And now I am working in a Museum!

A part of the PhD experience is the chance to enhance our professional careers. Now I am a very proud museum professional. Now time management becomes a more serious issue than ever before

I don’t want to offer you hyperboles. However the offer late last year was really a once in a lifetime opportunity. If you follow my blog posts, you are probably aware that I am a part-time advisor to the Hungarian Museum of Transport and Technology. The Museum is now being redesigned and I am part of a committee which develops a new museum concept. Aside from this role, I was given a chance to work part-time in the Museum Archive, sorting out its photo collection.

Originally I was supposed to start the work in February, but some internal problems caused a few weeks’ delays. But now I had my first days on the job. It is fascinating. It is challenging. It is exciting. And it is scary.

62,000 negatives. I have to browse through 62,000 negatives and categorize those. It’s something which has not been done at the Museum in the last four decades. So this will be really useful. But there are issues within the museum, which makes this project more difficult. On the other hand, this gives me an opportunity to work in a workplace and within an organisation – something I have not done for the past 15 years! If I can pull this off, then my dream of working in a museum abroad within the next three years will be more plausible.

In other news, I was just informed that I have to be in Leicester in June for a progress review. This is another opportunity to reflect on the past two years. I am feeling positive about my thesis again. The writing session in January was succesful. Since then I rarely had the opportunity to sit down and sort out my thoughts – but when I did, I made nice progress. All in all, life is exciting, full of challenges and I have a thesis which is around 60 percent complete. Who would have thought this in October, 2013?