Georgetown!

So one Friday after class, my friends and I decided to walk over to Georgetown and see some of the stuff over there. Georgetown is a beautiful part of Washington DC and has a nice colonial-esque feel to it.

Leaving campus, we came across the American Meridian Line and naturally had to take pictures.

Fighting the gap.

Two places at once!

At first we got lost, but found the Watergate Hotel and so admired it for a while before following a sidewalk that led to a trail by the river. After playing Pooh Sticks on a bridge, we followed the trail which led us onto a beautiful walkway along the river that led us right to Georgetown. It was beautiful!

We stopped at an authentic Chinese tea shop for some refreshment. I tried a caffeine-free herbal tea (smelled great! tasted like bath water) but the food was really good!

We got to sit/kneel on pillows and embrace the entire traditional experience. It was lovely. 

And then I found the Mecca of Cupcakes...and quickly sent my sister some pictures (heehee). We went inside, much to my delight and got some scrumptious desserts!

I got a chocolate lava. It was divine!

We then proceeded to walk towards to nearest metro station, which was across the river in Virginia. So we ran to the river, jumped in a canoe, and paddled like mad! 

Just kidding. 

Instead, we took a stroll through the Francis Scott Key Park that led to the Francis Scott Key Memorial Bridge and witnessed an amazing sunset. 

A bust of the previously mentioned man. 

Artistic photos

And NATURE!

That's the Potomac River. So beautiful.

It was a beautiful evening for a stroll across the river. We walked around Arlington (the city) to the nearest metro and then went our separate ways. It was indeed another grand adventure.

one...two...three...really? Only three classes?

So this semester I am taking a grand total of three classes...but before you scoff, remember these are grad school classes and thus have more credits attached to them :).

My first class is museum facilitation and this is the class attached to my internship. In addition to spending two-working days at our internship, we spend a lot of time learning and researching educational theorists and teaching techniques. Since I learned most of this in my undergrad classes, it has been a great refresher and a little hard separating all the different theories because they have all become molded together in my mind creating my own learning theory and technique. What fun! I am enjoying it and learning a lot.

My next class is museum audiences! We learn about audiences! Surprise! It's a really good course about different audiences and groups that will come to the museums. Our class is taught by an employee from the National Park Service and she really knows what she is doing.

My final class is exhibition design and we have this class in the Air and Space Museum. It's a blast! Our final project is to design a poster that will hang in the museum for about 4 months. It is really interesting course and I am learning a lot. We are learning how to use two programs: InDesign and Photoshop.

My schedule is pretty busy, even with just three classes. I am really enjoying this semester but I am looking forward to the semester break in December!

My Kiddos

So this semester I have a 2-day internship at the Smithsonian Early Enrichment Center (SEEC) with the Kindergartners, and every day has been a blast. I love these kids and they are so fun to be around and to learn with and to work with.

They have openly embraced my present and I spend my days playing with them. I love it! Their center is located in the Natural History Museum so we spend a lot of time in that museum as well as going to other places.

I love spending time with these kids and they are helping lessen the ache of missing my nieces and nephews back home.

One week they created their own museum collections with stuff from their houses (like their toys, etc.) so I brought in my scout patch collection and they had a blast going through it and asking what everything meant and organizing them into piles.

They also love to sit on me. Anytime I am sitting in a chair (which is their size...not an adult size) or sitting on the ground, one of them is always trying to sit on my lap or several of them are sitting on my legs. One student in particular is very snuggly and always wants to sit in my lap or on my leg...as this picture demonstrates. 

I am thoroughly enjoying my time at SEEC and I am learning so much from these kids and their teachers, who are amazing! I will be sad to leave them at the end of the semester but hope to visit them a lot during the spring semester. 

Dinosaurs in DC!

Fridays are a happy day for me and my fellow educators. It means we survived another week and that usually is reason enough to celebrate. Plus, it's the weekend!

I have become good friends with two other awesome ladies in my program and we have taken to going on adventures after class on Fridays. We have had a ball exploring the city and just walking around and talking...and sometimes sneaking into places we shouldn't...

*awkward pause*

But who cares! DC is an adventure that is meant to be conquered!

One fine Friday, we decided to talk a walk around town and go get some yummy chicken at Nando's Peri-Peri which is super yummy chicken. Mmm...so good.

Anyway, after a scrumptious meal, we wandered...and went on several adventures.

And look what we found! The most amazing second-hand bookstore ever! We probably browsed for a good 40 minutes before finally making our purchases (limiting ourselves to $5). We gleefully clutched our prizes as we continued our ramblings around the city. 

After "wandering" into the Army-Navy Club (really neat, didn't take any pictures for fear of getting thrown out), we stopped for a brief refreshment of fro-yo before noticing a loverly patch of wilderness and deciding to further explore. Much to our surprise, it was Lafayette Square which is right next to the White House. So we walked over to the White House and took some pictures.  

A little perspective for you.

Poking in between the bars. 

Did you know there are dinosaurs in DC? Must be a new security measure.

Then we decided to go hotel hopping and went to all the famous hotels in downtown DC. It was a lot of fun to just waltz in like we belonged there and see what they were like inside.

It was a lovely evening. 

The hotels were beautiful! And one of them sells hunting jackets for Fox Hunts!

It was a really fun evening and we quite enjoyed ourselves. We become more familiar with the city and got to see some fun things. But we also learned an important lesson...there are dinosaurs in DC.

Events and Adventures

Every day I experience something new. I am becoming more familiar with DC and its bustle and style. I am also getting better with the directions (Hallelujah).

My Second Family came to Visit
In August, my best friend was able to come visit when her family stopped in DC as part of a cross country road trip. They were absolutely amazing and allowed me to tag along with them for the weekend. I even got to spend the night in a tent. Lexi and I of course stayed up till about 2:30am talking. It had been over a year and half since we had physically seen each other so it was necessary to do so. We also got to go to the Washington DC Temple and they came to church with me on Sunday. It was a wonderful visit that was not long enough and made me really excited for December when we could see each other more often.

This is Marvalo, the hippo. He lives in the Potomac River and is a descendant of the hippos that supposedly lived near Mount Vernon when George Washington lived there. We wanted to go swimming with him, but didn't have time this trip. 

Ouch

During the a vigorous cleaning session in July, I caught my middle finger nail underneath the lip on the microwave and ripped part of the nail. I handled the situation like a mature adult, and proceeded to hop around the kitchen, saying "ouchouchouchouchouchouchouchouch". The nail was only ripped partially and so I squirted some antibacterial ointment on it and wrapped it up, hoping that the nail would not fall off. 

Happily, my nail did not fall off and is recovering quite nicely. About half of it turned completely white (that was the part that got ripped from the skin). But now there is only a small part of it that is still white. Needless to say, I am much more careful cleaning under the microwave now. 

Macon and Me

I have a good friend that goes everywhere with me. I call him Macon. He's a can of mace. 

Technically, under DC law, you are suppose to register with the police if you buy a can...but since I bought it in Utah and I am not a resident of Washington DC (I technically live in Maryland), I haven't bothered to do so.

He lives in my bag and tags along on all my adventures. I have never come close to needing it. But it does provide a bit of peace of mind as I travel around to different parts of the city and at different hours of the day. 

Finally!

Once upon a time, roughly 11 years ago, my dad, two oldest siblings, and I were visiting Washington DC and were told that we could go get a library card from the Library of Congress. Well who wouldn't want to do that?

However, we were told that we were not allowed to get one because we were just visiting (never mind that our taxes were paying for the upkeep of said library).  Disappointed, we left and hoped that one day we would get our cards.

Well, I got mine.

A few weeks ago, I preregistered online to go get a library card. I was worried that they wouldn't give me one, but apparently being a student at a local university is a great reason! So one free morning I wandered over the river and through the ghetto (on bus and metro) to the Madison Building of the Library of Congress.

I filled out a form, and then sat and waited.

My name was called, I smiled for the camera, and signed my name. 

HAHAHAHA!

Minus the stretched out picture (but my hair is relatively calm so I'm happy), I have a library card for the Library of Congress!!!! I have not gone to the reading room yet, mainly because I have had no free time to do such things these past few weeks. But I am planing on going quite soon and secretly taking pictures to document my adventures. 

And when my Dad comes to visit, I am taking him to get one. We will be working on an important research project together. ;)  

The White House

Apparently times flies by in grad school. Surprise! It's been nearly 4 weeks since I've posted anything for which I do sincerely apologize...for the masses that clearly read these inspiring posts (ha. ha. ha.)

Anywho, once upon a time, at the beginning of August, one of my classmates contacted us and told us that he could get us into the White House for a tour.

Be still my beating heart.

We had to provide a bunch of information: our full legal names, address, identification, social security number, blood sample, a brief essay outlining our understanding of the Constitution and how the government works, a list of our favorite presidents, and a brief training exercise on how to drop to the ground and cower in fear if something happened while on the tour.

Haha just kidding. We just needed to provide the first 4...although when I'm president...

The tour was amazing though! We went on August 29 and met bright and early to stand in line for 40 minutes. We were not allowed to bring any bags with us or cameras. Just our IDs and sparkling personalities.

Of course when you unleash a group of museum educators on a site such as the White House, there will be a lot of squealing, telling of historical facts, and other museum-ish behavior.

There were four checkpoints we had to go through to get into the actual building. The first two was a simple ID check to make sure we were on the list. The third one, we got sniffed by a dog to make sure we weren't packing any explosives on our beings. The fourth one we walked through a metal detector and were scrutinized by a pack of guards who get a kick out of telling tourists to do random things as they are checked (such as "stand on one leg").

But after that, you are there..,in the White House. It is so incredible and historic that you nearly miss all the secret service and the nice men with machine guns on the roof.

The rooms are huge in the White House. The pictures you can find do not do them justice. I got to see so many historic rooms and famous pieces of artwork. I stood on the same floors and rooms that these amazing men and women stood on. I did my best not to squeal and giggle. I got to see the famous paintings of presidents from George Washington to John F. Kennedy. It was amazing.

And then as soon as it had begun, it was over.

Oddly enough, they don't let you wander around the entire White House...bizarre. But as soon as we were outside, we pulled out cameras that we had stashed on our persons and began to take pictures of the exterior (that was allowed).

 

So close to everything! and yes, that man is wearing a USU shirt...it's nice to have reminders of home.

It was a wonderful experience, I hope to be able to go again before I am done with my program. However, the tours can be tricky because even if you register, they can be cancelled at a moments notice if there is a security problem, a press conference, or the first lady wants to have a tea party.

But it was so much fun and I am glad that I was able to finally go inside the White House.