Midway Musings

At the start of winter break, many people asked how my first semester of grad school had gone.  Following the hectic final two weeks, I rarely had the energy to elaborate beyond "good."  Now that I've had a few days to do absolutely nothing relax, it seems like a perfect time to look back at the past few months and reflect on why I felt so busy all of the time!

Who says grad school doesn't have field trips?!  Here are just a few of the sites I visited this semester:

• Fanshawe Pioneer Village
• Banting House
• Oil Museum of Canada
• Uncle Tom's Cabin Historic Site
• Fort Malden National Historic Site
• Windsor's Community Museum 

Of course you can't forget about classes, here's a selection of some of my projects:

• Public History - Theory, History and Practice
• Heritage Designation Project for London Advisory Committee on Heritage (more on this project later, as it deserves its own post)

• War of 1812 Smartphone App secondary source research

• Understanding Archives: The Management of Primary Sources in the Digital Age
• Arrangement & Description Project for London Life Troupers Fonds 
• Essays on Ethics in the Archival Profession and Photographs in Archives
• Presentation on Digital Archival Exhibits: Anne Frank: An Unfinished Story

• Digital History
•  Blogging and Tweeting

There was plenty to do outside of the classroom as well:

• Curatorial and Collections Research Assistant at Fanshawe Pioneer Village 
•  Beta tester of the Tecumseh Lies Here Augmented Reality Game
• Ontario Augmented Reality Network Workshop  
• Homecoming Display of the UWO Medical Artifact Collection

• Assisted in packing the UWO Medical Artifact Collection
• Poster Session Proposal (accepted!) to the National Council on Public History 2012 Annual Meeting with Adriana and Laura (more on this later as well...)
• Mounted LACH Project Exhibit

Media Credit: Adrian Petry

Of course, midst all this hard work I still found time for game nights, homecoming parties, trivia nights, birthday celebrations, and general shenanigans with the rest of the #phgp (public history group people.)


Winter break doesn't mean I'm going to completely slack off from my scholarly duties.  Here are a few of the things I hope to accomplish:

• Internship search
• French flashcards
• Blog Posts

Hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season, and those in academia are enjoying a much deserved break!