[late] anniversary post

A little over a year ago I started this blog while at a job completely unrelated to museums or children. A lot has changed in a year and while I haven't been the best at updating consistently I would like to do a quick general run down of the year and where I'm at now with the (probably unrealistic) idea that I will write more frequently.

I have started graduate school which I love. The school reflects the museum education field in that it is 99.99999% women. I also no longer have many male friends. To counterbalance this general lack of testosterone I have moved in with my boyfriend which more than compensates.

I student taught in the first and the fifth grades. The classes were both insane in unique and wonderful ways that I wish I better documented. Bottom line is: kids do say the darndest things...it's true.

I was interning and then hired to lead school group tours at a museum that specializes in contemporary art as well as New York City history. I don't want to get more specific then that (Let's just call it Museum 1) but I think I can safely say that it is not The American Museum of Natural History.
And Yet... When I ask the school groups what they are expecting to see on their trip when they come to visit 7 times out of 10 someone will say: "DINOSAURS!"
Damn you AMNH for cornering the definition of museum.

I have also started referring to museums in short hand (I say A EM EN H when I am talking about the museum of natural history. I am that inside.

On Monday I begin work for family programs at a museum-mile art museum (extremely creative pseudonym: Museum 2) which I am very excited about but alas there are no dinosaurs there either so I will continue to perpetually let down children.

That's my update!
I am in a much better position now to write about children and art in a more meaningful way than I was a year ago...so here's hoping I actually do it.

Summer!...classes

It's summer session again in graduate school. That means a semester of work crammed into 4 weeks of classes.

I just picked up a 5 pack of Hanes underwear so I could put off laundry until the weekend.

TIME MANAGEMENT!

I know I haven't updated in a while but I promise I will try to more. I usually do most of my blog writing when procrastinating doing mountains of work. I have the mountains of work so the blogging cannot be far behind!

Procrastination

Two of my final projects are due this coming week and I have a ton of work to do so, as usual, I feel compelled to blog instead.

I am a few weeks into my 5th grade placement and I am not so into 5th graders. They are growing on me more and more but I really do miss being in the 1st grade. I feel bad calling 10 and 11 year olds jerks but as a clump they are kind of jerks. One on one I can see that they will mostly probably grow into pretty good people but right now I have very little desire to be around them.

People who like teaching older kids over the itty-bittys say they like it because you can talk to them like adults. I talk to adults all day. Adults on the whole are pretty lame. I think I am finding out that I would much rather hang out with small people who are assholes by accident instead of on purpose to see how much they can piss you off which seems to be the default mode of operation for 5th grade.

The fact that I am not such a fan of 5th grade (I leave frequently with a splitting headache) coupled with my grad school semester ending and all my final projects being due has brought out a bit of my grouchy side. I would like to take this opportunity to publicly thank my boyfriend for putting up with my short temper and crying jags. Love you! Ok now I feel like I'm off the hook next time I bite your head off for something like switching our pillows or walking too loud.

Alright...back to work...or back to watching Ghostbusters II.

So, it has come to this.

I am now wearing a backpack.

I seem to be incapable of not carrying my entire world with me in a bag at all times.  Up until a few months ago I carried giant messenger bags filled to capacity with me everywhere I went. 

Then in November I had sudden shooting pains in my chest and arm and went to the ER convinced I was having a heart attack.  Turns out I had probably pinched a nerve in my shoulder and pulled a muscle near my ribcage from lugging around a giant bag since I was 13.  The prescription: no more one-shoulder bags.  

Since then I have been wearing a "lumbar pack" (glorified fanny pack) which was working for a while but it has been steadily accumulating weight (I plead total ignorance on this one,  I have no idea how all my bags end up so heavy. Bag Gremlins?).  Yesterday I noticed a slight bruising on my waist and began to worry for all the important internal organs in my abdomen.  Plus I was starting to carry a shoulder bag for all my school books and that was also getting pretty heavy.

So ... backpack.  My reluctance to wear a backpack stems the fact that it will make me look even more like a 12-year old than I do already but I feel like I'm out of alternatives.  

This morning I dug out an old black Easpack ("The leader of the pack" says the Double-Dare announcer in my head) from middle school.  It has miraculously emerged from that time unscathed by purple marker drawings of peace signs, ying-yangs, or flowers.  To offset the 12-year-old factor I decided to pair it with a granny cardigan today.   My roommate assures me that the sweater and the backpack average out to make me look my age.  

After my fist backpack commute in over 10 years I will say this: padded shoulder straps are pretty sweet.

Also if anyone knows of a cool (and inexpensive) backpack-type-concept let me know.  I am looking to upgrade the Eastpack.  

Oh, NYC, why don't you want me to get a graduate degree?

After my first class yesterday I realized I might make it through this summer term if I managed to get up early, stay up late and get some major reading done on the subway during my commute.  This morning I set off reading packet in hand.  I had an early success in getting a seat right when I got on.  I opened my packet to begin learning about Erikson's 8 stages of development when suddenly:

The Crazy happened. 

A woman I hadn't noticed before sitting in the corner of the car began talking back to the train announcements.  It is the N so there is the female and male automated voices.  She thought they were talking shit about her and that they shouldn't be the ones talking because she knew a lot of shit about them...and it was REALLY juicy.

Apparently the automated bland female conductor voice is actually a Trinidadian woman who was "married at 16 divorced by 19 to a black man who was forced to marry her" AND she "fooled around with her mother's boyfriend" which got her kicked out of the house.  AND (prepare yourself) is actually a "he/she, who answers to the name mrs. and mr."

The automated bland male voice seems to be two distinct people.  One is a "MTA Jew" who is watching everyone all the time on cameras he has planted around the subway.  He judges them but he should really judge himself because he is responsible for EVERY crime: "rape, murder, arson, IDENTITY THEFT!"  Also "He needs something in his ass to get rid of all the shit."

The other male is a retarded Panamanian ("I have never seen anyone so retarded") who likes to brag about his exploits "with sodomy."  I am sure he has a richer background story but the 14th st. stop came too soon to find out.

I feel vaguely guilty about finding these rants so fascinating in their conviction and details.  I hope that woman finds the help she obviously needs.  Or a job writing for All My Children.

I still know nothing about the 8 stages of man but I know who to blame next time there is ANY crime.  I'm looking at you MTA Jew...what ARE you doing with those cameras?

To my friends...

To my friends:

Tomorrow I will disappear for a while.  For the month of July I will be working from 8:30-4 and then be in classes from 5:30-9.  I am taking two classes (Child Development and the aforementioned extraneously-long-titled Children's Literature in a Balanced Reading Program -Focus on Grades 3-8).  So that about covers July.  I love you all and will see you on the other side.*

 

To my laundry:

Could you somehow get yourself clean? That would be really helpful. Thanks.  Also, could you be the sweetest little cupcake and tell the fridge to fill itself.

 

To the non-school related books I have started and will definitely not finish:

Sorry.

 

And lastly to my unwatched Netflix:

I think I will miss you most of all.

 

* I say this now while my resolve and work ethic is strong.  I can already foresee the need to blow off some steam at some point. 

Right Decision

OK.  So everyone at my graphic design job now knows that I will be leaving to go back to school for museum education.

I feel totally secure in my decision.  Furthering this sense that I truly belong working with children is the fact that this Gawker post sent me into a fit of giggles at my desk yesterday: 

The New York Times' Arts Beat Twitter feed was hijacked last night. Granted access to the feed's 2,500 followers, what message did the interloper choose to send? "Pooping."

AHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHA... I am 5.

The Big Stuff

Yesterday I saw Up.  Beyond its ability to accurately portray a dog's thought pattern (squirrel!), Up also beautifully illustrated a few big picture life issues that have been on my mind lately.  

In a mostly silent opening sequence we see a couple (Ellie and Carl) meet, marry, and grow old together.  They think of having kids, find out they cannot and revive an old life dream to travel. They save money in a jar that is broken open prematurely several times when the money is more urgently needed for life's little emergencies (broken legs, tree falling on roof...).  Time slips on and Ellie dies without having ever gotten around to her original dream.  

I bawled. In 3D.

I have been crying a lot lately (for some of it I blame hormones).   I have been crying about the Big Things.  Everyone I love will eventually die.  We have such a short time here, how do we not lose track of the big plans.  

I think maybe it's because I'm at a point in my life where I can sort of, kind of, almost peak at what my future might look like and I can begin to envision life's big milestones and they are awesome and terrifying and amazing and tragic.  Which is the ultimate message in the film: all of life is an adventure. 

I wonder how young viewers responded to these themes in Up.  Is there any part of them which understands transition and end?  Does a 60 year old wonder that same thing about me?

Anyway... Go see Up.  If you're anything like me you'll cry and then you'll laugh that super giddy laugh that comes after crying and then you'll nap.  

I... might be 4 years old.

Oh SH...ugar

I curse too much.  WAY too fucking much.

Today my boss brought in her young daughter to work and not only do I not know at all how to interact with her (which doesn't bode well for my future teaching career) but I also keep cursing.  I cannot stop.  It's like the presence of a small child triggers a cursing instinct in me.

Even for the adult sphere I curse too much.  I have accidentally started fights with my boyfriend because I forget that cursing doesn't always add the lighthearted humor to a conversation I think it does.

I have also recently found out that a gibberish sound I make instead of cursing means "cocksucker" in korean.  I even curse by accident! Multi-lingually! 

So before I start working working with children (and for the sake of all my human interactions) I must cut back on the cursing.

Any suggestions of non-cursing interjections?

Hello!

This blog will be about me, em.  

After spending WAY too long at a graphic design job I have remembered what I meant to do with my life: Museum Education! (ta da!) 

I am passionate about arts education (I have been working in museums and other cultural institutions education departments since high school) and I'm psyched to get back into the game. 

So psyched that I am going to prematurely start this blog even though I am still at the graphic design job doing nothing with children or museums til I start graduate school in a few months.  

But in the meantime it will remind me who I am when I give a shit about what I do.

Here goes...