And Thus Starts the Third Week of Internship
Things were a little busy toward the end of last week and over the weekend. Baby Bro and Family are coming up here this Friday evening. The big FSU/USF game is on Saturday. Baby Bro managed to get 6 tickets and we'll be sweltering/frying/rained upon at the stadium.
Because of this, M and I spent a lot of this past weekend cleaning up around the house, especially the yard .... which seemed like a good idea before we actually started the mowing. After my second pass around the perimeter of the back yard, I ducked under some honeysuckle vines that were hanging over the fence. Very soon after, I felt stinging on my head and my right arm. Turns out there were a bunch of wasps or hornets hanging out on those vines. I was stung twice on my head, once on my upper arm, and once on my forearm just below the elbow. I jumped off the mower, pulling my shirt off on the way into the house (in case they started crawling under my shirt and to help get them out of my hair), and started yelling for M to help me.
I have to admit, I had a little bit of an uneasy moment while sprinting up the stairs. Bizarre allergies run in my family. While someone might not start off life being gifted with one of these bizarre allergies, people in my family have been known to acquire them as they get older. For example: Just Younger Sis was born with asthma and being allergic to everything but rice. She grew out of everything at one point, then the asthma came back with a vengeance (probably because of her smoking). Big Sis was never allergic to medication, but started becoming allergic before being diagnosed with cancer. Baby Bro is allergic to the sun and insect stings/bites, but handles the sun better now, though he's still deathly - and I do mean deathly - allergic to insect stings/bites. I didn't really have allergies as a kid, but acquired an allergy to pet dander and dust mites as I grew older.
I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this.
The sprint up the stairs was accomplished with masterful grace -- something I'm not usually capable of -- and without really paying attention to the steps. My eyes were riveted on my forearm to see if I had suddenly acquired a new allergy to insect stings. After about 15 or 20 minutes of cleaning the wounds and removing the stingers (two were embedded in my flesh), M and I decided that I wasn't going to need a trip to the ER this time. There was some swelling and the pain lingered for the rest of the day. At some point (after finishing the yard chores and getting cleaned up), we went grocery shopping and picked up some Benedryl and a Neutrogena cream for skin afflictions. By bedtime, things had settled down for the most part, but my forearm was still a bit swollen. Today, only the forearm has bothered me. This was one of the body parts that had an embedded stinger. Since there's very little fat there, that little bitch probably injected a load of venom deep into the muscle.
Aside from wasps and cleaning, the internship has taken an interesting turn. Toward the end of last week, I ended up creating a database for the exhibition survey forms and created a gallery checklist/condition report/inventory document. The checklist is actually part of the contract for the show.
Traveling exhibitions are "booked" into places. Bookings need contracts. Contracts have details. For museums (and probably galleries, too), they list the care and feeding of the artwork on display. If there's any special lighting needs, special packing/shipping instructions, special equipment needed to display the work, gallery/building security, photography issues, etc.
Since we're such a small gallery, it's easy to walk through the exhibition several times during a shift to check on the work. Once a week, it's a good idea to check on the condition of the pieces to make sure that the arms are still on the statuary and no one's drawn little mustaches on the paintings. Et voila! That's where my list comes in!! Starting this week, I'm supposed to be trained up on how to do condition reports, which I'll be doing as part of my Art internship.
Soon, we'll be getting another show in. It's more of a theatrical exhibition, in that it is supposed to have animatronic dinosaurs. It looks like they might be needing some help with that. I'll have a better idea of whether they'll need me to help out with that at the beginning of next week.
When I went in on Friday, I brought in an Excel database frame that took me a few hours to do at home. I uploaded it onto the server and started inputting the survey data. Et voila, deux fois! It worked like a dream!! I was able to start using some of my newly acquired Statistic skills and crunched some numbers for the upcoming board meeting. Today, I took three tables of results and made a little report for my Dev supervisor and the Exec. Both seemed very happy with my work. Some more surveys were found, so I'll be busy with this little project for a while yet.
Not bad for only being on the job for two weeks.
Tomorrow is a Dev Dept day. When I dropped off my little report to the Dev supervisor and the Exec, I saw where there were a few things laid on my Intern Desk. Unless they're going to train me up on a new Dev project, I just might end up working on the database again tomorrow.
Because of this, M and I spent a lot of this past weekend cleaning up around the house, especially the yard .... which seemed like a good idea before we actually started the mowing. After my second pass around the perimeter of the back yard, I ducked under some honeysuckle vines that were hanging over the fence. Very soon after, I felt stinging on my head and my right arm. Turns out there were a bunch of wasps or hornets hanging out on those vines. I was stung twice on my head, once on my upper arm, and once on my forearm just below the elbow. I jumped off the mower, pulling my shirt off on the way into the house (in case they started crawling under my shirt and to help get them out of my hair), and started yelling for M to help me.
I have to admit, I had a little bit of an uneasy moment while sprinting up the stairs. Bizarre allergies run in my family. While someone might not start off life being gifted with one of these bizarre allergies, people in my family have been known to acquire them as they get older. For example: Just Younger Sis was born with asthma and being allergic to everything but rice. She grew out of everything at one point, then the asthma came back with a vengeance (probably because of her smoking). Big Sis was never allergic to medication, but started becoming allergic before being diagnosed with cancer. Baby Bro is allergic to the sun and insect stings/bites, but handles the sun better now, though he's still deathly - and I do mean deathly - allergic to insect stings/bites. I didn't really have allergies as a kid, but acquired an allergy to pet dander and dust mites as I grew older.
I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this.
The sprint up the stairs was accomplished with masterful grace -- something I'm not usually capable of -- and without really paying attention to the steps. My eyes were riveted on my forearm to see if I had suddenly acquired a new allergy to insect stings. After about 15 or 20 minutes of cleaning the wounds and removing the stingers (two were embedded in my flesh), M and I decided that I wasn't going to need a trip to the ER this time. There was some swelling and the pain lingered for the rest of the day. At some point (after finishing the yard chores and getting cleaned up), we went grocery shopping and picked up some Benedryl and a Neutrogena cream for skin afflictions. By bedtime, things had settled down for the most part, but my forearm was still a bit swollen. Today, only the forearm has bothered me. This was one of the body parts that had an embedded stinger. Since there's very little fat there, that little bitch probably injected a load of venom deep into the muscle.
Aside from wasps and cleaning, the internship has taken an interesting turn. Toward the end of last week, I ended up creating a database for the exhibition survey forms and created a gallery checklist/condition report/inventory document. The checklist is actually part of the contract for the show.
Traveling exhibitions are "booked" into places. Bookings need contracts. Contracts have details. For museums (and probably galleries, too), they list the care and feeding of the artwork on display. If there's any special lighting needs, special packing/shipping instructions, special equipment needed to display the work, gallery/building security, photography issues, etc.
Since we're such a small gallery, it's easy to walk through the exhibition several times during a shift to check on the work. Once a week, it's a good idea to check on the condition of the pieces to make sure that the arms are still on the statuary and no one's drawn little mustaches on the paintings. Et voila! That's where my list comes in!! Starting this week, I'm supposed to be trained up on how to do condition reports, which I'll be doing as part of my Art internship.
Soon, we'll be getting another show in. It's more of a theatrical exhibition, in that it is supposed to have animatronic dinosaurs. It looks like they might be needing some help with that. I'll have a better idea of whether they'll need me to help out with that at the beginning of next week.
When I went in on Friday, I brought in an Excel database frame that took me a few hours to do at home. I uploaded it onto the server and started inputting the survey data. Et voila, deux fois! It worked like a dream!! I was able to start using some of my newly acquired Statistic skills and crunched some numbers for the upcoming board meeting. Today, I took three tables of results and made a little report for my Dev supervisor and the Exec. Both seemed very happy with my work. Some more surveys were found, so I'll be busy with this little project for a while yet.
Not bad for only being on the job for two weeks.
Tomorrow is a Dev Dept day. When I dropped off my little report to the Dev supervisor and the Exec, I saw where there were a few things laid on my Intern Desk. Unless they're going to train me up on a new Dev project, I just might end up working on the database again tomorrow.