SLOCHS Community Based Learning Weblog

For my second shift at the Historical Society, I was the only docent. There was a woman by the name of Jerri that tended to the counter and cash register. She was quite the doll. We had quite a few visitors today. I would say probably around 50. It went from being very slow to very busy and then back down to being very slow. During the slow times, I went around with my laptop and jotted down alot of the text on the exhibits that I could use for my paper. Leon was also there today. I believe he is the one that is in charge on the weekends. We talked about some very interesting things pertaining to the museum and also not. Did you know that Ah Louis used to be spelled Ah Luis like the Spanish spelling for San LUIS Obispo? The first visitor I had was a white male he was going to go to Spain and Italy with this program that basically paid for your stay there and your meals if you just talk with a person in that country in English. All you have to pay for is your plane ticket. Pretty sweet. He also talked about dating Chinese girls and wanting to go to China or something. But he was a nice guy, not creeper-like at all thank goodness. Well today I put in about 6 hours of my time and it honestly wasn’t bad at all. Talking to people really makes the time fly by. — Lisa Deng

Shift 2: Feb 29, 10AM-2PM

Just like my first shift, this one started with me walking in while Kimberly was in a meeting. The work was more fast paced this time, since I was picking up where I left off and not waiting around for Kimberly to finish her meeting. Fortunately, this time I remembered to bring my mp3 player with me to make the 4 non stop hours of photo scanning a bit more pleasant. After a bit of scanning, I was given the additonal task of numbering and describing the photos taken by Gin Louis. The descriptions of the photos were pretty vague since the photos themselves were not too exciting. I didn’t see too many interesting photos during this shift, most of them were of weddings (of people who had no family relationship to Gin Louis), and a few personal photos maybe of Gin Louis’ family. Kimberly left about a half hour before my shift ended to run errands, so I spent the last five minutes confused with what to do with the old fashioned slides (yes, the ones you put into the tray).

Today was my first day docenting at the Historical Society in SLO. When people came in I asked them to sign the guestbook and tallied them up on another sheet. I worked with another docent by the name of Matt who’s in the afternoon sesh for ES 244. He basically helped me ease into the docent position…props to him mang. When there was a lull we walked around the exhibits and took notes. Just by taking notes, it forces you to actually read the text that is posted up and hopefully learn from them. We got alot of information that we needed for the report today, so hopefully that will help us write the eight page paper. o_O’ We had no idea where the DVDs were because Mercy pointed to the table when she was telling us but we could not find them anywhere. So I just basicaclly played the same DVD over and over again the whole 3 hours that I was there…yeah I know, pretty intense work there..pushing a play button and all. An interesting fact I learned today was regarding the legendary Chinese man, Ah Louis. I read on the text that he was born in Canton, China, which is pretty cool because that is where I was born. He’s Cantonese. How do I know this? Well not only is he born there, but he changed his name to Ah Louis from Wong On. This is a pretty silly fact because when Cantonese people talk, they either add an ‘Ah’ in front of a name or in the back. For example, my gram’s would say, “Tell ah-Leesa to do this or that” or “Tell Leesa-ah to do this or that”. Gotta love them old people. Just by looking at their faces you can see all that history just in one person. Pretty amazing. Well cutting this short because I know I tend to write alot, I had a pretty smooth day today. Hope tomorrow will be just as good. — Lisa Deng

This is actually written after my last shift, as I forgot to create the blog. Shift 1: Feb. 25, 2008, 10AM-2PM I had made the request to do off site warehouse work, but I was relocated to the museum itself. My first shift started with five minutes of trying to figure out how to get into the building, when I realized that I could get in through the handicap entrance. Upon walking in, the person whom I was to report to, Kimberly Alfaro, was in a meeting. She stopped for a moment to quickly assign me to work. My first task was to scan images for Guy Crabb, who was writting a book on old businesses in SLO. The pictures consisted of a few businesses, parades, and residences. Half of the pictues came from scattered photos, and half came from a 1904 “fireman book” , which was a souveneir book sold to raise funds for the SLO fire department. It was interesting to see what downtown SLO looked like in the early 1900’s, but most interesting was the “undertaker and embalming” business photo. After finishing the Guy Crabb scans, I was assigned to scan the photo negatives taken by Gin Louis, who was the son of Ah Louis. Kimberly never mentioned any specific purpose of the photos, so I assume they are just for inventory. These photos were donated in 1998. Gin Louis had traveled to France, so the photo set started out with WW2 soldiers in France, along with photos of the Eifel Tower. Also in the set were pictures of men in fencing matches. My shift ended not a moment too soon as I began to lose interest after scanning some 15 photos (and it seemed like there were plenty more) of plants sitting on a table. -Alex Hung

So my last shift at the slochs was a pretty exciting one. My prior three shifts were all downstairs in the research room so i decided to venture upstairs for my final shift and I was very happy I did. The first couple that came in ended up being from my hometown of Novato, Ca. This was really surprising because Novato is about the size of San Luis Obispo and nearly 300 miles to the north. After chatting a little bit longer I discovered that the woman had actually taught my dad in high school nearly 30 years ago. What a small town. So after that couple left things started to slow down and I only really helped out with selling t-shirts and working the register. In all, only 13 people came in for the entire shift and it seemed that they all came in waves. During the slow times I picked up a book about the naval disasters along the Santa Barbara shoreline. Despite it being slow a majority of the time, i preferred working upstairs as a docent to doing research downstairs. The friendly atmosphere upstairs made the shift fly by. So farewell SLOCHS, I am glad that I discovered all that the museum offers.

Shaun Greenhalgh

ES 212

Today was my last day

Once again, I was either scanning or numbering pictures. Or putting all the negatives into individual plastic slips (most frustrating thing to do since the slips were stuck shut and wrinkled easily) This time I was looking through packets of pictures that were never picked up from the photography studio. Almost all of them were from weddings. It’s almost wierd how when looking at these photos you are getting a glimpse at that event, that time, that moment. A wedding is a very personal celebration that you invite your family and closest friends to. I bet these people never guessed a few decades later someone would be sharing that intimate occasion with them through old negatives. That’s what I was thinking about today as I catalogued pictures. In a way this is an odd opportunity to get a glipse of someone else’s life, and to see it through someone else’s eyes. If you think about it, it’s actually really cool (and somewhat haunting in a way). Well, that was a bit of a tangent… I’m not sure if it even made sense.

Anyway, Kimberly was a sweetheart. We talked for a little bit before I left about the experience from the student’s point of view and from her’s as well. I hope they continue doing great things there and wish them all the luck!

Stephanie

I had a scheduling conflict with one of the shifts I previously was signed up to do, so I ended up calling Merci-Faith and rescheduling that shift for this coming Friday. Problem? Yes! The project is due on Thursday, so I my hours would be too late. I decided to drop by on Sunday to see if I could get them done right then and there, and, as luck would have it, everything worked out fine :] This shift was perhaps the most entertaining, as when I arrived, the only people I saw were two volunteers, so I pulled up a chair and settled down. They informed me that I was the first person to have walked through the door since they got there (I arrived a little bit late) and they resumed their discussion on guitars. Once again I brought homework to do but found that conversation was much more entertaining and mostly listened to what I didn’t understand, and joined in to what I could. Eventually people showed up, and it was actually perhaps the busiest I had ever seen. We met a lady who was curious about potential historical ties to San Luis Obispo through he mother’s side of the family (her maiden name was Stenner), so we had her fill out a research request form and ensured her that once the researcher took a look at the archives, any information he found would be sent to her. Later on in the afternoon, I heard an incredible life story of an elderly gentleman who explained that he had been drafted in the Vietnam war, flew planes and was shot down in China where he was taken care of by a Chinese man (who would have suffered serious repercussions had he been discovered taking care of an enemy American) and was in a Chinese prison for over a year. I found it interesting how he mentioned that his imprisonment was at the start of the conflict, and so even the Chinese guards had trouble communicating with each other because of the dialect differences. This was something that I had never considered before. When he finished his story I was completely blown away and suggested that he write a book about the account, but he just sadly shook his head and said that his story wasn’t unique at all, so many other people of his generation went through the very same experiences he did. My heart just about crumbled in on itself at this. I can’t even imagine how hard it would be to live through such a turbulent time in history, and it makes me fear for what the future may bring with our own generational war going on in Iraq right now. When my shift ended, I had a pensive walk back to my house, and called my mom to tell her I loved her.

My third shift was another quiet adventure, but this time I came prepared by bringing lots of extra homework to do in case the regular amount didn’t keep me occupied the entire time. As it turned out, Jim was working that shift again too, so we settled down behind the welcome desk and chit chatted for a bit before delving off into homework, making a break from studies when the door opened to stop and converse with visitors. It still didn’t seem like there were a lot of people, though we had our fair share of conversations with people. Most memorable was the family that came in with two little girls who ran around from exhibit to exhibit in a frenzy of little kid excitement while we conversed with their parents. (I’m not actually sure if it was their parents, maybe they were babysitting? Ok, on with the story). It was interesting because the male gentleman (translate: dad) had actually just graduated form Cal Poly as an architecture student the year before and was quizzing us about possible acquaintances we might have, professors, and what work he was doing now. After this family left, Jim hopped on his trusty Mac laptop and started doing research for his Reflection Paper and even was able to blog about our current shift, which was pretty cool, seeing how I hadn’t remembered to do mine yet and was able to see what it was like. The time passed quickly and before I knew it, time was up

My last shift at the museum was probably the most fun. The time definitely flew by. I believe we had about 35 visitors, 20 of which were either docents or friends of Ben and I. I think there were 6 students volunteering upstairs, not including Leon. We were so overstaffed, we were almost less effective getting things done when visitors came in. Nonetheless, we had a great time. I met Dan, a fellow docent, and discovered we share a love for music. We decided we are going to get together and jam one of these days. About two hours into the shift, Ben’s roommates, brother, and friends came in to visit. This was great because we got to give them all tours of the museum and tell them about the cool stuff that it has to offer. A friend, John, was particularly interested in the research room, and wanted Leon’s assistance, but Leon was deep in conversation about his experiences teaching in the Czech Republic. After they left Ben helped me with my Controls homework assignment. Ben….thank you! Well, that about wraps up my experiences at the museum. Overall, I had a pleasant experience, and learned a lot along the way. I just realized I forgot to put my name on my last two posts. To clarify, this post and Shifts 2 & 3 were all by Justin Neel. Thanks.

My second shift at the museum was uneventful by conventional standards, yet still very rewarding. Miriam and I were the only ones upstairs for the whole three hours. When I first arrived, Miriam told me, “Ok, I will take the first three people that come in to the museum, and you can take the ones after that.” Well, long story short, we only had three visitors that morning. Except for the time Miriam was giving tours, we were engaged in conversation about cell phones and the internet. Miriam and I are both in awe of the way the world has changed in very recent years with the introduction of cell phones. A few years ago, huge, bulky cell phones were carried in cars in case of emergencies. Now, they are carried as an integral part of a schoolboy’s everyday gear. Now, my eight year old neighbor has a Blackberry. Think of being in elementary school and calling up your friends to go play in the sandbox. Crazy.