I started a new blog. Which, normally, would mean ignoring this one. I don't want to do that, however, so I thought I'd taken a lesson from Miss Pond, and create a manifesto for this blog. Something I can refer back to whenever I get a bit off-track.
What will I use this blog for?
-career pursuits
-reflecting on job hunting
-issues in the museum field
-comments on getting into novelizing and trying to get published
-flagging up blogs of note in the above fields
-social media opinions and suggestions
What I won't use this blog for:
-PhDing (that's what the other blog is for)
-complaining about how bad life is
-personal issues
-funnies
-referencing other blogs (except where they relate to career/novelizing)
-procrastinating from writing entries for my other blog (or working)
Well, that's a start at least. Something I can have to refer back to every time I write a new post. We'll see how that goes for the rest of the year, and maybe I'll come back to this again in January and see how I've been getting on, and revise, where needed. It's a work in progress.
Sunday, September 6, 2015
Sunday, August 30, 2015
New Blog
Okay, first, I won't be ignoring this one. I'll still post as infrequently as I already do. But, in an effort to start some sort of career (unpaid though it will likely be) I am embarking on a new endeavour.
PhD-ing for Dummies
Please follow along if you've an interest. Or pass the link along to those who might.
PhD-ing for Dummies
Please follow along if you've an interest. Or pass the link along to those who might.
Wednesday, August 26, 2015
Attention Span of a Gnat
This might be insulting to gnats everywhere; just fair warning.
When I was little I would focus on one thing for hours. I was well known for being able to play a computer game for eight hours straight, or read an entire novel in a day.
Some things have not survived my PhD. That sort of attention span is one of them.
It's a funny thing, this 'other' side. Emerging from four years of intensive academia and finally having the time to take stock of what's changed. A few things were temporary (memory loss, hair loss, compromised immune system), and some things have not been temporary.
But the one that is causing me the most grief is the inability for anything to keep my attention for longer than about twenty minutes. Things I used to enjoy for hours I now grow bored of in minutes. I can't watch an hour of television, even with commercials to distract me (I can't watch it without commercials either, thanks Netflix). I can't read more than a couple of chapters of a novel. I can't read more than one academic article a day (and even then, if it's long...). And I can't do fun things. I get bored of Pinterest after ten minutes. I get bored of Twitter after five. I get bored of writing blog posts in the middle of writing blog posts.
I'm certain there's some psychological reason for all this. I'm quite certain someone could tell me why so long intensely concentrating on one thing has somehow hardwired my brain to not be able to concentrate on anything. And maybe I'm just - still - recovering, and it'll get better. But if anything, it's gotten worse.
It used to scare me a lot. The things stress does to the body. But I've gotten over that, mainly because a lot of the stress-related issues have gone away. But this one? This one may never, and I'm going to have to adjust to that. It's entirely doable, I'm sure. I just have to learn to do things in 5-10 minute windows, rather than do one thing for three hours.
Time to try to Pomodoro technique, I think.
When I was little I would focus on one thing for hours. I was well known for being able to play a computer game for eight hours straight, or read an entire novel in a day.
Some things have not survived my PhD. That sort of attention span is one of them.
It's a funny thing, this 'other' side. Emerging from four years of intensive academia and finally having the time to take stock of what's changed. A few things were temporary (memory loss, hair loss, compromised immune system), and some things have not been temporary.
But the one that is causing me the most grief is the inability for anything to keep my attention for longer than about twenty minutes. Things I used to enjoy for hours I now grow bored of in minutes. I can't watch an hour of television, even with commercials to distract me (I can't watch it without commercials either, thanks Netflix). I can't read more than a couple of chapters of a novel. I can't read more than one academic article a day (and even then, if it's long...). And I can't do fun things. I get bored of Pinterest after ten minutes. I get bored of Twitter after five. I get bored of writing blog posts in the middle of writing blog posts.
I'm certain there's some psychological reason for all this. I'm quite certain someone could tell me why so long intensely concentrating on one thing has somehow hardwired my brain to not be able to concentrate on anything. And maybe I'm just - still - recovering, and it'll get better. But if anything, it's gotten worse.
It used to scare me a lot. The things stress does to the body. But I've gotten over that, mainly because a lot of the stress-related issues have gone away. But this one? This one may never, and I'm going to have to adjust to that. It's entirely doable, I'm sure. I just have to learn to do things in 5-10 minute windows, rather than do one thing for three hours.
Time to try to Pomodoro technique, I think.
Thursday, August 20, 2015
Upon Completion
There are certain times in your life when something occurs so unexpectedly that you gap in awe (or shock). Sometimes these are moments of sheer surprise. Other times they are moments you have hoped and prayed for, but never actually believed would happen.
And sometimes, they're both.
I've been rather quiet the last months, I realize. I have been especially quiet on discussing my thesis amendments. Partly this is because I don't want to turn off people who are currently doing their PhDs, or are contemplating starting one. The last thing you want to hear in Year 3 is 'you think writing the thesis the first time was hard? Try THIS'. I have taken a note from the book of students that finished before me and, on the whole, remained rather silent.
But perhaps that isn't helpful. Perhaps you need to know exactly what a pain in the ass it can be so you can be prepared. Or, on the other hand, so you can realize you aren't suffering alone.
If you'd rather not know, you had best stop reading now.
There are various levels of amendments. In the university I attended, they come in three likely options: minor 1 month (spelling/grammar mistakes), minor 3 months (sentence structure, small issues, more references, etc.), and major 6 months (big things). The other option is resubmit, but that is the one everyone fears and, thankfully, few get.
I got 6 months. It bordered on resubmit, in fact, because of the number of issues. Different examiners might have given me a different outcome (it could have gone either way), but we'll never know. All I know is what I got.
And I got lucky. Yes, the list was long. Yes, for the first month after I received them, just opening the document gave me an all out panic attack. And yes, I cried a lot after my viva, mostly in despair of ever finishing. But no, they were not impossible. And no, they were not ambiguous or general. And no, I was not at any point confused by what I had to do. I had a clear list of exactly what needed doing, it just came down to finding the will power (and the calmness) to do it.
It took me 5 months. I had 6, but I didn't want to push that, in case further amendments were forthcoming. For the first two months I worked part-time on the smallest corrections (spelling/grammar, sentence structure, missing info/references, rhetoric), and then spent the last three months working full-time on the major stuff. Some of it took me a week. One thing took me a month. I despaired of ever finishing. I despaired of ever passing. I despaired of getting out of bed in the morning. It was ten times worse than any point in my PhD before (and I had thought my last months prior to submission were the worst it could be).
But I had good friends. And I had people who had gone through this and survived. And the best piece of advice I received in the six months since my viva was this:
It sucks. It really, really sucks. At times you will want to give up. At times you may completely give up. At times you will be convinced nothing will fix the issue and you will never pass. At times you will question your sanity of ever doing a PhD in the first place. At times you will be depressed. At times you will be anxious (for me, always). At times you will be confused, confounded, muddled, etc. At rare times you will have a Eureka! moment. At times you will wonder if you ever will again. At times it will all seem impossible.
And that's normal, okay? It's all, completely, entirely, 100% normal.
That doesn't make it better. If the PhD taught be anything, it's that knowing it's normal does not make it better. But it does make it a tiny bit easier.
And every little bit counts, when after 4 years you've been told you have another 6 months of this.
But in the end, you'll get it done. You'll get it done because, after 4 years, you have no other choice. After all this work, it's only 6 more months. You cannot falter at the final hurdle. So you will complete. You will submit again. And you will find out the outcome.
And it's probably going to be a shock. It's probably going to leave you in awe for a little bit. But it is also the greatest email/letter you will ever receive. Savour that. Enjoy it. Take the time to come to terms with what it really means.
You're a Doctor now.
And so am I.
And sometimes, they're both.
I've been rather quiet the last months, I realize. I have been especially quiet on discussing my thesis amendments. Partly this is because I don't want to turn off people who are currently doing their PhDs, or are contemplating starting one. The last thing you want to hear in Year 3 is 'you think writing the thesis the first time was hard? Try THIS'. I have taken a note from the book of students that finished before me and, on the whole, remained rather silent.
But perhaps that isn't helpful. Perhaps you need to know exactly what a pain in the ass it can be so you can be prepared. Or, on the other hand, so you can realize you aren't suffering alone.
If you'd rather not know, you had best stop reading now.
There are various levels of amendments. In the university I attended, they come in three likely options: minor 1 month (spelling/grammar mistakes), minor 3 months (sentence structure, small issues, more references, etc.), and major 6 months (big things). The other option is resubmit, but that is the one everyone fears and, thankfully, few get.
I got 6 months. It bordered on resubmit, in fact, because of the number of issues. Different examiners might have given me a different outcome (it could have gone either way), but we'll never know. All I know is what I got.
And I got lucky. Yes, the list was long. Yes, for the first month after I received them, just opening the document gave me an all out panic attack. And yes, I cried a lot after my viva, mostly in despair of ever finishing. But no, they were not impossible. And no, they were not ambiguous or general. And no, I was not at any point confused by what I had to do. I had a clear list of exactly what needed doing, it just came down to finding the will power (and the calmness) to do it.
It took me 5 months. I had 6, but I didn't want to push that, in case further amendments were forthcoming. For the first two months I worked part-time on the smallest corrections (spelling/grammar, sentence structure, missing info/references, rhetoric), and then spent the last three months working full-time on the major stuff. Some of it took me a week. One thing took me a month. I despaired of ever finishing. I despaired of ever passing. I despaired of getting out of bed in the morning. It was ten times worse than any point in my PhD before (and I had thought my last months prior to submission were the worst it could be).
But I had good friends. And I had people who had gone through this and survived. And the best piece of advice I received in the six months since my viva was this:
It sucks. It really, really sucks. At times you will want to give up. At times you may completely give up. At times you will be convinced nothing will fix the issue and you will never pass. At times you will question your sanity of ever doing a PhD in the first place. At times you will be depressed. At times you will be anxious (for me, always). At times you will be confused, confounded, muddled, etc. At rare times you will have a Eureka! moment. At times you will wonder if you ever will again. At times it will all seem impossible.
And that's normal, okay? It's all, completely, entirely, 100% normal.
That doesn't make it better. If the PhD taught be anything, it's that knowing it's normal does not make it better. But it does make it a tiny bit easier.
And every little bit counts, when after 4 years you've been told you have another 6 months of this.
But in the end, you'll get it done. You'll get it done because, after 4 years, you have no other choice. After all this work, it's only 6 more months. You cannot falter at the final hurdle. So you will complete. You will submit again. And you will find out the outcome.
And it's probably going to be a shock. It's probably going to leave you in awe for a little bit. But it is also the greatest email/letter you will ever receive. Savour that. Enjoy it. Take the time to come to terms with what it really means.
You're a Doctor now.
And so am I.
Tuesday, July 28, 2015
Why Exercise is Bad for You
[Warning, this post contains no scientific facts or true health warnings.]
I've obviously been neglecting this blog. Clearly, this is something that can happen easily, when life gets in the way and the blog is not a main part of that life. And I'd really like to change that, but in order to do so I think I'm going to have to go off-topic a bit more than I have previously done. For one, my PhD is almost over, so I have very little to talk about there, and for seconds, well...let's just say that novelizing has been put on hold for the short terms so that I am not really writing much of anything. Needs must, sometimes, and all that.
But what I have been doing (besides finishing the aforementioned PhD and, you know, just recovering from three years of stress, anxiety and depression) is attempting to get back into shape. I've never been an avid gym goer, but I can honestly say that I was pretty fit in my 20s. I am no longer in my 20s, however, and like all things, age does have an impact. I also sat at a desk for three years (excepting the 800km I walked across Spain) and both my back and hips were definitely in a mood to complain about such things.
Because I don't do anything by halves (well, most of the time - cleaning is an exception), I joined a local fitness centre, got a personal trainer, and made myself accountable to going three times a week. And I've been really good about it for 8 weeks now (except last Wednesday, because I was in so much pain that walking down the stairs made me cry). However, for those 8 weeks, I have been in reoccurring pain in various muscles of my body that I didn't even know I had. My trainer knows I have them, though, and since I dictated to her what areas of my body I needed to work on, she's been working them.
But I suppose I had some vague notion that this would get easier. What I never took into account (having never worked out before), was that for the first couple of weeks you get your body to adjust to being active again...and then you start building it up. So you never really hit a plateau where it gets easier, because as soon as it gets easier, you make it harder. This is how one gets into shape. Apparently. I've been told.
So I've decided that exercise is really, truly, awfully, bad for you. There's no other explanation. It makes you tired, it makes you hurt, it makes you sleep for inordinate number of hours more than you used to, it makes you eat more (and crave bad things), and all around it makes you feel sort of a bit like you want to crawl into a hole in the ground and never come out again. Obviously, all of those things are horrible. And it's really not worth the effort just to get 'into shape'. After all, once you are in shape, you have to stay in shape, and that's just as much work! You have to do this for the rest of your life!
And this doesn't even get into all the other issues that come with getting fit. Your old clothes stop fitting and you have to buy new ones (and what an added expense that is). Also, you have to change your eating habits. Suddenly you have to eat certain foods at certain times of the day. And drink water at certain times of the day. And drink protein smoothies that taste worse than the worst fibre supplements on the market. Oh, and you have to do more laundry, because you can't wear your sweaty gym clothes more than once without feeling like your bathing in a sweat bath. And your hair looks awful. I'm not kidding; I haven't had a good hair day since I started this. It's either oily and sweaty from exercising, wet from showering, or poofy as all get-up from having been showered. And don't even get me started on how annoying it is to schedule your day around a fitness appointment. It ruins all your timing and just takes over your life.
So exercise is bad for you. Clearly. Definitely. Whoever next tells you you should go to the gym, you should kindly, but firmly, explain to them what a bad idea that is. Because it's totally, unequivocally, utterly, not worth the effort.
AT ALL.
[Except, it completely is.]
I've obviously been neglecting this blog. Clearly, this is something that can happen easily, when life gets in the way and the blog is not a main part of that life. And I'd really like to change that, but in order to do so I think I'm going to have to go off-topic a bit more than I have previously done. For one, my PhD is almost over, so I have very little to talk about there, and for seconds, well...let's just say that novelizing has been put on hold for the short terms so that I am not really writing much of anything. Needs must, sometimes, and all that.
But what I have been doing (besides finishing the aforementioned PhD and, you know, just recovering from three years of stress, anxiety and depression) is attempting to get back into shape. I've never been an avid gym goer, but I can honestly say that I was pretty fit in my 20s. I am no longer in my 20s, however, and like all things, age does have an impact. I also sat at a desk for three years (excepting the 800km I walked across Spain) and both my back and hips were definitely in a mood to complain about such things.
Because I don't do anything by halves (well, most of the time - cleaning is an exception), I joined a local fitness centre, got a personal trainer, and made myself accountable to going three times a week. And I've been really good about it for 8 weeks now (except last Wednesday, because I was in so much pain that walking down the stairs made me cry). However, for those 8 weeks, I have been in reoccurring pain in various muscles of my body that I didn't even know I had. My trainer knows I have them, though, and since I dictated to her what areas of my body I needed to work on, she's been working them.
But I suppose I had some vague notion that this would get easier. What I never took into account (having never worked out before), was that for the first couple of weeks you get your body to adjust to being active again...and then you start building it up. So you never really hit a plateau where it gets easier, because as soon as it gets easier, you make it harder. This is how one gets into shape. Apparently. I've been told.
So I've decided that exercise is really, truly, awfully, bad for you. There's no other explanation. It makes you tired, it makes you hurt, it makes you sleep for inordinate number of hours more than you used to, it makes you eat more (and crave bad things), and all around it makes you feel sort of a bit like you want to crawl into a hole in the ground and never come out again. Obviously, all of those things are horrible. And it's really not worth the effort just to get 'into shape'. After all, once you are in shape, you have to stay in shape, and that's just as much work! You have to do this for the rest of your life!
And this doesn't even get into all the other issues that come with getting fit. Your old clothes stop fitting and you have to buy new ones (and what an added expense that is). Also, you have to change your eating habits. Suddenly you have to eat certain foods at certain times of the day. And drink water at certain times of the day. And drink protein smoothies that taste worse than the worst fibre supplements on the market. Oh, and you have to do more laundry, because you can't wear your sweaty gym clothes more than once without feeling like your bathing in a sweat bath. And your hair looks awful. I'm not kidding; I haven't had a good hair day since I started this. It's either oily and sweaty from exercising, wet from showering, or poofy as all get-up from having been showered. And don't even get me started on how annoying it is to schedule your day around a fitness appointment. It ruins all your timing and just takes over your life.
So exercise is bad for you. Clearly. Definitely. Whoever next tells you you should go to the gym, you should kindly, but firmly, explain to them what a bad idea that is. Because it's totally, unequivocally, utterly, not worth the effort.
AT ALL.
[Except, it completely is.]
Wednesday, June 10, 2015
Exhibition Review: Pompeii, in the Shadow of the Volcano
The title is a bit gimmicky, but, you know what? I like it. It represents the exhibition in a nutshell, and that's what an exhibition title should do.
The first clue that Pompeii would be good were the partners that worked with the Royal Ontario Museum to create it. It was three years in development, and timed to coincide with Italian Cultural Month in Toronto (and the Italian Film Festival) and - we can assume - the Pan Am Games. It's certainly well-timed, with Canada hosting the woman's FIFA World Cup, the aforementioned games, and it's usual long list of annual events in the city that draw a large international (and local) crowd. And the marketing campaign has been running rampant for weeks now, coming across almost like a movie (including dramatic trailer with even more dramatic voice-over). Leaving aside my opinions on 'blockbuster' exhibitions (that's a whole other post), let's reviewing Pompeii: in the Shadow of the Volcano.
There are six galleries (plus an 'introduction), although only the last is clearly separated into its own space. The others flow from one to the other, and after the entry hall, it's very much a non-directional design. Which I like. Too often exhibitions tell you what to look at, and in this 21st century museum we need to understand that visitors are different, rather than one solid whole, and exhibits need to cater to that. Free-flow galleries are a good way to do this. I went off on a tangent last year about the British Museum's inability to properly do labels for their Vikings exhibition, and blessedly the ROM makes far fewer mistakes with Pompeii. There are the larger 'theme' text panels which introduce each exhibit, and then text panels for individual objects/pictures. It's a nice way to cater to those that want to read everything and those that would just really like to see things and keep on walking.
The main emphasis is entirely on people. The objects and text panels are focused on the stories of Pompeii, directed towards Roman life especially. As a theme of an exhibition about death, I like this focus. It makes the first five galleries feel like a story about life. There's an underlying theme about the volcano, which mostly appears at the start of gallery 1 and in gallery 5, but it's not the focus, anymore than it was for the people of Pompeii. The stories are not morbid, but explain how people lived in Pompeii, using objects from the site and from Herculaneum (and I think Stabiae, too, though that isn't specified). The exhibits all coincide with each other, showing food, entertainment, daily life, the rich and the poor, architecture, religion, etc. There is also a small section on sex in the ancient city, which is separated in a corner with a warning label on the front. It's also painted in red. Just to be obvious. It's not blatant, however, and would certainly be okay for very young children (toddlers and below), but not for those a little more aware of things (they'll be questions!) But it's parents' choice. It's interesting that, in this exhibit, sex is quartered in a small area, but death is ever present and visible. An interesting take on how we usually do exhibits and one that I don't disagree with.
I could have used more contextual labels. The objects explain what they are but not what site they are from, their known (or guessed) dates, or specify materials. I was missing those (the BM had the opposite problem). I know a lot of people don't care, but it's important to give context and be specific. People will look if it's there and they might actually learn something. And ancient dates tend to bring it home. The coin timeline, however, was nicely done.
Also nicely if...graphically, done was the timeline of the eruption, making it starkly clear in black and (red) what happened from the moment of eruption to the end. The focus on Pliny's account to Tacitus of the eruption is also good, though again a bit more about Pliny might have been useful context.
I can't comment on the interactives. Most of them were not yet in situ for the media preview, but I have it on good authority they will be there by the launch. There are two nice (if small) screens that offer visitors a 360 degree view of parts of the Pompeii site, for those who have not visited (or will never visit), although bigger might have been better - they are stashed in a corner and I wonder if they will be obvious when the gallery becomes busy during timed entry. However, from what I've heard about the interactives to come, they should be fantastic for kids and definitely enjoyable, though in very specific areas. The vast majority of the galleries are things in glass with text panels, and I think many family groups are going to be somewhat lost. However, though Pompeii is a great subject to tie in with Roman history for children, it is desperately hard to make 'child friendly'.
Full points go to the team that decided on the first object in the first gallery, though: it's a large piece of pumice stone with a PLEASE TOUCH panel above it and right at kid level. It may turn out to be the only touchable object in the galleries, but it's a good one. Though being able to pick it up and feel the lightness would have been a fun addition (though hard to engineer).
The galleries all have a similar vibe (hence why it's so hard to tell when you've strayed into a new one), but the last gallery stands out. It's harsh and cold and very, very, clear. You've just walked past a 30 foot screen showing a pyroclasic cloud barrelling down at you and suddenly it's behind you, the noise slowly fading, and you walk out into a wide space where there is one panel five displays; wide shelves with trench barricades and figures in plaster. It's is both more eerie and less so than rounding a corner in Pompeii to a display case full of plaster casts. The lighting and mood (and the silence of the gallery here - by this time most everyone had left and there were only 5 of us and a film crew in the space) lend an eerie feel to the place and make you feel like you're walking through a graveyard - at night. But in another way, they are more 'display' pieces here then they are in Pompeii. More things to be looked at rather than shied away from. In Pompeii, I couldn't bring myself to take photos of the casts; it felt wrong, somehow; like an intrusion on a private moment. Here, that feeling was suppressed. It wasn't so much a private moment, but one fully on display. And maybe that's a bad thing. The casts are not considered human remains, although in many ways they are more human than most skeletons appear. And yet, they are not treated the same, because they are not the same as a 'dead body'. They are only the ghost image of one, and yet the visceral feeling of them is much more real than a skeleton will ever be. These are people in their death throws; screaming, yelling, clutching each other in their last moments while they quickly suffocate. It's horrible; but it's a lasting image the visitor will take with them into the (thankfully) staid gift shop.
I almost wanted something more. Some small space before I was spilled out into commercialization, just to reflect on the fact that - although Pompeii is an excellent snap-shot of Roman life - it exists only because it was destroyed, unlike most archaeological sites that exist because they were not. It's something to think about.
Mostly, I ponder what my old instructor Andrew Wallace-Hadrill might have thought. Italy has done well to loan these much treasured objects (though the best of the murals and mosaics for which Pompeii is famous are still housed in Italy), and to be so very generous with their help in creating the exhibition.
It's not perfect, but it's pretty good, and that comes from both a student of Roman History and a doctor of Museum Studies. So I should know, right?
It does remain an expensive day out, with transportation and parking fees getting ever higher in Toronto, not to mention the ROM's entry fee ($28 adults, $20 children). For this, it might just be worth it becoming a member for the year, at $97 for an individual. Four trips would make it worth your while, if you live around the city. I do, however, wish they would do family prices for exhibitions, much like museums in Europe do. Two parents and two children would be $96 entry, if my math is correct, which continues to make this a rather exclusive museum. I'd recommend going Friday evenings, if you can, when tickets are helpfully cheaper. But, if you can't get to Naples, then this will be worth the price of admission.
The first clue that Pompeii would be good were the partners that worked with the Royal Ontario Museum to create it. It was three years in development, and timed to coincide with Italian Cultural Month in Toronto (and the Italian Film Festival) and - we can assume - the Pan Am Games. It's certainly well-timed, with Canada hosting the woman's FIFA World Cup, the aforementioned games, and it's usual long list of annual events in the city that draw a large international (and local) crowd. And the marketing campaign has been running rampant for weeks now, coming across almost like a movie (including dramatic trailer with even more dramatic voice-over). Leaving aside my opinions on 'blockbuster' exhibitions (that's a whole other post), let's reviewing Pompeii: in the Shadow of the Volcano.
There are six galleries (plus an 'introduction), although only the last is clearly separated into its own space. The others flow from one to the other, and after the entry hall, it's very much a non-directional design. Which I like. Too often exhibitions tell you what to look at, and in this 21st century museum we need to understand that visitors are different, rather than one solid whole, and exhibits need to cater to that. Free-flow galleries are a good way to do this. I went off on a tangent last year about the British Museum's inability to properly do labels for their Vikings exhibition, and blessedly the ROM makes far fewer mistakes with Pompeii. There are the larger 'theme' text panels which introduce each exhibit, and then text panels for individual objects/pictures. It's a nice way to cater to those that want to read everything and those that would just really like to see things and keep on walking.
The main emphasis is entirely on people. The objects and text panels are focused on the stories of Pompeii, directed towards Roman life especially. As a theme of an exhibition about death, I like this focus. It makes the first five galleries feel like a story about life. There's an underlying theme about the volcano, which mostly appears at the start of gallery 1 and in gallery 5, but it's not the focus, anymore than it was for the people of Pompeii. The stories are not morbid, but explain how people lived in Pompeii, using objects from the site and from Herculaneum (and I think Stabiae, too, though that isn't specified). The exhibits all coincide with each other, showing food, entertainment, daily life, the rich and the poor, architecture, religion, etc. There is also a small section on sex in the ancient city, which is separated in a corner with a warning label on the front. It's also painted in red. Just to be obvious. It's not blatant, however, and would certainly be okay for very young children (toddlers and below), but not for those a little more aware of things (they'll be questions!) But it's parents' choice. It's interesting that, in this exhibit, sex is quartered in a small area, but death is ever present and visible. An interesting take on how we usually do exhibits and one that I don't disagree with.
I could have used more contextual labels. The objects explain what they are but not what site they are from, their known (or guessed) dates, or specify materials. I was missing those (the BM had the opposite problem). I know a lot of people don't care, but it's important to give context and be specific. People will look if it's there and they might actually learn something. And ancient dates tend to bring it home. The coin timeline, however, was nicely done.
Also nicely if...graphically, done was the timeline of the eruption, making it starkly clear in black and (red) what happened from the moment of eruption to the end. The focus on Pliny's account to Tacitus of the eruption is also good, though again a bit more about Pliny might have been useful context.
I can't comment on the interactives. Most of them were not yet in situ for the media preview, but I have it on good authority they will be there by the launch. There are two nice (if small) screens that offer visitors a 360 degree view of parts of the Pompeii site, for those who have not visited (or will never visit), although bigger might have been better - they are stashed in a corner and I wonder if they will be obvious when the gallery becomes busy during timed entry. However, from what I've heard about the interactives to come, they should be fantastic for kids and definitely enjoyable, though in very specific areas. The vast majority of the galleries are things in glass with text panels, and I think many family groups are going to be somewhat lost. However, though Pompeii is a great subject to tie in with Roman history for children, it is desperately hard to make 'child friendly'.
Full points go to the team that decided on the first object in the first gallery, though: it's a large piece of pumice stone with a PLEASE TOUCH panel above it and right at kid level. It may turn out to be the only touchable object in the galleries, but it's a good one. Though being able to pick it up and feel the lightness would have been a fun addition (though hard to engineer).
The galleries all have a similar vibe (hence why it's so hard to tell when you've strayed into a new one), but the last gallery stands out. It's harsh and cold and very, very, clear. You've just walked past a 30 foot screen showing a pyroclasic cloud barrelling down at you and suddenly it's behind you, the noise slowly fading, and you walk out into a wide space where there is one panel five displays; wide shelves with trench barricades and figures in plaster. It's is both more eerie and less so than rounding a corner in Pompeii to a display case full of plaster casts. The lighting and mood (and the silence of the gallery here - by this time most everyone had left and there were only 5 of us and a film crew in the space) lend an eerie feel to the place and make you feel like you're walking through a graveyard - at night. But in another way, they are more 'display' pieces here then they are in Pompeii. More things to be looked at rather than shied away from. In Pompeii, I couldn't bring myself to take photos of the casts; it felt wrong, somehow; like an intrusion on a private moment. Here, that feeling was suppressed. It wasn't so much a private moment, but one fully on display. And maybe that's a bad thing. The casts are not considered human remains, although in many ways they are more human than most skeletons appear. And yet, they are not treated the same, because they are not the same as a 'dead body'. They are only the ghost image of one, and yet the visceral feeling of them is much more real than a skeleton will ever be. These are people in their death throws; screaming, yelling, clutching each other in their last moments while they quickly suffocate. It's horrible; but it's a lasting image the visitor will take with them into the (thankfully) staid gift shop.
I almost wanted something more. Some small space before I was spilled out into commercialization, just to reflect on the fact that - although Pompeii is an excellent snap-shot of Roman life - it exists only because it was destroyed, unlike most archaeological sites that exist because they were not. It's something to think about.
Mostly, I ponder what my old instructor Andrew Wallace-Hadrill might have thought. Italy has done well to loan these much treasured objects (though the best of the murals and mosaics for which Pompeii is famous are still housed in Italy), and to be so very generous with their help in creating the exhibition.
It's not perfect, but it's pretty good, and that comes from both a student of Roman History and a doctor of Museum Studies. So I should know, right?
It does remain an expensive day out, with transportation and parking fees getting ever higher in Toronto, not to mention the ROM's entry fee ($28 adults, $20 children). For this, it might just be worth it becoming a member for the year, at $97 for an individual. Four trips would make it worth your while, if you live around the city. I do, however, wish they would do family prices for exhibitions, much like museums in Europe do. Two parents and two children would be $96 entry, if my math is correct, which continues to make this a rather exclusive museum. I'd recommend going Friday evenings, if you can, when tickets are helpfully cheaper. But, if you can't get to Naples, then this will be worth the price of admission.
Thursday, June 4, 2015
Stress and the Machine
Ostensibly I have seven novels on the go. Ostensibly. The reality is that two of them are with test readers, one of them is sitting untouched (for 8 months) on my hard drive, two of them are no more than a summary, and two of them are on my to-edit list this summer. So, actually, right now I have no novels on the go.
This would be grand in most circumstances. Particularly if those circumstances were: agent man is looking for more books to sell. But I don't have an agent, or a single book sold, or even time to query any of the books that are works-in-progress.
Instead, I am revising a thesis. There are few things I dislike more than academic editing. I can think of a few, but most of them involve death and dismemberment. I am not an avid editor, but I can just about manage with fictional editing; academic editing is another kettle of fish (barrel of monkeys?). I spent five months last year editing this thesis, and now I'm spending another five months editing this thesis, and in many ways I am simply taking what I already changed once and changing it again (sometimes back to what it was originally!). I am bored and disheartened and thoroughly, thoroughly, frustrated with the whole thing. As usual with editing, one edit changes five other things, or you remember that if you reword this you have to go find that other sentence 10k words later and reword it too. It's awful. But it's revisions, and just like editing a novel, it has to get done.
But in many ways, I'm lucky. I have nothing else to do with my time except plug away on this, so in many ways it is not very stressful. That's not to say it isn't stressful. It is. Anything on which your future career lies engenders stress. This is not, however, as stressful as the first round of edits was last autumn where my feeling was 'it's utter shite, what am I going to do?' Now it's a matter of considering 'well, they told me it wasn't shite, so I just have to take it from being acceptable to being good'. That means less stress as well.
I had no idea what I was doing the first time. No one does, the first time they write a thesis. I had about three different research questions and it took - what felt like - forever to figure out which one was the actual one (jury is still out on whether it was the right one). Even at the end I was still stressing about whether it was a good research question. So that stress is gone now, for which I am very grateful. And yet, some little niggling voice in my head still thinks maybe there was another way. I try not to give it much voice time.
So, I plug away, slowly but surely. When before I editing whole sections in a day, now I go one paragraph at a time. I am hoping that is a good thing. That I am being even more dedicated and careful. Time will only tell. What I do know is that it leaves me a lot of time for other things; things that reduce my lower stress even further and that I - mostly - enjoy.
Next week, look for a review of the Royal Ontario Museum's new blockbuster exhibition 'Pompeii: In the Shadow of the Volcano', and possibly some future ramblings about supervising and consultancy. Because apparently that is a thing I now do.
This would be grand in most circumstances. Particularly if those circumstances were: agent man is looking for more books to sell. But I don't have an agent, or a single book sold, or even time to query any of the books that are works-in-progress.
Instead, I am revising a thesis. There are few things I dislike more than academic editing. I can think of a few, but most of them involve death and dismemberment. I am not an avid editor, but I can just about manage with fictional editing; academic editing is another kettle of fish (barrel of monkeys?). I spent five months last year editing this thesis, and now I'm spending another five months editing this thesis, and in many ways I am simply taking what I already changed once and changing it again (sometimes back to what it was originally!). I am bored and disheartened and thoroughly, thoroughly, frustrated with the whole thing. As usual with editing, one edit changes five other things, or you remember that if you reword this you have to go find that other sentence 10k words later and reword it too. It's awful. But it's revisions, and just like editing a novel, it has to get done.
But in many ways, I'm lucky. I have nothing else to do with my time except plug away on this, so in many ways it is not very stressful. That's not to say it isn't stressful. It is. Anything on which your future career lies engenders stress. This is not, however, as stressful as the first round of edits was last autumn where my feeling was 'it's utter shite, what am I going to do?' Now it's a matter of considering 'well, they told me it wasn't shite, so I just have to take it from being acceptable to being good'. That means less stress as well.
I had no idea what I was doing the first time. No one does, the first time they write a thesis. I had about three different research questions and it took - what felt like - forever to figure out which one was the actual one (jury is still out on whether it was the right one). Even at the end I was still stressing about whether it was a good research question. So that stress is gone now, for which I am very grateful. And yet, some little niggling voice in my head still thinks maybe there was another way. I try not to give it much voice time.
So, I plug away, slowly but surely. When before I editing whole sections in a day, now I go one paragraph at a time. I am hoping that is a good thing. That I am being even more dedicated and careful. Time will only tell. What I do know is that it leaves me a lot of time for other things; things that reduce my lower stress even further and that I - mostly - enjoy.
Next week, look for a review of the Royal Ontario Museum's new blockbuster exhibition 'Pompeii: In the Shadow of the Volcano', and possibly some future ramblings about supervising and consultancy. Because apparently that is a thing I now do.
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