Impressions

Today we woke to a gorgeous sunny winter morning. Yesterday was sunny and fairly warm, but today it's colder, about 23 degrees. We've now been here a week, and it has been a surprisingly easy transition for me. Our hosts have gone out of their way to make us feel at home. We not only have a place to sleep, but new friends who share their meals and lives with us.

Washington is as formal as I thought it would be, at least with regard to dress. However, people are also more flexible and surprisingly friendly than I thought they would be. This has proved to be true even during times that test us all--like during (fairly regular) delays on the metro system, which wreak havoc on one's schedule. Thankfully, so many people rely on the metro that if you're late to work, chances are, everyone else will be too!

I've always thought Whitworth one of the friendliest places on earth, second perhaps only to Disney World. I think the employees of the Smithsonian take the prize. I don't think I've had an unkind word from anyone I've encountered (and no, I don't have a Smithsonian identification badge). The grounds people and security stop for a few seconds to chat about the weather. Museum guards share their opinions about the art and tell me other cool museums/activities/restaurants I should check out. Co-workers where I am interning go out of their way to include me in what is going on, and make sure I'm seeing/doing what I should while here in Washington. Perhaps it is different in the summer when there are more tourists about and more interns. . .?

I think we would all say that the Smithsonian has done a great job placing us at relevant internships that will provide valuable experiences. I wondered how our individual units (the Smithsonian's term for its departments/museums) would use us considering the relatively short amount of time we are here. Having interns can be helpful--extra hands to do the work--but they also take a lot of time to train so that they can do that work. However, it turns out that quite a lot of the Smithsonian's work is accomplished by interns, and the units are good at tailoring the work to individual intern goals, while using the intern to further their own.  

My internship is in Art History, working on a database project for two Asian art museums, the Freer and Sackler Galleries. The database will facilitate future research dealing with provenance issues. Currently I'm working on the database itself, but next week I will also be doing some research in the archives. Although only here a week, I've already been invited to a meeting where I was able to contribute. The work I am doing will be valuable to the Galleries, and I have been included as part of the team for this project for as long as I'm here.

Unlike the other interns, I am not near the food trucks. I tend to eat lunch at my desk while I am working, and then spend my lunch hour in nearby museums--a fair trade for me! 

This photo is taken from the entrance to the Sackler Gallery after the snow storms on Tuesday morning. The Freer and Sackler Galleries are primarily underground, and the office I work in is under this garden and the walk way on the left.