I went to the library of congress today. It took me the longest time to get myself oriented. First of all, there was the morning that seemed to last forever. I slept in of course, and then I had to move a lot of things around including the desktop pc and the tv in my room so Mom could clean the living room.
I ended up leaving sometime around 12:30, I think. I stopped at Sheetz to get gas, doughnuts and drinks. I was driving south and it took me a while to find the library of congress. I didn't actually find the building, but I parallel parked by the Folger Shakespeare Library. I asked a man at the desk in the Folger Library where the library of congress was.
"Which one?" I don't know. "Well the Jefferson is right across the street. That way. There's the Madison, too, a little further that way. Then there's the Adams building, which is even further." Okay thanks.
I went across the street to what later turned out to be the Jefferson building. I saw a "researcher's entrance" and I was going to enter there, but I didn't see anyone else entering or exiting so I continued to orbit the building until I found the visitor's entrance.
I walked in and immediately checked my bags through an x-ray conveyer belt and walked through a metal detector. I picked up my back pack and went onward. It was around 2:30. I went to the research guidance desk to find that I would need a reader's card, which I could obtain in the Madison building across the street.
I took the underground basement route to end up lost twice before finding the cloakroom and reader's registration room. I gave the man my back pack and a few things that happened to be inside it, keeping my macbook with me. Apparently, bags and containers large enough to conceal documents or books are not allowed in the reading rooms, in case someone would try to get away with a little piece of the loc.
I then went on towards the registration, which consisted of three stations. First there was the ID stage, then a filling out of information on a computer, then the picture taking and completion. When I got to the third station, I was alerted of the fact that I'm too young to be a reader at the loc, but that I could go to room LM133 to have someone fill out a white form, and if I was approved, I could come back to finish registration.
I went to LM133 and got the white form filled out. "What is it a crime to be 17?" the guy asked me in kidding as he filled out the white form for me. I returned to room LM140 to finish the registration. I'm now allowed to use the loc until the end of this year, using the reader's card with a picture of my dishevelled face.
I went to some reading center in the Madison building to find that the main reading room is in the Jefferson building. As I walked from the Madison building to the Jefferson building, macbook in arm, I got lost a few more times in the dark, narrow underground passageways. Every other door had a sign saying "authorized staff only", and there were hundereds of random doors. I wondered if they manage to reach all of those doors within a single day.
I got back to the Jefferson building and to the visitor's center, near where I entered initially. I asked how to get to the main reading room, and I was pointed towards another narrow corridor. I ran into very few people.
When I reached the entrance to the main reading room, I signed in and set to work. I went to the first computer I could find, but only after I realized that the computers were at the outer rim of the reading room, hidden in little alcoves, blocked by countless shelves of encyclopedias and books that were just asking to be grabbed. Shame that I couldn't touch them, though.
On the computer, I tried to get to the main catalog to look for books about Mennonites. Unfortunately, the computer was running abysmally slow. I turned on my macbook to see if the wifi was working. I tried to join the free public wifi airport network, but it wasn't working. In this time, the page on the loc computer still hadn't loaded.
I went to the central desk of the main reading room. I asked whether I needed titles and information before calling for books. Yes, dumbass. The woman with whom I spoke had hair on her face that was growing the way hair grows on my face when I haven't shaved in a few days, but she wasn't very old.
I left the main reading room to retreive my backpack from the cloakroom back in the Madison building. I got lost a few more times. My left foot was starting to ache, and I noticed that my left foot made a different noise than my right foot when it fell to the floor. There was a nice patter as I walked briskly through the empty halls.
After getting my backpack, I headed back to the Jefferson building in order to exit from whence I came. I got lost a few more times. I managed to get back to my car, free of parking tickets or other charges. I started outwards, though I didn't know where I was going. I figured I'd find my way out somehow, and that I'd eventually find my way to 270, and from 270, 15, and then home.
I took a right turn at some point and I had to be stopped by a capitol police officer. I told him, as he walked up from his post, that I had taken a wrong turn. He told me to go left, right, left, something, something else, all after taking a u-turn out of here. I forgot what he told me and soon got lost again.
For a long time I drove in some direction that I thought would lead me towards a freeway. I was on a road that went through trees and beautiful bridges for a while. Eventually, I ended up in Silver Spring somehow. I then got onto 95 north. I changed my mind and got onto 495 west. From there, I got onto 270 north, from which I made my way home.
Anyways, I got nothing done, per se, but I've got a reader's card and I did have some quesadillas afterwards. Good stuff.
