Assignments
Salem in OctoberWorking at the Salem Witch Museum in October is a crazy experience. A normal day at the SWM is pretty crazy, but a day in October is insane. People come from all over the world to come and see our museum. We hand out over 200 translations in eight different languages every October. So as an employee you meet and see tons of different people every shift.
From Russians to Australians, and high schoolers to fourth graders, so many different people come through the arched doorways of the building. Most of the questions they ask are the same though, 'How much is this? Are you a witch or a Wiccan? Where were the witches buried?' and yes the most common question of all 'Where is the bathroom?'. But learning about the people who ask the questions is my favorite part. I've met direct decants from the trials who founded a society to teach people about the true stories of the victims. I sold a ticked to Paul Sorvino, who played Paulie in the famous 1990 film, Goodfellas. And I've given tours to people from all over the world. It's always so interesting to meet people with different backgrounds, cultures, and religions than myself. Spending an October in Salem is very eye opening and interesting experience for everyone. Even if you're just a tourist in town, there is so much to learn and so many people to meet here in Salem. But October is the prime time to be in Salem, due to the extensive amount of tourists. In October Salem comes alive and is known as one of the number one places to be around Halloween time. |
Iconic Experience at Salem State: Family WeekendIt's pretty crazy how you think of your family while you're living at home verses when you're living almost two hours away. That's why Family Weekend at Salem State was such a great experience for me. Being an only child, all of the attention and pressure was focused on me back home. That only made me want to go away to school as soon as possible. But when I got here, I dealt with extreme homesickness. So when family weekend rolled around I couldn't help but be excited.
I was only expecting my parents to be coming up, but when I got downstairs I was shocked at what I saw. My grandmother, aunt, and all of my cousins were waiting for me in the ground floor lounge. Even my godson Evan was there, ready to run into my arms. I broke out into tears due to how excited I was. After we all said our emotional hellos, we headed to the Salem Diner for some breakfast. It was great being able to spend some time catching up with my family and still show them the places I go around campus. Once we finished with breakfast, I took them to the downtown area where I showed them all the history that Salem has. I started off in the seaport area, then the witch trial memorial, and then the Salem Witch Museum. With the different things I have learned about at Salem State so far, it definitely helped me with explaining the history of Salem and showing them around the city. Then after a long day of exploring and learning about Salem, we went to the hotel for the night. The next day we headed back over to campus for the First Year Families Brunch. This was a good opportunity to interact with other first year students and their families. It was so awesome being able to meet my friend's families and having my friends meet mine. Then after that we went to the Kids Corner, where my godson was able to do crafts and games. I thought that this part of the weekend was a great way for kids to have a good time too. Especially because some of the other events could bore them quite easily. So with that it was time for my family to leave, but family weekend was a blast. I was so glad that Salem State offered such a great weekend for families to come see their student's school. It was an event that will definitely stick out to me as an iconic experience in my college career. |