#msc blues

[nathistconservator]

Reading through a collection rapport for my thesis and the author is like: "It's not been possible to access the collection, but through dialogue with current and previous collection managers it is determined that the collection is in good condition; and, since the items have been kept in cabinets, one may assume that individual specimens are clean and undamaged". Let's all just close our eyes and imagine that everything is the way it's supposed to be and nothing ever happens behind closed doors. Kind of crying laughing about it. Sure, let's imagine that the collection is in excellent condition. The collection that is inaccessible due to the mess in the collection storage rooms. The storage rooms that don't have a regular cleaning schedule. Let's just pretend nothing has happened since the previous collection manager(s) left their position.

[nathistconservator]

This week's work, and the next:

This week was slow going. I've mostly been e-mailing people: I still need to find whoever knows anything about the collection journal, or find out if they exist at all. I've yet to put up my climate monitors, a task which is ostensibly late for me to do (though not disastrously so), and I've still my task of 'establish rapport with my supervisor'. However, I did get my thoughts together to book a meeting with him, and I've managed to book several other meetings afterward, which is great news! So, hopefully I'll be able to work more consistently now that I've kickstarted that collaboration.

Next week will surely be more e-mails, but I have gotten some good texts to read. And I've a sort of "homework" for the next couple supervisor meetings, which will hopefully encourage me to keep my momentum.

For now I'm hoping to hear from the meteorite expert, whom last had anything to do with the collection in 2015. I hope he hasn't forgotten where or who is responsible for those loaned specimens in the past decade...

I'll be taking pictures of the collection space tomorrow when I finally set up my climate monitors, but they likely won't be great. Firstly, the collection space is a mess, and secondly, I'm not taking documentation-grade photos, and I'm using an old camera for it. But the photos will be there, and I will be sure to share them.

[nathistconservator]

Realising you forgot to email someone in time for an appointment so suddenly you're unable to procure (some of) the items that you need for said appointment :'''')) it's fine I'll have to put up pest monitoring traps later.... sigh...

[nathistconservator]

My thesis project has officially begun! I'm working with an old mineralogy- and geology teaching collection at a local university.

So far I have only briefly looked through the collection storage facilities, and that may be a very generous description. Water damage(s), tempterature fluctuations, pests, no shelves, containers precariously positioned on pallets and the like... And so on. I'll be setting up climate monitors some time in the coming week, while I figure out which rooms require what kind of attention, as well as getting an idea of exactly how extensive potential damages are - there's a lot of shelves in this collection, and any of of them may or may not be full of damaged specimens that I have not yet been able to see.

The university wants to eventually move the collection into one location at the moment, but the room they want to move the collection into is one of aforementioned water-damaged rooms. I'll have to see if I can present a convincing argument in the form of "Please Do Not" by the end of this process, which hopefully shouldn't be too much of a problem.

I've got a couple things to do in the coming weeks, mostly consisting of 'setting up climate monitors' and 'emails'. I need to figure out who may have access to the old collection journals. My biggest mystery yet...

I set up a dreamwidth recently to help me better manage a "professional" presence online, so I will start being a lot more liberal with reblogging and commenting on tumblr posts from now on. I will crosspost (or mostly crosspost) between here and dreamwidth when I do make original posts, or I drop a thesis update.

[nathistconservator]

Thesis writing begins today. Exciting!!! Also: aaaaaaa!!!

[nathistconservator]

Project management course lecture on funding and networking: small-talk is important!!! This is known, and I am bad at it, but I didn't anticipate quite so many of my colleagues to be not only bad at it but also them actively despising it. Sure, I'm not great at small-talk, but I recognise the fact that it is important and am actively working on getting better. Baffling!

[nathistconservator]

Just did a presentation on a conference and THOUGHT I WAS MUTED afterwards so I high-fived my colleague. I was, in fact, not muted at all. Everyone heard it.