Week Three

Friday, 21 October 2011: Numerous volunteers for environmental monitoring of new exhibit are scheduled! I am very grateful for this. Today I caught up on research and journal work. I reviewed my current schedule in terms of time and resource management.

Thursday, 20 October 2011: Field trip to the British Museum. Support of MA’s in need of technical advise for use of the pilot-project field work ‘Ethics’ app and use of tablet computers. Briefly met with Dr. Jonathan King. Listened in on a master class regarding the Enlightenment Hall guided by Kim Sloan (Curator of the Enlightenment Hall, British Museum).

Wednesday, 19 October 2011: 9:30AM I attended the Exhibitions and Collections Management Committee Meeting, in the Projects Room. I met briefly with supervisor after committee meeting to arrange for our next supervision session. 10AM Richard Sandell ‘Museums’ Social Roles and Responsibility’. In the afternoon I attended a training Session for tech support of the MA programme field trip to the British Museum. I attended a SSCC meeting in the Collections Room from roughly 4-5PM. I nearly missed the refresher course in the evening and am concerned that the amount of time it will take for me to regularly complete the work to feel comfortable in that setting, is more than I can afford.

Tuesday, 18 October 2011: Painting the audio pedestals that accompany the exhibition.

Monday, 17 October 2011: 10AM Richard Sandell Lecture/Seminar ‘Engaging the City’. Commencement of monitoring the display cases. I sent the requested report and review for the first supervision to my supervisor today.

Weekend: General research, working on report for next supervision. Discovered that a group at University College London is doing work related to the subject of my thesis.

Week Two.

Friday, 14 October 2011: Today included a training session with research librarian Evelyn Cornell. It was a very helpful session. What I gathered most from this session is the importance of keywords and how little has been written in my topic area using the keywords I have currently chosen. This does not prove that there is no previous research but rather that the subjects has not and is not discussed using the terms that I am currently using. It is possible that no work has actually been done but that remains to be seen.

Thursday, 13 October 2011: A few of us in the PhD programme crashed the MA programme’s field trip to Sheffield’s Weston Park Museum. I had a wonderful conversation with John Brodley and Kim Street about some of the projects they have currently in the works and what they find most rewarding in about the recent projects that involved co-production.

Wednesday, 12 October 2011: In the morning, I enrolled for refresher courses ‘Language at Leicester’. In the afternoon I worked on an installation with Bridget Telfer from Royal College of Physicians then in the evening attended ‘Tea in the Attic’ with other researchers in the department. For this month ‘Tea in the Attic’ manifested as a lovely discussion led by Ceri Jones on the topic of how to take care of health and sanity while succeeding at doctoral research at Leicester. Thank you Ceri!

Tuesday, 11 October 2011: The Induction Ceremony and Welcome Reception was very useful. I think everyone in attendance felt well supported by the university.

Monday, 10 October 2011: After my visa consultation in the morning I participated in a deinstallation and I had my first supervision with Prof. Sandra Dudley. It was very constructive, pleasant and focussing! I’ll be writing up a report of session this week. Next time we will be discussing the dimensions of the research plan and implications of research.

Weekend: General research, working on report for next supervision.

University of Leicester: Week One.

Week One: Many thanks to the advanced researches for hosting a lovely introductory week of evening dinners and pleasant social occasions.

Friday 7 October 2011: Noon Pre-Seminar Seminar then Seminar with Viv Golding project. Visa Renewal Workshop. Reception for Faith Trail Project at New Walk (5:30 reception for the Faith Trail followed by impromptu graduate discussion at the Landsdowne, followed by ‘The Pub’ at New Walk--fascinating discussion of contextual relationships between social and physical attributes of spatial experience in the interpretation of objects; we also ran into colleague Jenny in debate about the relationship between language and experience in terms of magical realism as juxtaposed to what is generally classified as science fiction.)

Thursday 6 October 2011: Review for tomorrow and photocopies of Faith Trail Brochure. I emailed my supervisor to make appointment for the first supervision meeting.

Wednesday 5 October 2011: Brown Bag Seminar in The Collections Room with Reiji Takayasu of Japan’s National Museum of Nature and Science. After the meeting, set to organising of the Collections Room and collections closet (this was a very enjoyable experience I was happy to do).

Tuesday 4 October 2011: General Meetings for Postgraduates and Researchers at the University of Leicester. Getting used to new email accounts etc. Had a lengthy interview with Student Welfare for the renewal of my student visa (somewhat complicated and expensive in light of new laws passed during the summer). There was also an introductory session to the marking process at Museum Studies, University of Leicester.

Monday 3 October 2011: 2:15 Collections Room: Introduction to Museum Studies at Leicester.

Pre-Term Weekend: Meditation and gentle stretching exercises to calm pre-induction nerves.

*Please note that the photo used for this entry was not taken by the author. It is the official website photo for the Museum Studies Department website at the University of Leicester.