There is only 5 weeks of the semester left!

That's right, only five whole weeks!!!!  Strangely enough, I'm not feeling the pressure yet.  A lot has been going on in my life since I last posted.

Unfortunately I was so close, yet so far in obtaining a paid internship at the Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, FL this summer.  Hopefully I'll get even closer next summer!

But good news is that I just recently found out that I did get the summer internship at the MFA, sadly unpaid.  At least I'll still be gaining skills for my future career field!  I'll be cataloguing and scanning slides from the MFAs exhibition collection, and then uploading them online for public access.  Should keep me busy :-)

I'm in the final stretch of enjoying my little hobbit hole, pictured below:

This awesome nook has served me well while I acclimated to Boston living!  Now I'm preparing myself for the transition into apartment life with Rachel! 

With my newly gained form of living independence, I realized that I didn't want to lug my Bernette sewing machine down from Maine, so instead I found this awesome Janome Hello Kitty sewing machine via Target online!!! Check out the link below!

Hello Kitty Sewing Machine

With this handy-dandy portable machine I shall hopefully better my sewing skills, by finishing a quilt, and by making furnishings and treatments for my humble abode! 

I started my second job at the MFA today processing donations for the Give The Arts A Chance campaign.  I love it!  It's so nice to get a chance to get off of the selling floor for a bit, and do something a bit more practical towards my degree (using a database). 

I'm living in a sea of copyright right now.  My term paper for archives is about copyright and access of visual resources within an archive, my essay for this week in digital stewardship was about copyright, and my portion of my group paper is alllllll about copyright.  It's a good thing I like the topic a lot or else I'd go mad!!

Spring is in the air here in Boston and I can't wait for it to get over 40 degrees! It's been below normal temps for over a week now and I feel as if it's January, not almost April.  The robins are back and that's an exciting sight to see!

Now if you don't mind, I have a cataloging assignment that I have to finish before I meet with Candy tomorrow.  Ta!

My whereabouts for the past few weeks!

Hello all!

So I have tragically failed to keep this blog up-to-date, which means that I'm going to power rant about everything significant that I should be sharing in this thing.

First: Caitlin and I had some wonderful bonding time a few Saturdays ago when we went on an adventure to the ICA.  They had an intriguing new exhibit up by an African-American artist out of L.A.  I enjoyed the show because quite often within the works he would reference certain art historical philosophies or terminologies.  Such as, he would use foil wrappers within his works that had a double meaning.  From one end, he was self-identifying with his past career as a hair stylist, leaving an autobiographical mark on the works, while at the other end he was making commentary about stereotypes that African-Americans faced within society by "hanging out in the barber shops" and "always getting their hair 'did'".  I found it an intriguing show.  Plus the view from the building was worth the trip.  Afterward Caitlin and I ate at their Water Cafe and enjoyed a delicious soup and sandwich combination!

Here are some photos from our adventure:

Caitlin Enjoying the view!

Yummy sandwich meal!

What else is new in my world?
Well I applied for a summer internship at the MFA, working on a cataloging and scanning project. I had an interview and I think that it went well, I won't find out for a few more weeks, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

Also: I've been offered another small stint part-time job at the MFA during the Art in Bloom season.  They need someone to keep track of the incoming donations and maintain the Enterprise database, send out the thank you letters and process the payments!  It's only from the end of March until the first week of May, but it's just enough! Because...

I'm moving into my friend Rachel's apartment at the beginning of May! So the extra employment will be just enough to provide the necessary deposit!  My first place, I'm so excited, and just as excited to be moving in with Rachel, whom I never had a chance to get to know too well while at USM together.  She's an awesome, easy-going person and I'm happy that she thought I'd be a great roommate with her!

Classes are plodding onward at a good pace. The workload isn't killing me, though my body isn't happy since I just got over headcold number 3!  I'm going to be wicked busy for the next few months, but these are the sacrifices that I need to make and challenges that I need to face in order to get started on my "adult" life.

Spring is in the air...I can feel it and can't WAIT for it to get here!

I ran away to NYC this past weekend with Emily and Katie.  We went to the Met and MoMA for the first time.  It was absolutely extraordinary and I want to go back so bad!  We'll be going again.

Here are some photos from that adventure...I took too many so this is only the tip of the iceberg:

Me in front of a Heironymous Bosch painting!

Amazing Art Nouveau vanity set!

Vincent Van Gogh's Starry Night!

Amazing t-shirt that I got at MoMA!

I hope I haven't exhausted everyone from reading this!  So much is going on in my life, I'm so thankful and just going with the paces!  Next week is Spring Break, and it is much appreciated.  I'm so excited to finally go home and hang out with my family for more than 3 days!  I haven't seen them since Christmas.  Good time will be had!

Until next time...ta!

craziness

This is why I was leary about creating a blog...I have no life.

I have every intention of updating you all about my going-on-abouts here in Boston. But it will have to wait until Friday night...I promise!

Can't a kid just get an internship?

Well the past few days have been quite the past few days.

I received the most exciting news EVER, I'd be interning at the Boston Athenaeum.  That's EPIC! Everyone wants that internship, and they only take one student per semester.  Awesome, right? Ha, or so I thought.

After contacting my new supervisor, I received an auto-reply email stating that his position has been eliminated and to contact him at his personal email.....um, excuse me?  After jumping to the official website, finding the first Archivist email on the Archives page, I sent another email, a little confused.

I promptly received an response apologizing for the inconvenience, but the Manuscripts Curator position had recently been eliminated so the Athenaeum doesn't require an intern for this semester.

Well that's just dandy, did they think possibly, to CONTACT SIMMONS TO LET THEM KNOW OF THE CHANGE?  That would only make sense right?  Well in my state of shock, and panic I contacted the internship coordinators and was told to patiently wait while they fix the problem.

I can't even begin to tell you what it felt like having the best internship opportunity just snatched away from me like that, I was so bummed.  It honestly ruined my day, and I rarely let anything get in the way of a normal day.

BUT good news, 24 hours later, the awesome internship coordinators have contacted me with a resolution : The City of Boston Town Clerk's Office.  I'll be playing with the new open source Archivist Toolkit entering in early 20th century documents.  I think that's a fair trade.

So after a few stressful days, I'm off to the Institute of Contemporary Art with Caitlin.  I'm rather excited because it's been a while since I've been there and Caitlin and I rarely do stuff with just the two of us, so it'll be good bonding time.  YAY!

until next time, Tschuss!

What a crazy weekend!

This weekend has been interesting to say the least!

Work was crazy busy.  I'm always excited to see so many patrons coming into the museum, but when they come traipsing in hoards, I have to ponder where they all come from!  But, with lots of people come lots of great membership sales!  Supporting the museum is important, and I love that I'm an advocate of that!

My organization of information class is slowly killing me, but I knew it was going to happen.  All of the readings make sense, the assignments are just time consuming.  I guess this is what grad school's supposed to be!

On a more tragic note, I'm saddened by the passing of Brian Jacques, THE author that jump-started and inspired me to enjoy reading!  I'm behind on the Redwall Series but feel dually re-inspired to start over, and finish the last four books.  He was such a prolific writer and made vegetarian food sound SO delectable!

Here's a link to the Redwall Series Website, check it out and get inspired!

The weather has been GORGEOUS the past few days!  Spring and subtly peaking its way through the dreary winter drudge!  Hopefully we have more 40+ degree days soon, the amount of vitamin D that I soaked up was intoxicating, but equally rejuvenating!   

I'm still nervously awaiting my internship assignment. It's hopefully between UMass Boston, Harvard Art or the Boston Athanaeum! Keep your fingers crossed for me!

I'm off to read some digital stewardship and write a precis for my archiving class. 

Ta!

It's a good thing the groundhog is predicting an early spring!

Here we are again, a peaceful sunny day after the storm!  There's so much snow on the ground it boggles my mind wondering where they put it all!  At least I don't have to clean off my car, which is sitting in my driveway back at home (I miss the TARDIS!).

Due to the snow my day was more jam-packed than ever!  I was up bright-eyed and bushy tailed at 7:30 and at the library by 10am to catch up on some readings that weren't available to me due to the snow!  Then it was off to lunch with awesome Emily, more library time to kill the hour or so and then it was off to Digital Stewardship.

Fact: this is the most awesome class....ever.  You know are in a good class when 3 hours flies by and there's still more that the class wants to discuss.  I've finalized my project for the semester with my fellow art history friend Kristen.  We are going to look at an existing image database and produce a structural plan for its continued sustainability....I think USM's is going to end up on the butcher's block for this project!  Exiciting!

Once class was over I had a hasty date at Bartol with Caitlin, Emily, Justyna and Laura.  Since I've been snowed in for two days and busted out massive amounts of readings, I'm rebelling tonight and will NOT do any homework!  I will not! 

Instead I caught up on Ghost Hunters International (GHI).  It's not as great as the original ghost hunters, and it's sad that I have to watch uploads onto youtube.com because RCN doesn't think that the majority of students at the school don't watch SyFy....*sad sigh* This week's episode was interesting.  It was a really old for in Serbia and they caught a photo of a shadow figure....neeeeaaaaat!

Tomorrow night myself and some other GSLIS ladies are off to a Mixer for the GSLIS program! Should be fun!  I'm sacrificing the premier of "Who Do You Think You Are" on NBC, but luckily, that too is available for view online!  I love genealogy, it's so addicting.

My drink of choice for the week:  Decaf Caramel Soy Macciato (spelling?) from Java City....YUM-O!

Wizarding World of Harry Potter...in Florida! Sunshine!

Where I wish I could be right now : 








Until next time....

OH DON'T FORGET TO FEED THE FISHIES AT THE BOTTOM OF MY PAGE! It's fun :-)

It's only taken me Six months to get this going!

Hello all!

My name is Sarah Gillis and I'm finally getting around to keeping a blog.  I'm currently living in Boston, MA while attending Simmons College to get my MLS.  I'm a born and raised New Englander from Maine, but my family is alllllll in Nova Scotia (WOO!) - so I'm sort of a cultural Heinz 57.  I had it in mind last semester to start a blog and begin to chart my adventures in this new city, starting a new chapter in my life.  Well, here we are now!

When I grow up, I want to work in art libraries or an image database.  Hopefully within the next few years these dreams will come true!  I'm passionate about art, and if you asked my crazy floor mates to verify that, they wouldn't argue.  

My aims for this blog are to just note interesting topics that I'm learning about in my courses (this semester it's Digital Stewardship, Intro. to Archives, and Cataloging) or any other interest tid-bits this new city has to throw at me!

I hope you all enjoy!