Milestones

Sooo. Halfway through Week 7 at the Archives (imagine that to the tune of "Midnight at the Oasis". You're doing it now, aren't you.) I can't believe how the time has flown. I wish I could stay longer! But the Zoo will also be majorly cool. So there is that.

Today, I made my supervisor a little drawing to commemorate a special milestone that has been reached. Although it is now clear that I will not complete the photo collection, because no one could, it is equally clear that I will be able to exceed the expected number of entries by about 25%. Excellent. Here's the drawing:

Besides the awesome drawing skills, make sure you take note of the superior scanning techniques: nice, even colouration, straight edges, yeah, I do this for a living.

Don't worry. My 4x6 colour prints are better. Much, much, better. And described with an equal amount of panache.

So, celebrate! I will be getting some extra sleep in order to mark the occasion.

I like to be a leader.

Well, mostly I just like people to follow me. In my head, I prefer to maintain that I popularized a certain late-90s hairstyle at my high school. I know it's not really true, but I do happen to know that it really suited me, and no one else wore it quite so often. Although they did wear it, after I did.

That's something I really miss. Leadership. Being a joiner, I have had lots of training, and now it seems increasingly irrelevant. This is probably a sign that some sort of organization should be joined, in order that I can eventually rule it. The current workplace is pretty cooperative, and I think I'll be at the bottom of the heap at the next one, so work is likely out. That is one thing about small town vs. big city. It's easier to find groups you'd like to be in, or groups that you may as well be in, in the small town, where you already know what's going on. Hmmmm.

I guess I did spearhead a small project yesterday. I mean minuscule, but every little thing counts. I read that in this institution we have what is called a Labyrinth. Now, before you get excited, David Bowie and creepy children are not involved. Instead, the Labyrinth is a clever maze made out of carpeting, upon which you are supposed to walk. After traversing the entire path and arriving at the centre, you will have had time to meditate, concentrate, leave all your problems behind, and heal yourself. So I decided we should go see it. In the tradition of last week's field trip to see the Queen at the Legislature building. It was not as big as I was hoping it would be, and it was possibly even colder in the room than it is in our office (20.4 degrees on a good day), but it was a pleasing purple colour.

Remind me to head back up there if I get a cold. Or something worse. I believe that faith healing works if the one that needs the healing believes, but that's as far as I'm willing to go.

And that will do for now. Follow me!

Blogging and the use of the word "I"

Looking back over previous posts, because yes, you should read your own blog (especially if you instruct other people to do so), it is impossible not to notice how often the first-person singular pronoun comes up. (Grammar check? Right term? Think so.) It should also be apparent how difficult it is to avoid, even just from the first few sentences in this post. Eeeek.


Will persevere. Was reading a "professional" blog Sunday. Apparently, the author has been able to commercialize her thoughts enough, and link to enough products and ads that her blog now supports her, her husband AND their assistant, who just does all the little things she's too impossibly busy to do for herself. The California life must be so hard. Will never read that blog again in order to passive-aggressively protest the commercialization of the forum. Will also not buy Suave hair products (biggest ad, probably). Would not have done that anyway.


Whew. Nothing like talking around the point. But it keeps going! Love a challenge. Kind of like teaching myself to speak Welsh. Only know a few words and phrases, but it's like nothing else on earth. It will be very handy on my retirement trip to Wales. In 40 years. Extra eeeek.


Does it count when other first person singular pronouns are used? Like "me" and "my"? Doesn't look quite as bad as all the one-word ones littering previous posts, but it is probaby cheating. And dropping pronouns does give sentences a sort of immediate, modern, text-message-like feel. If that's what we're going for these days.


Hmmm. The computer does not seem to care for the spelling of "eeeek" with more than two "e"s. Not willing to let it have that one. Will continue to use at least four. Should not spellcheck blog anyways. Any spelling errors would just be personal expressions, but there weren't any at any rate, so self-confidence also needs work.

Enough for now!

You should read this blog.

Because why wouldn't you? Especially since in this post, I will attempt to share something of meaning, along with the random musings. Soooo. What did I learn today? Not a whole lot in terms of concrete facts, I'm afraid. I did scan and enter over sixty photographs into the database, so there is at least a concrete number. Wheeee!

I also made a really great list of things to take for the upcoming weekend, which is Norah's birthday in Niagara-on-the-Lake. From the looks of it, I'll be taking a U-Haul. Must streamline. Comments would be welcome on how best to do this. And no, just not taking any clothes will not work for me, or any of my nine fellow guests.

This would probably be the time to comment on the G20 and its aftermath. I was away from my apartment for most of the time, and I understand that all the setting alight of police cars and so on happened some blocks from here, but it was pretty wild when we were more or less evacuated yesterday from work because of a planned protest at a city agency on the same street. (Trying to be cryptic here. I have no idea if my workplace Googles itself, but if it did, it would probably hit on its name here. And then Emily would have to do a media clipping just like she does for legitimate news. And then I would scan it, and we would database it, and that would be just crazy.)

I am really looking forward to meeting someone from a protest group, so I can get perspective on the issues from different standpoints. Then I will add that to my novel, along with context and statistical analysis.

Okay. Enough thoughts. Fact time. I was very excited to learn that a conservator that I respect is starting to recommend a broader range of acceptable rH levels for collections storage and management. If this means nothing to you, think of it in terms of the environment. If we can have as much as 5-10% higher humidity, that means wayyy less air conditioning, and then everybody wins!

There's nothing funny about armaggedon

No, there really isn't. Should that have a capital "A"? I'm not talking about the awesome film, I'm talking about the real end of days. Tornado, earthquake and thunderstorm? Uh-oh. Super creamy coffee, though, like the one I'm having right now? There IS something funny about that and not necessarily funny in a good way. I'll have to be more careful with the self-serve system at the cafeteria here.

Back to the disasters. Despite all of it, I think we're still going to be okay. I've seen nothing regarding the G-20 except security and preparation, and while you can't plan for natural disasters, there is some comfort in having every police officer in the country within a six-block radius of one's home. Well, probably not EVERY one of them, but there are a lot.

Enough about that. However, I don't know what else to talk about. It's on everyone's mind and it's all we do talk about. So archives it is.

I am still working on photo scanning, and I hope I'm doing a good job. When there are no plans to use the databases anywhere but internally there is some latitude, I think, in the way things are described. That being said, I am trying to be consistent. And it's funny, because I'm starting to recognize people whom I've never met, and aren't even still alive in most cases. Oooooo. My boss says that she thinks I have a photographic memory, but I just proved that wasn't true, because I was wondering what the real term was for that (eidetic) and I had to look it up. And if I had an eidetic memory, I wouldn't have had to.

Drat. There goes all the mystery and intrigue.

Week Two at the archives.

Sooo. What's going on this week? We have stuff on the go, but I hope we get more visitors as the summer goes on, because I really enjoy the detective work of tracking something down. It's sort of happening with the photo collection, because as I get more familiar with people and events over the history of the institution, it does get easier to place things in context. And I suppose, in the grander scheme of things, context is what really matters.

That will be the focus of my novel. Heh.

Either that or statistical analysis.

To provide some context, as it were, for that last comment, I should explain that on Monday we are having a visitor from the office of the local MP, and I am going to show her around. We really don't know what their concern is regarding this facility, but I want to be ready if I can for any questions. So I hope that she asks about visitor statistics, because that's what I'm preparing for.

Wow. This blog isn't funny at all. I guess I'll post, but if in retrospect it is awful, away it goes!

Perhaps something good will happen on the weekend!

Yes. I live in a museum.

Welllllll. It has occurred to me that if I expect other people to blog (you know who you are) I would be wise to set an example. Let's see.

So I've got a new job. It's all around great. So awesome to be back in the heritage field for real!

Met two Queen's alumnae today, one actually from my class although I don't think we knew each other. We were in some of the same first year classes, but so were a couple hundred other people, and I think I look different now.

I've got to get going and get some culture. I went to church on Sunday at Metropolitan and was less than impressed with most parts of it, although the brass band was a charming surprise. I want to go back there to hear the organ, but maybe in a concert setting. It's supposed to be one of the best in Canada, and is apparently also the largest. Coupled with the Gothic Revival cathedral, it was like being at the Presbyterian church in Stratford. About the same size of congregation too, which was a little shocking. In a depressing way.

So. Anyone want to hear a charming story from my childhood/family life? Dave, I'm talking about you here. Although I have mostly sisters, and we're not really into fishing, we have rituals too. One of the best is a really recent one, but I think it's going to catch on. Bear with me, it takes a little setting up.

My parents have always resisted naming the farm - Mum especially thinks that they tend to be clichéd, particularly if they have "acres" in them or anything is "rolling" or located in a "glen", "croft" or otherwise. However, we think we may have come up with something. One night, my sister Laurel was clearing up after another one of our giant family bunfights, and she dropped a pile of silverware, causing her to moan "oohhhh entropy!"

Now, entropy, as you know, is the term from particle physics that describes the tendency of all matter to want to return to chaos. We think that this is an excellent description, because large families can be a little nuts. It is especially appealing to Iain, who loves particle physics. I'm not kidding. He loves it when I remind him that he's not actually here, he's just more likely to be here than to be spread at random thoroughout the universe. So stay tuned for more from Entropy Acres.

And of course we'll be leaving off the acres part.