Coming SOON...

Ok, so I’ll begin by apologizing profusely for not posting more in the past few days... As Dad correctly surmised (or at least hinted at), I’ve been using my evenings to sleep more and write less (okay, not at all). The results have been pretty good; I stayed awake during all of class on Friday (although bringing my laptop computer to class rather than just blank paper was a significant contributing factor) and likewise during all of the movie we watched on Friday night (“Big Fish”; I didn’t think much of it in the category of “good movies,” but it’s pretty much awesome in the category of “swoon-worthy footage of Ewan McGregor”). However, this does not mean that there has been nothing worth writing about as of late! Here are a couple of pictures to peak your interest for my sharing of past adventures:

Take a close look around the dark environment and guess what significant artifact of cultural history I am blocking from your view. Also note how GREEN my eyes look in this pic. This makes me feel REALLY guilty for having “Blue” on my driver’s license...

Here’s a picture from the Utah Senate room on Inauguration Day, since I fully intend re-hashing that subject when I post all my inauguration pictures. In this picture you can completely alter my facial expression if you cover either half of my face; I prefer the left side but the right side is probably closer to the way I was feeling at that moment.

I turned it into stone... Still questioning my capacity to be thought of as “The White Witch?”

Honey, we shrunk the cathedral!!!

To those of you who are at a loss for a response to this disturbing image, be afraid. Be very, very afraid right now.

The White (Witch’s) House: “Do you see those ten trees? My house is BEHIND those ten trees.”

Hopefully, having nothing to do tomorrow but stare at the clock until it hits the far-too-late 24 hour mark from the beginning of my fast to the end will afford me with plenty of time to actually write and post these proposed entries with the accompanying pictures.

Toodle-oo!

I CAN write short posts--see!?

It’s almost 11 pm here and I really want to go to bed, so this is going to be BRIEF. Everything’s good here. I made it to work through the icy slush and treacherous slippy spots, got my work done along with several non-work projects (thanks for your help on the tax stuff, Dad!), and took the Metro home to give myself enough time to go shopping at Safeway before heading back to the Barlow Center in time for a 6:30 briefing. The 6:30 briefing was very nervewracking and depressing (all about nuclear weapons in Korea and how frustrating it is that we haven’t done anything and can’t really do anything and probably won’t do anything), but very interesting all the same. BUT I was still very tired and had to fight hard to stay awake. Immediately after the briefing we had Institute class, about the Presidents of the Church/Presidents of the U.S. Sister Blanchard had provided us with dinner, practically—chili, crackers, fish sticks, cheese, cookies, and milk—so I at least didn’t have to worry about fixing myself something to eat afterwards! I wouldn’t have had time anyway, cause right after Institute Valerie and I had an appointment with our home teachers. They kept us talking until I had to break it off for my 9:30 pm appointment with my visiting teachee/companion, which lasted until 10:00 pm. Our other teachee was sick and we couldn’t find her, so we ended up leaving a note and some orange juice outside her door.

I was not happy at missing the opportunities to go to Barnes & Noble, the gym, or the free concert tonight, but... “there’s always tomorrow!”

I have nothing. Ben, I have nothing...I have twelve paragraphs of nothing

I’m feeling kind of tired tonight, and not very motivated to write a long post about my day...but here I go, anyway.

Today was the first real day of the year here in D.C. where it actually snowed. And boy did it snow! Not as in we got a lot of snow, but as in like, ALL DAY IT WAS SNOWING. It was really pretty and exciting in the morning, but slippery and annoying in the evening. After all my parents’ hard efforts to send me a nice sturdy umbrella, can you believe that I just walked off this morning without it!?!? Well, on the bright side, it was probably my only opportunity for the entire year to arrive at work covered with a fine attractive layer of white powder. I was very grateful for the lack of snow during Inauguration Day, but would actually like to see some more snow here. It makes everything look so pretty! Also, there’s a rumor going around that the city officials panic and shut everything down when there’s enough to build a snowman, so we don’t have to go to work... But I, like doubting Thomas, need to see this thing before I will believe it.

Anyway, I found the snow pretty difficult to navigate in my completely pathetic tractionless (but oh so professional-looking) boots, so if it’s still wet and slushy tomorrow (highly likely) and if I still have to go to work (siiiiiighs notwithstanding, highly likely), I might wear my Keds and just slip my Sunday shoes in my bag to wear while at work. The Keds worked very well for me when I went to Georgetown and to the Kennedy Center after work today. And anything is better than having to leave another half hour earlier so as to inch along in tractionless shoes and still get to work on time and sans snowy-muddy ("Smudwy?" Whadda ya think, Kirster?) clothes from falling in the street.

Work was rather normal and nice. The receptionist was out for the day, making it even more quiet and peaceful than usual... And my computer worked fine all day and I finished updating the files I was given and I got to work on a fun interview piece for the upcoming magazine and I finally met with the HR guy to get a lot of paperwork to fill out about getting paid. That last part has me a little worried, but I’m going to do my best to get it all done tomorrow, and may end up calling Dad for help. Hear that, Dad? Can you manage to stick around the phones tomorrow?

I had lunch from 1:30-2:30, and read The Washington Post in the nice big lunch room on the 6th floor. I try to read the paper every day but don’t always make it. Of course, we’re encouraged to read as many papers as possible while in D.C., but since Professor Bowen sends us a lot of articles and videos to review for class, and I have other readings to do for the internship, there’s never time to read everything. I do like The Washington Post, though. They have interesting articles and commentary on what’s taking place. Unfortunately, they do not have Dilbert.

By the time I finished work, it was dark again as usual (grumble, grumble), and it took me longer than usual to make my way home in the slushy snow. But I enjoyed the nice long walk anyway—I do get a lot of exercise walking to and from work, and it’s always nice to save money by not riding the Metro. Plus, there’s always a lot to see in the streets: Cute quaint shops, very old or distinguished buildings (did I tell y’all I can pass the house of President James Monroe every day on my route? I’ll have to take a picture sometime), funky little restaurants and pubs (“Foggy Bottom Pub” has such a Londonish air about it, wouldn’t you agree?), important business people who somehow seem much less important when they are standing outside in order to smoke a cigarette, foreign people speaking to each other in their own foreign language (hardly a day goes by without my hearing some Asian language, and the other day two fellows took me by surprise by speaking English in a Scottish accent! Very neat!), strange-acting homeless men who try to dissuade me from going into McDonalds...

Random story time! Last week I was sent out to pick up a news magazine with an article about our museum in it. I went around to a hotel close to the museum, picked up the magazine (it was free!), and was on my way back when I passed a McDonalds. For no reason at all, I decided to go in and see what they had on the menu and how much it cost and so on. However, before I could open the door, this random shabbily dressed, unsteady looking guy stumbled outside. He was holding the door open for me, but then he stopped and, staring, said, “YOU’RE going in THERE!?!” I paused, almost already inside, and ran a quick scan of my memory to reassure myself that entering a McDonald’s was not a heinous crime in the United States (well, by some standards...), and said, “Um, yeah.” This bit of affirmation astounded “random tipsy man” beyond all proportion. He informed me that the McDonald’s was “bad,” even “terrible,” and that I would be taking great risks (it was not clear whether these would be to my purse, stomach, person, or life) should I cross the threshold. “Suit yourself,” he warned, like an ominous prophet, before lurching down the street while hiccoughing, staring, and cackling back at me like a witless buffoon. By this time, I had determined to go inside McDonalds simply to get away from this unsavory character, but I was sufficiently unnerved by our conversation to do nothing inside the establishment (which, by the way, seemed as perfectly normal a McDonald’s as one could expect to see) other than wait for him to exit the immediate area before stepping out again. Moral of the random story?

A. Apparently I’m too good for McDonald’s.
B. Don’t judge a McDonald’s by its cover. Or a crazy homeless man by his craziness (after all, he was probably right about McDonald’s being “bad.”). Or a poor college student by a remarkably professional and high-class demeanor (I’m convinced the “boots” made all the difference).
C. I think we can all agree that it is still considered to be socially acceptable for guys to hold doors open for girls.

The point of all this was that I like to walk in D.C., and especially now that I don’t have to look at a map at every corner to figure out where I’m going. So I walked home after work, then immediately walked to the Kennedy Center and enjoyed most of the free concert. It was a group of operatic singers called the National Washington Opera Group or something like that. All the singers were incredibly talented, but all but one of their songs was in Italian and it was a little hard to always pay attention. Especially since I was falling asleep by this time. Oh, and there was a young girl next to me who kept coughing during the whole thing. I could have shot her down with the eyes of hate, but her mother seemed pretty embarrassed about it, and eventually made her switch seats to move away without any prompting from me whatsoever. So apparently “thoughts of hate” are becoming just as effective...!?

After the concert, I went shopping at Safeway (a record-breaking four bags—the most that I’ve ever carried from one shopping trip!) and then home to eat dinner, a nice ham-thing in the MRE package. After dinner, I walked to Georgetown and spent an hour in what is rapidly becoming my favorite place in D.C., if not the world: Barnes & Noble.

And NOW...I’ve just been informed by Valerie that she has been having rather lengthy and substantive conversation via Facebook with a very potentially date-able young man whom she met at the ice skating activity last week. They’ve exchanged four or five messages and looked at each other’s photos only in the past few days, which sounds pretty serious.

Apologies for not posting about Sunday or Monday. I do have a Sunday draft scribbled out, but Monday and all of its dreary Mondayness is kind of slipping away from me, so I might have to let that one go.

Don’t forget to comment! Love to you all!

P.s. Did anyone else noticed the shift in my attitude from "I don't wanna write" at the beginning to "If ONLY I could keep writing!" at the end...? Just curious.

Whose idea was Monday, anyway?

So it REALLY felt like a Monday today... I slept in, got up in time only to fix myself a nice lunch and eat a rushed breakfast (orange and some bread...) before walking to work and getting there ten minutes late (and that mostly because I was taking a new route that had been closed all last week and the week before for Inauguration, and I took a wrong turn on one street in the new route). I felt bad about being late, but I stayed until 5:40 to make up for it, and my supervisors are always much later than me, so no one seems to mind very much. Except for the little “non-dark-side” of my conscience...

Work was really busy and not very fun. I had to put together the daily art news, which took longer than usual since the news was backed up from last Thursday evening, and then go right to the dreaded Phone Duty training session, which was meant to be a re-cap for me and a fresh intro for ALL the OTHER interns. When I got to the desk, however, there was me, the receptionist, and only ONE intern there. Her name is Kristie Yeung, and she is really nice. She works in Development on the 6th floor, and we promptly became friends and agreed to have lunch together that day. The receptionist was in a little bit of a better mood, and spoke just a little bit slower and allowed us the smallest littlest bit more time in between her directions to write down notes. Whenever the phone rang, she let—made—Kristie answer (not me—huge sigh of relief at having already passed that test!), though more often than not the calls ended up being complicated enough so that she had to take the phone away anyway. We got our phone duty shifts emailed to us last week, and I’ll be working every Tuesday, 12-2. So, extra prayers during this time would be greatly appreciated, folks...!

The rest of Monday pretty much faded into oblivion, as Mondays will do. I finished a PolSci 399R paper and then went to FHE, which involved snacking on popcorn, green-but-chocolate M&Ms, and pretzels, and participating in a music dance video contest in groups (Warning: “groups” is almost always a danger sign for upcoming fragmentation, boredom, and indecision among FHEs). We were supposed to be assigned songs and come up with our own choreography, but my group never was given a song, which resulted in about ten minutes of absolutely nothing as we—some of us—searched for, found, practiced to, and discarded four or five possible options. By that time, it was time for “showtime,” and we pretty much had nothing. But our latest song had been a classical-opera-balletish type piece, so we stuck with that, improvising all but maybe 10 seconds of choreography, and scoring embarrassingly low in the cheer-scream-clap-factor-method used to determine the winner of the night. Some of our members even deserted our group before we performed. The other groups all did better, but nothing so worthy of the deafening screams of raucous applause which came from their members when “voting time” came around. All in all, I was not impressed with the activity, and if it weren’t for the pretzel-popcorn-M&M mix, the night would have been completely pointless.

Further evidence that I am falling to the Dark Side...

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that I MUST have written and subsequently forgotten to post the single-spaced, ten-paragraph entries detailing my adventures from the past two days or that my Internet connection went down again or that I was prevented from posting for the last two nights by an alien space attack or another such comparably catastrophic calamity. Well, (deep breath), and this is hard for me... Assuming you’re thinking this, you would be wrong. The truth is that I simply didn’t write. On my blog, that is. I wrote my paper for the Political Science 399 class and turned it in today, roughly an hour before it was due, and I wrote a lot of random work-related stuff today on the job—whoops, internship—including a bunch of boring phone-duty notes from the second session of training, which was nearly as bad as the first, but not quite! You’ll find out why in a minute, after I’m done going off on tangents and reviewing stale, leftover news from the weekend.

So I feel kind of bad, because I was excited to keep a journal blog for every day I was in D.C., and I really wanted to write EVERY DAY, even if it was just a paragraph or something!!! And it’s not even February yet and I blew it. Siiiigh. So please tell me it’s okay and you don’t mind and I’m still pretty much perfect in your eyes and all that other inspirational stuff. Please? ‘Annnyyybodddy?!?’ (Daniel, name that character! No one else will get it so I won’t even bother)

Because of the three day back-up, I’ll try to be speedy in describing my Saturday and Sunday. After the beautiful warm Friday weather, Saturday was pretty cold and dismal in comparison, but I ended up spending most of it indoors anyway, so I hardly noticed. Valerie and I used the morning to go to the Corcoran Gallery and get their two-for-one discount. This turned out to be a relatively good thing, since the gallery itself wasn’t worth the half-price of $7 that we paid for it. It was still kind of pretty and fun to look at and everything. They had cool exhibits and cool pictures and I’ll say a lot more about that when I get the time to put some of my pictures on here.

After the Corcoran Gallery, we walked home and ate lunch at the Barlow Center (peanut butter and jelly bagels, by the way, are infinitely better tasting than plain bagels—how could I have never noticed the difference before?), then split up. Valerie took the Metro to some place to go ice skating for a church activity, and I went to the National Museum of Natural History, which is now pretty much my favorite place in the entire world (or at least a tie with Barnes & Noble).

I could say a zillion bajillion things about this museum and still not cover all the amazing things inside it. I gawked and gazed and tried to take in as much as I could, but I know I’ll have to go back for two reasons: The first is to see all the things that I didn’t have time to see. The second is to take pictures, since I really didn’t take any—wasn’t that dreadful of me? I guess I was just too overwhelmed by it all: The size, the scope, the amount of things to see...Oh, and all the little families rushing around. My goodness! It was worse than an LDS meetinghouse gym at a family ward Christmas party! Surprisingly, this was the first museum that I’ve really seen kids running around in. In fact, come to think of it, it was the first TIME that I’ve really ever seen a group of kids in one place in D.C.... Even during Inauguration I never saw so many children running around. It was weird, like they had all been hiding since I got here or something....Hmm. Well, I’m rather relieved to know that D.C. isn’t like the evil country in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang where no children are allowed! On the other hand, I make note of the fact that D.C. probably isn’t the greatest environment for raising a large Mormon family. Unless you could find a way to live in the Natural History Museum (which would be AWESOME). (By the way, you will please note that the exclamatory adjectival utterance of “awesome” is yet another indication of just how far I have fallen to the dark side.)

Here are just a few things to see in this wonderful, humongous museum: The Hope Diamond (not nearly as impressive as Dorothy’s ruby red slippers, but there sure were a lot more people crowded around it). Elephants. Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! (Actually, I never saw the lions and tigers...) Continually playing free movies about submarine exploration and Civil Rights and Martin Luther King and evolution. A child-size version of the Amazon Rainforest. Glass elevators that you can see through. A humongous whale. Dinosaurs. Cool but expensive movies about dinosaurs and the ocean which you can see with 3-D glasses (which worked very well, particularly in the Dinosaur movie—I felt like I was getting my face eaten and my eye poked out at least twice!). And The Dark Knight.

No, you didn’t misread that last part. The Imax theater was playing “The Dark Knight” as a special feature film on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays in January. And sooooo....I saw it. Did I love it? No. Did I like it? Yeah. A lot.

I was nervous about seeing the film because of the level of violence, but I was honestly relieved and even a little surprised by the result. Of course, there is a lot of violence in the film, but it was neither as gross nor as great as what I had been led to expect from all the hype. Nothing graphic was really ever shown, thanks to the clever cutting away at the “crucial” moment trick. Of course, I tend to cover my eyes or glance in a different direction whenever a potentially-nightmare-inducing image is about to appear onscreen... But I can say that I wasn’t terribly frightened of Two-Face (although I pretty much concentrated on the “good” side whenever he appeared) or even of the Joker’s scary cackle, and I pretty much avoided the screen altogether during the infamous “pencil trick,” but it didn’t look as bad as it sounded.

My main problem was not with the violence of the film, but rather with the volume, which was turned up to a ridiculously high level in the ridiculously huge Imax theater, making it difficult to concentrate on anything during the car-chasing motorcycle-revving building-exploding scenes other than the fact that MY EARS ARE HURTING!!!!!!@!!*&@!(*@&!(*!!!!!!!!

Lastly, but not least(ly), I was warned that the film is kind of depressing, but ouch. It really is. I’m not sure I could have made it through the night if they hadn’t decided to watch one of those goofy whipped-cream romantic comedies in the basement later that night in the Barlow Center. It was called One Fine Day or something like that, and it was the perfect counterbalance to my feelings of darkness and dignity and heroism...

There was another church activity that night as well, with bowling and food and games and stuff at some place on George Washington University campus, but I didn’t feel like going, so I didn’t.

And....I’ll write about Sunday and Monday later. It’s already past midnight and I need to get some sleep before tomorrow so I can wake up early and exercise before work. But quickly, before I sign off, I did get the package today from Mom and Dad with all the fun goodies in it. Thanks for the socks, clothes, DVDs (John Adams! Redwall! Chariots of Fire! You DO love me!!!), and the Redwall books especially. The umbrella ALMOST came in handy today, as it was snowing this morning, but it stopped pretty soon to the sadness of us all (I mean, any day where we don’t have to go to work for 3 inches of snow is a good day, right?).

Crazy, Lazy, and AMAZING Day - In that order!

Today started out very well. I got up early enough to exercise and take a warm shower before our first briefing at 9:30, and I really, really enjoyed the speaker, Gordon Flake. He is LDS and works as a political analyist; his speciality is Asian countries, and he’s particularly knowledgeable about Korea, having served his mission there and lived there and stuff. He talked to us about the history of Korea (which was FASCINATING! MUCH more exciting than the loooooong article we had to read—which, incidentally, was written by him as well) and told us in a very cheerful pepped-up voice about how North Korea had basically crossed every red line, violated every agreement, and lied at every turn, AND gotten away with it! I was pretty nervous by the end of his speech—what are we gonna do now to save ourselves from North Korea, guys!?!?—but he himself was very cheerful and energetic throughout the whole thing. He cracked a lot of jokes (“People ask what I do in my job, and I tell them what my kids tell me—I go to a lot of meetings and talk a lot”) and was so knowledgeable and, unlike last week’s first speaker, had a good spirit of enthusiasm about being a Latter-day Saint involved in politics. I found myself wanting to become a Korean major, an Asian historian, and a politician all at once after his speech... Or at least marry one, y’know.

We had class right after the briefing; it was all about the Arab-Israeli crisis and how we had all grown up hearing only the pro-Israel side and how many Palestinians were dying and it’s all the United States’ fault for not doing enough and so on. I had difficulty following along with Professor Bowen’s charts and rapid historical account, but I’m not sure how much of it was due to the late hour, her fast talking, or the fact that I had had nothing but an orange for breakfast. Sigh! We went well over the hour, cutting our break between class and the time we had to leave to get to the building where our final briefing of the day would be held. Grrrr. I had only enough time to eat a bagel before we rushed off to the AIPAC building (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) where we would get our second briefing, from a pro-Israel standpoint (well, duh. Did I really think she was going to bring in an anti-Israel Washington D.C. person to talk to us...?). Professor Bowen was very serious about warning us to be on our guard, and think neither of AIPAC leaders as “The Messiah” or as “The Devil.” Feeling confused, but wanting to be safe, I decided to think of them just as regular people. I hope that was okay.

The briefing was rather one-sided and predictable, as we expected. The lady who addressed us was the campus outreach director for AIPAC, and had actually visited BYU several times and worked with people from BYU before, so she knew a lot about us and was very positive about the church. Interesting tid-bit: She has Israeli heritage (and still has family living in Israel), but was born in South Africa, and grew up in Georgia and graduated from UGA! Neat, huh? She was very friendly and nice and pretty knowledgeable about what she does and what the company does, but she was very careful to stay out of any controversial issues and make it clear that AIPAC was only interested in making sure the United States and Israel had a “good, strong, healthy” relationship. Which means lobbying for foreign aid, education, money, etc. Pretty anti-climactic. I asked her if it was difficult to get Republicans and Democrats to work together in deciding what to do about the United States-Israel “relationship,” and she responded in about two minutes, basically just saying, “No, it isn’t.” (This is quite an impressive talent, by the by—saying a lot while saying little. Given the length of my entries here, I seem to be lacking in this area...he he he).

I neglected to mention that we took a bus to get to AIPAC. It was the first bus I’ve taken here, unless you count the Kennedy Center bus that just goes from the Metro to the KC and back, and I rather enjoyed the ride. It was nice to see the city rather than the dark, shady tunnels of the Metro for once, and I got a good feel for where AIPAC was in relation to other places (it’s just a few blocks north from where I work). Unfortunately, it was also kind of hot and stuffy, which would have been fine if I wasn’t all dressed up for winter. Today was definitely the warmest day I’ve seen in D.C. so far! It’s supposed to get cold again in a day or so, but the warmth was kind of nice, especially since I’m still trying to recover from that sort-of-sore-throat. Oh, and ESPECIALLY since as of this evening, we no longer have hot water. Farewell my warm morning shower, how I miss thee already! Valerie and I will both probably be heading to the gym tomorrow to shower and hopefully exercise. I rubbed some more blisterish things on my feet from walking a few miles (I walked home from AIPAC rather than catch the bus; it took about 45 min) in my hose and boots, and Valerie’s Achilles’ tendons have been hurting, so we’re both a little footsore right now. Maybe the exercise bike would be the best option!?

Also, the AIPAC building had absolutely no signs outside whatsoever, and nothing to indicate that it WAS indeed the correct building. Inside they told us this was for security purposes (so I guess the US-Israel relationship actually does still have a few kinks in it!). Also for security, we had to pass all of our stuff through the metal detector; honestly, I’ve never had to go through so many metal detectors in my life as here in D.C.! The Washington Monument, the Museum of American History, the Holocaust Museum, the Senate building, AIPAC... On the plus side, I’ve become pretty quick at taking everything out of my pockets and putting it back again. We also had to be “escorted” up to the 7th floor and back down again, via elevator. I noted that everyone there seemed to be observing “Casual Friday” in their dress; either that or it’s okay now to wear jeans to work!?!? Oh, and the bellboy person who took us up was wearing one of those Jewish skullcaps, along with his casual clothes and stuff. Pretty neat!

So after the briefing (which was in a HUGE conference room with a nice view of the U.S. Capitol outside; a lot of people took pictures, but I had unfortunately left my camera behind again...), they served us all drinks (Sprite—yum. Oh, and that was my lunch—tada!) and escorted us down. We split up pretty soon, some to take the Metro, some to wait for a bus, and some to walk whithersoever they desired. I joined the group heading for the Barlow Center, and made it in roughly 45 minutes, taking my usual work route for part of the way.

Back at home, it was about 3:30, and I figured it would be pointless to try to rush and see a museum when they all close at 5:00 or 5:30, so I just ate lunch, took a nap, and went shopping.

Skip to the AMAZING part! Due to the kindness of one of Val’s coworkers, Valerie and I had free tickets to the National Symphony Orchestra, featuring pianist Yundi Li, at the Kennedy Center. We went and our tickets ended up being FOUR ROWS away from the stage!!!!!!!!!! And that’s not all, we were DEAD CENTER in the MIDDLE SECTION on the FLOOR!!!!!!!!!!! I had only ever been on the third balcony in any stage in the Kennedy Center, so this was a rare and remarkable privilege. I had to look up at the balcony a lot because I knew the chances of me getting this perspective again were slim. One of the fun moments came at the end when we applauded (like for 5 minutes, as the conductor had to walk out and in again about 3 times) and I could turn my head and HEAR the applause echoing from around the room! Really incredible.

As for the concert itself, wwwwwhuh-owwwwww. The orchestra was really beautiful; I never heard a mistake, and was very impressed at their sharp technique and concentration. We were so low down in the audience that it was hard to see anything other than the groups of violinists and bass players (I never saw the brass or the drums, but I heard them! I heard them! ~name that movie...), but we REALLY saw these performers: I could see faces, facial expressions, every turn page, every grimace, and little details, like the cloth that the first violinist (who was by far the most eye-catching figure; she was apparently a “second-in-command” to the conductor) used to cushion her violin between her shoulder and chin, and the different ways that they held their bows at rest. I also had a pretty good view of the guy who played the cymbals, which was nice after the first startling “crash,” because I could turn to watch him and prepare myself for the next loud noises. By the way, this is common sense, but the closer you are to the stage, THE LOUDER EVERYTHING IS. My ears were a little overworked by the end of it all, and I can only imagine how the players themselves cope!

The pianist, Yundi Li, was definitely the highlight of the night. There were three main numbers (the final was a selection of pieces from Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, which was most recognizable), and he played throughout the second, accompanied by the orchestra. He was basically perfect. No music to look at, nothing. And he never missed a note. And he played at maybe the speed of light. It was in-cred-uh-bull. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it myself, honestly. And with the low vantage point, I didn’t get to see his fingers very well (though I saw all the weird things he was doing with his face while he played; he grimaced a lot and would shake his head sometimes), so I’m still not entirely convinced that it wasn’t rigged. Or a miracle or SOMETHING. I was kind of sad he never came back after the final number, which is when we all did our “standing ovation” custom, because if anyone deserved a standing ovation, he did. He just bowed his two or three times (we did clap long enough to keep him running back—yeah!) and then vanished. The program said he would be signing CDs in the hall that evening, but I never saw him, soo.... farewell to the mysteriously marvelous piano man. Oh, and after witnessing such an incredible performance (sorry—I know I keep over-using that adjective), I’m not sure if I’m feeling inspired to practice the piano more, or just overwhelmed enough to give it up entirely. Kind of like how the Don Quixote ballet made me pine obsessively after acquiring the Baryshnikov film version, while loathing even the memories I have of pointe shoes. Any thoughts on this dichotomy?

Well, just a few more things to say before I wrap it up for the night:

1. I got the “food” package from Mama and Dad on Thursday. Thanks so much! And Mama, seeing your handwriting on the package made me homesick...I love you!

2. I haven’t called BYU yet, but will try to do so tomorrow, or Monday if they aren’t open. Thanks for trying, Dad!

3. I am uncontrollably and unconditionally in love with the Barnes & Nobles in Georgetown. Yesterday, I walked in, sat down, and read The Hunger Games for over an hour in a quiet spot in the kids’ section. It was seriously the highlight of my entire day... Oh, and the book is really rather interesting. I would recommend it :)

4. I have fallen to the dark side. Having loathed caramel and ice cream combos for years, I was utterly shocked and appalled to find myself consuming and ENJOYING the formerly alien brand of “Caramel Vanilla Delight” ice cream served to us at Institute. To those of you who know my detestation for caramel (it’s nearly as fierce as my loathing for mint, mushroom soup, and “broccoli breath”) and are shaking your heads in shock right now, I am just as confused and anxious about this as you. You might want to start repenting, as the end of the world is surely near.

5. I promise the pictures will come. But if not...will you still comment?

“How can you read this? It has no PICTURES!” Name the quoted source and character - bonus points to whoever recalls the clever comeback...

So yeah, once again I apologize for the lack of pictures (and of my spare time to post them). I was feeling kind of tired and sickish today, although my sore throat feels better now. The weather wasn’t quite as cold, and I took the Metro to work this morning, sparing myself some exposure. Anyway, since I do actually HAVE the pictures, I guess I rationalize postponing them since I know I can always come back to them, whereas my thoughts are flighty things that I’ve got to write down quick before they disappear. And you’ve got to remember that I was introduced to journal-writing in ye olde times, when all journals were written by hand and pictures were put in the ancient dust-covered photograph albums next to the family Bible. Some of my fellow Barlow Centerians have already informed me that my own digital camera is still rather behind in the times, with its inability to focus clearly on distant objects, zoom in and out like a racer car in a commercial, and function without alerting everyone within a 20-foot radius by a loud “ker-chick!” and flash that an old-fashioned, poor-quality photograph has just been taken. But it has kept working so far (bless its heart!), so I will try not to complain too much.

Today was the first day wherein I tackled the phone duty responsibility at work; I had wanted to wait until I could attend a second training session before starting up, but the next training session for all the other interns (who weren’t there last week when I received my own personal stress—um, training—session) was on Monday, and apparently the phone duty shift for today COULD NOT WAIT. So guess who was the ONLY intern who was, um, “trained”? Right. Me. Uh-huh.

So Addie, the Intern coordinator, had told me phone duty would be two hours MWF and one hour TTh, which cheered me up considerably, since, after all, what’s the worst that could happen in an hour? Then I checked in with our receptionist this morning to make sure...and she told me I would be working from noon to 2 pm. Ker-thunk. That was my heart sinking into my shoes.

At noon, I went down, but due to a meeting getting out it was really about 12:15 pm when I got behind the desk and the secretary left. She was answering the phone pretty much constantly every few seconds before she left, so I was terrified. Speaking a mile a minute (honestly, she speaks faster and more aggressively than any other person in the office, and possibly than any other person I know), she gave me a barrage of last-second instructions, all of which I could have followed up with a lot of questions, but didn’t, as I could tell she didn’t want to hear them and wasn’t going to slow down anyway to explain. So I nodded, grinned, sweated, and focused so hard on trying to appear as if I was thoroughly paying attention that I actually failed to really, uh, pay attention.

But then she left. It was me and the phone. How I glared at that phone. I prayed, I pleaded, I promised it cookies if it would not ring for the whole two hours. It was good at first. For the whole first hour, I hardly got any calls. The ones that I did get were fairly easy to handle, and I became a little more comfortable with transferring calls and looking up people on the many confusing information sheets provided at the desk. Not to say that I was perfect. There were a few flubs as I transferred calls to people who weren’t in their offices (but how was I supposed to know that they weren’t in?!), to voicemail, or—in one or two sad cases where I never found out the consequences—accidentally hung up on the party! I was really upset for a while about this, particularly since the callers had seemed nice and friendly, but gave myself a little pep talk shortly thereafter, with the following points of encouragement:

· No matter what happens, it is ONLY a phone call.
· In the worst possible scenario, I could ask the caller to call again later when the real receptionist is in (p.s. There is also some elaborate way to put them on hold and call the receptionist on her cell phone or on an extension and somehow transfer the call to her and yet still be able to talk with her and transfer the call to another person again... Needless to say, I much prefer the former method, and have a feeling that most other people do as well).
· It WAS my first day and I did have a sore throat—it’s okay if I messed up.
· It’s only two hours, and it’s only once a week at the most. Actually, I don’t have to do it at all next week because there are four other interns now, and none of us works on Friday, so we alternate M-Th. Yeah!!!

The second hour got a little crazier, both in the number and type of calls. I got calls about random things that I vaguely remembered being warned about in the crash training session course a week ago. For example, our number is one digit away from the number for the Peter Pan Peanut Butter company, and YES! I got a call about that very organization!!!! It was an old-sounding lady wanting to know if her Peter Pan peanut butter jar was being recalled for salmonella. Ummmmm..... Fortunately, I remembered that the secretary had the PPPB company’s number written down in the phone notebook, so I went searching for it madly (WHY can you never find anything when you desperately urgently NEED it!!?!?), flipping through the book several times while trying to explain the mix-up to the lady. At LAST I found the number, gave it to her, and tranquility was restored!

Another funny one was a guy calling SPECIFICALLY to get the number for the National Gallery of Art. Like the National Museum of Women in the Arts was a perfectly logical and reasonable place to go for such a thing. Fortunately again, this apparently happens all the time, and the receptionist had the number written on a Post-it note by the computer. Cha-ching!

By the end of the second hour, I was attempting to cast spells on the telephone to make it shut up, and on myself as well to make it possible for me to concentrate on my reading, my homework, my work, ANYTHING but the fact that I just KNEW that telephone was going to ring in the next second.... It was really quite nerve-wracking.

And then 2 pm came. And NO receptionist. 2:15 came. Nothing (by way of the receptionist, that is. I was getting (and loathing) plenty of calls). 2:25? Nada. Jane, the assistant to the director, a friendly but quiet lady who never fails to smile or say “Hi” to me in the mornings, walked by and asked me if the receptionist was coming back. I said, “I hope so!” 2:30. Then, at LAST, the phone rang and it was SHE! Hallelujah! She said she was coming up, and then hung up. And then it was like another 6/7 minutes before she appeared. She was smiling and cheerful, and congratulated me on surviving my first day, and then she told me that she had not even left the museum for lunch, just in case I needed to call her. As I look back on it, this was actually her way of doing me a favor and trying to be nice, but at the time I was rather upset at knowing that she COULD have come up to relieve me at 2 pm and chose for some reason or other not to, as well as at my having to work an extra hour-and-a-half past the time limit Addie had given me. But I was also SO RELIEVED to see her that I ignored my frustrations, and thanked her very much for coming back to take over. I have been praying that she and I would get along better and she would be in a good mood, so I feel blessed that Heavenly Father seems to be answering my prayers. Now all I need to do is strive to keep my part of the bargain by being cheerful, prompt, and as knowledgeable as I can. Without stressing myself out about it too much, cause after all, it’s JUST A PHONE CALL.

A few other things I experienced while on phone duty:

1. Most people calling in are either informed about what they want (meaning I don’t have to be the smart one—they tell me where to transfer the calls or who they want to speak with), or uninformed but nice and pleasant, and—this is important—slow talkers. I like this a lot, as it gives me a chance to evaluate the situation, double-check my number sheets, and take my time in transferring or looking up something or doing what needs to be done.

2. As a receptionist, people expect you to know EVERYTHING about the museum. Half of the questions were about stuff that anyone could go and look up on the website (Web site...if you’re Michelle), but of course, if you’re the receptionist, people assume you already know.

3. The 4th floor seems pretty remote and shabby, and the back part of it where my office and our junky tiny lunch room and cranky printer (which is named “Poundc@ke,” oddly enough) actually fits this description well, but there’s also a display room with art and a Library with books and stuff on display. Which is kind of neat—I’ll have to take a look in there sometime! Particularly when there are all these people coming up to look at it and ask ME questions about it!

Before I finish up, I wanted to say thanks especially to M.A. and the Ultimate Banana for commenting on my last two posts. For a few agonizing hours, I was afraid you had all abandoned me after the three-day crisis wherein there was no wireless!!! The comments, even the short ones, do buoy my spirits considerably, and you’d be surprised how inordinately proud I am of the fact that at least one loving person has commented on each and every post I have here. Also, I was quite excited to see this morning that Daniel has become a follower; yeah for my family and how much they love me!!!! Now if only I could convince Mom and Joseph that my ramblings are worth subscribing to... But until that day, I suppose Hoosier and Kirstiloo can be counted on to provide truthful reports of my proceedings :)

I love you all. Have a great Friday! (Sigh, yes, it IS Friday now. Shall the post-midnight postings never end!?)