Anchors Aweigh!

I apologize for the delay in-between posts.  The past week ten days have been busy!

I got an internship at the National Museum of the U.S. Navy!  I have been working there for about a week now, and it has been a very interesting experience.  The museum is located on the Navy Yard in southern DC.  Until I can get a semi-permanent pass, I have to register every day at the visitor’s office.  It is strange working in an environment where members of the military at every level are bustling about.  I am interning under the curator, Dr. Furgol.  I started my first day with a tour of the museum, and adjacent buildings. Most interesting was seeing “behind the scenes” of the museum, where the displays are constructed and stored.  It was an aspect of a museum that I had never experienced, and one that most people don’t really take into consideration when visiting.

After this, I was thrust into research.  I was told to find out as much about the reconnaissance balloon on the George Washington Parke Custis as I could.  It was nice to start a job where I didn’t have to go through some extensive training period.  I was also surprised to find how independent my position is.  I work, accomplish a task, and move on to do something else without someone hovering over me or monitoring my every move.  I am free to do the research in the way and at the pace I please, as long as I am getting the work done.  I spent the rest of the week and the beginning of this week researching several topics in early U.S. naval aviation before WWI.  Most recently, I am working on a scavenger hunt for one of the upcoming exhibits.  It will allow children and others the opportunity to engage in the museum in a different way, hopefully inspiring their interest.  All those education classes I took are paying off!

Railway Gun

USS Barry

Wednesdays are reserved through my program for various field trips and other activities in Washington D. C.  I, along with the other students in the Lutheran College Washington Semester, visited the Newseum.  It was great, and I highly recommend it if you are ever in DC for an extended period of time, or you are looking for something new to do.  I say this with the warning that it was a lot more emotionally jarring than I had anticipated.  The Katrina and 9/11 exhibits were especially upsetting.  The museum has a part of the radio antenna from one of the World Trade Centers, newspaper headlines from around the world, and objects a photographer had one him as he neared site as the first tower collapsed.  There was also a section with Pulitzer Prize winning photos, many of which depicted conflict and death.  Just a heads up.  There were actually a lot of school trips here though.  This makes me wonder how the exhibits affected them.  Despite how depressing some of the exhibits can be, I think they are important for us to remember and view in a new way, which the Newseum does very well.  The museum also had a portion of the Berlin Wall, the largest section on display outside of Germany, which was very interesting to me. 

Sorry there are not many pictures in this post, but I promise there will be fun pictures of animals in the next one :)