that I had gone, and not at all disappointed with the museum. It was interesting, it was interactive, it was big, and, despite going by myself, there were plenty of friendly people around who were happy to take pictures of me in the “obligatory poses.” You’ll see what I mean when I post the pictures ;)

Also, before I wrap up the post, I just have to say that the April Fool's tricks between Valerie and me are going on splendidly! Really, it's so much fun I think I might establish April Fool's Month as a tradition in my own family... She recently put a lot of round paper circles (such as one would acquire from a hole-puncher) in my rolled up bathrobe sleeve. I put some Easter eggs from our last FHE in her shoes. Then she put them in my shoes and bathrobe pockets. Then I used them accordingly:

I can't wait to hear what she has to say when she gets back. Oh, I also taped her closet door shut. Don't feel too bad - she turned one of my shirts inside out before leaving yesterday!