Uncertainty about Life Sucks

After my fiasco with the last semester of college (Fall 2010), and then moving back home, I guess I completely forgot about this blog. At least I lived, I was able to graduate, and readjust to normal life. Sort of.

Now that I have several more friends with blogs, I may as well start it up again. Unfortunately I just had a REALLY awesome archaeology internship, which I should have blogged about, but I didn’t. Seriously, after toiling away with manual labor all day, the last thing I wanted to do was write a blog. I slept as much as I could when I got home! Perhaps I will recount several adventures of mine in later posts.

Since my internship ended Friday, I’m eagerly awaiting my next step in life. I have absolutely no idea what I’m going to do next. My parents want me to take some classes at George Mason University just to continue my education until I decide to go to graduate school. In what, I’m no longer sure.

Just two days ago my heart was set on going to graduate school for archaeology, and I was planning on becoming an archaeologist. But within the last couple of days, several people, both whom I deeply respect, as well as supervisors at work, were surprised that I still wanted to go into archaeology. Apparently I just don’t seem to “fit in.” This has made me rather upset and sad. A normal person would just tell me that I shouldn’t worry about this, and I should continue to do whatever it takes to continue my passion. The problem is, I realized it’s not really a passion. I just keep choosing to go down different paths because I haven’t found what I really want to do in life. So when people tell me I don’t fit and that I’m probably making a big mistake, I listen.

My mom recently pointed out a graduate certificate program at George Mason that she thought I also might like. It has to do with Conservation Science. It has to do with the conservation of wildlife, both flora and fauna, and the classes take place at the Front Royal Smithsonian Biological Conservation Institute. The strange thing was that I was kind of drawn to it. It also made me realize how it doesn’t seem to matter to me what I actually want to pursue as a career. Why am I like this? Is it because I have so many different interests I just can’t decide, or do I just no longer care anymore? I assume I was attracted to this Conservation Science because I could learn about species protection and conservation, which led me to think that perhaps it could be a new route for me to somehow work with penguins someday.

I had completely written off ever being able to work with penguins because I wasn’t exactly the best at Biology: I got a C and a C- in it at UMW. Those were my worst grades I ever got in college! I was so ashamed of those grades because when I first went to college, I wanted to be an Environmental Science major. In high school I had wanted to be a violinist, be a CIA analyst, work in the State Department as an analyst or ambassador, work at the UN in NYC, be an undertaker or coroner, be a detective or inspector, and just want to try so many other professions. Obviously that changed and I decided to do Historic Preservation since I seemed to do well at it, and I also loved history. I kept switching in my mind that I wanted to do archaeology, urban planning, work in a museum as a curator or collections manager, become a lawyer specializing in preservation law, and be a forensic anthropologist and study bones.

So I guess the lesson I need to learn at some point is that my life should not be completely defined by whatever profession I choose. I need to carve out a life for myself that emphasizes so much more, to live a deeper and more passionate life than just one of constant anxiety and drudgery of work. Now that my internship has ended and I don’t have any job or education expectations until at least the end of August, I will focus on my hobbies and other interests to enrich my life. I will try not to sit at my computer and play the Sims 3 for several hours every night. Knowing myself, I probably will.

“The Sermon of the Sword”

Today at BRUU (Bull Run Unitarian Universalists) there was a guest lecture called “The Sermon of the Sword.” Essentially it was a metaphor relating to the fact that we all grow up with expectations that we are supposed to be a bright, shiny, and essentially perfectly balanced katana. However, we all realize later that the katana is not necessarily the best tool for everything. We also need different types of swords, axes, hammers, scalpels, screwdrivers, and the pocketknife. Most of us realize that we are just a typical pocketknife-we can never achieve our original goals to be a shiny, balanced katana. Life will make us conform and things may not go as planned. I interpreted the pocketknife as the fact that most of us have an “average,” or “normal,” life. Of course, average and normal is not everyone’s average or normal, but essentially I mean we don’t all have extraordinary lives-not all of us get to be astronauts, presidents, extremely rich and famous, or live in big mansions. Life is a series of compromises. At this point in my life, this whole sermon rung true to me. I’ll be graduating from UMW in two weeks. I realized that the ideal life I had dreamed of may never come true. I may never live in a big mansion, have the fancy job or career I had hoped for, and I may never have a happy, successful family. I realized I will never be a katana, but I hope that I can learn what type of tool I am so I can learn where I fit in this world,  help myself and others with what I am good at and hopefully along the way find out what I enjoy in life and what I can take out of life.

Hi, Everyone! Slowly Updating the Blog.

I will be graduating from UMW on December 10^th, whoo hoo! So sometime after I graduate, I will be revamping my blog. Unfortunately I may need to find a different site other than WordPress since I want to start vlogging (video blogging) so I can talk and ramble sometimes, and even play music that I am working on for you guys! Not like I have any readers…yet! Don’t worry, soon I will fix everything and it will be awesome. I may even decide to learn how to write at some point so what you read on here isn’t in some other language besides English.

What did I update recently?

I finally added categories and hash tags! Yay! I am also attempting to change the look of the blog around. I think it failed twice, it’s supposed to be white with a picture, but it is definitely the same as it was before. I’ll work on that tomorrow or at some other point.

*Update* I changed the appearance to some awesome looking grungy/schoolpaper look that seems to work for what I am doing right now. Yay?

Besides that, I don’t have much to say, since I am busily working my way through the rest of my semester. Once I am done, I will have more time to work on here.

Favorite 1980′s Artists and Songs#

Now I really don’t listen to too much 80′s music. I was never really exposed to a lot of it growing up. I consider myself more of a Beatlemaniac. Come on, my name is a Beatles song! Anyway, today I will rant about my favorite bands or musicians from the 1980′s. Note that most of my favorites actually spanned several decades, not just the 1980′s. I guess that’s because I generally am not an 80′s fan.

Michael Jackson- Of course I had to start my rant with the King of Pop! His best songs were written in the 1980′s. To me, his best album was, of course, “Thriller.” I remember when I was little my sister and I would watch the “Thriller” music video on video tape of course. Most of us break into smiles when we hear “Thriller,” and start doing that strange zombie dance-of course I don’t know any other part to the dance.  His other best songs I enjoy from that album are “Billy Jean,” and “Beat It.” Of course I wasn’t alive until 1988, but my mom told me she knew he would break out after he performed Billy Jean on this TV show-he became an instant hit after that. So cool. Despite all of the speculation as to what he was doing in the years before his death, he was an amazing artist who revolutionized pop.  

U2- Of course U2 is still going strong, however my favorite songs by them were written in the 1980′s. My favorite song by them is “With or Without You.” To me the whining guitars, Bono’s gorgeous voice, the lyrics with a story, trying to overcome the fact the one he loves isn’t necessarily with him, and he can’t do anything to get her. I can also just feel the passion! Ah, so good. My other favorite 80′s songs from the band is “Pride (In the Name of Love),”" Sunday Bloody Sunday,” and “Where the Streets Have no Name.” All of these songs I have under my 5 star playlist on my Ipod. Of course I love many of U2′s other songs, but many were written in the 90′s and 2000′s.

Queen- I LOVE Queen! Of course many of their classic songs were written in the 1970′s, but essentially my favorite song by them, in collaboration with David Bowie, is “Under Pressure.” I think it’s because I can relate to the song so easily-I always feel Under Pressure with everything I’m dealing with. My four other favorite 80′s Queen songs are “Hammer to Fall,”"One Vision, “I Want to Break Free,” and “Who Wants to Live Forever.”  Perhaps I’m just sensitive, but almost every time I listen to “Who Wants to Live Forever,” it makes me burst out in tears. Maybe it’s because of the eventual fate of Freddy Mercury, or the fact that we all will have to die eventually, and most people wonder what would happen if we could live forever.

Billy Joel: My favorite song by him is “Piano Man,” but unfortunately he wrote that in the 1970′s. My two favorite 80′s songs of his came out in 1989: “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” and “Leningrad.” I enjoy these due to the political nature of them, and now looking back from a historical standpoint, it is really interesting  to see the songs as a reaction towards the Cold War, which officially ended 3 years later. I have fun memories of listening to “We Didn’t Start the Fire” in my 10^th grade World History II class with one of my favorite teachers, Mrs. Easton.

The Cure: The two 80′s songs of theirs I love is “Lovesong,” and “Just like Heaven.” “Lovesong” easily gets stuck in my head and I LOVE the guitar riffs in this one.

Honorable Mention Favorite 1980′s Songs

Journey: “Don’t Stop Believin’” One of the best drunk karaoke songs ever!

Fleetwood Mac: “Big Love” I’ve loved this song in years due to the awesome acoustic guitar solo. Of course my favorite Fleetwood Mac songs were written in the 70′s…

Cyndi Lauper: “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun!” Of course I love this song. ^_^

Depeche Mode: “Personal Jesus”

Graduation’s Coming-What’s Next?

I will soon be graduating from the University of Mary Washington-December 10, 2010 to be exact. I am graduating a semester early for personal and practical reasons. I finished all of my general education requirement courses, the required courses in major, and I have earned the number of credits required in order to graduate. Why bother paying for another semester if I don’t have to? At this point I feel as if I have learned what I needed to from college. I want to go out and experience the real-world, not just hide in the safe cloister of academia.

So here is a list of things I want to begin or accomplish after I graduate.

1. Get a job. This is obviously the most important task I need to accomplish. I know in this dour economy, it may be hard to find something. However, I will take any job I can get in order to earn some money and to give me something to do. I am in luck-I have my first interview this week for a part-time conservation/archaeology lab assistant!
2. Deal with finances. I need to have more responsibilities over my own finances. I need to get my bills organized, paid, and hopefully start to invest in my future. This will include opening a savings account, a retirement account, a travel account, and trying to create a budget for myself. I need to find out what I currently spend on necessities vs.  luxuries. Things I may have thought were necessary might actually be a luxury. I will also need to learn how to live my life more simply and cheaply. I will need to go through my stuff at home including clothes, toys, and other objects I’ve collected over the years. When I find I do need something, I should start going to thrift stores, find coupons, or find clearance sales at my favorite stores.
3. Work out. I know, I say this every year: I want to work out to lose weight,  build strength and endurance, and develop more self-confidence in myself. I still want to work out for those reasons, but I also want to do it so I can make it a habit. I need to learn how to fit it into my lifestyle. Working out will also give me more energy and release endorphins to increase my happiness.
4. Read, Read, Read! I finally have time to read books for pleasure! I have also kept up a list of books that people have suggested to me over the years that I will now have time to explore.
5. Have a daily blog post. I have wanted to blog more, but I’ve been super busy with my last year of college. When I graduate I’d like to either fix or reconstruct my blog into a website. I want to have tags or categories for the variety of subjects I write about, so if people reading my blog are only interested in certain subjects, they can just look up their interests. I will have different posts under these subjects: Music, Nature, Art and Art History, Travel, Photography, Geekdom, Craft Projects, Cooking, Historic Preservation, Philosophy and Spirituality, and Psychology. My friend Rachel suggested a site that apparently can give me a prompt every day to write a blog about. I might like to do that as soon as I run out of ideas!
6. Enjoy hobbies I’ve wanted to begin. I started learning how to sew this summer and I would like to continue to work on that skill. It would be awesome to learn how to create my own accessories and outfits that will emphasize myself as an individualist. I would love to make gifts for my friends. Second, I’ve been wanting to take photographs. I started learning a bit in Historic Preservation and how to take photos for architecture. One of my favorite professors suggested I choose a theme to take pictures from. For example, he told me he likes to take pictures of normal people living and doing normal things. I would like to take pictures to show the beauty of dilapidated buildings, ruins, and general urban decay. At the same time, I would also like to take pictures of things that show character—objects and places that are not “cookie cutter” or look like everything else.
7. Learn how to cook. I know, I’ve wanted to do this for years too. However, it’s gotten to the point that I will eventually be going out into the real world. I need to learn how to cook for myself so I won’t spend so much money going out to eat or on expensive microwavable dinners.
8. Learn how to take care of my car. Thankfully I have started to learn more thanks to my new friend Alex, who is a mechanic. I essentially knew nothing about taking care of a car—at least I knew that the arrow on the gas part of the dashboard meant that the gas cap was on that side. As an introduction, he opened the hood of my car and told me what everything was. Unfortunately I already forgot most of what he said, but that is where the internet comes in. He also taught me how to plug a tire if it gets a hole, use tire shine, wax my car, and get rid of small nicks in the paint. However, if I do want to go on a cross-country road trip, it would be great to learn a little more about cars in case I do have some kind of an emergency. Worse comes to worse-I have AAA’s number in my wallet.

At the moment this is what I plan to focus on after I graduate. One month left!

Sherlock

This will be a silly short post, since it is about my cat. This post will also probably sound like my most childish, but that is probably because I feel like such a giddy child talking about my pet cat.

I love my cat Sherlock! He is absolutely adorable.

He doesn't look too happy here though-oops.

He is the first cat my family has owned. We adopted him from the animal shelter in March. He is a grey shorthaired about 3 years old. I don’t know if you can see in one of these pictures-but he doesn’t have a tail! He has a little stub. My family and the shelter assumes that someone might have cut his tail off when he was a kitten, or he got in some kind of accident.  

Unfortunately he is not a very friendly or cuddly cat. In fact, he hates to be picked up, carried, and he will never sit in anyone’s lap. He only occasionally tolerates being petted, and when he’s had enough he will bite and scratch you.

He is a typical cat. He likes to eat, play, and sleep. Occasionally he does have his quirks amongst those three favorite activities of his. Right now he is obessed with playing with ping pong balls! He chases them around the house and bats them to bits. My sister, the artist, also donated some extra rawhide string he likes to play with. Since cats technically shouldn’t play with yarn (they can easily choke), these are better for him because he won’t swallow them and they are much more chewier, so in the end these pieces of leather are better for him to play with. His strange sleep habits as of late consists of him sleeping on top of any car that is in the garage. He likes to sleep in the garage for some reason, and at first he would just find the dirtiest patch of floor, roll around, and sleep in it. Now he will just jump up and climb to the top of any car in the garage! Here is a picture of him on my Mustang.

Sherlock on my car

 At first I thought it was strange for cats to sleep or enjoy eating a cardboard box. However, after talking with some friends-it is perfectly normal. My cat ignores and will not tolerate sleeping in a nice, soft kitty bed. He likes the feel of cardboard boxes. My family thinks that he might’ve grown up in a cardboard box for a little while, which might be why he feels the most comfortable in there. He also now sleeps on our 3 story cat condo that we bought for him to scratch (so he wouldn’t scratch our couches as much!). When he sleeps on that, I can just walk right up to the cat condo and pet him without having to get down on the floor.

Sherlock enjoying his cardboard box

Anyway, I’m sure I’ll update more in the future about Sherlock. He has yet to be too friendly with me, outside of me being one of his primary playmates. Maybe one day he will actually curl up next to me while I’m sitting around the house. On that day, I will probably be full of glee!

=^-^=

Fall 2010 Semester

Hi! I thought I would update everyone on what I am currently doing.

I am in my last undergraduate semester at The University of Mary Washington. That is both a relief and a nightmare. I’m happy to finally finish school to get my diploma, but at the same time I’m completely scared about facing the real world after graduation. However, I am most likely going to go immediately into graduate school for the Fall 2011 semester and beyond, so I don’t have to completely freak out yet.

I am taking three Historic Preservation courses this semester and two other classes for both general education requirements, but also because I am actually interested in taking them. The three Historic Preservation courses I am taking are Historic Preservation 302: Preservation Law, Historic Preservation 308: Cultural Resource Management, and Historic Preservation 405: Preservation Planning and Survey.  The other two classes I am taking are Communications 205: Public Speaking and Geography 101.

Preservation Law is going to be an interesting class. It is a law class, so I have a lot of dry, fairly boring reading every week. However, the professor is a very interesting lawyer, and we have no in-class exams. Everything we have are take-home, open-book essays. He also said everyone last year but two people got A’s. As long as I don’t slack off, I’ll be fine (I hope).

Cultural Resource Management is a lot like Preservation Law. I’ll be learning basic laws referring to the protection of cultural and environmental resources.  However I will also learn about the growing CRM job sector, job responsibilities, and how the field will expand in the coming years. We will also get practical field experience in CRM archaeology and survey, as well as learning how to do a project proposal and writing a budget for said project. 

Historic 405 is the dreaded class every Historic Preservation major dreads. However, I have hope. My professor is hilarious and for the most part will try to make us feel at least a little better by making us laugh in class, even if we want to cry. What makes this class so intense is the large amount of group projects, the creation of government documents, and surveying entire neighborhoods. There is a large volume of work to do by certain deadlines. Although it will probably be stressful, I think it will be more realistic as to how jobs are in the real world. We will have deadlines, we will have large amounts of work, both menial and intellectually challenging, and we will have to work in groups of people that we may not get along well with, and we may need to shoulder the burden of responsibility for.  

I am taking my second speaking intensive course, Public Speaking. I am hoping in that class I will be able to learn how to more effectively give speeches and get my point across to people. I also hope I can learn how to control the way my body reacts to anxiety in speaking in front of people. Mentally I don’t mind talking in front of people, but for some reason I always shake and have a huge adrenaline rush that often make me sound weaker while speaking. I would love to get over this.

I am excited to finally take Geography 101! I have always had an interest in geography, but I’ve never been able to take a geography course. I have enjoyed watching the Travel Channel, and I especially love Samantha Brown and her shows. I also was in Model U.N. for four years in high school, my last two years I was the president of the club. Of course in Model UN I was more of a researcher instead of a speaker, so I did not do so well. It would have helped me if I had taken public speaking in high school. I guess it is never too late to improve on that skill! In terms of geography I know a lot about Europe and the Americas, but I would really like to learn more about the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and Oceania. One thing I am excited for at UMW is that next month, Anthony Bourdain is coming for the Fredericksburg Forum! He’s my second favorite Travel Channel Host after Samantha Brown. He is more edgy and realistic, which can be good, but at the same time I like Samantha Brown and her perpetual optimism while traveling.

Outside of classes I will be going to the local aikido dojo twice a week! I am really excited for this because I have not been able to go there at all until this year. I finally got a uniform so I feel official now. On Tuesdays it appears we are practicing most of the aikido I am used to, namely the more physical techniques. On Thursdays we have weapons practice with the Jo(staff) and Bokken(sword), as well as the physical hand-to-hand techniques. We did not use the sword, staff, or knife at the club at UMW except on special occasions. This will be fun. I was also pleasantly surprised that the dojo has a cat. It was so cute and friendly! Too friendly-he clawed my leg so I could pet him more. Oops. I also noticed this is the only time in the week I really get to drive my Mustang for 30 minutes each way, so it’s nice I get time to enjoy driving to and from the dojo.

So as of right now that is what I am doing this semester. I also had to get another WordPress blog/username for umwblogs, so perhaps I will link back and forth to each blog.

Sewing Projects-Summer 2010

I know, I know–I’m not very good with this blogging thing.

It’s the middle of summer break 2010. I have one semester left as a senior at college and will be graduating in December! So this summer I am trying to do a wide variety of activities that I’ve always wanted to do, but never seemed to have the time to do it. I figure this may be my last summer to do so: most of the graduate schools I’m going to apply to need me to either take classes or have an internship in the summers (all the programs I want are 2-2 1/2 years long!). So I am going to make a series of posts about all the different things I’m going to do this summer. This post will be about my attempts at sewing!

Sewing Projects

All throughout middle and high school I never had the chance to take a home ec. class because my electives were always taken up by orchestra and computer science classes. I never really learned how to sew, so that is one of my projects for the summer!

My history of learning how to sew consisted of a couple of events in my childhood. First when I was about 11 or so, I loved the American Girl Dolls, so when my family visited Colonial Williamsburg we went on the ‘Felicity Tour.’ On that tour we learned how to play with a hoop and stick, drink tea, and we learned how to stitch. I don’t remember what exactly it was I made, I think I threw it out at some point. Later, when I was a junior girl scout, I  had to sew a couple of pillows as part of a project for a badge or something.  Besides pillow making, I knew next to nothing about sewing.

Why did I want to learn how to sew now? Well, I really wanted to be able to fix some of my nicer pieces of clothing. Today we live in a society with cheap clothes made by low-paid laborers somewhere, and these clothes are not meant to last. However, I do have nicer clothes that I like, such as suits, dresses and coats that I want to repair buttons, ripped seams, or raise the hemline due to my short stature. Another reason I would like to sew is to make costumes. I know that sounds silly, but it would be fun to make my own costumes for Halloween, reinactments (if I ever get into that), or for characters for anime or video game conventions. It is hard to find costumes like that in stores, and most sellers of costumes online are fairly expensive. For the most part, I want to sew for a practical reason- just to be able to fix things.

Thankfully my mom encouraged me to try to learn how to sew. She first tried to teach me how to do some basic stitches using pieces of cloth from one of my sister’s art projects. Then she went and bought me a Singer sewing machine-a simpler one for beginners. Before I could begin to sew anything using the sewing machine, I needed to learn how to use the machine. The machine actually came with an instructional DVD, so I watched that with my mom. Then I got to sit down and attempt to thread the machine. Ironically, the hardest part to threading is the automatic threader-it was quite complicated! It took me several tries before I found a trick to it, but now it takes me only a couple of seconds.

Next we looked for basic clothing patterns for me to try to create from Simplicity. We looked at hundreds of patterns, and finally decided on the patterns to make a simple wrap shirt (or dress). As we were shopping for the material we realized that I had broken two rules my mom tried to lay out for me to make my first sewing experience easier: the pattern had seams, and it needed a stretch fabric. Stretch Jersey Knit in fact. As we are finding out, it is the WORST possible material to use for beginners as it is hard to control, especially lined up under a sewing machine.

My mom told me the hardest part of the project would be cutting out the fabric from the pattern. The pattern directions give a picture of where to line up the pieces on top of the fabric. Some of it was confusing because it required you to fold part of the fabric and essentially, like cutting out a paper snowflake, cut the same piece of pattern through both layers of fabric. To me, the cutting of the pattern wasn’t very difficult, but it was time consuming.

So finally it was time to use the sewing machine. I got to sew together the back two pieces. Then came a problem- the way the pattern pieces came together did not seem right. Somewhere along the line, either the pattern piece was cut upside down or the directions were completely wrong, the shirt wasn’t matching up. So unfortunately my first shirt is a failure. My mom is currently trying to see if she can adjust some of the piece so we can still make a shirt out of it, but it seems like it is no longer my project.

What did I learn? That pattern directions are completely confusing and I need to figure out what direction the pictures are trying to convey for the fabric. Also, I will never sew with Jersey Knit again, unless I actually become good at sewing things in the future. Maybe I’ll put up a picture of the final product, once it’s finished of course.

What is my next project? Well, I might want to make some kind of a skirt. They seem easier to make than shirts-I don’t need to worry about sleeves. I am currently working on a cosplay costume for Otakon as Yuki Nagato from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. She’s the alien girl with the purple hair. I’m trying to go as her in her school uniform and witches costume that she uses in both the band she and Haruhi are in for a day, and in the movie Haruhi makes. Anyway, all I need to do is find socks and create the sleeve cuffs and the schoolgirl collar (whatever that’s called) with red ribbon.

<Costume idea

After the cuff sleeves and skirt, I might want to make some tote bags. There were some cute designs at the fabric store that I want to try. I might want to make some tote bags as gifts for some of my girl friends. I doubt my guy friends would want a tote bag. Maybe I could find a laptop bag pattern for them or something.

So far that is what I’ve been doing in terms of my sewing projects. At this point the projects are slowing down, but I hope I don’t lose interest in trying to learn how to sew. I think it is a valuable skill to learn.

*Month later* Here is what my costume looked like!

Switching Departments Again

I am  now on my fourth and final ‘department’ rotation at work: Curation. So far I have gone through Archaeology, Restoration, and Museum Education. However, this rotation works with every department I’ve worked with before. Thankfully I’ve made good impressions on all of my previous bosses so they are delighted to see me and work with me again. The organization I work in has two locations: one in the old town and one across the river. My boss in curation only works part-time, so she has placed me as her liaison at one place while she continues to work at the other location. Unfortunately I know almost nothing about curation, so it is rather funny being the curation-go-to person when I know next to nothing about it. However, the tasks I’ve been assigned to do right now have been fine.

First: the perfect squares. Noooo! Let me explain. One aspect of curation is setting up and arranging exhibits, which is my current assignment. As of right now, the exhibit script has been written, the artifacts already chosen. I’ll be helping out with construction of the final product of the exhibit. This includes trying to cut perfect squares of blue fabric that are supposed to lay on top of display boxes so the artifacts pop out and are more visible. Unfortunately my cutting skills are almost as bad as a first grader’s and I’m also a perfectionist, so I’m sitting there crying on the inside at how poorly I cut. I even had co-workers try to help me out by giving me triangles, exacto-knifes, and giant rulers, but I’ve still be messing them up. Cutting the fabric not straight at the end of the long process of creating paper squares to create mylar/plastic templates to apply to fabric is quite despairing. 

My second job is to try to identify, count, measure, label, and “accession” into the collection a jar of marbles. I am to become their hand-made clay marble expert and identify and know as much as possible about these  marbles. There is a lot of information about marbles out there, except it’s for fancy stone and class marbles, there’s generally only a paragraph about clay marbles when there’s hundreds of pages on varying types of glass marbles. These are just simple, hand-made clay marbles. At least I was able to find pricing for them, so I know about how much they are worth. I’ve barely begun this project because I didn’t feel like losing my marbles over counting and measuring  and organizing each individual marble.

Along with the job of accessioning marbles I need to identify some ribbons of lace and try to find out what it is, how much it’s worth, etc. I have no clue. I’m not a 19th century clothing expert or an expert in decorative arts. I might go to my professor at school to see if she either knows what it is, or has any reference materials to find out what it is. My boss said worst comes to worst they have a clothing/fabric expert come in occasionally, so she can probably figure it out the specifics about the lace in the end.

What IS a little bit sad about this rotation into Curation is that I don’t actually get to work with my new boss yet. She needs so much help, I have try to help do her work at the other location for her. I have however worked with and seen my bosses from archaeology, restoration, and education in just the past 3 days I’ve been there! I’m technically working under archaeology at the moment since the exhibit going up is an archaeology exhibit, but my archaeology boss left two days ago to go to some ceramics conference in Colonial Williamsburg. She’ll be back next week, but my curation boss is on vacation all next week, so hopefully I can handle everything on my own, I really do not want to bother her while she is on vacation!

It is sad to think this is my last department rotation. I was hoping this time last year that this internship would let me explore a variety of careers in historic preservation to see if I could consider pursuing them further. However, I am just as confused as last year, however it seems like my co-workers think I would be great at museum work. Now I would just need to identify what part of museums I would like to work in. Perhaps if I learn more about curation, I would like that since it already appears to be a job where I would need to know about education, archaeology, and public outreach. We shall see…

*Oh yes, a thank you to the random person from cyberspace who sent me a message to ‘update more.’ I don’t know who you are or why you would be interested in reading what I have to say (I’m flattered), but you reminded me I should write on this blog more when I have the time.*

Oh yeah, I have a blog don’t I?

I’ve been so busy this semester, I just remembered that I created this blog! Anyway…tonight’s topics include Internships and Grad School!

But first-I will officially be graduating from UMW after the fall semester in December! Hooray!

Summer Internships: for the past month or so I’ve been scouring through summer internship opportunities relating to either Historic Preservation or Urban and Environmental Planning. I’ve currently applied to 6 government internships at the Department of the Interior and the National Park Service that is part of a Historic Preservation Internship Training program. These range from internships dealing with evaluating and nominating historic structures to the National Register for Historic Buildings, archaeology and cultural resource management, museum outreach, museum exhibition management, museum collections, fieldwork, computer work relating to preservation activities, historical landscapes, ethnography, and more.  I am also applying for a fellowship with a non-profit organization that deals with multiple interests of mine including urban planning, environmental sustainability and historic preservation. This fellowship I would probably prefer because the first month is basically classes teaching us about all aspects of the company with guest lecturers and speakers, as well as almost daily field trips all over Virginia. The second half of the fellowship we get to make our own project based on our interests and work with others in the company to complete it. I have not finished writing an essay for that application, but as soon as I am done writing that I can send it in and be done with summer job applications! Hopefully I will get one of these seven opportunities, if not I am probably going to apply for blue-collar retail jobs, despite the fact I’ve never had a retail job before. I never really realized it until recently, but I have had a pretty cushy life, being able to just work at paid internships.  Let’s hope I get one of these internships!

As of late, I realized I need to begin to look into what I need to get into graduate school. The first thing I did was delve into the number one program (and school) I want to get into to see what they require me to do at the time of applying. At the moment, I’m looking into the Urban and Environmental Planning at UVA with a concentration in Historic Preservation, along with a certificate for Historic Preservation on the side.  Unfortunately UVA is one of three Virginia universities that have an Urban Planning Program-the other two are Virginia Tech and VCU. Also unfortunate is that UVA is the only one that has a concentration in Historic Preservation, which is what I want to study. I haven’t started to look at universities outside of Virginia because I would prefer to stay in-state so I get in-state tuition, and I can live close to family and friends.

Thankfully I have taken all of the courses I need to take at Mary Washington that could lend itself to Urban Planning with a concentration in Historic Preservation. Urban Planning is such a small program, it is generally in a university’s school of architecture, such is the case at the university I would like to get into.

Besides that, I might decide to apply to a few other graduate schools in other fields of interest, such as archaeology and museum curation. This would be a backup just in case within the 5 months between graduating and having to choose a graduate school, I might change interests. It was less than a year ago I still wanted to be an archaeologist, but now I want to be an Urban Planner! Months before archaeology-museum curation, and before museum curation I wanted to have a wide variety of jobs including just being a plain Historic Preservationist, CIA Analyst, UN or US Ambassador, State Department worker, Attorney in Environmental Legislation, or Attorney specializing in Historic Preservation Law, Environmental Scientist, Marine Biologist, Penguinologist (the informal name for someone studying penguins, but I’ve seen scientists actually call themselves that! Lucky them!), architect, professor, teacher, paleontologist, archivist, musician, etc. I’ll decide what I want to do with my life by the time I accept a grad school in April I suppose.  

Standardized Testing: I have the option of taking the GRE, the GMAT, or the LSAT. To make my life a bit easier, I will just take the GRE. The majority of the graduate programs I’ve been looking at require only the GRE, so I should focus on taking one standardized test. I’ll start studying for this soon, and hopefully I can take the test in the summer sometime so I won’t have to deal with it during my last semester at UMW.

That’s what I have been musing over for now in terms of summer internships and graduate school. If I remembered I had this blog, I would discuss more about everything else I’m concerned with (such as work, classes I’m currently taking, writing about music, movies, video games, books I’ve read, or other random interests like paranormal studies. One day I’ll have time to do everything at once.