I've been thinking lately...

I belong to the greatest church. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is the best thing in my life. And that says a lot- I have a pretty amazing husband and a beautiful child with a second on the way. But guess what, I wouldn't have ANY of that without the Church.
It is a beautiful thing. We are taught the importance of family, honesty, love, compassion, service. We have an incredible humanitarian program that shows exactly what my church teaches. We have strong beliefs and values. And we respect other peoples rights to having different beliefs.
Now, why can't we have that too? Why can't we stand up for our beliefs and values without being told we are wrong and narrow minded? Why can't people be as open- minded as we (at least try to) strive to be? Don't get me wrong- I am not perfect, and besides that I don't know a single member of my Church that is perfect. But we try. We try to be respectful of opinions. We try to express our beliefs and values without demeaning others.  I just want to have beliefs and values without being told that I am narrow minded, disrespectful and ruining people's lifes. Is that really too much to ask?
It would be a beautiful thing. My dream is that when Mikey is an adult, people act the way they expect everyone else to be. Being open-minded doesn't mean being liberal. It means being willing to consider both sides of the argument. And even more, being close-minded is not synonymous with conservative.
Anyways, it is just something I've been thinking about...

A Curatorial Internship from the (slightly) cynical view of me

In order to get credit for my internship, which is essential to me graduating in December (well an internship or study abroad), I have to write a review of my experiences and submit it to my internship counselor. Here is one...

For the past 5 weeks I have been a curatorial and registration intern at the Springville Museum of Art. I have to complete 140 hours and I have completed 101(I am dancing about this as you read, I assure you), with my final day to be June 14- hopefully. (the first 30 hours of that internship were spent taking pictures, editing them and importing them into a document all alone in the cave for the 88th Annual Spring Salon People's Choice Award- that binder took years off my life- it was rough and I am unconvinced anyone besides me sees it for the true masterpiece it is- no joke, its perfect- not a typo or spacing error in the whole 52 pages- my dad taught me everything I know about perfect computer layouts-way to go Pops, I am making the curators of the museum proud- what with all the signs and forms I make that I'll never get credit for- pfft)

I walk around the museum with an air of importance when in reality I am about as low as you can get there. I spend the majority of my time struggling with the outdated and on the verge of breaking computers in the intern room (also known as the cave), being expected to answer questions about things I have never heard of, I walk up and down the stairs constantly because I have pregnancy brain SO BAD and forget everything from the key to the cave to my water bottle to the forms I need to complete my condition reports.

Ah, condition reports. Another one of my wonderous tasks- a fellow intern and I spend 15 to 20 minutes staring at a work of art, our noses almost touching the canvas and record every last imperfection- all the while being careful not to get a drop of sweat, spit on it or breath on the work too heavily. A little speck of dirt? We write it down. A miniscule piece of paint flaked off, on just the top layer of the paint making the overall color in that area uneven? (even though the work looks so perfect to the throngs of people beating down the museum doors to look at it) We circle it on our black and white pixelated image of the work and hope that we wrote it in the correct location. On one painting, a beautiful piece by Zimbeaux (a Utah artist, the SMA's area of expertise) there was a pin hole in the painting, I kid you not, no bigger than half the eye of a needle and we freaked out! It was a travesty- a hole THAT big! A sin, an error beyond comprehension, what kind of monster would do such a thing to an innocent and lovely work worth more than my car? When it was new. After I calmed down, I laughed about how this internship is making "problems" in my life blown out of proportion. A tiny error and the world is ending. If someone had a hole that size in their wall, chances are good they wouldn't even notice. I have to wait more than the typical 3 seconds for my email to load and I am about ready to grab a baseball bat to smash the thing to bits. 

Also, one of my other typical assignments- research. The three curatorial interns spend a lot of time researching random artists and you know, that is not half bad. I enjoy learning random facts about people and seeing how it effected their art. And since I am sick from the pregnancy I get to do research hours at home (score- no idea how excited I am about this) so this aspect will only continue to get better. Of course, the major obstacle with regards to this is that we have some incredible works by incredible artists that no one cares about outside of the 20 people that work at the museum (well in reality the finance department and operations don't care about the artists- they can tell you how much the work cost and how significant the work is to museum attendance but the artists? Not so much) You know how hard it is to research someone that the internet thinks is a  15 year old skateborder from Cody, Wyoming that loves punk music and video games? Just in case you don't pick up what I am putting down, it's tricky. 

Overall, I am not sure if I love it- most days I don't even know if I like it. I still like art, studying art and I am glad that I picked this as my major but if I could go back in time 4 years, I would pick the study abroad- and somehow, even though I would've been in Europe, Jake would've magically wanted to date me and marry me all the same so I could have my wonderful family. (Sigh- wouldn't that be awesome?)

Turns out this internship has taught me that as much as I love art and museums and all that jazz, I just do not have the right temperment for the job.

So what do you think? Is this the review I should turn in?