I bet there are museums in Charlottetown that would love to have you.
He’s probably right. There are probably museums there looking for workers.
But there are probably museums in other places looking for workers too. Places like New York and London and Paris. Places where museums span several blocks and tourists line up for hours to get in.
I turn slowly on the spot, taking in the scene around me. Laughter and music filtering in from the backyard. Tourists lining up to take pictures of an exhibit I helped make. Families making memories at an event I helped create.
Dream job, whispers a voice in the back of my mind.
Dream job.
17
APPLY is not a good word to use in Wordle. It doesn’t rule out enough vowels, and it totally wastes a letter with the double P. It would be stupid for me to use it as my first word this close to the end of my yearlong streak.
On Sunday morning, I use it anyway.
APPLY.
As in, I’m going to apply for a degree in museum studies today.
I researched it all night, after I got home from the museum. Apparently there are people called exhibition coordinators whose entire job is to create museum exhibitions, just like I did at the barrel museum. When I think of spending my life building places for people to learn, places that can give people that warm, quiet feeling that museums have always given me... it feels perfect. It feels right.
I was planning to apply to ten or fifteen places in the United States and Canada, but then I saw how much it costs to apply to university. A hundred and fifty dollars just toapply? Who can afford to apply to more than one?
It’s taken several hours to narrow it down, but I’ve decided to apply for an MA in museum studies at NYU. The application deadline is two days from now, which I think is a sign. I found this just in time.
I pour myself the world’s biggest cup of coffee and then knockout my entire application in one sitting. The hardest part is the personal essay. I want to gush about the feelings museums give me, the long circuitous journey I’ve been on to realize this is my dream job, and all my goals and aspirations for the future, but when I put it all down on paper, it just seems sort of cheesy and off-putting. I delete it all and try again. I lay out my interest in the degree in a plain, simple way and briefly describe my experience at the barrel museum and the success of our new exhibit. For my writing sample, I write a short essay on the value of rural museums.
I load in all the documents they ask for and then I reach the references page. Three letters are required. I bite my lip for a long minute, then type three names.
Trey Fisher, Cooper, Waldon Museum of Barrel-Making.
He was the one who gave me this idea, and I’m sure he’ll be willing to do it.
Fred Martin, Owner/Manager, Martin Auto.
I’m less sure that he’ll be willing to be a reference, but I think he needs to be on the list, since he’s my current boss.
Jim Williams, Security Officer, Waldon Museum of Barrel-Making.
I’m a bit nervous to put Jim as a reference, but I don’t really have anyone else. Shelley would never agree to write me a reference (let alone a good one), Mrs. Finnamore doesn’t know how to use her computer, and Doris would probably write fifteen pages about how I don’t know how to use coupons properly. Jim knows how to use his computer reasonably well—his granddaughter taught him when she visited from Ontario—but submitting a reference letter through NYU’s online system might still be beyond him. AndI’m not sure I can offer to help him. That seems ethically sketchy, like I’d be standing over his shoulder making sure he wrote good things.
Oh, well. This is a long shot anyway.
I pay my application fee—goodbye, eighty US dollars—and then reach the final page. I pace the kitchen for about ten minutes before I work up the nerve to click submit.
An impersonal page thanks me for my application, and that’s it.
I did it.
I let out a shaky breath and start closing out all the tabs I’ve opened since I started this application—hundreds of Google searches, my old university portal where I got all my transcripts, my online bank account, Jean Shorts Girl’s Instagram (don’t judge, I needed a five-minute break)—beyond ready to stop staring at this damn computer screen. I’m about to close the final one when something snags my eye. It’s a search result buried halfway down the page.
Internships | The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
I click it so fast I get dizzy.
Five minutes later, I’ve got another huge cup of coffee in hand (never mind that it’s nearly eight p.m.) and I’m starting my application for a yearlong internship at the Met.
