C'est la Vie

I arrived at the museum sufficiently early for my poor heart to manage, and settled down at my desk very pleased with myself for being 10 minutes early. Congratulations for meeting expectations, Julia. Today was rather short on work since my supervisor's schedule was jam-packed with meetings that wouldn't interest me in the least, so I sort of bummed around for most of it. I did manage to color code and fill out my notes for the 20 objects, and finished looking around the galleries for additional pieces to add to the trade timeline. I ran across Ms. Posta and the metal-working Winterim in the ancient art gallery, and so received the opportunity to flash my shiny new badge and jangle my keys, just to make sure everyone knew I am sufficiently important. I hope I can stop bragging about it soon, but I'll try to contain myself. 

I sat for the rest of the day at my desk, going through Doc files and researching this or that. To explain doc files, they're the large Manila folders in which everything about a piece of art is kept, and a re organized in three gigantic sliding shelves by accession number (or the year that the object was acquired  and the number object it was within that year). These include old curatorial reports on the piece's condition, correspondence that happened when it was bought (this is where a lot of the juicy stuff can get pulledf from), and any articles or other references made to it in either academic works or references about its style deemed useful. One very interesting piece I found, and which will now (fingers crossed) be added to the exhibition was a box made of ivory from the 1450, yet with secular images rather than religious ones, which in and of its self is highly unusual for that time and material. Yet even more interesting is that the scenes depicted tell the story of (if I remember correctly) a Spanish Muslim prince and his lover, even getting quite erotic in some oft he scenes. Well, this makes this piece highly interesting not only for its sensationalism, but because the ivory it is made of likely came from Africa (if elephant ivory), yet the story is Spanish and Muslim, with the final puzzle piece falling into place with it's production in either Northern France or Flanders (modern day Belgium). So, this piece, one could say, and i will, is quite the mixture of astounding elements. 

The gods of today deemed that enough excitement for me, so nothing really happened much until Adam stopped by around 3 to talk about my notes on the 20 objects, which were evidently acceptable much to my surprise, but apparently about entirely the wrong 20... One step forward two steps back, right? I mean, at least I got the practice, which is what I'll tell myself as I try to not resent the twisted mind of technology and more specifically the Museum's operating system. It appeared that I had not been  able to open the correct list, so the first 20 for me had been entirely different from Adam's first 20. You win some you lose some, I guess. With the last thirty minutes of my day, I started work on the new (and true) trade timeline, whose pieces actually made sense, whereas I must admit the former false list had left me quite befuddled as to what connections I could draw between all the pieces. 

Well, no great insights for a rather humdrum day, but I suppose that in itself is a learning experience. To finish off my round of idioms (things are supposed to come in threes, no?) life is just a box of chocolates, and today I got the weird sort of strawberry tasting one that is edible but just a little bit sickening and overpowering. Hopefully tomorrow will bring something far more appetizing.