(no subject)
The semester is about to start back up. I'm not particularly looking forward to it. I've had absolutely no energy since finishing my finals. I feel like the end of last semester fried my brain. I feel like I am completely incapable of critical thinking or reading another book. I did get decent grades, though, so I guess the brain destroying effort was worth it. The vacation over christmas probably didn't help. Everything was so busy and there were so many people it really started to wear me down. I did get to eat some really good food, though, so that was nice.
I got my grades back for last semester. I got an A in Theory in Cultural Anthropology, and considering the final that I submitted I think that's a pretty lucky grade. I haven't gotten my final in that back yet (or even an individual grade on it). I am going to go into school tomorrow and check to see if it is my mailbox. I also got an A Analytical Methods in Archaeology. That was expected and all too easy. The class was basically a combination of Statistics and how to use SPSS, both of which I already knew. I got a B in Maya Civilization, which was about what I was expecting, and pretty decent considering I wasn't particularly interested in the class, never did all the reading, and wrote my final paper mostly using data that was 25-30 years old and not quite exactly what I really needed or wanted to use. An A would have been nice, but I didn't really expect one in there.
I am considering posting portions of my final here. Not sure if I will. I don't know if anyone would be interested in it or not.
Christmas was pretty fun. I got pretty much everything I asked for, but I didn't really ask for much, so that worked out fairly well. I was ready to go back to my apartment and sleep on a real bed when it was over, though.
My brother got a homebrew set up off of craigslist recently, so we have started to make some beers and such. I have helped him brew a milk stout and an ale, and for christmas he got me a kit to make a braggot, so I did that with some help from him and it is fermenting as we speak. I'm hoping it turns out well, braggot has to be one of my favorite types of alcohol ever (at least, Master David's braggot is, I'm hoping mine will turn out similar).
I haven't been to anything SCA in forever. I don't have time or money to travel to events on the weekends, and I am usually really tired and exhausted during the week for fighter practice. Last semester I had class right up to 5 pm on fighter practice nights, so I'm hoping that I might be able to get to more practices this semester as my class is earlier in the day. I'm not sure that will happen though. School really seems to exhaust me.
I really need to figure out what exactly I want to do and make sure I am actually going to be doing something I want and like in anthropology. It seems like the more I get into the field the more issues I have with it, but at the same time I also really enjoy anthropology. In particularly the ego driven nature of the field and the condescending or cynical nature of how interpretations of culture are often presented really bother me. I'm pretty sure I could ignore that, but I'm not sure I want to, and do I really want to work in a field where I am not happy with the ways the knowledge is presented and where interpersonal politics can make or break a career or determine what is accepted as correct, a field where a good way to make a name for yourself is to essentially pick someone respected or admired by a certain group and then just spend all of your time tearing them down or screaming at people, or where your research and conclusions are destroyed and belittled not because they are necessarily wrong or inaccurate, but because someone doesn't like you?
I also need to figure out if I want to do archaeology or cultural anthropology. I like archaeology more, but I also like cultural anthropology and I have a good solid and narrow idea of what I would like to to in cultural anthropology and can express it clearly. In archaeology I just know I like the origins of agriculture. Where, when, and what to do with the origins of agriculture I don't know, and I feel like I don't know the background I need to move forward on it.
No matter what I do I need to find a different school. There aren't many people here doing what I want in cultural and the department is moving in a Mayanist/Mesoamerican direction in archaeology, neither of which really interest me. I'm really not looking forward to finding another school and going through the application process again for my Ph.D., but I really don't feel like I can stay here past my MA.
I do get to work this week. My boss said it was essentially watching paint dry, but getting paid for it and he told me to bring a book to read. Sounds like it should be a pretty good work week.
That reminds me, I am now working at the contract archaeology firm attached to the school. They are running an NSF funded project that looks at the chemical make up of various rabbit bones hoping to use it to reconstruct environments based off of rabbit bones in the archaeological. My part of the job is treating the ground up bones with various acids and bases in order to extract the collagen from them and then freeze-drying it so it can be shipped off to be analyzed. It sounds more exciting than it really is.
This semester I will be taking Theory in Archaeology, which I hear is horrible and difficult, biological anthropology, which I hear is difficult and I hate biological anthropology anyway, and GIS in archaeology, which trains you to use a geographic analysis software.
So, that's what's been happening the last 4 months or so.
I got my grades back for last semester. I got an A in Theory in Cultural Anthropology, and considering the final that I submitted I think that's a pretty lucky grade. I haven't gotten my final in that back yet (or even an individual grade on it). I am going to go into school tomorrow and check to see if it is my mailbox. I also got an A Analytical Methods in Archaeology. That was expected and all too easy. The class was basically a combination of Statistics and how to use SPSS, both of which I already knew. I got a B in Maya Civilization, which was about what I was expecting, and pretty decent considering I wasn't particularly interested in the class, never did all the reading, and wrote my final paper mostly using data that was 25-30 years old and not quite exactly what I really needed or wanted to use. An A would have been nice, but I didn't really expect one in there.
I am considering posting portions of my final here. Not sure if I will. I don't know if anyone would be interested in it or not.
Christmas was pretty fun. I got pretty much everything I asked for, but I didn't really ask for much, so that worked out fairly well. I was ready to go back to my apartment and sleep on a real bed when it was over, though.
My brother got a homebrew set up off of craigslist recently, so we have started to make some beers and such. I have helped him brew a milk stout and an ale, and for christmas he got me a kit to make a braggot, so I did that with some help from him and it is fermenting as we speak. I'm hoping it turns out well, braggot has to be one of my favorite types of alcohol ever (at least, Master David's braggot is, I'm hoping mine will turn out similar).
I haven't been to anything SCA in forever. I don't have time or money to travel to events on the weekends, and I am usually really tired and exhausted during the week for fighter practice. Last semester I had class right up to 5 pm on fighter practice nights, so I'm hoping that I might be able to get to more practices this semester as my class is earlier in the day. I'm not sure that will happen though. School really seems to exhaust me.
I really need to figure out what exactly I want to do and make sure I am actually going to be doing something I want and like in anthropology. It seems like the more I get into the field the more issues I have with it, but at the same time I also really enjoy anthropology. In particularly the ego driven nature of the field and the condescending or cynical nature of how interpretations of culture are often presented really bother me. I'm pretty sure I could ignore that, but I'm not sure I want to, and do I really want to work in a field where I am not happy with the ways the knowledge is presented and where interpersonal politics can make or break a career or determine what is accepted as correct, a field where a good way to make a name for yourself is to essentially pick someone respected or admired by a certain group and then just spend all of your time tearing them down or screaming at people, or where your research and conclusions are destroyed and belittled not because they are necessarily wrong or inaccurate, but because someone doesn't like you?
I also need to figure out if I want to do archaeology or cultural anthropology. I like archaeology more, but I also like cultural anthropology and I have a good solid and narrow idea of what I would like to to in cultural anthropology and can express it clearly. In archaeology I just know I like the origins of agriculture. Where, when, and what to do with the origins of agriculture I don't know, and I feel like I don't know the background I need to move forward on it.
No matter what I do I need to find a different school. There aren't many people here doing what I want in cultural and the department is moving in a Mayanist/Mesoamerican direction in archaeology, neither of which really interest me. I'm really not looking forward to finding another school and going through the application process again for my Ph.D., but I really don't feel like I can stay here past my MA.
I do get to work this week. My boss said it was essentially watching paint dry, but getting paid for it and he told me to bring a book to read. Sounds like it should be a pretty good work week.
That reminds me, I am now working at the contract archaeology firm attached to the school. They are running an NSF funded project that looks at the chemical make up of various rabbit bones hoping to use it to reconstruct environments based off of rabbit bones in the archaeological. My part of the job is treating the ground up bones with various acids and bases in order to extract the collagen from them and then freeze-drying it so it can be shipped off to be analyzed. It sounds more exciting than it really is.
This semester I will be taking Theory in Archaeology, which I hear is horrible and difficult, biological anthropology, which I hear is difficult and I hate biological anthropology anyway, and GIS in archaeology, which trains you to use a geographic analysis software.
So, that's what's been happening the last 4 months or so.