Tips for You

Hi, Future TALH Student.

Boy, you're in for it. I bet you have no idea what you just got yourself into. Eight study hours a week, sixteen (or more) hours of classes, and to top it all off, two hours of community service. Holy cow. If you somehow manage to get your crap together and drag your tired body to the art museum, which is where you'll be doing service, of course, there are some things you should know.

1. EXPECT NOTHING
 You will be doing anything and everything. You may get a free two-hour tour of the museum. You might get to catalog books and files. You might make sugar skulls for two hours or print t-shirts. You may even have to babysit a room full of booger-eating fourth graders.You'll understand the necessity of this video. AMSET is a dynamic place, and you're now a part of it. Buckle up.

2. BE USEFUL
 You're not there to take up space for two hours. Don't waste all their precious oxygen. Do something, there's always something that needs to be done. Andy already has his hands full with the ten-year-olds, he doesn't need you to babysit too.

3. GO WITH IT
Andy and Sandy are interesting individuals. They are artists. Things are going to get weird. Be prepared for anything. Don't show discomfort. Artists can smell fear. Be prepared for those odd comments that make your time there worth it, so that when Sandy tells you your boyfriend was her neighbor in a past life, you can nod sagely and say you already knew.

You should probably achieve zen before you go.

 Overall, the main idea is to be flexible. The art museum is a force of nature, you must adjust yourself to its mysterious workings. Be ready for the best and the worst and all the in between because nothing is certain and everything is important. 

Good luck, all. 
 

T-Shirts and Revelations

Sometimes I forget myself for long stretches of time. I fail to consider who I am, what I am doing, and what sort of impact I am making on my surroundings. I allow my brain to fall into a sedentary state and live by routine. I go through the motions that constitute living my life and jump through hoops placed in front of me without thinking about why.

Initially, this service project at the art museum was just another one of those hoops. For weeks, I dutifully presented myself at the art museum every Friday and cleaned, made sugar skulls, and did odd jobs for the museum workers.

It was repetitive and boring, and I didn't feel like I was gaining anything from it. Though I was happy to help out at the museum because I've always enjoyed visiting there, the idea of service wasn't clicking for me the way that other TALH students had talked about. I was just moving along, completing my required service hours.

Then one day we were printing T-shirts for the kids in the Art After School program, which was a welcome change from making sugar skulls. I was looking at the shirts, which were tagged with the kid's name and teacher, and I began to realize that what we were doing was affecting other people. We were making some little kid's day just a bit better. Up until that point, I had only considered my service in terms of how it affected me. I realized why TALH students are required to log service hours. It really does change your perspective on the world.

(Disclaimer: I detest children. They are sticky, smelly, needy, and loud and if they had been present while we were printing their t-shirts I probably would have never come to this conclusion.)

The Liquor Closet

For the past few months, my friend Simone and I have been volunteering at a jolly little art museum in Southeast Texas. Well, I say jolly. What I really mean is quirky. Different. Odd.

It's an interesting place, like I suppose most art museums are.

When we first arrived, we were greeted by a large, jovial man by the name of Andy who seemed to be twice as tall as me.

"Now y'all gon' be makin' sugar skulls, ain't you excited?" He was giggling. Little did we know, we would be making over a thousand of them in the next few weeks in preparation for a Day of the Dead celebration.
He instructed us to get a few things from the back room before we began. Still a bit shy and uncertain of the layout of the museum, we headed to the back and asked a nice looking lady behind a desk if she could tell us where we might find a large mixing bowl. She smiled a knowing smile and stood up, looking through a set of keys.

"There should be one in the liquor closet," she told us. "You guys get to see our stash."

And what a stash it was. When she said liquor closet, I expected a tiny room tucked off in a corner somewhere. Instead, she approached the largest door in the building and unlocked it. When I looked inside, I was flabbergasted. The room itself was larger than my bedroom at home and was covered in wall-to-wall shelves filled with various bottles of booze.

We stepped inside, and I'm sure I made an idiot of myself gaping at the walls. I had never seen so much hooch in one place, and I certainly hadn't expected there to be such a large collection of alcohol in an art museum. Why would a little art museum need that much liquor? Were all the employees raging alcoholics? I didn't know what to think, but I was certainly amused.

Later that day I realized that they probably had it all there for charity benefits and things of the sort, but for a short while, I was under the impression that I was volunteering for a bunch of drunks.

It does make me wonder what their office holiday parties are like, though...