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I briefly mentioned yesterday that I'm in a training class this week. It's supposed to prepare us for the upcoming Jamestown 400th anniversary events-- and one thing I've already learned is that the people who work at Jamestown aren't allowed to refer to it as a "celebration", because that would be offensive to the descendants of the Native Americans who were forced out of their lands and mistreated by the English settlers. No, it's officially a "commemoration"; and it's going to be a logistical nightmare for everyone involved, including Colonial Williamsburg, because of the sheer volume of people visiting the area that weekend in May. The Queen is supposed to be here for the festivities, though no one knows exactly when or where; but we're already anticipating getting hundreds of questions about her whereabouts from tourists, and getting disbelieving, eye-rolling looks back when we tell them we don't know.

Anyway, today we took a field trip to Jamestown Settlement, the state-run museum near the site (the actual location of Jamestown is part of the National Park Service, and has a separate admission fee). Getting there is somewhat convoluted because the most straightforward route, the Colonial Parkway, is partly closed for repairs; so our bus took a roundabout path by way of Henry Street, past the law school at the College of William and Mary and the cemetery where my father is buried. As we passed there, I looked out the window over the brick wall and caught a brief glimpse of his grave before the bus rounded the corner and arrived at the exit for the Parkway; and even though I've visited it dozens of times in the more than ten years since his death, I still found myself on the verge of tears, just from that one passing view. Though it came from a sorrowful memory, I found that moment strangely reassuring; there was a time when I came so close to losing all human feeling that I'm always happy to be reassured that I still possess that capacity. (Of course, I'm reassured of that every day with my love for my girlfriend; and she is always in my thoughts, even though we're far apart.)

I enjoyed the museum, though to be honest I didn't see that dramatic an improvement over the way it was before the renovations. There are more movies and more multimedia elements (lots of touch screens and audio clips), but the way it presents the story of Jamestown and of the interactions between the colonists and the Native Americans and African slaves isn't all that different. But since the museum was successful in telling that story already, that's not really a complaint. From Jamestown, we went in the opposite direction on the Parkway to the Yorktown Victory Center, which also combines indoor exhibits and living history displays (none of the latter were functioning today, since it was raining) to tell the story of the end of the Revolutionary War. The layout had been drastically changed since I was last there, with a greater emphasis on the individual stories of people from the time. The new presentation is a vast improvement on the old, though there were a few glitches-- one of my co-workers noticed a major error in the panel about Richmond, which claimed that city became Virginia's capital in 1799 (the correct date is 1780).

Unfortunately, the next two days don't promise to be as interesting. We're stuck in the classroom at Bruton Heights School, to hear about thrilling customer service topics such as "Engaging Diverse Audiences" and "Prepare-Care-Share" (whatever the hell that means). I think I'm going to need a lot of coffee. xp