Job's Worth

Contrary to popular belief, I'm not sitting here twiddling my thumbs, hell no; I have A Job.  I know, right?  Shocking.

While I was researching my dissertation, I spent a bit of time in the campus' very own Film museum, and figured I might as well ask the curator, Mr Wickham (HH's equally awesome husband) for a job.  I've known for ages that the museum takes on volunteers, and was always tempted to sign up, but didn't think I'd have been able to manage that along with the degree/MA.  Looking back, I know I wouldn't have been able to do both.  I'd already decided I wasn't gonna do the student thing for a long, long time after finishing the MA, but kinda worried I was gonna miss the security of knowing exactly where I was, and who I was with.  Everyone at the University had been so amazing that, although I was saying goodbye to some extent, I wouldn't have to leave completely.  I know that sounds a bit pathetic, but when you've built up that much trust and confidence, it's difficult to leave it all behind.  Also, maybe I felt that by not completely leaving, I'd have loads of support, and [free] resources, on tap, in case I ever wanted to come back.  That, and I'm hoping that, if I show enough willing, this job might lead to something more permanent.

Luckily, Mr Wickham said yes, and I am now Chief Cataloguer [self-titled] of The Robin Allan Disney Archive.  I'm ashamed to say I don't yet know a lot about Allan, other than he has written books on the history of the Disney studios including, most famously: Walt Disney and Europe: European Influences on the Animated Feature Films of Walt Disney (1999). 

During his research, Allan met with animators, and others associated with Disney, and subsequently donated a load of his findings to the museum.  There's tons of it; from newspaper clippings, to greetings cards designed by the animators themselves – Eyvind Earle, Mary Blair are two I can remember off the top of my head.  Cos I happened to write 20,000 words on Disney, Mr Wickham automatically set me the task of working on this archive.  So not complaining, it's brilliant!  Course, some of the stuff is dead tacky, and not really that interesting, but most of it is great – and very pinchable; not that I ever would, natch.  Really though, it's not what I'm working with that's important, it's the fact that I'm working with it at all.  Alright, so I don't get paid, which to some means that it's not a 'proper job', but it's still a job.  It's still a responsibility that requires at least half a brain to manage; if I got the item numbers mixed up, then the consequences could be catastrophic... Well, it would make it very difficult for someone searching for an item within the archive anyway.  I have to write a brief description for each item and, while I'm not going to win any literary awards, I was pretty proud to see my first few entries go up on the online catalogue.  Even more proud to see a small article go up on the museum's Facebook page - I'm a slave to modernism. 

Yeah, so I'm pretty happy in my work, and I think Mr Wickham is relatively impressed with what I'm doing.  Bless him, he's marvellous.  He's always making sure that I'm OK, and asking if there's anything else he can do to make things easier.  Such an atypical bloke.  He's so calm and quiet too, possibly HH's influence, but the museum does seem to descend into chaos whenever he's not there.  Hope he doesn't read this, cos that might worry him.  I mean comparatively speaking, of course.

Working one day a week, unpaid, at the university where I studied for four years may not seem such a big deal to a lot of people, but for me it is.  I've had jobs before, paid jobs actually, but I've never gone out to work; with the exception of a quarterly meeting for a disability magazine I used to write for.  A lot of my friends are all 'Ah, that's good, well done you', and I think 99% of them really do mean it.  Without assuming too much, I reckon Gloria for one is pretty proud, from what I've gleaned from @sarahwithstars.  Actually, just remembered; the museum had a children's fun day last October, to which Gloria came down for a visit.  I rang her a few weeks later with my MA results – so it was a pretty emotional conversation anyway, and I can't remember much of it, annoyingly – but I do remember her saying how well she thought I'd done that day, and how confident and happy I seemed.  Gloria is just the best ego booster ever, she should be bottled. 

Anyway, so I know I have the support of me crew at least.  Not so sure on the family.  I mean, of course they're proud by default, but whether they're as made up about it as I am, and my friends are, I'm not sure.  Mum keeps referring to it as my 'little job' in conversation, which grates on me just a tadge.  Alright, so I'm not on the brink of finding a cure for cancer, but at least I'm making some effort to do something with my life, rather than hanging around at home, annoying her – I can do that the other six days a week.  I dunno, I'm probably reading too much into it, as per.  She is disappointed that I'm so anti-PhD, and maybe thinks, like I said in my last post, that she won't ever see me graduate as a Doctor.  Honestly, are two graduation ceremonies not enough for some parents?  Not that we've been to the second one yet, it's next Saturday (21st).  Big day.  Big day.  So much bigger than the last one.  Not just in terms of the qualification being higher, but after everything that happened in 2011, and the worry that I put everyone through, let alone myself; this means hell of a lot more than the degree did.  God, I may even cry… If Gloria does – and she's sitting right up front with us this time – then I don't hold out a lot of hope.  It'll be good to see Floella Benjamin OBE (the university's Chancellor) again too.  Got a feeling she might recognise me – not being big-headed; I'm the only one in the Department in a wheelchair.  Thinking of greeting her with 'Hey, we have got to stop meeting like this!'

BW xxx