Ms Herlocker Goes to Washington: Week 5 aka Best Week EVAR, February 12-18

Why have I titled this as the “Best Week EVAR” you ask? It could’t possibly have anything to do with the fact that I finally started my internship at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM). Nope. Not at all.

Okay. I lied. :)

I STARTED MY INTERNSHIP AT THE MUSEUM ON MONDAY!!!!!!!!!!! YAAAAAAAY!!!!

Even though I have to wake up a little earlier to ensure that I get there on time, it’s totally worth it because my mornings feel a little smoother, and it was made even better because my parents sent me some of the most delicious coffee I’ve ever had.

Training has been great so far (I still have one more day before I become an official member of the Museum Services/Visitor Services Crew). On Monday, Day One, we were giving an orientation, a tour of the Permanent Exhibition (PE), training on how to get visitors into the elevators that take them to the PE, and how to use Coat Check (at which I was “outstanding”). On Tuesday, Day Two, we were trained on how to set up and work the Information/Pass Desk, every element of radio, safety, security, and evacuation training, and how to shut down the PE (also known as being Closing Rover 4). On Day 3, we learned how to get registered school groups into the Museum. We also got a tour of From Memory to Action, which is one of the exhibits where we take the knowledge of the atrocities of the Holocaust and apply them to preventative measures about future genocides, as well as education about Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur, got a tour of State of Deception, which is a really cool exhibit about Nazi Propaganda that is leaving after this summer, so I recommend coming to the museum to see it. Next, we were trained on how to close the museum as a whole, then we did a walk through of closing the PE, followed by actually closing down the second floor and the Wexner Center.

Training Story: On Thursday, when we were learning how to close the second floor, a call went over all of our radios informing us that a “15 year old male, about 5’4”, with dark hair, accompanied by two females, and wearing a green cape, yes, you heard that correctly, a green cape” was missing from his group somewhere in the museum. Needless to say, we all laughed about the cape and kept an eye out for this young man. We were standing in an area that looks into the Hall of Witness, and I happened to be looking out into the Hall, when I noticed walking down the stairs a person who could have been male walking with two girls and holding a green object over his arm. Not knowing how to report this, I told Jordan, who had to explain to us all how a search even worked, and we gave a play-by-play of where the students were until the person working the information desk was able to get to them and their chaperones. I was pretty proud of myself for finding the missing persons on my first ever search.

I am so beyond excited to be working at the Museum. The staff is fantastic and fun. Highlights include: Art “Handsome Man” Anderson, who has been on the staff since the museum opened in April 1993, knows everything about the museum, and is the leader of very exclusive “Handsome Man Club,” Matt Fisher, who is subtly hilarious with deadpan humor and tried to bribe all of the interns with $5 to do his outside duty before the museum opened on Monday, Jordan Allen, who is indescribably nice and cool, and Luke Leyh, who is the representative who hired me and is just… great. Luke is really nice, enthusiastic, and hilarious. We bonded over our robot jewelry on Thursday (my necklace, his cufflinks) and because the groups that were supposed to come in were late or cancelled, we all spent a lot of time talking about food and getting to know each other better.

I really enjoyed doing security training (thanks, Dad), even though it was A LOT of information to process. However, now I know where all the fire stairs are, how to get people out of the museum, and our ten important 10-calls. I also was super nerdy on Tuesday during training because I made a Lord of the Rings joke that nobody got (Who doesn’t know about Hobbit meals?! I mean, really.) and laughed at all the Star Wars and Monty Python (and potentially something else…) jokes that were in the security powerpoint.

And guess where our field trip was this week… if you guessed USHMM, you would be CORRECT. :D When we got to the museum, we got to listen to a survivor speak, which was really amazing. Mayna Friedman is a volunteer at the museum, so I’m potentially going to get to work with her some more this semester. I really enjoyed being at the museum after having sort of met the staff because I felt like I was sneaking around to surprise someone and because it was just fun saying Hi to the staff. I also felt really warmly welcomed and apart of the museum because when Mayna found out I was an intern she gave me a hug and told me that they always miss the interns after we leave, especially because we leave right as they’re getting to really know us. I then went on a self-guided walkthrough of the State of Deception, saw some of the pieces of the PE that I hadn’t really focused on last time I went through, such as the eugenics display, which I have always been fascinated by and Voices of Auschwitz, where you can read and hear quotes from some survivors about their time, to the Wexner Center to learn about modern genocide, and through Daniel’s Story, which is the exhibit recommended for children, especially if parents are nervous about having their younger children go through the more graphic PE. I had somehow never been into Daniel’s story before, even though it’s been in the museum since 1993, and I think it affected me more than the PE does. My theory on this is that, because it focuses on a one boy and his experiences, it makes it more personal, plus the stories of the children are part of what makes the whole Holocaust so upsetting and atrocious.

On Friday, I didn’t have training. Which felt exceedingly bad and weird. So, in an attempt to be productive and get out of the apartment, I walked to Baked and Wired, which is in Georgetown. The best way to describe this oasis is as a hipster coffeehouse/cupcakery. They have fantastic cupcakes. I got a mocha cupcake because I wanted something more exciting than chocolate chocolate or chocolate on vanilla. It was this weird combination of super delicious and awesome and not so greatness. I think what I have decided is that I don’t like buttercream frosting very much, and homemade chocolate buttercream (that is supposed to taste like coffee/mocha and didn’t) is usually less that amazing to me. However, the girl who sat down next to me had a Chocolate Cupcake of Doom (the wonderful name they give to the chocolate-chocolate) and it looked like the frosting was a lot smoother, chocolatier, and all around better. So I’ll get that next time because the chocolate cake part of the Mocha cupcake was truly delicious.

Oh, and I almost forgot… I went to the White House Wednesday morning. No big deal. A student from last semester was a White House intern, who has since been hired to be on the real staff, and he was able to get the first five people who responded into the departure ceremony for the Marine One helicopter, which is the helicopter that takes the president on short journeys and to Andrew’s Air Force Base to transfer to Air Force One. It was a fantastic experience. I felt like a kid going to Disneyland for the first time just by being behind the fence and in areas that the public generally doesn’t get to go to.

And on Saturday I really didn’t do anything except for work on applications and clean.

Ms Herlocker Goes to Washington: Week 4, February 5-11

As I mentioned last week, I made Maple-Bacon Cupcakes for the Super Bowl Party that was hosted by some other LCWS students. They were really well-received. And gigantic. One of the people I know who tried one was impressed that it was my first ever attempt at making a cake product from scratch, because apparently they tasted like I had made them before. It also amused me that everyone was astounded by the idea of bacon in a cupcake, since it doesn't seem that strange to me, I guess because of Icing on the Cupcake.

On Monday I made roast chicken breast, potatoes, carrots, onions, and andouille. It was fantastic. I was really impressed with myself since I was just making it up as I went along and I only looked at recipes for ideas of time and temperature. 

At work I did more filing and accession numbers for books in the GFWC Library. It was a little bittersweet leaving on Friday though, because while I didn’t really like a lot of what I was doing work-wise and the building was never warm, my coworkers in the Women’s History and Resource Center were really nice and they got me a cute card to say thank you. Plus I got to wear jeans to work on Fridays.

On Wednesday we went on a tour of the Pentagon, which was really cool to be able to do and our two guides, one Army, one Navy, were both pretty funny. One of the highlights of the tour was being let in on the Legend of the Purple Water Fountain, which is in a display case on a level we were not allowed to go to. We also got to see the 9/11 memorial and chapel, which are located in the areas where the plane hit the building. The weirdest part of the whole thing though was seeing the quilts that elementary school students had made after the attack, especially the ones by 9 year olds, and realizing that those kids were my age.

On Saturday I went to the Natural History Museum with a few girls from the program. It was really fun getting to know new people and going to that museum, because I remember it pretty well from the last time I was here. We only really got through the first floor though, so I guess I’ll have to go back sometime. Darn. ;)

I think that about wraps up Week 4. Not a whole lot happened, making for a fairly quiet week.

Ms Herlocker Goes to Washington: Week 3, January 29-February 4

On Sunday afternoon, my roommates and I embarked on a journey around the Tidal Basin to see the Thomas Jefferson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Martin Luther King Jr. memorials. It was a very nice day and a fairly long walk. We observed that the walk would have been even nicer had the cherry blossom trees been in bloom. I noted that the are 44 steps up to the top of the Jefferson memorial, plus three more once you are inside the building itself. I still have no idea what the significance of the step-counting is.  The memorials were as awe-inspiring as always, and the MLK one even more so, as this was the first time any of us had seen it. Because it was cold and dinner time we grabbed Chipotle on the way back. And to round off the day, I introduced Melissa and Becca to the glorious joy that is Psych!

On Monday I returned to the Holocaust museum to get my security badging done. For some reason when we were doing my fingerprinting the machine really didn't like my fingers. The basic way that used to be done with ink went by smoothly but for some reason when we did the new finger rolling for extra security approximately seven out of ten of my fingers would register. But apparently that didn't matter too much because I've been cleared and I just have to wait for everything to process. I then headed over to the GFWC with a huge grin on my face and a plan to try and figure out how I was going together to work on Thursday. Needless to say, I got a little lost and confused. Thank you Google Maps for iPhone. In honor of Chinese New Year, we had a catered lunch of pretty decent Chinese food (as far as Orange and General Tso's Chicken can be considered Chinese...) and I got to know some of the other people who work in my department that I'd never really talked to very much. I spent the remainder of the week finishing the magazines project, filing donations records, cataloging donated books from the GFWC library (which included my textbook from Women's History with Dr. Reaves and a book version of a video she had shown us), and organizing slides. I think the slides are one of my favorite projects here because they bring back memories of looking at slides at Granny and Grampa's house years ago.

As part of the requirements for LCWS, we have to attend a Congressional Subcommittee Hearing, so Becca, Melissa, and I took advantage of our late Wednesday Field Trip and headed to Capitol Hill. The Hearing we chose to attend was an investigation into the EPA's investigation of hydraulic fracturing in Pavilion, Wyoming. The most exciting part of the hearing was at the beginning when, Josh Fox, the HBO documentarian best known for Gasland, was arrested for refusing to cooperate with procedure and stay in the press gallery. This lead to a motion, after his removal, to let him return that was, after a forty minute recess due to an inability to reach a quorum, shot down twice in a 7-6 vote. The hearing itself was fairly boring and roundabout. Nothing was concluded and most of the Congressmen left fairly quickly into the proceedings. After the hearing we had to rush back to the apartments for our roommate agreement meeting, which went quite smoothly.

Wednesday afternoon's "field trip" was to the LCWS Offices where we listened to presentations from the Peace Corps, Lutheran Volunteer Corps, Americorps, and a similar Jesuit Volunteer group. It was interesting, and I'm lucky I'm as young as I am if I were to consider doing any of them since the Peace Corps'  application process takes a year!

Class was uneventful, but I did a lot of cooking this week! On Friday I through together some Gnocchi from Trader Joes with some garlicky spinach. On Saturday, I used up some tomato and made a pasta sauce completely from scratch. And on Sunday I made Maple-Bacon Cupcakes for the Super Bowl. It was a very successful weekend for cooking.

All in all, not a very exciting week since the Metro was closed at Rosslyn station for track work on Super Bowl weekend, so we couldn't really go anywhere. I did finally try a Georgetown Cupcakes (a cupcakery with its own show on TLC) and I have to say that while it was good, I wasn't all that impressed.