Brittany's Blog - The writer in the group

Brittany's Blog - The writer in the group

I walked into the St. Louis Count Heritage and Arts Center not knowing what to expect that day back in January. Little did I know that what I was about to learn over the next five months would change my life and make me view the world a little bit differently from that time forth. I was early, and as luck would have it, so was Dan (Mr. Hartman at that time) so I took that as a sign of starting off on the right foot, to borrow a phrase. But what came next set my teeth on edge and made me start sweating - luckily my black shirt camouflaged it well! "I want you to go through and read this exhibit... (pointing) this exhibit... (more pointing) and this exhibit... (once more, pointing) and tell me what you think," Mr. Hartman instructed.

I think I almost fainted or at the very least wanted to faint when I saw all the text he wanted me to read and create an opinion on. Ooooo, but what if my opinion turned out to be the wrong one? I knew it wasn't kosher to step on the boss's toes the very first day of a job, so I read all of the text - yes, every single word - and constructed flourishing praises for what I had read.

"So what did you think?" Mr. Hartman asked when I reappeared three hours later.

"I like the detail," I replied hesitantly.

"It's crap," he mumbled. "It's too much text but, you know, it works. Kinda. Did you get everything read?" I nodded. Every last word, I thought. "Good. I'll see you on Wednesday."

And thus began my career as a Marketing/Communication intern at the Veterans' Memorial Hall.


Eventually I met Preston and Stephen and finally Alicia and the work for our semester project began in earnest; and when I say in earnest, I'm not talking about a nice, gentle wading into the ocean of preparation that lay ahead of us, I'm talking about being taken to the middle of this ocean and pushed off the boat with a "Good luck! See you at the end!" and a smile. At least there was a smile. Fortunately, Dan jumped in right after us and gave us the positive feedback and quiet support we all desired. "No no no. What is that supposed to be? Try making it more subtle/aggressive/vivid/specific." And while all of this put smiles on our faces, what we really looked forward to was the proclamation of "Lame count!" or "You're fired!" that always seemed to follow a stupid idea or an idiot response. To date, I believe I've been fired 12 times and received a minimum of 15 lame counts.

But in all seriousness, it's been a great semester and I've learned a lot about what goes into creating an exhibit from scratch and how much hard work it is, how much schmoozing is involved and that it's good to have connections (Councilman Hartman, sir). Preston, Stephen, Alicia and I have become more than fellow interns, we've become abusive friends (yep, we skipped the simple "friends" phase and moved right into the "abusive friends" phase). I wouldn't change anything and I'm proud of what we've accomplished this semester. Even the intern trip touring Park Point/Duluth/Glensheen/Gary/New Duluth/Jay Cooke was a blast and I have to say, I've never been so sore in my life nor as well versed in Duluth geography and history than I was after that trip.

Thanks for a great semester, everyone, this is one "class" that will go down in my history books as something to remember.