It's Been A Long, Long Time...

So I'm completely negligent in keeping this blog updated. Whew... this could take a while to get this up to date.
The first reason I stopped blogging was because of day camp. I had my first week of Japan camp two weeks ago. 14 five to nine year olds are adorable, precocious... and exhausting. Each day, after having myself covered in gold and silver leaf, embossing powder, paint pens, and having to deal with a countless number of requests to go to the bathroom/backpack bin/first aid center/water fountain, I sort of just collapsed into my bed, read a little, and tried to mentally get myself ready for another day. I had four little boys as my specific charges. I like dealing with little boys (less glitter, hair ties, etc to deal with, and I can break up fights fairly easily, even considering my stature)--and these guys were very much into the idea of making samurai swords, and were even more intrigued by the idea that I had come from the far-off, humid, mini-mountain land of Pennsylvania just to spend the summer in Denver. Although it was a little sad to see all of our charges leave on Friday, I spent the whole weekend recovering from the ordeal--and watching all of the available seasons of "Weeds" online. A really interesting show, with an even more interesting view of the drug business. Plus I sort of have the theme song stuck perpetually in my head.

I spent the next week at the apartment, running errands and doing some preliminary thesis research at the Denver Public Library. No sight is more relaxing to me than a room filled with books--which, consequently, is what I have now after a few trips to the library and back. I'm hoping that if I start kicking my literature review into high gear this summer, that's one less thing I will need to deal with when I get back to school in the fall. My boss was on vacation the whole week, and had never really given me enough work to keep me busy--and since the rest of the interns were working from home, there really was no sense in my showing up in the dark basement of the education department anyway.

I just got back from my week in DC yesterday. I am really glad my boss let me spend the entire week there--it was really great to see friends and just talk to people who know who I am and where I'm coming from--something that hasn't happened out here yet. I did several happy hours with friends (Hawk and Dove and Capital City Brewing Company--two of my absolute favorite places), and met up with former employers/contacts. I also spent a lot of time in the Library of Congress doing yet more thesis research. This was an interesting experience, since I had never just gone researching on my own--I had always done it with a school group or through the Congressman's office. I finally got my materials and got some pretty awesome primary sources. However, it was a little hard to concentrate, considering that the Main Reading Room, as gorgeous and historical as it is, seems to perpetually be under construction.

I also got to check out the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. It really felt odd being back on the Mall... especially without a Smithsonian Intern badge. The three cultures in this year's festival were Bhutan (Asia/India), NASA (I am still trying to figure out how this is a culture), and Texas. I watched a lot of the Texas cooking demonstrations, since Indian food isn't my thing, and learned a lot about how to cook a steak. Sadly, the food wasn't good at all, so I didn't spend the $10 to eat quesadillas in Texas or rice in Bhutan.

The reason I went to DC in the first place was because I won third place in the Independent Women's Forum's annual essay contest (apparently you can read my essay on both the IWF site as well as Lafayette's site). The reception was great, especially because my friend Ashley had also won a prize, so it was good to catch up with her, as well as the other people at IWF. I had thought it would be awkward for me to be there at first, because I had been offered a junior fellow position there this summer, but declined it for the adventure of Denver. However, it all worked out when the person who would have been my boss announced she was from Denver, so it was all good.

Denver International Airport itself is very nice. The white tent-like structures that make up its roof are supposed to look like the snow-capped peaks of the Rocky Mountains, which is really cool. I was a little concerned, however, by the bucking bronco statue that had red, glowing eyes--quite disturbing on my 4:30am bus ride to the airport! The airport is very open, clean, and has some interesting trains to move people from terminal to terminal. They play some unidentified country/rock strains and a voice joyously announces "A train is arriving!" every so often, as if this called for a great celebration of beleaguered tourists with too much luggage fighting with quart-sized plastic bags to contain their liquids. (As a side note, I do not understand these new TSA requirements for liquids. It said "anything smearable" counted as a liquid on the TSA site, but I got barked at by a security guard because I had put my face powder in there as well. He was not amused by my explanation that ultimately all makeup is meant to be smeared.) My flights to DC went very well (I had a layover in Atlanta), but on the way back, I got delayed in Atlanta by a nasty thunderstorm. I am still not used to the hot, humid, thunderstorm-inducing weather of the east coast in June.

I am hoping to do some more social things within my last five weeks in Denver. I joined a few groups on MeetUp for museums and rock climbing, since my rock climbing buddies have been AWOL for the past few weeks, and I figure if I like this area as much as I think I do, I really want to start making some meaningful connections here.

However, I know that most of my time will be working, studying for GRE, reading for Thesis, working on AGD things (oh, philanthropy), and trying to see some more stuff in Denver. I am finishing up a biography of Buffalo Bill Cody, who is buried right outside of Denver, so I am trying to find a way to get up to his ranch in the mountains for some touristing.

I think I am enjoying this relatively stress-free lifestyle. All I have for the next few weeks is research and writing, which is a piece of cake for me. One more camp my last week in Denver, then two more days of bus-riding, which I am not looking forward to.

Los animales

Today, my big adventure was to use public transportation to get myself to the Denver Zoo. This may seem easy, but I tend to avoid buses at all costs in favor of subways. I don't know why, but I just dislike this mode of public transportation. I find it to be claustrophobic, often possessing a distinct smell somewhere between formaldehyde and week-old garbage mixed in with cigarette smoke. No offense to any public transportation system, but I just get this feeling in the pit of my stomach whenever I get on a bus that somehow I am going to get stuck sitting next to someone creepy and/or miss my stop and end up in some awful part of town. But thankfully, Denver's buses are clean, somewhat quiet, and fairly efficient. I've found that playing the "oh my god, I'm new in this town/part of the country, I have no idea what I'm doing, please help the innocent female" card has worked to my advantage with cops, bus drivers, and security personnel.

Anyway, so the Denver Zoo is much different than both the National Zoo and the Philadelphia Zoo. Regardless, zoos have this therapeutic property to them for me: once I'm there, I have my camera, I can just sit and watch a giraffe eat leaves or a mountain lion eye a screaming child hungrily for hours. The Denver Zoo was great because they have excellent photo spots, mainly attributable to lower fences and closer animals. I was 6 feet or less away from animals more times than I can count, which led to some pretty good photo ops. It's kind of odd going to a zoo by yourself: generally, these places are filled with families (generally of the young variety) or awkward high school couples out on a date. The singletons, such as myself, tend to be of the bearded (unlike myself), old (once again, unlike myself), hippie variety who send money to the Sierra Club and the WWF (and we're not talking wrestling). I got to feed birds frozen crickets, and nectar. I got within two feet of a mountain lion. And I watched a kid throw his shoe at a sea lion. And, somehow, I managed to sunburn the back of my calves. I am still not quite sure how this happened, considering I wore (and reapplied!) sunscreen.

Because I find a guilty pleasure in watching movies with easy laughs and awkward premises, I saw "Don't Mess With The Zohan" tonight. Hilarious, in that oh-my-god-did-he-really-just-do-that-that-is-the-most-inappropriate-thing-ever sort of way. Movies are so much cheaper out here--it's great.

I still have yet to figure out where all of the cool kids go on a weekend night. I am determined to figure this out.

infierno

Some 24-hour spans of time are just more interesting than others. This counts as the most interesting thus far in Denver for me.

The book-signing by M*A*S*H's Mike Farrell (BJ Hunnicutt on the show) was pretty cool--the Tattered Cover Book Store has great taste in events spaces and general event management. However, once again I was by far the youngest person in the room. I need to figure out where real people my age hang out--and I'm hoping it's not just the bars, although if my roommates are any indication, that's where it is. I'm commandeering the bottle of Febreeze for the remainder of the summer.

I have finally talked the Denver Public Library into granting me a library card (I had been denied on my second day in because I didn't have proof of a CO address)--after taking some of the mail I had gotten here in and my new DAM ID badge. Now, I have access to lots of things to read this summer--hopefully some of which will be useful to my thesis presentation. The library itself is quite revolutionary. Although I must admit my experiences with city libraries are a little thin (mainly I've gotten books from other universities and colleges), Denver's library is gorgeous and ingeniously organized. Various types of readers each have a section, and there's a full station with Denver events and tourist information--which has helped me out immensely. Periodicals have their own room, and they also have their own teen and children's rooms. The library is very clean, very well lit, and supremely well-organized. They even have electronic checkout (which prints out receipts--I know, it's the very little things that amuse me). I am sure I will spend many valuable hours there.

I had the opportunity to actually tour the Denver Art Museum for the first time today. Yes, I know, this is terribly pathetic that I have been here almost two full weeks and have yet to actually tour the museum I work at. But I swear I've been busy painting boxes and cutting out things.

I was terribly impressed by the family-focused activities of the museum. Never before have I seen a museum where there are so many well-behaved children who are not only behaving well but are also interested and involved in the art they are looking at. The museum has "activity backpacks" that I saw a lot of kids toting around (unaccompanied, which disturbed me at first, for reasons stated below), and I must admit that I totally wanted one too. They had books and notepads and crayons for kids to record and reflect on what they saw and how it reflects on what they already know. There were lots of seating areas in the main lobbies that allowed kids (particularly those of the toddler variety) to chill out and hang out on the furniture (much of which I would love to purchase). Then, in each gallery there are a variety of games, like I-spy, for them to play as they go through the gallery. Very well done. Combine this with the family learning centers on the ground level, and you've got an incredibly innovative education program. I'm interested to see how the camps I'll be helping with will fit into all of this.

The collections in and of themselves are amazing considering the area. Denver is not, shall we say, the arts capital of the world, like DC or NYC. But they have a surprising number of excellent works by Lichtenstein, Warhol, etc. I started in the new building, opened in 2006, and although I enjoyed part of it, I found the lack of labeling and historic context, especially in the Oceanic and African Art galleries, to be a little confusing. Also, I am a big fan of intuitive wayfinding, and very little of it existed. However, the collections themselves are great--I especially loved the Western Art gallery, although I've heard others remark that they find it to be the most boring part of the museum. I found it to be eye-opening in terms of how they explained the style of painting and sculpture. After spending so much time in the Smithsonian's Renwick Gallery the past two summers, I liked the way they treated one of Catlin's most controversial paintings, which depicted a Native American ceremony where young men are hoisted to the ceiling via ropes hooked through the flesh of their chest and/or back. It's grotesque to look at, and made many wonder if Catlin was racist, but through the DAM's explanations, it provided an explanation that the jury is still out as to the impact of this painting, but that the ceremony itself did exist, and was revered (although banned) for centuries.

In the original building, the collections were organized much differently. The galleries I visited today were mainly the Native American collection. The DAM is known worldwide for this collection because, although they weren't the first museum to begin collecting these objects, they were the first to consider them works of art in their own right. The collection is overwhelming, but beautiful. It was an entirely different way of looking at objects than I had seen at the National Museum of the American Indian, and it was interesting to see how people were responding to the various ways of interpretation of these objects.

One of the smaller galleries, but one of the coolest to me, was the Design Art gallery. This included objects such as chairs, vases, glasses, forks, etc--the mundane objects a person uses everyday but never considers the design of. I really enjoyed this aspect of the Renwick Gallery last year, and was kind of miffed I missed going to the Coccorran's exhibit along these lines, so this was a treat to see these objects.

I also discovered the basic cable provided for free in my apartment also has HBO... which leads me to my next story. I was calmly reading David Sedaris's latest book and watching "John Adams" when suddenly I heard a "pop" akin to gunfire. Being a nosy person, I decided to investigate, and looked out my bedroom window to see what was going on. Apparently the ritzy seafood restaurant next door was having some big to-do, and as a part of it, decided to shoot fireworks off of their roof, which incidentally is only about 100 feet from my bedroom window. It was really cool, and I got some neat photographs (which could have been better had my camera not been a complete piece of junk), but I must admit once the fireballs started I got a little scared. The neighboring apartment building has balconies, which of course all of the residents were hanging off of, and I was a little frightened that someone would end up singed. However, all seemed to go well.

I'm hoping to do a lot this weekend and get a good idea of some of the cool things to do in Denver. I'll keep you updated on what I do!

Sorry I have been totally negligent in terms of keeping this blog up to date--I kind of keep on putting it off.

So, to recap: I had a great weekend. On Friday, I went down towards Colorado Springs, and had an absolute blast rock climbing at Garden of the Gods. Sadly, I am dumb and didn't bring my camera. However, the ride down itself was gorgeous. Public transportation is terribly efficient out here, and the views as I got closer to the Rocky Mountains just got better and better. So, the professional photos of Garden of the Gods will have to suffice to show you all how awesome it was. And now that I have my own climbing harness, hopefully I will be able to keep on rock climbing, even after I go back out east.

My internship has been... interesting. I finally have a security badge, so now I can come and go as I please. I've spent most of my time so far doing a lot of painting and other prep for the Japan camp that starts next week. So, basically, I've played camp counselor.

I don't really mind, since I really like all the craft ideas, and I'm not terribly artistic to begin with. However, I've been so busy with prep that I haven't had time to set foot in the actual museum yet! I've actually only been spending my time in the education office five blocks away. Hopefully sometime soon (hopefully tomorrow!) I'll be able to spend a few hours in the museum and really get to know the layout and the collections.

I'm planning on doing a lot of touristy things this weekend--with any luck I'll hit up the Denver Zoo, the Brown Palace Hotel and Spa (which has its own historian--cool!), and hopefully another museum or two, depending upon the weather. Such is the dilemma when one is car-less in a city that thrives on motorized vehicles.

In other, unrelated news, I'll be back in DC from June 22-29 to accept an award from the Independent Women's Forum and to generally visit with people from the East Coast. Although I do love it out here, I just wish there were more interns to talk to who weren't from this area, and lived in LoDo proper. Then I might have a touring buddy or two. In the meantime, my social life is a little limited until I grow the cajones to talk to random people in random places. Everyone is nice, but I don't trust people to not be creepy!

Now I'm off to a free lecture by Mike Farrell, who played Hunnicutt on M*A*S*H, at the Tattered Cover Bookstore. :)

...And I think I finally finished the end of my EXCEL work for the semester. Phew.