Down to the Wire

Two more days until I start! Here's 10 more list items.

• Visit the Museum of Russian Icons. I'm interested because it's a subject I know so little about, I was surprised to hear that there was a whole museum. 

• Read Queer Matters: Queer Representation in Museums by Xander Karkfruff, recommended by Margaret M. It's a Master's thesis the author has made available online, and it is one of the more comprehensive resources on the subject. 

• In science class in high school, we did an activity where we had to describe a basic task step-by-step to a classmate, and they had to follow our instructions to the letter. The task was something like tying shoelaces. If the person describing skipped a step, the person tying the shoes wasn't allowed to fill in from their own knowledge. I'd like to do that again.

• Go on a museum tour led by a third party not affiliated with that museum, like Museum Hack or another company.

• Do sound design for a play. I am fortunate to be involved with a couple of great community theater groups, and I would like to use theater to practice creating experiences that use many different senses. 

• Along similar lines, I'd like to be involved with set design for a play. 

• Read Maus: A Survivor's Tale by Art Spiegelman. I haven't read many serious graphic novels, and this award-winning holocaust story is one of the most famous.

• Visit the Worcester Art Museum. Not much to say about this one, except that I hear it's good, and I haven't been. 

• Work through some of the University of Waterloo Centre for Teaching Excellence's collection of exercises on developing a teaching philosophy. It's designed for classroom teachers, but I think it will be interesting to apply it to museum education and history writing.

• Visit the Boston Fire Museum. When I started volunteering in a history museum for the first time, one of my fellow volunteers was a retired firefighter who was also very involved in the Boston Fire Museum. I'm sad to say I haven't made it over there yet.

• Explore the Disability History Museum. I haven't spent a lot of time exploring virtual museums, and to be honest, I don't really know what makes them different from fancy websites. This seems like a good place to start.

I hope you will follow along with my adventures, and I hope you enjoy!