Interning in DC

These past few weeks have been awesome, I have been interning at the National Museum of the American Indian in DC as a research assistant intern interpreting visitor comments and making them into a useable understandable summery of each month the exhibit has been up. It's been tedious but interesting,  I loose my faith in humanity and then gain it again multiple times a day. My co-interned agrees, people can be awful when they write comments. Not even criticism of the museum or of the exhibit. They write racist, hate filled things, or they draw penis's all over the page, or and perhaps even the worst they scribble out others comments to it is impossible to decipher. But then other people are amazing, they write compelling praises and criticism. Thoughtful, really meaningful conversation gets started and I feel privileged to get to read it. Some comments are personal stories, some are not. But all are actually written with care, which is incredibly refreshing after a packet ( the comments are taken every two ish weeks an put in a folder and new paper is put on desplay) with penis drawing, scribbles, and prophanoty. Children's  comments are my favorite, they are incredibly cute most of the time but most often they are some of the most thoughtful writers that use the comment books. They really want to be heard, and they really want to say something. I always feel lucky to find these gems. It makes me feel good that really young kids understand the basics of the message of the exhibit. That's all I have to write now, perhaps later I'll add more about what I have seen in DC these last two weeks, and the adventures I have had. Below are just a few of my more favorite comments I found in the first week.