And a dramatic re-entry -- last rock Peru

(Flowers, I'm not sure what kind, from the walls at the Museum Larco Herrera)
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At last the bus loads at midnight, an uneventful ride during which I simply couldn’t sleep. Twilight was playing in Spanish, an incredibly weird experience. We’d missed the beginning, and they turned it off before the end.
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By Monday, the little journal I was keeping was written with many Spanish words in it. Interesting to see how quickly one starts acclimating, even though I really was no better at Spanish … okay, I shouldn’t say that. I really did get a lot better by the time we left. It just FELT like I wasn't improving.
A very, very, very short trip to
I have finally decided what I want to be when I grow up ... sort of. At least I have settled on my geographic region and the basic subject matter of my research. I kept waffling between Northern Europe, North America and the Andes. I've settled on the Andes (my adviser is nudging me toward the Titicaca basin of Peru). My topical interests are then the transition to agriculture (go figure) and the consequent (or not ) changes to material representations of ideology. There, much better than "ummmm ..." when people asked me what I'm going to do with archaeology. It pulls in my interests in agriculture, in hunter-gatherer/forager communities, in subsistence and environment AND religion and iconography, all neatly wrapped up in one little concept. Now if I can just find the kind of data necessary to support some sort of thesis on the subject ...
And now, since my quals are coming up in April, I spent the break, and weekly hereafter, going over the 13 courses I've had in archaeology in recent years trying to remember ALL of the literature, plus reading the pile of archaeology and anthropology journals that have been collecting unread since last year because they have been known to spring "new discoveries" questions on our qualifying exams. I speed read through about 25 journals, flaggin about 15 articles that are actually going to be useful. Spent most of break entering details from past courses and these new readings into End Note. I'd completely forgotten some of this stuff. Plus I have a directed study this semester in Andean archaeology seeing as I'll have an area question on my quals on the subject, and I'm pretty sure I don't know enough. There's also a geography course in environment and subsistence I'll be taking, and Wisconsin archaeology which I should be somewhat familiar with as I my field school was in WisArch, and I did a research paper on Wisconsin rock art.
I meant to cough up some fall photos a while back, which I may still do because they are colorful and everything is so drab and nasty now. But I have to get my computer -- with all its new filtering technologies designed to keep the bad guys out -- to let me upload them.
I'm sorry for all the missed birthdays, news and other things I've failed to comment on over the last 8 weeks. Really, I will try to do better, though, of course, I can't guarantee it. But I'm hoping the part where I'm not teaching this semester will give me a few extra hours to work with a week.
Happy New Year! Happy MLK Day! And looking forward to a glorious Obama day tomorrow!
--M
Pfff .... it's dusty in here!
Please forgive the lengthy silence (what, you didn't notice?), and how far behind I am on flist (which I KNOW I'll never catch up on) but I've been weathering a perfect storm of grading 84 essay exams and 84 term papers while carrying 9 credits, each credit of which demanded it get every last minute of my priority even while six of them were asking me to take simultaneous exams and six of them were demanding near-weekly papers and ... well, three of them have been excised and all the essays and term papers have been graded and received with horror by way more students than should have done so poorly, and so now I'm simply procrastinating the business I have with the other six credits. Of course, the class I dumped was probably the only interesting class I had this semester (Greek Classical Archaeology) but it also wasn't a required class that involves research pertinent to my qualifying exams so off went its head.
It has been a busy month or two. I have a new barn and new fencing to enclose it. I had to suffer through three weeks of Mr. 11 being grounded from video games (really, he has NO IDEA how much I suffered for him ... I had to listen to the whining). The grounding occurred because Mr. 11 apparently doesn't take after his mother when it comes to paying attention to the finer points of actually turning in one's homework. IT took him three weeks to figure out how to do it so that his grade could come up into the range where one is allowed access to video games. Since Mr. 11 also managed to get himself elected to an office in his 4-H club (treasurer), and I managed to be appointed to a leadership position in same said club, I have managed to burn way too many hours managing his office and mine. Too many numbers. Too many details. Too many people think volunteers should work harder, faster, and cater more to others' schedules. Of course they do.
I have read something like 200 pages per week for classes taken and taught. Though I can't for the life of me remember what they are about. I had to teach a segment of biological anthropology, which was interesting in that I kind of had to learn it first (what fun, population genetics and cell biology, primate cranial morphology, hominid evolutionary morphology ... the thingamijiggy connects to the what's it ...). Fortunately I'd had a little background in the primate/homind evolution material and a class that focused on bone analysis for archaeologists, but not at a level that made me feel qualified to teach it.
There's that whole business of having to find time to meet with the school to discuss the little issue of Mr. 11 and his failure to turn in homework (it's STOOOPID, I know how to do it why SHOULD I!) Oi. And meeting with the school over that little bit of a temper he has (he's for McCain, Mom, I had to take him down!). And meeting with the school over that whole organizational thing (I can't find my math book! It's in your back pack. Oh THAT math book). And talking with the school about his hormones (but she's HOT, Mom, you really don't understand. She's SO HOT!). Uh, yeah.
Then there was answering 15 robocalls a day and the wallpapering project with the 5 "terrorists will eat you for breakfast" flyers received each day. That seems to have a wearing down effect you don't realize until the silence settles after the storm. There are the little medical maladies that have been dogging me all month (like the evil disease that snagged me for two weeks and some weird thing where my immune system keeps launching assaults on body parts I'm still using (like my left eye and my knee)).
Unbelievably, there are only five weeks left of the semester and I feel like it has only just begun. The WORST part of it is next semester it's quals and I KNOW the tensions will only be increasing. No, I'm really not having fun yet.
So, apologies to anyone who may have been offended if I didn't comment on news or items of interest ... I feel like I've been living inside a vacuum cleaner bag, with the vacuum cleaner in the perpetually "on" position ... and someone just decided to clean the floor boards of their family minivan ...
--M