last shift from last week
yeah so this is one is really late (my shift was 2/24 1-4) due to a paper being due last week, then working on the paper for ES 244. I’ve scarcely time to write this one down, but here goes.
I was rather surprised to find about 4 other student docents already in the museum as I walked in. Apparently everyone was finishing their shifts around this week, so this shift promised to have some steady conversation. Three of them were from ES 244: Jennifer Olarte, and two other guys. Then the last one was Laura again from Global Origins. The other guys, as it turned, were just finishing the morning shift, so this next one left just Jennifer, Laura, and me.
The shift was pretty much the same as the rest. At first, we all didn’t talk too much; that was the weekend before the quiz. Laura had hers on Monday, and Jennifer and I were reading through our material for Tuesday. Eventually, Leon broke the silence and gave us an excuse to take a break. Like many of Leon’s talks in the past, our conversation centered around music. Soon Leon ran out of steam and we students returned to our studying. the day was relatively slow, but a couple of interesting cases came through the doors this shift.
The first was a family from Puerto Rico who had just moved to San Luis Obispo on business. There were two children in their wake who took advantage of the children’s room for the first time of the day. Meanwhile, I showed the parents around the museum with my regular speech. At the end they seemed very interested and decided to stay a while longer and talk to Leon (sure to keep them here for at another 10 minutes). The father’s business in SLO had to do with the use of Ethenol as a resource. I did not catch much of their conversation, but Leon had more than enough to say on that topic. Eventually, the parents pulled away from Leon’s talk and bid us farewell with the kids trailing behind with their newly colored dragons and rats. One of the dragons the boy colored was actually quite impressive.
The second family that came in toward the end of our shift was a Japanese family on vacation. The parents did not understand too much English, and only the daughter of the two siblings could translate. The daughter, however, was incredibly shy, and most of the time returned our questions with a blank stare. The son was younger than the girl and also spoke almost no English. After some failed attempts at getting to know family better, Laura managed to pull up some phrases that she had not used since she was a child. Through Laura, we found that the family had come from Chiba in Japan and was on vacation in California. Then I stepped in to give my overview of the exhibits. This had been the most awkward and challenging docent job within my entire time at the museum. A fair test at the end was what it seemed. So I gave my speech to a family of blank stares. I had taken a few Japanese courses in high school, but in shame, I could not pull up anything useful to help those blank stares. So I pressed on through the archaeological dig, the forte of my overview. I actually managed to get some response from the family when I pointed out the window (to help indicate that the dig was just around the corner) and when I started explaining the jewels and ink bottles. The Abalone exhibit also did not get much response, but i pushed through and got them to start looking around on their own. Eventually they entered the bookstore and ended up purchasing some books. This marked the end of the day, and my last shift at the museum.
I again returned today to look up more information for the paper that I should be writing right….about…..now
Bryan Agabyani ES 244
