Dmpayette

Dakota Payette

Overview

My aims for the project over in London are to complete the entire humanities and arts requirement for graduation. I want to finish my two breadth classes and my capstone project while in London. My prior experiences in humanities and arts while at WPI is finishing my depth in history. I've taken three history classes here and plan on doing my capstone in history. My major takeaways from the experience are the traveling to London since it will be my first time overseas.

Milestone 1

Architecture Project 1
Objective: Comparing the architecture of the Apollo Victorian and Theatre Royal, Durry Lane Theaters

Below the objective statement, Insert a one or two paragraph summary of your findings from having reached this milestone. Edit the link below to link to your milestone page.
Comparing the Architecture of Two Theaters in London

Milestone 2

Architecture Project 2
Objective: Comparison of Normal and Victorian architecture through photos and historical stories.

Below the objective statement, Insert a one or two paragraph summary of your findings from having reached this milestone. Edit the link below to link to your milestone page.
Comparing Norman and Victorian Architecture

Milestone 3

History Capstone Paper/Presentation
Objective: How King George VI changed the role of the monarch and how that compares to Queen Elizabeth's II current rule as monarch

Below the objective statement, Insert a one or two paragraph summary of your findings from having reached this milestone. If this milestone, for you, represents a humanities and arts capstone, please indicate so. Edit the link below to link to your milestone page.
Read More

Activity Journal

The activity journal represents an ongoing log of reflections gained through each and every project activity on the calendar.

Activity #1: Westminster Abbey

Being able to view Westminster Abbey this morning was amazing. One of my milestone aims is comparing the different styles of architecture in the city, so looking at all the crypts and sculpting in Westminster Abbey really helped kick start my knowledge and comparison of the different architectures in the city. Some of the takeaways from Westminster Abbey was how crowded it was in there, but that is expected when going to a huge tourist attraction in the middle of the city. The Westminster Abbey page does exist on here, and an interesting reflection about the trip to Westminster Abbey was how caring they were towards Franklin Delano Roosevelt during his time as President of the United States. Together, he and Winston Churchill powered through the dark days of World War II and emerged victorious. Without the support of FRD, Britain might not stand here today. It's interesting to see how far a country is willing to go to help their allies, and the United States did that by entering into the war on Great Britain's side.

Add a paragraph about this experience noting the ways in which it related to one or more of your milestone aims. Did this experience directly relate to your milestones, or was the relation more indirect? In what ways did this experience cause you to think differently about your milestone aims? What were some of your other takeaways from the experience? For each site-specific term that you enter, check to see if there is a page in this wiki that exists and link to it. For example, if your reflection mentions William Shakespeare, check to see if William Shakespeare exists on this site. If an article page does exist, 1) link to it here, and 2) edit the page with a section or just a few sentences to ensure that the content on that page relates to this activity journal entry. For example, if while writing your activity journal reflection about your trip to Westminster Abbey, you recall seeing the headstone of William Shakespeare, note it in your reflection, and then edit the William Shakespeare with, at least, a sentence or two in an appropriate section about having a memorial site in Westminster Abbey. While your at it, edit the entry for Westminster Abbey with the relevant information. Did you take some interesting pictures or videos at those sites? Add those to the relevant pages. If an article page does not exist, create the page for the missing topic (link from main menu) and add some general information. For each activity scheduled on our calendar, you should 1) create an Active Journal Entry here, and 2) add/edit at least three related articles. The tone of this article can be personal, but still quality professional writing; the tone of article pages that you edit should be objective professional writing.
Think of this process as building a platform or a case that will help you make particular claims and conclusions through your project milestones.

Activity #2 Natural History Museum

Today, our group traveled to the Natural History Museum in Kensington, London. I’ve always loved visiting museums and seeing all the many types of exhibits on display. This was a different museum than the ones I’ve been to in the past because it was more related to natural history, something that I haven’t seen before. The only part of the museum that is related to milestones was the architecture of the building on the outside. Even though there was a wide range of different exhibits in the museum, none of them could relate to any of my milestones. The experience of walking through the museum wasn’t really that impacting towards my milestones. My milestones don’t relate to natural history, but it was really interesting to see the human body exhibit. I took an anatomy class back in high school and seeing all the interesting facts about the human body and how it works rekindled all the fun memories from that anatomy class. The part I remember most about the class was the human senses, so being able to go through all the interactive exhibits on the human senses really fascinated me.

Activity #3 National Gallery

Today, our group traveled to The National Gallery to go look at some paintings. We decided as a group that the best way to do this to conserve time was to split up and take pictures of paintings and painters that the other group hadn't done yet. While looking through the paintings, one painter caught my attention: Giovanni Antonio Canal. Canal, also known as Canaletto, was a painter who mostly used oil on canvas to paint magnificent scenes of the Venetian landscape. The canals were filled with gondolas and many people dressed for the times. Even though it was fun to come into The National Gallery to look at the paintings, it really didn't have any impact on any of my milestones. The architecture of the building is wonderful and caught my eye immediately.

Activity #4 British Museum

Today, our group traveled to the British Museum. The entire museum is absolutely stunning. History of basically everything interests me a lot, so being able to see a lot of historical things today was absolutely amazing. I loved being able to see parts of the Greek Parthenon since ancient Greek history and the Greek gods and goddess is my all time favorite part of history. Seeing the Rosetta Stone was also pretty amazing since they used that to decode the ancient Egyptian language. While looking at the map of all the galleries at the beginning, I had hoped that more of the museum would have related to my different milestones, but it sadly didn't. I had marked down the 1800-1900 Europe gallery as one that I could hopefully pull some Victorian style architecture out of, but it was mostly just jewelry and households items from around Europe. I also went into the Greek and Roman living style galleries to look in there. They had some fascinating artifacts in there that I loved seeing, but sadly none of them could relate to my milestone. Overall, it was an amazing museum to go to and visit. My camera sadly died half way through the museum, so I'm planning on going back there one day to finish taking the pictures that I missed. I also want to go back to look at the Greek vases exhibit. It was closed off when I went with my group and we were disappointed about that.

Activity #5 St. Paul's Cathedral

Today, our group went to St. Paul's Cathedral and it was amazing. I'm not religious at all, but the cathedral was amazing. The architecture of the building fascinates me. Throughout the history of the cathedral, many greats have been inside the cathedral and it was cool to be a part of that history by going into the cathedral. Being able to climb the stairs to the whispering gallery was the best part about going to the cathedral today. Looking down from the whispering gallery gave an amazing view of the entire cathedral. I walked the entire way around the whispering gallery and I stopped to align myself with the length of the cathedral. It was so cool to see the length of the four sections of the cathedral from high up in the whispering gallery. It would have bee really nice to see the original cathedral since it had Norman architectural aspects of it and that is part of my milestone. It was a wonderful experience going to St. Paul's Cathedral today.

Activity #6 Tate Modern

Today, our group went to Tate Modern. I am not a fan of modern art at all. To me, it is like someone randomly put piece of material together that have no purpose whatsoever. The photos that I saw were random photos and described life in Soviet Russia. The only theme to those photos was that they all included the color red, saying that the Red of Soviet could be seen from all over Russia. There is just no complexity to it at all. Modern art has absolutely nothing to do with either of my three milestones. It was honestly a boring experience to visit the museum today. Modern art is nothing like the art in history.

Activity #7 Museum of London

Today, our group went to the Museum of London and it was pretty interesting. I've always like museums that go through history, so being able to literally walk through the history of London and see all of its changes was pretty cool. It was a nice and relaxing walk through the history of London. The part that I really enjoyed was the walk through the streets of London during the Victorian Era. It was really interesting to read about and see what the city would have looked like. The different shops that they had lined up in the street were amazing. Bring able to walk into a few of them and hear the sounds playing in the background of what it sounded like to walk through the streets made it feel very lifelike. The Victorian gallery does relate to one of my milestones because it involves Victorian style architecture. Though I'm not involved with learning about the lifestyle of British subjects during the Victorian Era, seeing how they lived and in what conditions helps for my milestone.

Activity #8 Tate Britain

Today, our group went to Tate Britain and it was not the best. Our group doesn't like going to see art galleries, so this was very boring today. It doesn't make sense as to how people can actually pay to go visit modern art. To me, some of these works looks like a five year threw paint onto a canvas and called it art. This place has nothing to do with any of my milestones since they either relate to architecture and history, not art in anyway.

Activity #9 Victoria and Albert Museum

Today, our group went to the Victoria and Albert Museum and it was one of the best activities we went to so far. Even though may of the exhibits were already covered in the wiki page dedicated to the museum, it was still very a very interesting museum to go to. I went upstairs to the fourth floor to go see the architecture exhibit and that was pretty cool to see. I had taken drafting classes back in high school for three years and learned a lot about the architecture of homes and of different buildings. It was interesting to remember all the different things I learned back in high school and see them implemented in the exhibit. This exhibit does somewhat involves my milestones since they involve architecture.

Activity #13 Imperial War Museum

My Complete Contributions

The journal section should end with the following link to your complete contributions (new articles, edited articles, added media, etc.); delete this sentence and replace the username Vjmanzo below with your own username:

Category Tags

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[[Category:Profiles]]

plus the year the project was completed by you, like this:

[[Category:2017]]

plus the year the advisor tag(s) like this:

[[Category:Advisor:Manzo]]

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Delete this entire section when adding category tags--category tags don't need a section. Also, don't include the Template category tag below!!