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I spent my birthday enjoying the cherry blossoms and some museums. Check out my pictures from the tidal basin. The blossoms are pretty, but apparently they and the Smithsonian gardens are the only things that got the memo that it’s spring. It’s still cold and nothing else has started blooming. But, the blossoms are pretty.
Enjoy some photos from our trip to Hawaii!
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So, I feel like I start all of these more or less the same way—with an apology for being so long since the last time I wrote. This working everyday of the week definitely keeps me super busy and leaves very little time to do anything other than eat and sleep. But, since I have a seven-hour train ride, I guess I finally have some time to do a little updating. Why am I on a train for seven hours? Don’t worry, I’ll get to that (this is apparently going to be a long entry). I also realize there is nothing of Hawaii in here, but that will have to wait for another entry.Lately, other than working, eating, and sleeping, I’ve been in the middle of post-grad applications. I have applied to Teach for America, George Washington University’s Master of Arts in Museum Education, and the Rhode Island School of Design’s Master of Arts in Teaching and Learning in Art and Design, Museum Education track. Please forgive some of my ramblings below, on top of updating you with what is going on in my life, I am also taking this opportunity to sort out what I’ve learned about each program and think through my notes.
Teach for America is a fairly involved and incredibly competitive application process. I have made it to the final round of full day interviews. For the interview day I have to prepare a five-minute lesson plan, read five articles to be discussed on the interview day, and prepare for a one on one interview. I think I have finally come up with some good ideas for my lesson plan (at least I hope I have since my interview is next week). Now I just have to find time to practice them and figure out which of the two is better. Anyway, if accepted to TFA, I have listed Seattle and New Mexico as my top two choices. If by some miracle I get accepted, whether or not I choose TFA over Grad school might depend on where they place me.
GW was definitely the easiest application process. I filled out an online application, submitted a resume and cover letter, had two recommenders, and had a very relaxing phone interview. During my interview, we mostly discussed the work I have been doing at the Museum, my observations and understanding of the museum as a collaborating institution, etc. It was pretty straightforward, and sounds like it was nothing like the interviews the two current GW grad students interning at my museum had to go through (but then theirs sounded very different, so who knows). What I know about GW’s program is all information I have picked up from alumni and current students. With its location in DC, most of the Education programs in the city’s museums are full of GW alums, including mine. I think seven of the women in my department (not counting the two interns) went through the program (and there are a total of 13 people, not counting interns, in the department). One problem with the program is it does flood the market in DC, if I were planning on staying in the city. This program begins in June and lasts for two years. During their time in DC, students complete coursework, participate in an internship at an area museum, and write a thesis. (As a totally random side note, we just passed through Mystic, as in the Julia Roberts movie Mystic Pizza. This train ride is definitely way more interesting than the eleven hour train ride through the middle of the desert from Flagstaff to Los Angeles). With the abundance of museums in the DC area, students are given the opportunity to learn from each other’s experiences in a wide variety of museums. Based on my impression, the GW program teaches its students to the skills needed to be a museum educator in a general sense. The small field of museum education and limited number of positions makes transferability of skills very necessary.
And now to finally explain the seven-hour train ride. I am on my way back to DC after an interview on campus at RISD in Providence, RI. This was a very whirlwind trip. I got into Prov at like 7:30 last night, checked into my hotel, had dinner, crashed, was at RISD by 9 this morning for an introduction to the program and tour of the buildings, then we had a tour of the University Museum (amazingly broad collection and pretty cool space), then lunch with two current students in the program, then my personal interview, back to the hotel to pick up my bag and change into normal clothes, then to the train station, and on the train at four, I’ll be back in DC around 11:30. Phew, what a run-on sentence, anyway… So, the RISD program actually sounds pretty interesting. They are in the middle of the process of getting approval to change the program from a two-year program to a one-year program. Currently, the program is two years, during the fall and spring semester of the first year you complete coursework. During the winter session students complete a 6-month internship off campus, one of the students we met with just got back from her internship in Chicago. The second year of the program is for conducting off campus research and completing a thesis. It is hoped that during this time students will also be working. With the change to a one-year program, students will no longer do a winter internship and the thesis becomes less formal and completed as a part of general coursework. Considering that I have spent the last two years working in a museum, the loss of an internship is less of an issue for me. My interview seemed to go really well. I felt well prepared. It was funny to learn that the director of education at the RISD museum of art (one of my interviewers) is a good friend of my current supervisor from when they worked at MoMA together. This is a ridiculously small field I am entering into (just to further illustrate how small, one of the current MA students we had lunch with knows one of the other women I work with at the museum). But yeah, I was happy with the answers I gave during the interview and they seemed very responsive and engaged. So I should find out about both RISD and GW in the next couple of weeks.
A little random anecdote from my trip. I will preface this with: I owe my father an apology for all the times I rolled my eyes or gave him crap for talking to strangers. Mom can tell you about many a times when I would whisper to her “Mom, dad’s talking to strangers again,” when I was younger. Talking to strangers on this trip got me a free cab ride, a free meal, and a good conversation with a bartender. Granted, it was a like 3 minute cab ride that cost $3. All I had was 20 and the driver didn’t have change, so he just let me go. For dinner, I ate at the Union Station Brewery. Since I was alone, I sat at the bar. The bartender was very nice. We had a very easy conversation about a lot of things, I was there for almost three hours. Shortly after I sat down, a gentleman in his mid- to late- forties sat down next to me, he was travelling on business. I also had a nice conversation with him. It came up that I was in town for a grad school interview. When he finished his meal, he paid for mine as well, simply as a good luck on your big interview tomorrow. So, talking to strangers got me a free ride, a good meal, and a good conversation, possibly even a new friend if I end up in Prov.
In summation, it is very possible I have some really tough decisions ahead of me and I’ve only managed to successfully kill an hour and a half of this trip. Oh well, I think I’ve rambled on enough, I don’t need to continue to do so. Hopefully in a couple of weeks I will have some really good news!
I had a fabulously, wonderfully amazing Halloween weekend that I’ve been meaning to write about, well, since Halloween. I would assume that most people heard about the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear that took place on the National Mall on October 30th. However, if you didn’t, let me give you a little background. John Stewart, host of Comedy Central’s the Daily Show, and Stephen Colbert, host of Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report, hosted the Rally to promote reasonableness. The Rally was attended by (estimate anyway, definitely look up pics, they’re insane) 215,000 people. Most people I talked to after the fact were so far away they couldn’t hear or see anything, but stuck it out anyway just to be apart of it. I had a couple of friends come out and crash at my place for the Rally, one for California and one from North Carolina. We were fortunate enough to be in spots where we could both see and hear. I would have been so sad if I had missed the Roots with John Legend, the Mythbuster guys, Cat Stevens, Ozzy Osbourne, the O’Jays, Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow, a poem read by a lawyer off of Law and Order, R2D2, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, and of course Stewart and Colbert. One of the boys who came out for the Rally is really good at socializing in random situations so I got to meet and hang out with some really cool people. Friday night we met some locals and bar hopped with them. Saturday night we ended up meeting up with 4 other people (a couple from Arizona, a guy from Seattle, and a girl from Virginia Tech by way of Utah and Hawaii). The seven of us basically started a huge party on the patio of a Greek restaurant in Dupont Circle. We brought in so much business and were ordering so much stuff, that by the end of the night, for every pitcher the boys were ordering, the owner was giving them two for free. It was such an amazing weekend. And one I desperately needed after going weeks without a day off.
Since that weekend, I’m back to very few days off between the museum and the store. Things are only going to get worse as we get to the holiday season starting with Green Weekend (as we call Black Friday at American Eagle) next week. I’m scheduled huge numbers of hours on Friday and Saturday and am apologizing in advance for a lack of posting pretty much from now until after Hawaii in January. I’m even mostly done with my Christmas shopping in hopes of not having to deal with crowds unless I’m working.
So, Happy Thanksgiving in advance!
Yesterday was actually a really good day at the store. It wasn’t terribly slow, but it also wasn’t ridiculously busy. I worked a long mid-shift, and it was nice to be fairly constantly busy without being completely overwhelmed. But what was really good about it was that I was complimented by all of my managers, included our District Manager. I was able to prove to the District Visual Manager (our current acting manager) why my Assistant Store Managers like me so much and why they push to give me 30-40 hrs a week. I didn’t even realize he was watching me that closely. They had a Manager’s meeting on Wednesday and I was so highly complimented by the Assistant Store Managers that he paid fairly close attention to me (good thing I was good mood and upbeat all day). Our District Manager (who is responsible for I think 8-10 stores in the area) was visiting our store all day to evaluate our store and our Assistant managers. Out of the blue she also gave me a really high compliment just from overhearing my interactions with the customers all day. Now, with her there I was a little conscience of what I said and made sure that I was following proper procedure, but I would say that I acted as I would most other days. It was just really nice to hear good things from all of my managers. So, as a reward to myself, I got a new ear-piercing 
The museum has been good lately as well. I’m still working on doing some marketing and research and development stuff for our teacher institutes. Today we had a tour of the Renwick Gallery for American Craft (the Renwick is still part of our museum, but housed in the original Corcoran gallery located just behind the white house). Fleur Bressler gave us a quick overview tour of the Gallery in general, a quick walk through of the Art of Gaman exhibition (artwork created by Japanese Americans in Internment camps), and very slightly more comprehensive tour of the Bressler Collection Exhibition (in other words works that she had donated to or purchased for the Renwick). It was great to look at the pieces with her and hear some of the little stories behind the works and detailed descriptions of processes. With our smaller group, this tour was much more engaging than the one a couple of weeks ago during the All-Staff meeting, where she gave a similar tour to the entire American Art staff (or at least anyone who chose to attend).
So, I thought I would have something super amazingly exciting to write about today. Turns out I was a little wrong. I was supposed to go on a tour of the East Wing of the White House today with interns from the other Smithsonian museums. Somehow I got left off the list. Everyone else in our group got in. I feel bad for the woman who coordinated the tour. She hung back with me and therefore didn’t get to go either. Luckily, she’s going to attempt to organize another tour in a couple of weeks. I just hope I can manage to get that day off whenever it is. Although, I was told that the tour wasn’t actually that exciting. Basically touring an old house where you can’t touch anything and you’re rushed from room to room. I am a little bummed though that I wasn’t able to go to the Renwick with some of the others after the tour though.
I did ended up stopping in at the Natural History Museum to check out the Cyprus show, since I was already downtown. They had some really neat objects on view. I would have liked to see much more, but it was a relatively small show. It also made me miss studying antiquity and ancient Rome a little.
Busy week for me. Between the museum and AE I have no days off this week and during my down time I’m busy preparing job applications.
Back to productivity.
For the last two weeks I’ve been super excited about my new rotation at the museum. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday (the three days a week I am at the museum) I leave my desk jazzed and excited to write a new post…and then I go to the store. I spend 4-8 hrs standing/running/folding/helping customers and lose all energy to do more than lie in bed and watch some cheesy TV show. Well, I am finally taking a brief moment (while still at the museum so as not to completely lose my motivation) to post an update.
Tampa was great. It was wonderful to have a real weekend, a weekend with no work and no obligations. Not to mention the food was amazing. It was great to see Billie and we all love his fiancé Crystal.
At the museum I am doing a lot of little research and organizing information type projects. I’m so excited about the resources we offer teachers, I had no idea this museum, along with so many others in the country, offered resources and ideas like this. For the last week I’ve been researching webinars offered by other institutions to see what’s out there and potential models for us to use. I even took one of the learning modules the Library of Congress offers. It was kinda fun and I got to print out a certificate. Today we had a lunch-bag lecture. I got to hear the guy who invented the measles vaccine and his wife discuss their collection of Studio glass. The pieces were absolutely gorgeous and the life that they have had collecting, donating, and volunteering in the art world is amazing. Apparently I need to have invent a vaccine so that I can live a life collecting amazing works of art.
The other thing that has been taking up quite a bit of my time is researching some grad schools. Right now I am focusing on finding out information for art education programs at the Academy of Arts University in San Francisco and, ironically, San Jose State University. I am also interested in the Museum Education program at George Washington University. I will probably look into a few other programs as well, but for the time being three is about all I can juggle and still keep track of which program offers what.
Anyway, back to looking up local newspapers to send out press releases. Hope everyone has an amazing week!
