A Friggin' Great Week.

Oh, the dizzying excitement of Intern and Docent Program Management! I must say, this week was quite busy in terms of all my little projects and events, and it felt all so Smithsoniany.

So: working for a large museum really does seem to mean that you're going to be rather constrained to your own department, but fortunately my position inherently requires interaction with every department and every supervisor. I tried to work that angle this week; I invitee our Exhibitions director in to talk with the interns about her position with NPG. I was absorbed by both her description of her tremendously huge and complex job, as well as amazed by her career path -- she began as an admin assistant, and earned a degree in Arts Administration (!) only four years ago.

That was Tuesday. On Wednesday I attended a pan-institutional panel presentation about strategic collaborations. Although it wasn't perhaps the most accessible speech, what I found intriguing were the audience reactions to the top-level presentation -- "strategic collaborations" are clearly important and necessary in the big picture, but I was reminded that within an institution as big as SI, the mere feat of accomplishing museum-museum collaboration is itself both daunting and the daily reality faced by the majority of museum employees.

I also attended the Folklife Festival (Welsh poetry and pints on the Mall!) right after using up my weekly IMAX ticket (Deep Sea 3D). The Folklife Festival is as much as it can be. I'm not critiquing it too much; I'm just saying that I have a newfound respect for myself and my former FAIS staff, because quite frankly we were able to put on a pretty comparable event without the benefit of a $------- budget. I guess I was hoping for more than a handful of tents where groups of tourists awkwardly stood around an artisan, but in terms of a program model that facilitates a cultural education event for thousands of transient tourists, in 90 degree weather in the middle of a dusty, unshaded field ... well, I guess they accomplish their goals. And it's cool to see traditional artisans being supported and all that. I guess there's just no substitute for the real thing, which is a fairly insurmountable challenge.

Oh, and they're filming a Paul Rudd movie in DC, and they were setting up a film shoot outside my happy hour on Thursday. But Paul didn't appear. Why must he play with my heart?

But the more important thing I should document about Thursday (pre-Happy Hour) was the Smithsonian Intern Networking Fair. Kassia: thank you. Thank you for the AAA Symposium last Spring, in which I took cheesy workshops on networking that -- holy cow! -- PAID OFF. I networked like a muthaf*cka and came home with about six business cards in my pocket. And, adorably, my undergraduate interns clung to my side like nervous little lambs, so I gave them an impromptu "go get 'em" talk about elevator speeches. Me, telling people how to benefit from a networking fair. I tell ya, if I hadn't attended last Spring I too would have been nervous and self-effacing. But now I'm a beast! A beast!!

I had a chance also to visit the National Museum of the American Indian (it's true, the fried bread is amazing) and the National Gallery of Art. NMAI deserves a trip back; sadly I only had time for one floor, but I rather loved its honest and to-the-point presentation of how badly Natives have been screwed by a lethal combo of guns, bibles and disease. It's truly an amazing and brave exhibit -- geez, and there are still three floors to visit!

Oh, National Gallery. I love you so much. I love your European art, because that's what I've studied and lovelovelove. So pretty. Oh Vermeer, and Leyster, and El Greco and Boucher. Everyone who got an internship there pretty must have began studying art history whilst in the womb, I guess; they'd better appreciate where they are. Again, I only had an hour, but I happily devoted it to 16th century Italian/French ornamental sculpture and ceramics. So intent was I studying some plates that illustrate scenes from Ovid's Metamorphosis that a security guard came over and asked if I am studying them in school. No, teaching them, I said. "Wait, what? How old are you, girl? You can't be a day past 21." Hee hee!

I next attended Jazz in the NGA Sculpture Garden for 45 minutes, which is insane given how hot and sweaty the earth gradually became... but it's fun to sit beneath a giant rabbit sculpture and listen to Georgetown types talk about their upcoming weekend "on the boat." I considered powering on to finally visit Artomatic tonight, an artist's co-op with some good buzz, but in the end nature chased me back to my dorm room with a wind-whipped frenzy of hail, thunder and lightning. Weather here be crazy.

Tomorrow I'm really serious about getting into free Saturdays at the Corcoran, but I have also neglected the shops of Georgetown for far too long. And there's that whole Vietnam War Memorial to find, and I just learned that there's a mall near the Pentagon. I've got a lot of mixed up priorities.