A Jaunt Down the Road Unregularly Traveled

Well here it is: My deep plunge into the blogging world. Not that this is my first time posting a blog, but rather this is the first time I have succumbed to posting to a blog about me. All that information that I think only I would be interested in is about to be flung into the cyber world for peering eyes to view and judge!

Introducing the epically long version of my week in highlights.
I could leave DC now and be satisfied with the unique experiences I've had here. In short – It was an awesome week!

Wednesday was the State of the Union delivered by a Mr. Barak Obama, aka the President of the United States. The day before Matt, the communications director for our office asked me if I would like to sit in on a meeting with the congressman and Rick Tauh, the CEO and founder of the leading messaging poll company in the U.S. He also asked if I wanted to go to some interviews that the congressman would be having after the state of the union because I'm interested in communications.

Both were awesome! The meeting they had with Rick was fascinating. He polls people's reaction when they are watching speeches to see what they like/dislike so he was counseling the congressman on how he should respond to the Presidents speech tonight. I was very interested, but unfortunately my blasted genes prevailed and I ended up falling asleep right in the meeting! And it was very obvious! As in there were 5 of us in the room: Matt, Congressman Herger, Rick Tauh, and Erika, the other girl intern. I was sitting across from matt and Rick, and later Matt told me he could tell I was asleep. Ah! That was very unfortunate and probably very embarrassing for all of them. But what is done is done, and I will continue to curse my genes about this problem for probably my whole life haha.
Later that night, Kristi took me in to the Capitol area and I met Erika and Matt in the Cannon (that's where our office is) and watched the end of the state of the union, while
Matt prepared the sound clip speech the congressman was going to give. CWH got there around 10:30 right after the state of the union was over. Oh, and while we were watching the fox we realized that that area looked very familiar, so we went out of the room and looked up in the rotunda area and sure enough, there was the reporter for Fox news jabbering away one floor above us.
We watched the congressman record his sound bite on the phone that would go out to radio stations in his district and then walked over to the RNC so he could do an Internet live streaming questioner. Although we weren't actually watching him interviewed by real people, the environment was fascinating. There were about six other republican representatives waiting around for their turn and discussing the 'horrible and terrifying' speech that was delivered by the president. I loved standing there, meeting potentially powerful people and listening to their conversations. It was so neat! And also people didn't know who I was so they would introduce themselves to me and say their title and then I would just say "I'm Amberlee…the intern…" yea!

After that we went to an office where the congressman called five district newspapers that had requested interviews and we listened to him answer their questions. Politicians talk a lot. It gave me déjà vu of my first scroll assignment. The very first newspaper article I had ever written actually. I had been assigned to interview this democratic retired senator from Idaho and I was so, so nervous! I called him and scheduled about four times and studied up on pretty much everything I could study about him and then he
called and I was so taken off guard I was even more awkward than I would have been. Fortunately he, being the politician that he was, talked about ten minutes to every question I asked. That's what reminded me of the experience.

So I think the fact that I enjoyed that so ridiculously much shows how big of a nerd I am – I have come to realize this more and more out here. I am a NERD. But wow, it was so fantastic! Then Kristi, who I'm pretty sure is the nicest person ever, came and picked me up even though it was 12:30 and she would be getting up at 3 the next morning.

The other highlight this week was a behind the scenes tour of the natural history museum. Wow. Wait let me repeat that again. Wow, wow, wow. Wow. P.s. I really like that word in this font. I think it looks lovely. But I got to do this because the office was having their big retreat. The California office flew out and had been in meetings with them all day, but then in the afternoon they were going to go on this tour and this girl that I work with asked them why not let the interns come, so they did. I am so lucky to be working for this office! Very few offices treat their interns so nice!

Our tour guide was a forensic scientist so he first took us around to the public exhibits of skeletons, but he told us the stories that accompanied them, because he was involved in discovering how the individual died in many cases. That was so interesting! He could tell from the bones that the man had been stabbed 7-9 times. He pointed out what showed that and I couldn't see anything! There were hundreds of other fascinating stories he told us, but I will edit.

Then he took us to his lab upstairs which, by the way, had a bunch of human skulls in it. One of the skulls still had hair on its head and was estimated from around 1860! He told us a few of his current murder cases he was solving along with the bones that were related. That was sad.

As we were walking through the hallway, there were cupboard drawers on both sides of us with labels on them. Hundreds of these drawers all filled with bones…

Oh! Then he told us they were studying skeletons of ancient Americans and that they are discovering things that will completely change our view of explorations to the America's. As in, people came thousands of years before we currently think and they didn't just come from the Atlantic or Europe. Elyse and I just smiled at each other and I wanted to recommend to him that he read the Book of Mormon. Way to go Book of Mormon!

In the basement we passed this freezer that he causally mentioned held the bodies they were studying. Currently two. Thank goodness he left them in there…. Creepy.

The basement was a place of many wonders. We learned about these amazing caskets that were made around civil war time that were metal and then the air was sucked out of them and then they were bolted shut. Only really wealthy people had them, but they act as a sort of American mummy. When they discovered these, the clothes on the people were so well preserved that you could take off silk socks and a wool coat and put it on.

Then we saw mummies: only about 2500 years old. Along with their caskets and oh, their pet buffalo mummy. Okay so it wasn't their pet, but there was a mummified bull, which is apparently really rare. And then there was this awesome mummified Peruvian woman. They didn't bury their people laying down, but instead arranged them in a sitting position, so she was sitting there with here hands in a praying position around her face. It was very neat actually. Tender, although that sounds weird to say about a dead person. We saw lots of other little mummified things: cats and crocodiles which the tour guide said were cute, but I'm pretty sure that is the last word I would have used for them except maybe cuddly or delicious. They had all their teeth and were smiling. Charming.

And the grossest thing we saw was the shrunken heads. Real shrunken heads, which as you may have guessed are real human heads. Shrunken. Thus the name. I will send a picture. It's creepy. And the hair is the real human hair, but they pretty much would chop off the head, soak it in solution that would take the scalp off, pull the bones out and then sew the mouth shut and put hot rocks in the skin so it would gradually shrink. Then they would put the hair back on. Oh dear. What a disgusting family tradition that would be! The hair was beautiful though, so um… beautiful hair, individual that unfortunately had their head chopped off by their enemy. And there were dead little lice in it as well. How cute!

So whew, that was very long! Other great things: I went to the Newseum this weekend, which was so cool! Newspaper is so awesome! And I saw a section of the Berlin wall, which was interesting, the top of one of the twin towers surrounded by hundreds of front covers of newspapers from the day after the tragedy, and this book from 1467 – that is one old book! How unfortunate that archeologists in hundreds of years will find no ancient books because we all decided to turn cyber. RIP paper & Ink. I miss you.

And the dream summary of this week. Pa dum!

1. I was giving my Lovell grandparents a tour of the capitol (my grandma Lovell is no longer living) and in the middle of it I realized I hadn't checked out wheel chairs to them so I had to carry them. The unfortunate thing, other than that being really uncomfortable, was that they had a time limit but my mom who was also there kept asking me to go do errands and I was so frustrated! I left them in the old senate chamber, but when I came back they were somehow in the conference center in Salt Lake City.

2. Also, I had a dream I was tied to a truck, soaked in gasoline, burnt to death and then beheaded. Side note: this was before I even saw the shrunken heads. There is something seriously wrong with my unconscious brain. I don't think about these things! Why do they haunt my mind?

3. And last night I had a dream I gave birth to quadruplets, which was possibly the worst dream of all of them haha. I also had a horrible one that I remember telling people about, but I can't remember it now. But I remember waking up and shaking and being terrified and telling Kristi about it and I know that Elaine was evil in it, because for some reason she always seems to be. It was strange and I am very sad I can't remember it! It is also a strange feeling! Like I have amnesia.