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| Me and "The Mouse" |
Showing posts with label I Get Paid For This. Show all posts
Showing posts with label I Get Paid For This. Show all posts
Monday, August 23, 2010
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Class of 2023
Class of 2023!?! Are you serious? I spent today playing with the incoming class of 2023, or for those of you not spending every minute with children, the incoming class of kindergartners. It was a wonderful experience despite the fact that I performed poorly in my morning 5K because of worrying about work in the afternoon. Our volunteers did an amazing job interacting with the 200+ guests and making the new students feel very special. It was a day all about their big day and making the best of this upcoming experience.
I got to read them a book and perform two science shows and it's all worth it when you get comments like, "you're that funny lady that made the girl fly...you know she wasn't really flying right, you were just carrying her" or "that book made me feel better about kindergarten. I'm not nearly as scared now." You never know the things that are going to shape someone's life in the future.
We had great support from the local school districts, police department, fire department and other community organizations. I love when events come together and have a great impact on our guests and I get to have fun doing things that I love like playing with kids and reading to them. What more could I ask?
I got to read them a book and perform two science shows and it's all worth it when you get comments like, "you're that funny lady that made the girl fly...you know she wasn't really flying right, you were just carrying her" or "that book made me feel better about kindergarten. I'm not nearly as scared now." You never know the things that are going to shape someone's life in the future.
We had great support from the local school districts, police department, fire department and other community organizations. I love when events come together and have a great impact on our guests and I get to have fun doing things that I love like playing with kids and reading to them. What more could I ask?
Saturday, July 17, 2010
10 Things I learned in DC
In June my museum sent me to the Smithsonian Affiliations Conference in Washington, DC. Now not only did I come home with all the normal conference knowledge, but there are a few tasty tidbits I thought you might enjoy as well.
1. If you are dressed professionally and riding the Metro in the morning people will ask you for directions. You can either choose to tell them the truth that you're really as clueless as they are or follow my lead and slyly glance at the huge pillars that list the stops and give directions. Don't judge. I only got myself lost when trying to use the buses. Never once on the Metro rail system.
2. A Smithsonian Visitor/Employee Pass is the greatest little piece of plastic in the area. No lines to get in and out of the museums, no opening or closing your bags for security, entry before the building is open to the public and a discount on all the nerdy books you want to buy in the giftshop. Woot!
3. If a tour guide tells you there will be no bathroom access during a tour, especially in a Federal Building. Head this advice. Go before the tour starts. Follow that wisdom your mother shared with you all the time when you were little "just try to go". It'll be worth it in the end. Otherwise you could be the mother of a four year old that is drenched in pee and reeks to high heavens.
4. The Smithsonian Affiliations Employees are amazing. They'll recommend restaurants, give you directions, write grant support letters, meet with you during/after hours, give you a ride home (even when its out of their way and you've only known them for 2 hours), let you borrow their phone charger, tell you "there's a app for that" and have it actually be useful, and most of all because they go above and beyond and are genuinely nice people. Oh yeah, and when they give you a ride home they'll tell you all the cool things you otherwise wouldn't know about the city and show you the "Exorcist stairs" in Georgetown.
5. Escalators are still the devil. Not only am I just generally fearful of them, but the ones in DC are insane. Too steep, too long and always breaking down. If I'm already afraid of something having it literally stop working while I'm on it is not going to make that feeling go away. Screw you DC Escalators.
6. Strasburg is the real deal and if you don't believe me check him out in person or ask someone that understand and loves the game of baseball. It was totally worth the crowded Metro ride that almost got me stuck in the doors.
7. I'm a huge museum nerd. I spent hours devouring a majority of the museums that DC has to offer. There are still some that I missed and others that I happened into because of friends that I am glad I visited. I always find something interesting in a museum, be it a fun fact, a cool toy, or even an amazing contact. There is always something. Strangely enough one of my favorite museum experiences was the Crime and Punishment Museum. I just might be a little morbid, but it was AWESOME!
8. People are always running in DC. Seriously, I was sweating just standing and felt gross in the humid hot nastiness and people were running all over the place. People ran on the treadmill at my hotel, people ran through the streets of Georgetown, people ran on the green, but mainly people ran to catch their trains.
9. I might love baseball to a slightly unhealthy degree. When everyone around me was concerned with catching a glimpse of the president I wanted to scream at them to sit down and stop blocking my view of the field. I wasn't there to see Obama. I was there to watch Strasburg pitch and see my man, Adam Dunn.
10. A 2 mile walk to the Metro station seems much closer and manageable in the daytime. At night just flag a taxi. I can't even recommend the buses, because my only experience with the busing system had me riding around who knows where in DC and spending 2 hours being lost.
1. If you are dressed professionally and riding the Metro in the morning people will ask you for directions. You can either choose to tell them the truth that you're really as clueless as they are or follow my lead and slyly glance at the huge pillars that list the stops and give directions. Don't judge. I only got myself lost when trying to use the buses. Never once on the Metro rail system.
2. A Smithsonian Visitor/Employee Pass is the greatest little piece of plastic in the area. No lines to get in and out of the museums, no opening or closing your bags for security, entry before the building is open to the public and a discount on all the nerdy books you want to buy in the giftshop. Woot!
3. If a tour guide tells you there will be no bathroom access during a tour, especially in a Federal Building. Head this advice. Go before the tour starts. Follow that wisdom your mother shared with you all the time when you were little "just try to go". It'll be worth it in the end. Otherwise you could be the mother of a four year old that is drenched in pee and reeks to high heavens.
4. The Smithsonian Affiliations Employees are amazing. They'll recommend restaurants, give you directions, write grant support letters, meet with you during/after hours, give you a ride home (even when its out of their way and you've only known them for 2 hours), let you borrow their phone charger, tell you "there's a app for that" and have it actually be useful, and most of all because they go above and beyond and are genuinely nice people. Oh yeah, and when they give you a ride home they'll tell you all the cool things you otherwise wouldn't know about the city and show you the "Exorcist stairs" in Georgetown.
5. Escalators are still the devil. Not only am I just generally fearful of them, but the ones in DC are insane. Too steep, too long and always breaking down. If I'm already afraid of something having it literally stop working while I'm on it is not going to make that feeling go away. Screw you DC Escalators.
6. Strasburg is the real deal and if you don't believe me check him out in person or ask someone that understand and loves the game of baseball. It was totally worth the crowded Metro ride that almost got me stuck in the doors.
7. I'm a huge museum nerd. I spent hours devouring a majority of the museums that DC has to offer. There are still some that I missed and others that I happened into because of friends that I am glad I visited. I always find something interesting in a museum, be it a fun fact, a cool toy, or even an amazing contact. There is always something. Strangely enough one of my favorite museum experiences was the Crime and Punishment Museum. I just might be a little morbid, but it was AWESOME!
8. People are always running in DC. Seriously, I was sweating just standing and felt gross in the humid hot nastiness and people were running all over the place. People ran on the treadmill at my hotel, people ran through the streets of Georgetown, people ran on the green, but mainly people ran to catch their trains.
9. I might love baseball to a slightly unhealthy degree. When everyone around me was concerned with catching a glimpse of the president I wanted to scream at them to sit down and stop blocking my view of the field. I wasn't there to see Obama. I was there to watch Strasburg pitch and see my man, Adam Dunn.
10. A 2 mile walk to the Metro station seems much closer and manageable in the daytime. At night just flag a taxi. I can't even recommend the buses, because my only experience with the busing system had me riding around who knows where in DC and spending 2 hours being lost.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
From the mouth of babes...
No matter how long I work with children there is always something that surprises me or even just amuses me that I never expected to see. Thank you letters are pretty normal in this line of work. You're sort of a celebrity when you only interact with children once or twice during the year and do all the "cool" experiments. This "celebrity" affords you many things in the form of child adoration, hugs, smiles, the awkward half leg hugs, fan mail, squeaky shouts of your name, and the teacher forced thank you letters. All of these things make me love my job and generally outweigh any negatives. This week is definitely tipped in the positive favor even though I've put in extra hours and been out of the office more than I've been in the office.
I started the week with two assemblies at a kindergarten center. Kids are still cute at this age. Their innocent and sometimes sweet. If some anger slips out, it does just that, it slips. They're not premeditating jerks. I always enjoy working with this age group because everything you do is amazing and wonderful. These kindergartners were no different. The entire show was a joy for them even though the Electro-Static Generator wasn't at peak performance. I even got loud cheering and hugs. However, the best part of the day was when I asked the kids if they had any questions. This can be a double edged sword, you get to show the adults you care about the students minds and thoughts, but you also have to wade through all the "stories" before you get a real question. These kids were on top of it though, questions from the very beginning, but the best are those kids you're sure were listening to something else while you were presenting. Case in point, my favorite question from this group "How does water get in the ocean to begin with?"....ummm, color me shocked that this was so important to the little girl. I was there to talk about Electricity.
The next day I went out to a local school and did a program called Slime Time. Its always fun to make slime. Who doesn't enjoy sticky, slimy goo? Rarely is it the case that all the classes you work with are well behaved, listen and answer questions. I hit the kid jackpot and as an added bonus I left with the obligatory teacher forced thank you notes. Always entertaining and generally variants of the same letter the teacher wrote on the board for them to copy. Now most of these were the same form letters as always. "Thanks, you're nice. Can you come again? My slime was cool." and insert the random vocabulary words you taught while in the classroom. However, there were some outside the box thinkers in these classrooms and either the teachers didn't read the letters or were just excited that the kids put words on paper and let them slide through. There are two that stand out in my mind from the five minute or so read I had before handing them off to the marketing department. One of which was well thought out and very genuine in their enjoyment of the program. I know this because it included the phrase "I liked when we added the goop part. When it combined my slime looked like blue boogers. That was cool, but the girl next to me had green boogers and that was even better!" Then there was my favorite letter. It went a little something like this
"Dear The Works, (as you can see this child was paying so much attention that my wearing of a name tag and sharing my name with them 6 or so times didn't even matter)
Thank you for coming to my class. Slime time was cool.
I have a turtle. I feed him every day and clean his tank. He has grown since I got him. He is green and cute and you would like him. His name is Reggie (or some random name it really doesn't change the story if I got the turtle's name wrong). I love him. My mom says I am doing such a good job that someday she will get me another turtle too. Thanks for coming to my school.
Your friend,
Kid X."
The thing that made this letter even better is that it was spelled completely phonetically so "a" was actually "uh". This kid not only didn't give a crap about what I taught, but really wanted me to know about his new pet turtle. I know it should be something that peeves me off, but come on it took me way too long to read the letter because English is a crazy ass language and phonetics is super difficult because words "sound" different to everyone. I'm not sure if the thing that makes this the best is the spelling, the lack of even knowing my name, the fact that it has NOTHING to do with the program or the fact that the teacher either never read it or was just excited the kid wrote anything that it didn't matter to them.
Today was a cluster of insanity that started with teaching polymers at work and then rushing to a school to shock small children. While at the school I remembered just how jaded and bratty 5th graders can be, but got to enjoy the undying love of 1st and 2nd graders. Fun from today was the Indian child that will be spending the summer in India whose name is "Raul". I couldn't pronounce his real name if I were forced, but I find it funny that his parents or the school or whomever decided that Raul was a good substitute for the real name...I don't even think his real name started with an R. Other than that I can't remember anything major other than the disappointment one child had when he realized that not every presenter had brought a pig with them. Sorry, pigs are part of my other show. Whatever.
All in all, the week has been crazy, but definitely more ups than downs and though I'm tired I wouldn't trade it for the world.
I started the week with two assemblies at a kindergarten center. Kids are still cute at this age. Their innocent and sometimes sweet. If some anger slips out, it does just that, it slips. They're not premeditating jerks. I always enjoy working with this age group because everything you do is amazing and wonderful. These kindergartners were no different. The entire show was a joy for them even though the Electro-Static Generator wasn't at peak performance. I even got loud cheering and hugs. However, the best part of the day was when I asked the kids if they had any questions. This can be a double edged sword, you get to show the adults you care about the students minds and thoughts, but you also have to wade through all the "stories" before you get a real question. These kids were on top of it though, questions from the very beginning, but the best are those kids you're sure were listening to something else while you were presenting. Case in point, my favorite question from this group "How does water get in the ocean to begin with?"....ummm, color me shocked that this was so important to the little girl. I was there to talk about Electricity.
The next day I went out to a local school and did a program called Slime Time. Its always fun to make slime. Who doesn't enjoy sticky, slimy goo? Rarely is it the case that all the classes you work with are well behaved, listen and answer questions. I hit the kid jackpot and as an added bonus I left with the obligatory teacher forced thank you notes. Always entertaining and generally variants of the same letter the teacher wrote on the board for them to copy. Now most of these were the same form letters as always. "Thanks, you're nice. Can you come again? My slime was cool." and insert the random vocabulary words you taught while in the classroom. However, there were some outside the box thinkers in these classrooms and either the teachers didn't read the letters or were just excited that the kids put words on paper and let them slide through. There are two that stand out in my mind from the five minute or so read I had before handing them off to the marketing department. One of which was well thought out and very genuine in their enjoyment of the program. I know this because it included the phrase "I liked when we added the goop part. When it combined my slime looked like blue boogers. That was cool, but the girl next to me had green boogers and that was even better!" Then there was my favorite letter. It went a little something like this
"Dear The Works, (as you can see this child was paying so much attention that my wearing of a name tag and sharing my name with them 6 or so times didn't even matter)
Thank you for coming to my class. Slime time was cool.
I have a turtle. I feed him every day and clean his tank. He has grown since I got him. He is green and cute and you would like him. His name is Reggie (or some random name it really doesn't change the story if I got the turtle's name wrong). I love him. My mom says I am doing such a good job that someday she will get me another turtle too. Thanks for coming to my school.
Your friend,
Kid X."
The thing that made this letter even better is that it was spelled completely phonetically so "a" was actually "uh". This kid not only didn't give a crap about what I taught, but really wanted me to know about his new pet turtle. I know it should be something that peeves me off, but come on it took me way too long to read the letter because English is a crazy ass language and phonetics is super difficult because words "sound" different to everyone. I'm not sure if the thing that makes this the best is the spelling, the lack of even knowing my name, the fact that it has NOTHING to do with the program or the fact that the teacher either never read it or was just excited the kid wrote anything that it didn't matter to them.
Today was a cluster of insanity that started with teaching polymers at work and then rushing to a school to shock small children. While at the school I remembered just how jaded and bratty 5th graders can be, but got to enjoy the undying love of 1st and 2nd graders. Fun from today was the Indian child that will be spending the summer in India whose name is "Raul". I couldn't pronounce his real name if I were forced, but I find it funny that his parents or the school or whomever decided that Raul was a good substitute for the real name...I don't even think his real name started with an R. Other than that I can't remember anything major other than the disappointment one child had when he realized that not every presenter had brought a pig with them. Sorry, pigs are part of my other show. Whatever.
All in all, the week has been crazy, but definitely more ups than downs and though I'm tired I wouldn't trade it for the world.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Long Time No Post
I know it's been too long, but I warned you at the beginning of this adventure that I was a terrible guide. If you're still choosing to be here great, but I still make no promises that this site will be well managed, updated or even intelligent. With those warnings in place I am going to proceed to update on life...
Christmas came and went without any huge difficulties or pitfalls. It is always great to get through family gatherings without any fighting or issues. Santa was very good to Eric and I, especially, in the kitchen. If you'd like to see the spoils of war, err, I mean the Holiday check this out. Eric is much better about updating his site than I. We did venture out into the cold on Christmas Day to spend some time with family, after being spoiled by the parentals. Christmas Dinner was at my cousin's house, but we cleared the arrival of our puppy, Winston rather than just bringing him along. It was an experience for everyone involved. Seeing as I have no little ones toddling around the house they were quite a shock to Winston and their quick movements scared him...which caused him to bark...which caused them to cry...which caused him to bark. It was a bit of a vicious cycle until they all adapted to each other. Even the puppy had a good Christmas with presents from all sides of the family and lots of snuggles to go around. He was in puppy heaven.
New Year's Eve lead to a nice little turn out at our casa for a soiree. Again I have no pictures to prove or disprove the existence or said people or party. I really must learn to take pictures, rather than being absorbed in the goings on. Another flaw that I have when it comes to blogging. Who would have guessed there were so many?
Now, we've far past the middle of the month and the only thing I have to say for myself is that I worked a lot. I even suck so much that I didn't make any public displays of affection or anything on Eric's birthday. Nothing... I might have remembered to say "Happy Birthday" on the day, but I didn't get him anything or write him a sonnet or declare my love for the world to see, or read for that matter. Despite my lack of luster, his Birthday seemed enjoyable. On the day itself my parentals took us out for dinner, afterward, he did homework and I did work work. I know you're all very jealous of our exciting existence. We also got to dine at The Elevator with his dad and stepmother. Again I will not do the event justice, but you can check it out from the man himself.
Now its back to the daily grind of work...with a few random events splashed in to keep it lively.
Examples of random events this month include:
Installation of Building America's Canals Traveling Exhibit (I discovered this was my job at 8:30 that morning when I walked in the door. Good times.)
Random TV weather man stopping by to do an interview about a Flood in 1959 and hoping we had memorabilia. Weird.
Helping setup for a wedding reception at my place of employment and then having one of the guys invite me to attend said reception. Creepy.
Christmas came and went without any huge difficulties or pitfalls. It is always great to get through family gatherings without any fighting or issues. Santa was very good to Eric and I, especially, in the kitchen. If you'd like to see the spoils of war, err, I mean the Holiday check this out. Eric is much better about updating his site than I. We did venture out into the cold on Christmas Day to spend some time with family, after being spoiled by the parentals. Christmas Dinner was at my cousin's house, but we cleared the arrival of our puppy, Winston rather than just bringing him along. It was an experience for everyone involved. Seeing as I have no little ones toddling around the house they were quite a shock to Winston and their quick movements scared him...which caused him to bark...which caused them to cry...which caused him to bark. It was a bit of a vicious cycle until they all adapted to each other. Even the puppy had a good Christmas with presents from all sides of the family and lots of snuggles to go around. He was in puppy heaven.
New Year's Eve lead to a nice little turn out at our casa for a soiree. Again I have no pictures to prove or disprove the existence or said people or party. I really must learn to take pictures, rather than being absorbed in the goings on. Another flaw that I have when it comes to blogging. Who would have guessed there were so many?
Now, we've far past the middle of the month and the only thing I have to say for myself is that I worked a lot. I even suck so much that I didn't make any public displays of affection or anything on Eric's birthday. Nothing... I might have remembered to say "Happy Birthday" on the day, but I didn't get him anything or write him a sonnet or declare my love for the world to see, or read for that matter. Despite my lack of luster, his Birthday seemed enjoyable. On the day itself my parentals took us out for dinner, afterward, he did homework and I did work work. I know you're all very jealous of our exciting existence. We also got to dine at The Elevator with his dad and stepmother. Again I will not do the event justice, but you can check it out from the man himself.
Now its back to the daily grind of work...with a few random events splashed in to keep it lively.
Examples of random events this month include:
Installation of Building America's Canals Traveling Exhibit (I discovered this was my job at 8:30 that morning when I walked in the door. Good times.)
Random TV weather man stopping by to do an interview about a Flood in 1959 and hoping we had memorabilia. Weird.
Helping setup for a wedding reception at my place of employment and then having one of the guys invite me to attend said reception. Creepy.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Artistic License
So…I’ve got to admit that though there are times I am totally annoyed with the amount of work I need to get done in one day and other similar work issues my place of employment is generally pretty awesome. I work with some pretty cool people, and I get to do some amazing stuff. I already posted about going to ASTC, which was a fabulous time, but really I get to other cool stuff as well. I mean come on…they pay me to play with children all day and I don’t even have to follow state standards and teach them crap they don’t want to learn anyway. However, the main reason of this post is that I get to meet cool people that I would otherwise have never been exposed to.
Most notably this year is Paul Stankard.
For those of that aren’t sure who this is, he is basically the Godfather of Hand-blown Glass Paperweights! They are pretty freakin’ awesome, but I feel it would be wrong to own a paperweight that has the same value as half of my house. If I could pay off half of my house or own a paperweight I’m pretty sure I’d go for the house payment. Anyway, back to the story about Paul. Yes, you read correctly I am calling him Paul. I feel this is acceptable for many reasons, but mainly because he told me to. So there. :-p
He has been at my place of Employment since Thursday and will leave late tomorrow. We brought him in as an Artist in Residence and for an amazing Glass Art Show. 1.) His work is amazing. 2.) He has some awesome stories to share with the public. 3.) He’s super nice and down to earth. 4.) He autographed my book and congratulated me on my beautiful career (after having actually spoken to me about my career and how I got where I am today) 5.) He is slightly scatterbrained.
Yesterday I spoke with Paul for a very long time discussing many things about my place of employment and my job in-depth. He listened intently and responded and even hugged me when he left for the day. All in all pretty awesome and exciting experience. Today he comes in again for a Glassblowing Demonstration. (Unfortunately I was teaching a class and didn’t get to see this in person, but we taped the experience and it will be showing in our gallery along with the show.) I again got a chance to talk to Paul today and when he saw me he said, “What do you do here?” Thinking it had just slipped his mind because he’s met sooooooo many people and done sooooo many different things for us in the past two days I reminded him. I no sooner got the explanation out than he said, “I met someone yesterday who looked a lot like you and did the exact same thing.” I giggled thinking he was making a joke, but after looking at him a bit longer realized this was not true. I then explained to him he had met me yesterday. He informed me that girl he met yesterday had shorter blonde hair and did not wear glasses. I said “Yep, yesterday my hair was in a sloppy ponytail and I had contacts in…today I’m wearing braided pigtails and glasses. Still the same girl” He had to think about it for a while and then he said, “Well, then you’re very lucky.” And I said “Why?” Paul then informed me that I’m lucky because I am beautiful either way and that is a gift. I’m not sure if that was a just a genius cover or if he really just thinks I’m beautiful, but since I’m a girl and love to have my ego stroked I’m going with the latter. So, to reiterate Paul Stankard cannot remember me fully, but he thinks I’m beautiful so I’m counting it as a win.
Most notably this year is Paul Stankard.
For those of that aren’t sure who this is, he is basically the Godfather of Hand-blown Glass Paperweights! They are pretty freakin’ awesome, but I feel it would be wrong to own a paperweight that has the same value as half of my house. If I could pay off half of my house or own a paperweight I’m pretty sure I’d go for the house payment. Anyway, back to the story about Paul. Yes, you read correctly I am calling him Paul. I feel this is acceptable for many reasons, but mainly because he told me to. So there. :-pHe has been at my place of Employment since Thursday and will leave late tomorrow. We brought him in as an Artist in Residence and for an amazing Glass Art Show. 1.) His work is amazing. 2.) He has some awesome stories to share with the public. 3.) He’s super nice and down to earth. 4.) He autographed my book and congratulated me on my beautiful career (after having actually spoken to me about my career and how I got where I am today) 5.) He is slightly scatterbrained.
Yesterday I spoke with Paul for a very long time discussing many things about my place of employment and my job in-depth. He listened intently and responded and even hugged me when he left for the day. All in all pretty awesome and exciting experience. Today he comes in again for a Glassblowing Demonstration. (Unfortunately I was teaching a class and didn’t get to see this in person, but we taped the experience and it will be showing in our gallery along with the show.) I again got a chance to talk to Paul today and when he saw me he said, “What do you do here?” Thinking it had just slipped his mind because he’s met sooooooo many people and done sooooo many different things for us in the past two days I reminded him. I no sooner got the explanation out than he said, “I met someone yesterday who looked a lot like you and did the exact same thing.” I giggled thinking he was making a joke, but after looking at him a bit longer realized this was not true. I then explained to him he had met me yesterday. He informed me that girl he met yesterday had shorter blonde hair and did not wear glasses. I said “Yep, yesterday my hair was in a sloppy ponytail and I had contacts in…today I’m wearing braided pigtails and glasses. Still the same girl” He had to think about it for a while and then he said, “Well, then you’re very lucky.” And I said “Why?” Paul then informed me that I’m lucky because I am beautiful either way and that is a gift. I’m not sure if that was a just a genius cover or if he really just thinks I’m beautiful, but since I’m a girl and love to have my ego stroked I’m going with the latter. So, to reiterate Paul Stankard cannot remember me fully, but he thinks I’m beautiful so I’m counting it as a win.
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