Postcard Collection...

I have been collecting postcards since 2001. I normally buy a postcard of a place/city I visit and then mail them home to my parents. I also buy art works postcards from museums I visit, simply because I cannot afford to buy reproductions of all the works that I like.

Today, I found a new reason to collect postcards of artworks. I was at a meeting with the Education Director at the Harn Museum - a seasoned art educator. At some point during our animated conversation, she showed me a stack of postcards that she collected and use for teaching art.

What a great idea!!!

So now, I have a better reason for collecting postcards, and YOU can help enrich my collection by sending me a postcard, or two or three :) from a museum that you visit. Let me know if you want my mailing address.

I would love to receive postcards from all over the world!!!

image from the postcard collector website.

Update: Summer Internship at the Smithsonian

Excerpt from the e-mail I received this afternoon...

*******************************

Dear Ethel,

We would be delighted for you to join us 
this summer as an intern! After talking with you and reviewing your 
resume, **** and I both feel that your breadth of experience in 
developing programs and activities both for in-museum and online 
audiences will be of great value to us as we continue to improve and 
refine Spark!Lab. In turn, I think it will provide you with good 
experience in working with a large volume of visitors from very diverse 
backgrounds.

*********************

I still cannot believe it... two months at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington DC!!! I am sooooo excited!!!

Talk about a dream come true!

It might be time to update this picture taken over 7 years ago :)

More than the usual...

I volunteered to be a reading partner for an in International Children's Literature course at the University of Florida. As the name suggests, the class discusses children's lit. from various countries outside the US. Students taking the course find copies of books from their assigned country and try to learn a bit about its culture through these. As their reading partner, I am supposed to help them learn about the Philippines and clarify assumptions formed after reading the books.

Anticipating that opportunities, such as this, to promote the Philippines and our rich cultural heritage would eventually arise, I decided to drop by the Dept. of Tourism office before I left for the US. They gave me a copy their latest promotional tourism video. I found the same video on youtube  (Philippines beyond the usual).

I also brought with me a miniature jeepney, a malong, some capiz jewelry boxes, and an embroidered panuelo that actually goes with my formal evening dress- nope, it's not a terno.

Pinoy and proud!

mice dogs and elephants

True or False

true

 

 0

false

 

 0

Here's a statement from a book in my Human Development class:

Mice are bigger than dogs
Dogs are bigger than elephants
Mice are bigger than elephants

quote for the day...

" I got inspired by the bagel toaster downstairs"

- girl from a toy invention team

It is sometimes surprising how we get inspiration from the simplest things around us.

Internship at Smithsonian?

I am still giddy with excitement!!!

I just got off the phone with two staff from the Smithsonian National Museum of American History (NMAH). I am applying for a summer internship at the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation, and this was an informal interview. They didn't really have any questions for me, so I was thinking that they probably wanted to check if I spoke decent English, since the internship will involve interacting with the visitors. I probably spoke too much, but well, at least they now know that I really can speak English.

The center runs two hand-on and interactive spaces at the NMAH - the Spark!Lab and Invention at Play. If all goes well, I will help run activities at the center and at they will also allow me to develop future activities for them. Weeee! They will let me know of their decision next week.

Imagine spending two months as an intern in a Smithsonian Institution and being in Washington DC where all the National Museums are! Heaven!!!

fire alarm...

I was at the library working until 9pm last night so I arrived home at almost 10 pm. After eating dinner, checking my mails and the weather for the next day,  I went to bed. That was almost midnight.

About a few minutes after I had finally fallen asleep, my roommate knocked on my door. I thought I was just dreaming but I saw that the light in the hallways was on and I thought, hmmm I turned off the lights before going to my room last night. It was then that I heard the continuously annoying ringing of what turned out to be all the fire alarms in our apartment - the living room and the three bedrooms, except the one in my room!

I went out to find my roommate on the phone calling someone trying to find out what to do and who to call because the emergency number for our apartment listed in their website and flyer was not working. I remember receiving an e-mail from them about an alternative number to call for after hours emergencies. Thank God yahoo now has unlimited storage! So I found the number, called it and left my number on the machine that said someone would call us. When we didn't receive a call back after a few minutes, we then again asked each other who else we should call. Since there was no fire and we didn't want to call 9-11, we frantically searched for the city police number. After finding it, she called them and few minutes later a fire truck pulled up outside our door.

Three really burly, but really friendly, fire marshals inspected our apartment. They checked all the bedrooms and confirmed that there was no fire. At this point, we were still waiting for the on-call maintenance from our apartment, when the alarms suddenly stopped! According to them, they haven't reset anything so they were as puzzled as we were about what caused it to go off and then stop after over an hour. Since there was nothing else they could do, they left and told us to call them if it sounds again.

The maintenance guy arrived after a few more minutes. When I asked if the alarms in the building normally go off for no apparent reason, he said that "well, these alarms are 13 years old". He showed us how to turn them off in case there was no fire and it sounded. That was past 2am. I was planning to wake up at 4am to write essays and read today's book for my Psych class. So much for that plan.

I know that grabbing my laptop in an emergency would be pretty stupid but losing travel and scholarship documents would still be a nightmare for anyone in a foreign country. So I decided to prepare a get away bag with my important documents and back up files that I could quickly grab as I dash out of the house next time - although I honestly hope I never have to use it!

Although this was an unpleasant experience, I am just very thankful that there was no actual fire. It is also comforting to know that the fire and police departments are quick to respond.