by Quentin Lewis

Weeknotes: 10/13/24-10/19/24

weeknotes indigenous teaching museum movies books family

This Week:

  • We celebrated Indigenous People’s Day at Hartwick College (and at the Museum) with some food from the communities of Indigenous students, as well as the saying of the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving address or Ohenten Kariwatekwen. We are also screening “The Oneida Speak” for the rest of the week, in honor of the day.
  • In FLP102, we talked about how to register for classes, as well as talking about the history of collecting in Deerfield, Massachusetts.
  • I am frantically working to finish the design and installation work on “With that Shadow Over Them: Constructing Catskill Reservoirs, Remembering Home”. We open next week!
  • I watched “The Undbinding” a “documentary” about a group of ghost-hunters and haunted object collectors who are sent a strange statue that was found in the Catskills, near Ellenville, NY. I usually don’t care much for ghost-hunter type shows and movies, but this was really well done, and legitimately scary in places, despite being mostly narrated by talking heads.
  • I finished reading “The Traitor’s Son” by Pedro Urvi. I read it to Dominic and it was so bad that in multiple places I tried to get him to let us stop. It’s self-published on amazon and it shows–poorly written and edited, and way too long. It is a boring derivation of Harry Potter-esque anonymous-kid-learns-he’s-a-hero YA fiction with a Skyrim-like world. I am delighted to be finished with it and never have to read it or anything else by Urvi again.
  • I spent a lot of time re-jiggering our work study schedule, which has undergone some changes in the last month–students requesting different work times, students reducing their hours, etc…now I have to hire some more people to make sure we have enough coverage.
  • My brother’s birthday was Friday, and while he’s on the other side of the country from me, we usually have a phone call and have a good round of catch up.