Work, Wellcome Collection, and Swine Flu

Work today was pretty slow at times. St. Mary's College was loading in another show, and they are really self-sufficient, so I only had to do some basic fetching for them (the bin labeled "Working Birdies" is a liar...) and other housekeeping stuff...setting up safety railing on the seating, finding a narrower table for the lighting/sound equipment so that the operators could actually sit behind it, etc. I did some work on YPT stuff as well, which was not too exciting...I'm ready to shop for props, though, so I just need to get petty cash from Finance and I'll be ready to go. I will tackle that task next week...

For our cultural excursion tonight, we had a choice of visiting the National Portrait Gallery, the British Film Institute, or the Wellcome Collection. Since I had already seen most of the National Portrait Gallery (but still plan to go back for the contemporary exhibit) and could see the British Film Institute another time, I opted for the Wellcome Collection...well, that and the publicity info made it seem too tempting to pass up. Their tagline is "For the Incurably Curious"...that would be me. :) The museum itself is pretty small (I made my way through in under two hours), but really enjoyable if you like obscure culture. My favorite part was the "Medicine Man" exhibit, which featured a fairly random collection of items from diverse parts of the world. Some of my favorites included Darwin's walking stick (topped with a tiny skull...just a bit creepy!), anatomical models from the 1700s (most of them were half the size of a Barbie doll and contained removable parts...there was also an obstetrics teaching tool, which was eerily similar to a model I remember seeing at the hospital with my mom during a comfort measures class), and a Peruvian mummy (which was pretty gruesome). Some of the more disturbing items included a steel corset and a pair of shoes to be worn post-foot binding. They also have an exhibit called "Medicine Now" which featured interesting sections on genetics, obesity, and malaria. The choice of the two diseases seemed odd until I read about the intent: one occurs primarily in developing nations while the other occurs primarily in developed nations. It was a really fascinating contrast, and the exhibit consisted mainly of artistic interpretations of the diseases along with displays of commonly related items (diet books, weight-loss pills, malaria medications, mosquito netting) with audio clips available. The whole exhibit was a museum/art gallery hybrid, and it was brilliantly presented. One section, which stressed individuality, featured some interesting installation work: one was a video of children from Essex who were filmed for 15 seconds doing whatever they wanted to express themselves, side by side with a new video taken of them 10 years later. The idea was brilliant...of course, I've seen people show photos of themselves as children, but this was so much more engaging because both "versions" of the same person were interacting with the viewer simultaneously. I loved it! I also took part in another installation, which is an ongoing experiment in facial features attempting to determine the "average face." It began with the computer taking a digital photo of you, which it then blends with the other photos of other participants. They also asked you questions about your lifestyle so that they could research further into facial differences between various groups (smokers and nonsmokers, drinkers and nondrinkers, people over and under 40, London residents vs other UK residents vs non-UK residents, etc).

My day was topped off when I returned to Nido and checked my email: apparently, there's a confirmed case of the N1H1 virus at Nido. However, they did not do the best job of informing us: we have one email with the subject "N1H1 Virus at Nido," another with the subject "H1N1 Virus at Nido," and a third saying "Recall: N1H1 Virus at Nido"...riddle me this: how long will it take for the halls to be overcome with panic. I know, I'm getting more cynical by the day, negative swine that I am (pun intended)...well, I guess I'll just keep washing my hands like it's my job. :)