The House Husband

So they’re replacing the ceiling at work, in the basement. The one that leaks whenever it rains. They’re starting next Wednesday with moving everything out of the way, putting up hoardings and scaffolding it all up. Both sides of the office. Because of this, we (the volunteers) received an email today advising us…actually, telling us, to take a holiday for a month. There’ll be nowhere for us to work after all.

So, Monday will be my last museum day for a month (sad, I know) and I shall have to concentrate on jobs that need doing around the house.

Today I had to try and find something about an agricultural machine that ran on steam and was called a clover seed drawer. I wasn’t very successful. Apparently it was either

1. a seed drill like the one that Jethro Tull invented and which popped seeds into the ground automatically; OR
2. a big old shaky machine that separated the good seeds from the bad seeds, before they were loaded into a machine like the one that Jethro Tull invented and…etc, etc.

I did find out that a Robert Hunt from Essex, had an award winning one in 1853 which he was selling all over southern Britain. Sadly I did not find out what it actually did or who invented it. The record I was researching had no image, so I couldn’t even get a hint. Anyway, it was a pain and totally not fruitful.

Back to the catalogue cards on Monday and then…a void.

By the way, Carmen is showing no ill effects and continues to…do exactly what she does every day.

Today at the Science Museum I started working on the art project. While I enjoyed the Location Update Project, it was, basically, just data entry. The first couple of vials of poison may be quite interesting but by the time you get to the 150th vial of poison…well, you get the picture. Which doesn’t even help because most of the records have no picture!

Anyway, that is all behind me. The Art Project is still updating the database and fixing up things that have been a bit skew-if since about 2006, but with the added difference of including research.

Each arty item has a maker, each maker has to have a record on the database. If there is no record of the person, one needs to be created. In order to create one I have to hunt them down using any method I can find to do so. It’s like being at uni except it’s work! Ignoring the fact that I don’t get paid, of course.

Anyway, it was a great day at work today. Though, to be fair, with the Location Update Project, I was getting through around 200 records a day. Today I managed 5.

Next Monday is my first Monday volunteering day, working with Kevin (whose chair I sit in on Fridays) rather than Nick. What this entails, I have no idea.

Mirinda had to give a presentation today at a conference and did very well. I’d leave it for her to elaborate but I know how difficult she finds it to make an entry on here…

Ok, it’s been a few days of wall to wall sunshine but after the foul February we had it feels like a heatwave. Also, having been on the Tube twice today, it REALLY feels like a heatwave.

Great news at work today, Nick is so pleased with my work that he’s put me forward for another project! This means I may get a second day volunteering (Monday) each week. I won’t know for sure for a couple of weeks as the guy who looks after the project is on holiday. Anyway, it sounds very interesting. Not that that would be very difficult given what I’m doing at the moment.

I realised today that I haven’t put up any photos of the Science Museum. Here’s the main entrance hall.

Main Hall of the Science Museum

Oh, and for anyone who wants to hear me reading the local news…click A story about potholes.

Four times a year, timed with the seasons, our council (Waverley) publishes and delivers a magazine to all residents. It’s called Making Waves and lets us all know what is going on and who to contact if we have any problems. Sometimes I read it but usually it goes into the recycling straight after delivery. This changed today.

I had a desperate phone call last week from Mary from the Talking Newspaper. She asked if I could come in on a Wednesday. Of course, I’m normally having lunch with Mirinda on a Wednesday but this week, because of a meeting, I was available so I said yes. All I knew was I’d be reading the same thing three times.

So I turned up having no idea what I’d be reading. Mary, Mo and the engineer were already there and I was handed four copies of Making Waves. One for each region of Waverley. Mary had numbered the articles and we were told the order of reading.

The centre section of the four magazines is the same so this we would read only once but the front and back pages are different for each region so these would be read for each magazine. The whole thing is then put together by the engineer and posted on the council website for everyone and anyone to listen to. It will be posted here if anyone really wants to listen. It will be the Summer 2010 edition.

The reason Talking Newspaper do it is because they receive a yearly payment for it which helps to fund the charity work and, as Mary said, is preferable to standing in the street with a rattling donation bucket.

And so we read it. It was quite dull. We were not allowed to make any jokes, just be upbeat and read exactly what it said. What a funny thing this volunteering is sometimes.

We read for three hours and then I was off to meet Nicktor for our movie night.

This week is National Volunteers Week…apparently. To celebrate, the Science Museum and the Natural History Museum (NHM) put on a bit of a do for us. I went tonight and had a great time.

The do was in the new Darwin Discovery Centre at the NHM which sort of resembles a big egg inside an airport terminal. Inside the big egg is a big laboratory for scientists who want to dissect and work out stuff. As they do. It’s all very snazzy.

The Darwin Discovery Centre at the Natural History Museum

I chatted with a fellow volunteer who is from Brisbane and knows Caboolchure. She had her first orientation day at the NHM today and was all excited about scanning and entering information about small bugs (like lice) onto the database.

We then had a fantastic talk by Chris Stringer who I saw at the archaeology conference I went to with Dawn earlier in the year. It was the same talk, about Neanderthals, but was updated with all the new information regarding the genome sequencing of Neanderthal DNA. It was excellent!

But the highlight, the truly marvellous bit, was when he took out of a tissue lined box, a real Neanderthal skull and put it on the table in order to demonstrate certain features. And then, afterwards, everyone crowded round to take photographs of it. And I reached out and touched the brow ridge! It felt like rock. Mainly because it is rock. Still.

We then all went back to the booze and food for a bit. I excused myself from Francis and Nick (my boss who had joined us) and left. I wanted to get the 9pm train so I wouldn’t be home too late. Well, that was really, really stupid.

All was fine until the train suddenly stopped outside Wimbledon. And then the power went off (there were emergency lights). And then, after about 20 minutes, we had an announcement. We were being held there because a train had struck a passenger in Wimbledon station on the adjacent track to ours and all the power had been turned off so the police could do their CSI thing.

It was very frustrating to watch all the other trains go belting by as we just sat there. I almost finished my book. Other people finished books and hunted around for discarded newspapers. We were there for an hour and a quarter.

I finally walked into the house at 11:45 instead of 10:30. BASTARDS!

A real Neanderthal skull!

What a great day! Though I’d quite forgotten what a real day at work was like. I am down in the basement in the documentation office.

It’s bizarre but everything I discussed with Nick, my supervisor, was something I’ve learned since starting my MSc. And the standard they use is SPECTRUM, which I wrote about in an essay last semester. Quite a handy place to volunteer then.

The place is a bit of a labyrinth so my first lesson was navigation. We met at one entrance then left for another entrance where I was shown how to get through the secret door and up to the control room. From here it was across a gallery, through a second secret door and down a few hundred steps into the bowels of the museum where it is quiet. It’s the quiet you notice most. Rachel said (Rachel is an Australian who also volunteers, working on Fridays too) that sometimes an hour will go by in absolute silence. I find that a bit frightening.

I have a special Science Museum pass which Nick said I must wear all the time. I hope he meant at work, because I have taken it off now. I also have to go to the control room each day to collect the special pass which will give me access to the secret doors.

Nick spent ages going through the meticulous documentation prepared by Oliver, the boss of volunteers and then, finally, we started on MIMSY. MIMSY is the database and what a database! Extraordinary. HUGE! COMPLEX! I really like it. I think I shall enjoy updating MIMSY.

What happens is that a curator wanders around with a spreadsheet in his hand. He isn’t anywhere specific, checking things but just might be there because he is having his lunch. But he always carries the spreadhseet just in case he spots something. When he does, he looks at the spreadsheet and if it doesn’t have a location in the location column, he fills it in with pen. This then comes to me and I update the database. That’s it. I will be updating records for medical and dentistry objects.

I know that sounds really, really dull but I’m going to enjoy it. And I managed to get the train home with Mirinda though it was awfully crowded and we couldn’t sit together until Ash Vale mainly because she doesn’t employ a buffer.

So. Big day tomorrow. My induction into the volunteer ranks of the Science Museum! Pity Karen isn’t still at the V&A next door. Not that I know which days I’ll be ‘working’ yet. I guess all will become clearer tomorrow. And speaking of clearer…it’s not inputting the scientific glass after all. It’s another job. I’ll also explain about this when I know more.

Also tomorrow I’m supposed to be having dinner with a cousin I haven’t seen for…about 40 years. I remember her as a little girl, she remembers me as someone who had too many cassette tapes. She now has two daughters while I have too many digital music tracks. She’s visiting London as part of a whirlwind world trip…well, the US and the UK and a short pop over to Paris.

Today, however, is about resting up for my busy, busy week. I have essays to write, blind people to read for, cousins to sup with, inductions to take part in, Stevie to see on Wednesday and, of course, Nicktor on Tuesday.

A few weeks ago I applied to the Science Museum for a voluntary position. It’s an excellent way to get in on the ground floor for working in a museum and chances only turn up occasionally. I picked up the chance from a Tweet sent by one of the students at uni. Ah, the value of Twitter!

I hadn’t heard anything back for ages and then, on Friday, they sent me an email inviting me for an interview today. It meant skipping class but I decided it was well worth it. It also meant leaving home an hour later than normal.

Mirinda was flat hunting today so we travelled in together and parted at Waterloo. Her for the Thames Clipper and me for the Tube.

Naturally I was there early and sat on a comfy chair and waited for Oliver. Today was the start of the interviews and they’re seeing people all week. Finally, on the dot of 11, Oliver came out and invited me in.

The interview was pretty much the same as any job interview I’ve been to. The usual questions like “Tell us how you’ve put in that bit extra in a job,” and “Let us know a time you’ve improved a process.” These sort of questions I can answer, easily! Fortunately they didn’t ask any of those stupid questions like “How would you explain to an alien how entertaining radio is?”

They seemed really nice and I hope I get in. The job I’d like to get is inputting hand written documents relating to scientific glass. I have no idea what scientific glass is but it’s entering information into a spreadsheet, in preparation for it to be entered into the database. So, basically transcribing.

I’ll not find out till after Easter. So, fingers crossed!