5 Reasons to See The Discovery of King Tut at Union Station

A few years ago I wrote on this blog about the trip my sister and I took to Union Station in Kansas City to see the Titantic exhibit. For such pricey tickets, we were not disappointed, completely awed with how well the exhibit brought the tragedy to life. The rooms literally got colder as you moved through the exhibit. Genius. So when I saw Union Station was bringing in an exhibit about the discovery of King Tut's tomb, I jumped at the chance to indulge on my childhood obsession with Ancient Egypt. I brought along another Egypt fanatic (her favorite movie is The Mummy, circa 1999) and together we embarked on an archaeology adventure.

1. George Clooney narrates your tour.
I've been to my fair share of museums in my day via school field trips and family visits to the Joselyn Art Museum in Omaha, NE when I was growing up. Typically, when visiting a museum you are given the option to lease a audio recording device that walks you through the exhibit. Growing up, we avoided these like the plague. A.) They usually cost money. B.) It made the visit that much longer to stop and listen to a description of each piece of art along the way. Neither of these made sense with a group of 30 five-year-olds. So I was slightly taken aback when we were handed free, "non-optional" audio devices upon entering the King Tut exhibit. But these convenient little devices really were the cherry on top of the whole experience. The recordings reduced the amount of reading, were narrated by soothing male and female voices (the male voice sounded suspiciously like George Clooney, but this is yet to be confirmed), and are available in both adult and child versions. Plus, the recordings made the exhibit a quiet, personal experience, instead of a rambunctious common area.

2. Nothing in the exhibit is real.
The King Tut exhibit features more than 1,000 exact replicas instead of the original artifacts. At first I was hesitant when I heard the exhibit didn't include any of the real artifacts from King Tut's tomb, but it quickly became clear why. The artifacts from King Tut's tomb are thousands of years old, making transportation nearly impossible. The exhibit spent an incredible amount of money to create these replicas, and as a result people in cities across the world are able to see what they looked like up-close. We weren't standing in front of display cases of 2-inch protective glass that preserved the millennia-old artifacts in temperature controlled environments, like they are at the Egyptian National Museum in Cairo. The replicas made the experience that much more accessible and, quite frankly, impressive. Plus, we saw replicas of artifacts that in real life have disintegrated or been stolen from museums in the decades following the tomb's discovery.

3. It's like stepping into a DeLorean, setting the data to 1922 and gunning it to 88 mph.
You will quite literally feel the wonder and awe (and challenges) experienced by the original archaeologists as you walk through the exhibit. Through a well-timed mix of lighting and voiceover, you will see the inner vestibules of the tomb uncovered piece by piece, just like the archaeologists did. It's pretty darn impressive, and even chill-inspiring.

4. You'll learn cool things you never learned in your 5th grade history class.
Like the fact King Tut was virtually forgotten about by the Egyptians, which is why his tomb was never raided by robbers. Or conspiracy theories about King Tut's death (bone disease, murder, an autoimmune disease?). Or how the original archeaologists died in freak or tragic ways shortly after discovering the tomb. (Okay, you probably new about "The Curse of the Pharaoh" re: The Mummy, but still, so cool.)

5. You'll leave feeling incredibly grateful to be living in the 21st century.
Sure, it would be awesome to be buried in a tomb with a gold sarcophagus, multiple coffins, three giant pure-gold shrines and all the things you could possibly need in the afterlife. But, air conditioning. And living in a scorpion-free environment. And sleeping on soft pillows, not this royal ivory head rest. It's the little things.

Tickets run close to $20 for adult non-member general admission. But with exhibits like this becoming a regular occurrence at Union Station, it might be worthwhile to explore membership.

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Put It In Your Pocket

It's a stormy day Saturday here in Kansas City, the perfect day to watch the latest Jon Stewart, have a lengthy phone chat with a far-away friend, and catch up on some articles on Pocket. Now I'm going to tell you about how Pocket is awesome and will save you a lot of time.

I discovered Pocket a few months ago, and it has quickly become my go-to app for catching up on things I want to read. I can't tell you how many times I've been at work and come across an in-depth Fast Company or Refinery29 article that I want to read, but I'm at work and there's work things to be done. So I just save it to Pocket. The article is then available on all my mobile devices, so I can easily pull it up on my phone when I'm in the waiting room for a dentist appointment or at dinner waiting for my date to come back from the bathroom (hopefully). It's like Pinterest for articles, and it's so much simpler than making a bookmark in my browser (ugh) or emailing it to myself and clogging up my inbox. So, Pocket. Check it out.

Clearly you can see I've Pocket'd a lot of stories relating to public relations, but also articles on efficiency (including how not to be a hoarder?) and other thrilling topics the relate to a twenty-something female.

The Job-To-Be-Done Theory

I'm three years out of college, and here I thought studying theories was far behind me. Curse of a Communications major, I suppose. Over the summer my book club at work has been reading "How Will You Measure Your Life", a book based on Clayton Christensen's 2010 Harvard Business School commencement speech about finding meaning and happiness in life.

One section of the book stuck out to me in particular. Christensen argues (and I agree) that there is much more to life than your career. But when you're starting out, it can be darn easy to make your life all about your career. Especially if you don't have a spouse and children. I catch myself thinking all the time about how, at this point in my life, I have more free time than I will ever have. I have zero life-consuming commitments outside of work. So while it can be easy to go full throttle in my career, it's important to figure out what brings me happiness during this time, so I can start carrying it through the rest of my twenties and into my thirties and beyond.

"Work can bring you a sense of fulfillment -- but it pales in comparison to the enduring happiness you can find in the intimate relationships that you cultivate with your family and close friends." 

In the relationships section of the book, Christensen talks about the "job-to-be-done" theory, how we are all hired to do a job in each relationship in our life. In order to build, improve or maintain a relationship, you must first identify the "job" you are performing for that person, and adjust your behavior accordingly. For instance, I know the job I've been hired to do at work, but what "job" are my coworkers asking of me? Do they have a need to interact with a positive, friendly person during the workday, someone who is efficient and immune to office drama? Or maybe they need someone to vent to about a challenging project or someone to crack jokes with over happy hour cocktails. Once I identify that need, it's easier for me to build a valuable professional relationship.

"If you work to understand what job you are being hired to do, both professionally and in your personal life, the payoff will be enormous." 

What's harder is figuring out the "job" I'm expected to do for the people in my personal life. The "job" my sister may require of me, for example, is to be a listening ear in times of family stress, or to offer advice on navigating post-grad life. In turn, I look to her to be the sounding board for my wackiest stories and to be my most-trusted shopping companion (seriously, she's brutally honest).

The danger is, it's easy to make assumptions about the job you're being asked to do, and in doing so "reap frustration and confusion in our search for happiness in that relationship," according to Christensen. That's why it's important to have conversations with the people in your life about their expectations. Or asking yourself: "What job does [person] need me to do?"

To sum it all up, relationships require give and take, and they run much more smoothly when you understand the job people are expecting of you. And once you know, you one step closer to cultivating a relationship that will bring you enduring happiness.

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Gigantic Permanents: A Review of "The Opposite of Loneliness"

About a month ago while I was perusing the internet during my lunch break, I came across this New York Magazine post by Kevin Roose, who revealed a touching story of a Yale college student he knew named Marina Keegan. Roose wrote about Marina's great writing potential, which was tragically brought to a halt when she was killed in a car accident five days following her college graduation. Marina's essays and short stories were compiled by her friends, family and former teachers into a post-humorous book called "The Opposite of Loneliness," titled after an essay Marina wrote for her graduating class. An essay in which she fatefully wrote: "We're so young. We're twenty-two years old. We have so much time."

I was really afraid this book wouldn't live up to the hype following the accolades from Ms. Keegan's former mentors, but I can definitely say "The Opposite of Loneliness" was stunningly honest, captivating and terribly relatable, especially for me, a fellow twenty-something and recent-ish college graduate. I adored her fiction essays involving romantic relationships ("Cold Pastoral") and the changing dynamic between young adults and their parents ("Winter Break"). And her haunting observations about pursuing passions ("Even Artichokes Have Doubts") and her own death ("Song For the Special") gave me chills.

Most tragically of all, this book made me believe Marina and I could have been friends in real life. I could envision her future through this book, and I would not have been surprised if this talented young woman was capable of quickly reaching Lena Dunham fame in her post-graduate life. Marina's writing captured a piece of my own soul, and it's tragic her life was claimed before she could capture souls again and again, as her voice morphed with age.

"I used to think printing things made them permanent, but that seems so silly now. Everything will be destroyed no matter how hard we work to create it. That idea terrifies me. I want tiny permanents. I want gigantic permanents!"

– Marina Keegan, "Song For the Special"

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