soul of the era

More and more each day, I’m feeling like I’m in the right place. After exposing myself to so much of this museum culture, I’m able to articulate how exactly I feel about history and artifacts and why they need to be preserved.

I spent a good hour and a half gushing over a 1942 edition of Good Housekeeping. My assignment was to notate pages that would work for an upcoming “Women in WWII” exhibit, but it was so hard to choose! I found a Kotex advertisement that somehow tied a teenager’s brother being in the war, to plans for a scrap metal fundraiser, to being a better citizen because she’s wearing Kotex. To me, that tells so much about life during that era. It wasn’t just the writing, or the experience of holding something old, but the ability to peek into the past for a brief moment to see how women of this era thought, how advertisers appealed to their customers, to see how much they valued text over imagery in their advertisements. It’s a “window into the soul” of the era, and that’s what appeals to me.

At the same time, though, that was almost too easy. They spoke English very similar to ours, and their history is alive with our elders. I want to experience more of a challenge! Maybe I’ll actually build up what I’m learning to be able to understand those ancient points better.

Speaking of points, Kate visited the museum again on Friday. We got to talking about her plans for the future, and I’m loving her outlook. She wants to go to grad school to study museum studies, but she mentioned that schools in the West tend to have more of an anthropological perspective. That sounds amazing! I’m not sure quite yet that I want to dedicate my life to museum work, but the people here inspire me to think about it.

I still want to somehow incorporate journalism into my future. Aside from all this, I’ve been thinking of expanding my portfolio to include skills in programming, video editing and photography, and go the multimedia route of journalism. I want to tie all this back to a potential thesis in some way, shape or form, but I’m not quite sure what, yet. Of course, to do that, I’m going to definitely need more experience.

Back to the Ridges issue from last week: I worked with Jessica to edit a letter that she then sent to supporters within the Historical Society. I want to do more! But I feel like I might be starting to annoy her with my enthusiasm. I don’t know: I’m enjoying this experience but I fear that I’m being blind to the needs and experiences of others at the museum. I chat with the other interns when we’re in the same room, but I haven’t really “buddied-up” with anyone yet. It’s a weird situation. I love going there every day, but I’m afraid my social insecurities are getting in the way of me fully enjoying myself. I suppose that’s yet another thing to work on.