long week

I’m just coming to the end of what has been a really long week. Last night I was at the museum until 8:30 p.m. because there was a launch event going on for a new DVD teacher’s resource that the Museum has just put out called “Voices of the Transatlantic Slave Trade”. Basically it’s a big collection of various accounts, letters, diary entries, poems, and speeches that represent a broad array of historical figures involved in the slave trade, all performed by actors and actresses on film.

It’s a great resource because it follows all the different aspects if the trade from Africa pre-slavery to the abolitionist movement and it documents a large array of experiences and viewpoints from the sailors to the plantation owners, including many accounts written by slaves. It’s also really neat because all the accounts are real and it can be taught through a character driven exploration of the different stakeholders in a slave based economy, or used chronologically to teach the basic history of the trade.

The event was a big success and we had teachers from all over Bristol, local politicians, and even members of the Museum board of trustees. My job was to go through the DVD on a laptop with teachers and introduce them into different ways of putting it to use in the classroom. I got to meet a lot people involved in very different types of education and outreach and even got to chat to a few trustees who visited my station when I didn’t have any visitors.

Right now at work I’m working on retyping out the trails that families and schools use to navigate through the museum. (basically they are different themed booklets that guide people through the gallery based on specific themes or activities). It’s not the most exciting job, but it needs to be done because the photocopies are looking ratty and the files are in an old format, which can’t be opened. I was given the job when someone noticed that I had the ability to touch-type quite quickly, but thankfully since I started the project Its become less of simply retyping and touching things up and I’ve gotten to do some real editing and reworking of things a bit too.

I’m going to try to do a quick trip out to a seaside town called Weston-super-Mare this weekend just to get away from the city for a day, but I’ll have to see how the weather is because I might visit someplace more indoors if its going to rain a lot. I’m hoping the weather will hold out though because it is a resort type town and a lot of the things to do there aren’t open during the winter and the season is almost up. Saturday night I’m going to an electronic music night with Hannah from work so that should be really nice as well.

On a funny/quirky note. I’ve noticed that people are constantly asking me if I am alright… and yesterday it happened particularly a lot –probably at least a dozen times. When I got home and my housemates were all asking each other the same thing at the end of the day I suddenly realized that the expression isn’t really used in the same way that we use it in Canada. In Canada we use it when we perceive that something is wrong with someone and we want to inquire as to what is going on, but here it’s used more casually like “how’s it going” or “how are you?”… I was relieved to realize that I’m not constantly giving off the impression that something is wrong or that I am upset, which I was starting to wonder yesterday.

It’s quirky little things like that, which are the hardest to adjust to. I’m not sure if it’s a cultural thing or just something around the office, but I’ve noticed that there is a much broader use of non-verbal, but audible communication going on here as well. For instance a lot more “mm hmms” and “uh hmmm” in different tones which replace expressions like “right”, “I see what you are saying”, and “tell me more”. Something I sort of noticed subconsciously, but when my Canadian co-worker pointed it out it suddenly hit me. I think between the two I was feeling a bit frustrated subconsciously, so it feels a bit better to realize that I’m not being patronized all the time.

Finally, I’m reading a really good book which, though I haven’t finished it yet, I wanted to recommend it to everyone. It’s called “The Rebel Sell – How the counterculture became consumer culture”… I saw it in the airport on my way here and then bought it for myself here on my birthday. It’s a really interesting book and although I’m not really sure how much I agree with the authors' opinions, it is giving me a lot to think about. It’s basically about how books like No Logo, Fast Food Nation, and Adbusters in some ways feed into consumer culture and about how subversive countercultures actually support a consumer economy in more ways that we might think. Interesting read if anyone is interested.

Will post some pictures of whatever I get up to this weekend
- Chris