longest blog ever

alrighty.
You may be wondering what I've been up to considering it's been so long since I last updated anything. Really, I wish I had more to say or to at least write that things have been going the way I'd hoped. But they aren't. It's kind of unfortunate to find out that you are apparently unemployable in a line of work closely related to what you want to pursue. For those of you who don't know, I've been applying for jobs with commercial archaeology companies to get more field work experience. It's been over a month and not a single company I've applied for has even given me a call. So I have decided that I had best get a part time job that is allowed under the student visa that I have and that I should find myself a place so that I am not imposing myself onto my friends any more. The trick is that it has to be a job that I could leave should one of the archaeological companies actually choose to hire me.
In the grand scheme of things it's really not that bad. It's just disappointing. If I can't get a job before Christmas I'll see if I can't go back to Greece and do what I was supposed to be doing right now since the opportunity is still there. This, of course, just depends on me getting a visa or something so that I don't jeopardize my excavations this summer, which is definitly something I am not looking forward to having to do.

Enough of that though. The better news is that I was able to spend some time with my mom and oma who came out to my Graduation ceremony a few weeks ago. The ceremony was surprisingly short and efficient. All in Latin too. King's was the first college to go because it was the first of the Royal charter colleges. (oooh, awwe).


After the cermony we spent some time in London seeing the sight. We saw some fantastic musicals as well. First, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat. I had been trying to get tickets for this show but it was sold out until 2008 or something stupid like that, but I found some upper balcony style tickets from an unofficial booth that turned out to be better than we thought. The show was also a nice surprise, it turned out to be a lot of fun. But we were still baffled as to why it was so sold out, and, more strangely, why people cheered like mad when Lee Mead, the Guy playing Joseph, stepped onto the stage. I mean, he was good, no doubt about that, but still. Turns out they had done a reality tv show to fill the Joseph role - an amazing marketing ploy that seems to have worked.



Show number two, another Andrew Lloyd, the Phantom of the Opera. I had actually never seen this show, though of course, it is a classic and was very beautifully done. I suppose I had higher hopes for this one than for Joseph so I was left a little bit disappointed. I felt they were holding back just a little from making the big moments as big as they could have been. But still, how could you not enjoy it?
Show number three... Chicago, now starring none other than Kelly Osborne as Mama Morton (those of you who know the musical may be cringing at this moment, and rightfully so). I had heard that the reviews were saying that she was doing a good job. She did not do a good job. This was a marketing ploy that did not work. Thankfully she wasn't on stage all that much to drag down the fantastic job the rest of the cast was doing.
So between the 3 musicals and catching 'dirty dancing' on the tv, and my singing constantly, my mom and oma had an amazingly musical time.

And after London, we made our way up to Edinburgh for a few days. Absolutely beautiful. Some very nice museums and interesting old buildings with tiny little alleyways.



One of the highlights of Edinburgh was Rosslyn Chapel. Started in 1446 (or somewhere around then) the entire chapel is covered in elaborate, and mysterious, carvings. It was mentioned in the DaVinci Code, so it has gained in popularity over the years as a tourist attraction but is still extremely intriguing as a place that has Templar and Masonic connections, heart lines, and an unopened massive vault rumoured to hold things like the grail or the ark of the covenant or a piece of the true cross. (Instead of trying to tell you all of the strange rumours that surround this place, I'll just link you to the wikipedia article...). One of the things I found most interesting, however, was that in their attempts to preserve the sandstone carvings, they covered them in a monochromatic cement mixture. This not only removed the natural colouring of the sandstone and the paint that was applied, but it cause the sandstone to retain water and therefore moss to cover huge amounts of the surfaces. So they had to build an awning to put over top of it to keep it dry. It is interesting that sometimes the acts that we make to preserve our material culture can sometimes do just as much damage.


So. In summation. Had a great time with my mom and oma, and not a bad time just getting things in order. I just wish I had the job I want.

bureaucracy 1, me 0

so I lose. I definitley have to go back to england. It's complicated and weird and bureaucratic and I'm not so mad at the fact that I have to go back, it's that no one could have told me the information I needed to know sooner. I mean come on now. All it takes is someone to actually listen to what your situation is and what you want to do instead of being to busy to care. I mean, when the canadian embassy in greece and the greek embassy in canada tell you two different things, you know the system is confused.
and I'm also mad at the fact that even the little things are not going right for me today... like trying to call a bunch of embassies and then trying to call airway people. for example... trying to call british airways to change my ticket... first, i just happen to run out of money on my cell. second, the first payphone i can find is decapitated, i.e. no reciever. the second inexplicably non-functioning, the third working, but it is now 5 minutes past five. the office closed at five. i try to call long distance to the one in england and for some reason cannot get through.
any ways. I'm just going to have to suck it up and pay the massive amount they are charging me to change my ticket, but first I have to walk back to lefkandi and get the bank card that is sitting in my room instead of being in my bag only to walk back (30 min. both ways). can't say i'm not getting my exercise.

anyways, enough complaining. I'm bitter, yes, but still. things aren't that bad, just expensive and time consuming. Maybe it's better that I go back to england to sort some stuff out, and on the bright side i have some friends there who have already offered up their couches and floors.

that's it for now, i have to get walking if I'm going to make dinner...

This is the view from my balcony. Lefkandi can't be beat for seaside views: what it lacks in creature comforts, it makes up for in seascapes. it's basically a place where athenians come and beach it up for the weekend so the weekends are overrun with vacationing greeks, but there are vary vary few people from elsewhere and we are a bit of an anomally as english speakers. lefkandi has a ton of tavernas, but nothing along the lines of a bank (or atm), post office, supermarket, internet cafe, etc etc. so to get anything you have to walk to the next town 1/2 an hour away. That outcropping of land is where the site is located.

these are the workem i'm with and the trench that i'm in. basically, looking for a big wall. the photo heare is just starting to see it come up, but by this point we've uncovered approximately 9 meters of what is now a 19 meter long wall (you can see it running back in the distance of the trench uncovered last year). I don't mind saying that my wheel barrow and shovel boy are probably the cutest ones, thereby making our trench the hottest one by far (not temperature wise either).

we have along weekend which is great because it will allow me to go into athens and attempt to deal with the greek bueaucracy which will either extend my visa so i can stay until christmas or not. I'm looking forward to a day of waiting and incomprehensible organisation. keep your fingers crossed.

i had grand plans to upload some photos and have this great blog to make up for the length of time that has past since the previous posting... but I can't use my jump drive at this internet cafe. dangit.

well, here's the scoop anyways.

we are now entering our 4th week of digging here at Lefkandi. This last week was nice becasue the first two we were basically digging rectangular trenches of nothing but topsoil. this week we actually reached archaeological levels, just beneath the surface really, but it's all about being north or south of this big wall. (north there is nothing until very deep, south you dig 30 cm and you hit mycenaen beuildings). my trench is all about outlining what the extent of this boundary wall is and how the area connects to what was founf to the south last year. so now I have a part of the large wall and a couple of other, unexpected, smaller walls.
it's exciting. i promise.

I am a trench supervisor, which means that I tell the pickman and the other two workers where to dig, etc. so far I;ve had a greek speaking assistant to communicate through, but things are getting swapped around this week and i will have someone who doesn't speak greek assisting. This should be interesting. It'll be alright, i think, becasue i have picked up enough to generally get the main point across, it's just the details that I worry about. at any rate, my greek should improve by force, which is a bright side.

i'm going to leave it there for now... i promise though that I will flesh it out soon, i think the other internet cafe i go to should be able to upload a few photos which will make all the difference.

love you all and miss you

So. I'm digging. It's going well: I am slowly gaining confidence and not thinking that I'm going to destroy everything, the heat wave has subsided and is now in the 30's rather than 40's, i have an amazing 'T' shaped tan on my back and am working on the shoe tan nicely, and I am meeting people, slowly but surely.
This weekend is a long weekend, meaning that we have monday off. Most people are heading out to the islands. I might have, but I didn't know about this weekend until recently, and I just don't feel like have the energy to go through all the trouble. Plus, I really need to get some work done on my funding proposals this weekend. But, I also figure that I should at least do Something on Sunday for my birthday. but all the really nice beaches are really far. Though I suppose I could head to one of the closer ones and just suck it up, I mean, a beach is a beach. I can't believe I'm whining about not knowing what I should do when I'm in greece, i mean, really now. I'm just to lazy to plan to relax.
love you all, miss you all.

one day of digging and just look at the tan lines.

They let us go home early today because of the heat. I was more thankful than you can possibly imagine. Apparently sitting in rainy england writing your thesis is not good peparation for digging in the greek sun. Who knew?

well. I'm Greece. And it's excessively warm already. Someone said 48 degrees. crazy.
I'm being waited on fo rthe ocmputer, so I'll write more when I have more to say other than am extrememly tired form sleeping on planes and in airports.

blog karma

I figure I'm on the negative side for blogging karma. So it'll be a long one.

I guess I have to go back to Tuesday, when I handed in my thesis. Had a day to relax and run errands and whatnot, then it was off to Holland to visit my Oma and Opa who are there visiting relatives right now.
It was very interesting to see all of the 'aunts' and 'uncles' and 'cousins' (all second or third I think) that I hadn't really seen since I was 11. Most of the trip involved sitting around listening to conversations in dutch (no, i don't understand dutch), but we also went to a couple of really beautiful, very old, little towns nearby and on the saturday my cousins took me out clubbing dutch style. The legal drinking age there is 16 and the club was huge (4 different dance floors, each the size of one of ours) with full fog, light, tv, and laser effects. oh, and a pool. but I was told if you went in the pool, you got kicked out of the club, which made me wonder why they had it there in the first place.

so after listening a whole lot of dutch, and picking all the cherries a person could humanly eat from the cherry tree in the yard, I returned home sunday night to a Viva Voce exam monday morning. The viva didn't go fantastically well. I think I held my own and babbled a minimum amount, but I did get the distinct impression that one marker in particular thought my topic extremely pointless. So I think I may be looking at an alright, but not great mark coming up (I won't know at least for a couple of weeks). Hopefully it will be enough to get me some funding...

But hey, it's now all over and I have nothing left for my masters but to wait. And I have nothing left to do here but run some errands and enjoy myself. This week holds two huge parties, the King's affair, and the king's graduate formal dinner. The affair is King's answer to a ball (which is what most of the other colleges have) and is instead just a massive party where we are allowed on the lawn (ooh!). I find it amusing that all the other colleges have themes like: 'the moon', 'through the looking glass', and other fancy things that I can't remember right now where they all dress up in formal gear... king's picks 'aftermath'. That's right folks, it's a post-apocalyptically themed affair. That means wearing ripped clothing and gas masks. Sounds like fun to me, and we'll be formal formal for the grad dinner anyways. gotta love king's.

And then I'm off on Saturday night. Weird. So weird. It's definitley coming up quicker than I expected. But I've got myself a 'learn greek' tape on my
(brand new!*) ipod and my trowel so I'm all set.

*my wonderful mother sent me an early birthday present with my grandparents... a fantabulous black 30 gig video ipod! I love it. My old ipod, though also fabulous, was having serious battery issues, so it had to be done. So exciting.

Oh! and the cows are back in the pasture. they're white and lovely.

The thesis is in folks. That's it. That's the program.
weird.
So, after being severely sleep deprived, and excessively sedentary, I spent the day lounging around with others and punting. I can look forward to my Viva Voce exam in about a week, but until then I will be heading off to Holland to see my Oma and Opa.
Sorry, it's so short, but I am excessively tired and can't think straight.

I will elaborate soon.

Well, I'm still alive though I know it doens't seem like it from the lack of bloggy-goodness. Just not a lot to say really.
Thesis due in two weeks
Recieved a good mark on that pot sherd project
Am in a new relationship (that is inherently doomed in a month and forced aside due to work but still)
Rainy and cold this week... but I suppose it's better that it get it over with now than when the paper is done

yup. That's it.

Miss you all.

Well, it's definitely spring. The period where you have to work the most and yet want to the very least. I'm looking back at all you fine folks who are done school and enjoying the thrills of staff training with envious eyes.
Missing the fort pops up at random times and places, like from the smell of my wool jacket in the rain. But at the same time, I'm contented and secure in the fact that I'm heading in a direction I want to go. (you'll hear the following in many posts to come I'm sure but...) I'm very much looking forward to after June 12th - the day my thesis is due. I then have a viva voce exam and some time to enjoy my new found friends and then it's off to Greece for 6 months. I have very little hope for continuing this upcoming year, but I think I should manage to be able to come back in 2008. My marks, though it depends on these last two, haven't been good enough as of yet to warrant admission into the classics faculty, but I could easily get into archaeology which is perfectly fine with me. It's really the funding (or lack of) that matters anyways.
So for now I am in a cycle of procrastination, reading, and writing. I'm not sure, but I _think_ procrastination is winning at the moment (seeing as I'm blogging rather than finishing the draft that needs to get done for tommorrow), but *meh*.

I guess I thought I'd best get you all caught up, and that's pretty much it.

i am an idiot

seriously. who comes to greece specifically to see an exhibition and doesn't check to see that it's still showing? An idiot. i.e. me.

joy.

Well, after a very long couple of days I have arrived in greece.

And I mean a very long couple of days.
So my third project, the sherd one I've been posting about for what seems like forever was due monday at 12. My supervisor had been away so I was already a bit behind on everything, but I felt that I was at least somewhat on track. I had worked most of Saturday and had about 5 hours of sleep, alright. That's fine. But then I go to layout all of my catalogue images that I drew and _oh my goodness_ did the technology just about kill me. No matter what I did I could not get my images printed out at the correct size (and keep in mind that the whole point is to be exactly correct in all aspects of everything). So I spent the entire day trying to get this right, and to no avail. Finally I gave up... which left the night to do everything else I needed to do ie. get some maps, and finish and redraft my essay part of the project, write my bibliography, and double check my catalogue. This means I slept, oh, about an hour, and woke up without knowing how in the world I would get my images to work out, and still needing to make some changes to my essay. So yup.
Thank goodness the fates gave me something... a friend who offered to layout my images in her much superior program, indesign, while I finished the essay part... and a slight extension. Even with this girl who has done professional catalogue layouts as a job, the images magically resized themselves the first time and she had to do it again. But it finally worked, and though I don't think it is bug free, I handed it in at 1:15, only an hour and a half late.
So then I run the errand that I had been meaning to run and do little things, like eat, that I hadn't had a chance to do. I just miss the 3:30 bus to the airport, almost miss the 4:15 bus because I hadn't realized they changes the location of the stop, but get the the airport in plenty of time.
I arrive in Greece at 2:30 their time (I managed to sleep a little, but was surprised I didn't sleep more since they were playing 'miss potter' as a movie... can you say boring? I should have been sleeping like a baby). I splurge for a cab to take me to the hostel, and without wanting to pay for another night, seeing as it's like, 4 in the morning already, they let me sleep on the couch. I have just now finally showered and checked in and am raring to go...

Alright, so that's where I'm coming from right now. a combined total of around 11 hours of sleep between three nights and 5 of those being on a plane/couch. Yay.

But the potential abounds and I hope that the journey proves worthwhile.

Natural selection

This is the short film that I mentioned awhile back, but as a recap... some of my friends did this with super eight film and submitted it to a film festival. I'm thoroughly impressed.

I should post.
Though I honestly have not much going on here. I'm working, slowly, having trouble getting a hold of anybody in general and my supervisors in particular (being that we are still in easter holiday). I am also having trouble sitting inside working all day when the springy weather outside constantly calls to me. It's telling me that it's okay to go on 4 hour punting excursions or play football all day... the sun hypnotises me into states of non-caring. I can undertand why in edmonton they start and finish earlier because I don't think they could hold us in when spring came full force. Could you imagine going until June? You'd be wasting half the summer studying for exams. Ah well, I'm glad for the time, it'll be crunchy as it is if I keep going at this rate.
(By the way, I hear it is snowing... my honest condolences and hopes that that blasted winter departs, I no longer hope to rub it in because that's so unfortunately absurd)

There is, however, stuff happening at home. I missed two birthdays this month, my sister's and my mom's. Combine this with easter and a random upsurge of internet chatting with my friends and I am missing being home. This is, however, mixed with a feeling that I'm not finished here in Cambridge. I really hope that I get the grade that can keep me here. Not so much for next year specifically, but at least if I get the grade I can reapply for 2008 and really go at it for funding.

Oh, and I just booked a ticket for Athens for the end of the month. I just have to go for a few days to see some of the sculptures I am writing my thesis on, and an exibit that's there right now that's about polychromy. It has a bunch of coloured casts. It's really annoying because I check the websites, make sure the museums aropen on the days I want to go and buy the tickets. Then I find out that the first day I am there is a Greek holiday. Figures. The museums may be closed. I should still have enough time to see what I need to see, but I mean really. one out of 2 and a half days shot. I am so annoyed at myself, but at least I found out before I got there.

You are all going to silently hate me already for complaining that the weather is too nice to focus, so I may as well add in another point. I don't want to go to athens all that much. It's completely necessary for my thesis, it will give me that first hand experience that will make or break the paper, but it's so much effort. I am not looking forward to getting in that plane. It's British Airwas, which is better than olympic, but still. And I am banking on getting funding to go, so I really hope it comes through, but I can't get a hold of my supervisor to write a letter of support for the application so I'll be going first and hoping for the funding later. Besides I am worried that it's going to be taking precious days out of my 90 days allowed in Greece which is the exact amount of time I need to be there for this summer. I hope they don't give me trouble about it.

sorry. I'll stop now. I realise that having to go to athens is most definitely not the worst thing that could happen.

spring!

The baby ducklings have hatched! This of course results in two things: first, an automatic baby voice and desperate urge to cuddle, and second, a guilty joy knowing it's still snowy where you are and wanting to rub it in. Karma may just hurt me soon, but I don't care. Now all I need for the spring transfrmation to be complete is for them to bring back the King's cows.

First, an apology for being so very very lax on the blogging. I'v have, though been working a lot... finally. I am finally at the point in the project that I've been mentioning for awhile now, which makes for a very nice change of pace. apart from a wonderful day in london where I went to the museum and had a great dinner with kate, I've been drawing and cataloguing and inking everything pretty much all day for the past few days.

With that also comes watching way to much Xena: Warrior Princess in the background while fixing up and inking.

Ah, the joy that is the pseudo-Greek world that she inhabits. Fantastically bad. So bad. So bad.

For all of you who ask, why draw pot sherds when one can simply take a photo, I shall explain. Drawing sherds is something that you can do that will show both the interior, exterior, and a profile all in one. It also helps to show clearly the decoration when it is not always easy to see on the sherd itself, or if you need to recreate something, you can. So you draw it like:

then you ink it up and scan it so it looks something like:

Mine aren't fantastic. They are fine, but I need more practice. I don't seem to have developed a steady enough hand for illustrative drawing just yet. You have to be so exact it's disgusting. But still, I enjoy it.

I've been swapped softly

Yay! I've received a lovely little bear (and some skor bars). deceptively little that is. He actually built stonehenge he's that cool. seriously, not aliens, not celts, but a lovely blue teddy bear with a scarf (and skor bars). did I mention I also got some skor bars?

OOPs

So, the next two posts are mixed up.... go read the second one (the one with the title) first, then come back up.
And I thought I was being smart.

in the background of the picture above you can see the Abbey which has some interesting relief on the front. basically it's angels climbing up and down ladders, referring to a dream that the priest had that told him to erect the church in the first place.

On the way back to Heathrow we stopped at a couple of places on the way, Avebury, Stonehenge, and Salisbury. Salisbury was interesting for their chapel as well, which apparently has the highest church tower in england and was very beautiful, but also had one of only 4 existing copies of the Magna Carta. Avebury is one of the places with stone circles, like stonehenge, but earlier and smaller stones. It also had larger and more circles that you could wander in and out of. But it was really very windy, and we messed up with the parking machine and were worried about getting a ticket, so we kind of rushed a bit. But the stones there look like this:

Which is compared to stonehenge where the stones look like this:

I thought that Stonehenge would be more touristy than actually interesting, but it was actually extremely satisfying (despite the brutal wind that would not let us be). It intrigued me because it took a lot for it to be built and is in relatively good condition for being 4000 years old. Some interesting facts about Stonehenge: The largest stone weighs approximately as much as 7 elephants. They used woodworking techniques to construct it and even rounded the stones slightly to make the circle properly. Some of the stones came from miles and miles away, but are so heavy that it would have been extremely difficult to transport them here over both land and sea. The rocks are home to over 40 different types of lichens.

Nifty, eh?

After that it was home again home again jiggity jig.

Any questions?

of driving around england

So I have returned from my 'grand tour' around England.
Thoroughly enjoyable and so much fun. It was fantastic to see the folks again and see some great sites while doing so.

Care for a play by play? of course you do, everyone likes to live vicariously right?

So we started in Cambridge where I actually did some of the things I've been meaning to do since I got here, like actually go and visit some of the other colleges, and go up on the roof of King's college chapel, and punt. Punting, by the way, is tricky but very fun and I can't wait for the weather to warm up a bit so we can just punt at random. Maybe next time I'll actually move forward rather than side to side.

From there we went up to York. I am now officially jealous of the Tudor Rose. A very very cool city with both Roman and viking undertones. The shambled was a neat little street of Georgian architecture that looked like it should already be falling down the beams were so warped. York minster is my new fascination in it's oddities and jumble of seemingly random things (like the clock that chimed by two knights that would twist and hit a chime with their axes, the cloister with a large number of seats with intricately carved images of faces, some paganistic, many with demon-esque creatures, some with birds eating their faces, but all different, a tombstone for a woman who had something like 26 children and died at 40...). It was also built over top a Roman principia, where they believe Constantine was proclaimed emperor.

Next stop, Wales. What an interesting language. I would love to learn their alphabet since it looks like ours, but it most definitely is not the same and I have no idea how to pronounce the names. I mean, really, how cool would it be to live in a place called 'Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch'. That's an extreme case of course, but still. We walked around Conwy Castle, which was very well preserved.

That night we stayed above a pub that was reputedly haunted. Didn't see any ghosts though so I fail to be convinced.

On towards bath, but along the way we stopped and went hiking in the Cotswalds. Stunning landscape and we wandered in and out of farmers fields. This included encountering many, many sheep (I thought a lot of that zombie movie that crafty bean blogged about and was relieved that none of them tried very hard to eat me), an uncomfortable closeness to a (fortunately lazy) bull, horses, partridges, and other random animals. We thought the walk would take around 2 hours of walking and another hour or two of sitting in local teahouses/pubs but, alas, it was 4 hours of pretty much straight hiking in the hills.

The best thing in bath was, surprise, the baths. The roman hot springs was very built up, but still, I like the idea of healing spas and the emphasis placed on bathing as a social aspect of life. I think we could do with more naked hot spring bathing here (though I have a feeling that Big Round Head may disagree?). And let us not forget the whole process of the cold room, the hot room, and the oil message afterwards eh.

I have a feeling this is getting too long, so see the next post for a continuation...

I just wanted to mention that I won't be blogging for a bit. My folks and I are going to be driving around england for a bit. We probably will get lost and spend the entire week driving, but hey, at least I'll get to see the countryside right?

vice journal

Though I realise that continually recording my vices may not be an extremely positive way of looking at the world, I think it will help. So I've decided to keep a journal of sorts that will help me get myself in order.
I have a horrible tendency to forget things, my brain is odd in that I'm not stupid, but I have a very difficult getting things in there and keeping them there. I can learn stuff and test well, but I can't hold onto the information for very long after. Or if something is mentioned or I see something one day and it doesn't have a direct consequence for what I am doing presently I don't bother to remember it. This journal is an attempt to help me learn stuff that people should just generally know. For example: Roman numerals (I never really learnt roman numerals, so I put them in there); Names of people (in particular any one who is mentioned in regards to the academic world I'm in that I should know); singers that I want to hear; authors/books that I want to read; facts that I learnt (new words is a biggy here); the general idea of books that I did read... the list goes on. Basically anythinthat I can, and do forget. I want to train my brain to start remembering things and actively make it a point to remember things better.

I thought since I'm also worried about the weight I've been gaining here it would be a good idea to keep a food journal, at least for awhile. What I eat, why I eat it.

Also, since it's my first time being out of the house and financially strapped, i think i should be keepg a closer eye on the spendature than I have been doing, so maybe keeping a record of what I spend so I can analyse it and make a better budget.

All in all, a journal of vices in hopes that by recognising them in a physical, concrete format I can rule them, and not have them rule me.

And I thought I'd blog about it so that I would actually do it.

Here's hoping it helps.

band wagon hopping. Seemed like fun.

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

So wicked was wicked. Such an easy pun to make, it needed to be done. it was perfect musical fodder. Not exactly a deep story line, but witty enough to keep it interesting. The music was fairly standard and extremely emotive, lots of good belty moments since the main role is a lower voice (alto I think, but maybe mezzo-soprano). Nice set, elaborate costumes, good effects and a sweet message about being true to yourself round it off. I'm sure that this musical has become the bain of the auditioner's existence since a few of the songs I'm sure will have already become fast favourites.

I thoroughly enjoyed myself and it was fantastic to see my folks again.

Academically, I've still been getting nowhere fast. My sherd project has turned towards a nw focus that as left practically all of the work I've done on it thus far obsolete. But I think (/hope) it will be the better for it. And knowledge is knowledge right? never wasted.

I also just found out that the supervisor I thought I was doing my dissertation with is actually leaving the country. So I'm dissapointed about that, I don't think I'll do as well with someone else guiding me. She was fantastic and wasn't afraid to tell me when I was bullshitting. I'll figure it out, but I'm cursing a bit.

I talked with another professor about a project that could form the basis of my Phd. Can you say underqualified? It sounds like the perfect project in that it's interesting and new that has both a specific focus and a broader consequence and it would be linked to an archaeological site. It would be a lot of responsibility on me though to be extremely accurate. I would be in charge of creating a pottery sequence of the materials in close association with the stratigraphy, both informing the other. This would also mean that I would go on the excavation and it would be on me to choose the sherds that are representative samples. I could easily screw this up, and if I were starting tomorrow, I'd be screwed. But I'm not starting tomorrow, I have some time to get m act together and I'm excited for it. It seems that it wouldn't be a problem if I can't start this year due to funding/ acceptance and it would also allow me to take the job at knossos I've been offered for a few months to gain some experience in cataloguing and databasing. The main thing I have to do is get a first on my dissertation so that I can even worry about funding.
It would also mean that I don't really have to focus on learning german... just turkish. Gah.

I was at a film festival the other night since some of my friends had made a 'super 8' film that was being aired. Their film was fantastic (and I;ll post it as soon as they put it up), but they showed this short while the judges were deliberating and I felt it needed to be shared. very very nice. Plus, I'm very proud of myself for even getting it on my blog, rather than just linking but if it doesn't work go to Yuki

I am in a very bad state of lethargy.
I pu it down to having finished my essay last week and having let myself relax a bit. It's just hard for me to get going again. It's not that I haven't done some real work, I've sat in the back of the museum looking at my pot sherds quite a lot, but I seem to be in a general state of apathy at the moment. I know I have to work, and work well since my parents are coming in a little over a week and I want to take a bit of time to travel with them guilt free. Which is fine. I'll get there. I just have a few really boring texts to get through first.

What is more interesting to me right now is trying to sort out my future. Since I won't know if I am actually accepted into Cambridge until July, and since I won't know if I've been accepted with funding until... September, and given the state of my applications, I think I have to assume that I will not be starting my PhD this year and look at what my options are for this year coming up. Why, why did I choose to work in a field where you don't get paid? Where you are lucky if you get subsistence? I mean, I don't mind working for that to gain experience and further my skills and connections in the field, but I now have student loans that will need to be payed off sometime. But I have been shaking the Cambridge tree and somethings have been at least thinking of falling out.
1) there is a early iron age site in turkey that needs someone to help develope a pottery sequence. This would be amazing experience and possibly could be funded through the British institute there, which, I am told, doesn't have a lot of competition for scholarships. So here's hoping.
2) I and some of my supervisors have connections with the British school in Knossos which has a museum full of sherds that needs to be worked through. But they might not have funding / need another person to help do it.

I was also thinking of trying to find some work in one of the many musems in Germany so I could learn german and get experience at the same time, but I think that's a longer shot. I'm trying though.
So if any of you have some bizarre connection to a German museum...

This is my future. Excitingly unknown? financially insecure? reliant on personal connections rather than ability? You bet!

Weird thing about me #4
Though I have to admit, this may be cheating a bit since I have a feeling this is something that everyone does. I don't know for sure, and I'm writing about it, so I justify this as weird thing about me #4.
I keep seeing people here that remind me of people at home. That's not so weird in and of itself, but I think it's extremely strange that the people I see always remind me of only minor acquaintances or lesser friends than the people I really care about. For example: 'hey, that girl looks/acts/has the exact same aura/ as someone in my first year English class.' And I was so sure that I'd seen this younger male with really long blond hair before that I considered asking if he lived in Edmonton, though I really don't know where I would have seen him or what his name is. I have a feeling he went to the same high school as I did, but I severely doubt this is the case.
See, reminding me of people I don't even know. Isn't that weird? I was thinking that maybe it's because I know these people less and just have a general impression of them. So when that general impression is matched, I'm reminded of the person. Whereas with my friends, I know more about you, you in my head is much more complex.
No, but that doesn't really work, because you could also argue that since I know more about you, there are more features and characteristics that could appear in someone else that would remind me of you thereby being statistically more probable.

huh. weird.

what the hey

I'm jumping on the bandwagon. The really sad thing is that I already did this once on facebook and therefore am doubling my waste of time. But it feels like a time wasting sort of day. I should be starting on my next project or doing some german, but meh. I can justify a day off.

Life SoundtrackIF YOUR LIFE WAS A MOVIE, WHAT WOULD THE SOUNDTRACK BE?So, here's how it works:1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)2. Put it on shuffle3. Press play4. For every question, type the song that's playing5. When you go to a new question, press the next button6. Don't lie
Opening Credits:
a) The Flaming Lips 'Turn it on'. (Hey one that works well right of the bat!)
b) The Smalls 'My Chords like this'

Waking Up:
a) Mogwai 'auto rock' (This one is perfect... it's like my itunes knows...)
b) Marilyn Manson 'I don't like the drugs (but the drugs like me)' (So it's going to be that kind of a day is it?)

First day at High School:
a) Green day 'The grouch' (Perfect song number 3. this is getting weird)
b) The Trews 'Hollis and Morris'

Falling in Love:
a) Hayden 'pots and pans' (Seriously now... it's not just getting weird, it is weird. I think it's perfect, sort of a quirky falling in love)
b) The Shins 'fighting in a sack'

Fight Song:
a) Damien Rice 'Lonelily' (okay, this one and the Shins, above, should be reversed... itunes messed up a little... but still)
b) Smashing Pumpkins 'slow dawn' (guess I'm not much of a fighter)

Breaking Up:
a) Joseph Arthur 'in the night' (Now we're getting back on track)
b) Clinic 'internal wrangler'

Prom:
a) The Smalls 'domination' (huh...)
b) Big Sugar 'all hell for a basement' (apparently it's going to be an angsty prom)

Life:
a) 'The man who sold the world' sung by Jordi Unga (I love it. Absolutely perfect, it's gonna be a good life)
b) Econoline Crush 'Elegant' (okay, maybe not such a great life)

Mental Breakdown:
a) Chris Bell 'Speed of sound' (a little relaxed for breaking down, but still, it's about being jilted so I suppose it works)
b) Space 'Charlie M' (this is much more fitting for a breakdown)

Driving:
a) the Watchmen 'stereo'
b) Steve Burns 'a snivelling mess'


Flashback:
a) Paul Westerberg 'nowhere man' (only works if the flashback is showing how useless and wasted one's life was)
b) Death Cab for Cutie 'Champagne from a paper cup'

Getting Back Together:
a) The Grapes of Wrath 'I am here' (Fitting song, most definitely)
b) Smashing Pumpkins 'perfect' (what more can I say?)

Wedding:
a) Green day 'nice guys finish last' (oh dear lord. More interesting than my prom)
b) The strokes 'razorblades' (forboding perhaps?)

Birth of Child:
a) Miles Davis 'my ship' (who knew I had this on my ipod? I didn't)
b) The Flaming lips 'Pilot can at the queer of god' (doesn't look good for my child does it?)

Final Battle:
a) The Grapes of Wrath 'see emily play'
b) Ann Reinking in Chicago 'Funny Honey' (much like magnolia, I was wondering when the show tunes would kick in... and also like Magnoia, it had to be in the battle scene didn't it)

Death Scene:
a) The muppets 'ma na ma na' (What a way to go! I'm laughing so hard I'm crying! Not exactly a glamorous way to die now is it?)
b) Daniel Powter 'Give me life' (That's much better)

Funeral Song:
a) Damien Rice 'eskimo' (moving)
b) The Shins 'saint simon' (I'm okay with this one too)

End Credits:
a) hayden 'lullaby' (ah Hayden comes through in the end to close off perfetly!)
b) Damien Rice (again) 'volcano' (one of my favourite songs so I'm happy)

So. In summation: Some extremely fitting songs, some not so much, and I can look forward to my final battle in accordance with show tunes.

The end is in sight. For this essay at least. I have a) already cut enough words out of it to lie that it's only slightly over, b) found a colour printer, which was surprisingly difficult, and printed off my images, and c) searched out those elusive footnoting and reference bits that I managed to not make note of.

So now, I will go to yoga, try to convince my friends to go for sushi afterwards, and then finish it up and print it out before I hit the sack.

Yay! I have to say, I think this one is much better than the first one, so here's hoping!

Blogging lull

Everyone seems to be in a blogging lull right now, so I thought I'd do my best to make myself get out of mine so that others might follow suit. You never know, right?

So yesterday I bussed into Oxford (approximatley 3hrs each way) so that I could have an interview with this fellow named John Camp who runs an excavation in the Athenian agora that I would like to be on this summer. It's an intersting locaion to dig, it's in Athens, it fits with the time between school and the lefkandi dig I'm on, you don't have to pay, and they supply accommodation and a food allowance. All in all, not bad prospects. The problems are that I will still be finishing my course and need to be in Cambridge when it starts, missing about a week at the beginning, and the fact that I'm Canadian studying at a British school puts me in the cracks in terms of allegiance on an American dig. So I've been accepted to the dig, but he doesn't want me to take up a bed and would prefer for me to find my own accommodation. Eep. It will be subsidised with €50 a week, but only the cheapest of hostels go for about €11 euro. It's okay, I think I'd be willing to do that since I've stayed in one of those hostels before and it wasn't bad quality wise. But still. I think the accommodation they provide is much nicer. I'm trying to see if the canadian institute in Athens can help me out with anything, but it's so small that I doubt they'd have anything. I'll keep looking, who knows, maybe if I pick the brains of some of my connected friends I can find someone to stay with or something like that.

So there' that. My essay is due on Friday, and it's actually shaping up. It's much too long right now, and I have no idea what to cut, but it has a good point to it and I think that the argument I'm making is much better than in my first essay. It's the writing that still needs some help, but hey, I've still got a couple of days to make it work. I just need to focus. And skip German.
After this week I can start to really focus on my pot sherd project and getting my thesis off the ground. I'm excited for both, I feel headed in at least the right general direction right now.

I think.

What else...? Oh, my soccer team is finished for the season (it's considered a winter sport here, which I think is absurd. I suppose they have to limit it, but still, there is absolutely no reason why soccer cannot be played in the summer as well). As you can tell I'm rather grumpy about it being over. Now how am I going to be motivated to get out and run around? Seriously. This is not a good move for my mental or physical wellness.
We did, I think, perfectly. We tied for first place on points in the league with two other teams (we each won 6 out of 7 games), but we were in third place with the lowest goal differential. This means that although we did really well, the team stays in the third tier and doesn't move up a level. This is perfect because I think that staying in the 3rd tier is good for a team who is not necessarily in it to compete and it's important that those who have never played before but want to join don't feel outclassed. Therefore, we placed perfectly.

Alright, so now, needs must focus.

Nothing of interest

I just thought I'd best post and tell why no post has been occurring.

It's because if I did post, it would be nothing but slight neuroticism about my impending due date with an essay that is nowhere near complete, my continuing to think of German as the 10th circle of hell, and how, despite my anxieties on my work, I still maintain an optimism that things will work out.

see? booooooring. You've all heard it before.

So in addendum, I will add weird thing about me number 3, to make things a little more interesting (hopefully). I have a bizarre obsession with clipping my toenails. They must be kept short and clean at all times. If I have somehow forgotten clippers (say on a vacation or something) it will drive me slightly mad. I think it's for two reasons: one being who the heck wants long gross toenails? and two being the karate factor. I have been cut by someones toenail before, and that is not cool. In karate it's important to keep all nails short and clean, and since I chew my finger nails and don't have to worry about clipping them, the obsession developed only for my toenails. I think it's weird.

SnowSnowSnowSnow

It's like i'm two. Seriously, I am so excited that it's snowing, the first thing I did when I got up (apart form getting soem clothes on, and yelling SNOW!) was to grab my camera and play outside for awhile. You would think I never saw snow before in my life.

gah. small venting required.

I was working really well, finally getting stuff done on my essay, until this girl decided to sit next to me and mouth breath.

okay, fair enough, it's cold season and I can't fault her for what may be illness induced loud breathing. But it bugs me nonetheless and that's all I can think of right now. I keep thinking about something I read about in a turn of the century text about mouth-breathers and their inherently boorish nature...
Maybe I'll go home and try and work there instead. I need some lunch anyways.

Addition: this made me think of weird thing about me #2:
I am oddly fascinated about the concept of mouth breathing and all that it implies. This text I was referring to talked about a student who was below average and a mouth breather until undergoing an operation to remove some sort of nodules from his nose. Surprise surprise... he instantly became a perfect child who was bright, caring, athletic and had perfect posture! (I may be exaggerating somewhat, but the idea is there). And ever since then, as previously noted, I have been oddly fascinated by this. I suppose it is the idea that something as small as how we breath can be, and is, a point for stereotyping and debasing others, and how these ideas can get handed down from periods in time where we can excuse this sort of thinking but somehow manage to linger on.
Okay, I'm over thinking this, I'm in essay mode...

some things in my life:

My essay is at least on a track. I don't know if it's a good track, but it is a track nonetheless.
My soccer team is on a role. We won our 3rd game in a row, and this one was a hard one.
The disease is coming to get me again. I can feel it invading. guh.

and I've been tagged to write 6 weird things about myself which I think may have to come in instalments.
the 1st weird thing about me is that I have an (unnatural?) tendency to empathize with inanimate objects. For example, when I was younger, my mom bought us new pillows, but I felt too sorry for my old pillow to get rid of it. I actually cried.

Here are those pictures of the grand "snowfall" that occured last week. Can you see the snow? Huh? Can you? It's kind of like Where's Waldo".

Man, I am such a snow snob.

I don't know how to start. In fact I don't know what I'm doing at all. My paper that is. I didn't get the best mark on my first paper, which is somewhat disheartening. It wasn't awful, it's definitely manageable, but it wasn't what I'd hoped. This next essay doesn't seem to be doing any better. I know I need to write something tonight, but I just cannot seem to get started because I don't really know what I want to say.

It doesn't help that I was sitting in the library all day trying to find articles to no avail. It's just not flowing together.

Robbie B-ing

A yes. Good ole Robert Burns. We thank thee for the poem-ing and the giving us a reason to be haggis-ing and ceilidh-ing. Where would we be without poems such as "To a Louse" and "To a Mouse" not to mention "Auld Lang Syne".
We were formal hall-ing in celebration of Scotland's National poet yesterday and though I was denied even my vegetarian haggis (apparently some meat eaters changed their minds about eating the king of the pudding race and sneakily took my food instead) it was indeed good fun.

(Geeze. It's actually harder than it looks to be verbing all these nouns, you really have to think... sorry to all you who don't read hypocriticaconfessions. Inside joke.)

In other news:
It snowed here. Really it did. I was going to put up pictures but I re-instled windows and haven't yet recieved the camera software that my mom sent me. So no pics, but it should be soon. But seriously, it took me a while to realise it had snowed because it only stuck in a few places like roof-tops and on grass. Most of it was melted by the time I even set foot out the door at 11:00. I was amused.

Also, I am very nervous about going to the faculty today. We get our marks back for our first essays. eep. It's kind of like christmas when you know you could be getting something really awful.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Yup. Magnolia was right.

The little roses didn't even give me a chance to kill them before they died. It's okay though. I never really felt a connection with them. They were too delicate and, though very pretty, also very sharp. They didn't feel like they needed love, they were already too pretty to care.

It doesn't look too bad in the photo, and really it wasn't all dead just yet, but it was crumpling and disintigrating and it had brought in a few little buggy things. So I got a different one. This one I am assured will be easy to care for and will produce some lovely flowers. I like it better already. Simple and easy going. Just what I like.

And the essays are going fine. A little bit of trouble considering about 75% of my necessary sources are in another language. You know that you're in trouble when you are happy to find one in french or italian let alone english. I've said it once, I'll say it again, and most likely I'll say it many more times in the near future... Stupid German. (Sorry Bonobo).

settling in

Ahhhh.

My books are beginning to pile.

My mess is beginning to accumulate.

My food is stocked.

My life is starting to get back to being solid.

Watch and in a little while I'll be bored with it, but it's a nice thought right now to have some sort of consistent space for a while. Plus now it's a space with a plant!

I really wanted to pick up something alive to cheer the place up a bit, something to share my glad time and my woes. If I can't have some sort of animal, a plant is the next best thing right? Better than talking to myself isn't it? Slightly less crazy? And it's a rose, so now I can stop and smell the roses almost any time I want!

Here's hoping I don't kill it immediately

I'm back, and I'm smelly

The "back" is pretty self explanitory, the "smelly" will be explained promptly.

So Crete was beautiful.
My new year's resolution to be better with photos has already fallen to the wayside because I am looking at the photos I took and thinking that a) there are not nearly enough and b) they aren't the best photos I could have taken. I missed a lot of stuff like the palace and the pack of dogs or the cats that called the villa their home. I also missed the "skating rink" that was set up in the nearby town. I just about laughed aloud at thes kids skating on a thin layer of ice on what I think was plexi glass. And I us skating here as a liberal term since they were more clomping around and falling all over the place than skating. But C'est la Vie. I will learn from it and try to improve.
But really, there wasn't a lot of sight seeing. I was there to learn about vase shapes and how to draw them and that's mostly what I did. I was staying in the Villa Ariadne which was set up by Arthur Evans himself back in the early 1900's when he was doing the original excavations of Knossos. This was very interesting for me because if you know anything about the founding fathers and places in archaeological history Evans figures very promimently. The rooms we were in had of course been renovated and whatnot, but still. The below photo is a view of Heraklion from where we were staying. Very hilly, very beautiful. Very peaceful this time of year because there aren't that many tourists at all so most things in Knossos are not open.

That's a small view of the villa we were staying in. It's got a garden which was nice and which in summer I'm sure would be beautiful.

And this is an example of some of the stuff I was learning to draw. This is a kylix sherd, kind of like a wine goblet and fairly simple. They get more complex and confusing that that one, trust me.

Crete was also cold. Well, colder than I expected. It's funny how 10C in my head is something completely different from the 10C that was Crete in winter. I mean I survived easily enough, but it was chilly, particularly sitting in a concrete box most of the day without access to the sun. And really, had I packed a bit smarter it would have been more than fine. But that's were the smelliness comes in. I had really only packed two medium sweaters and some long sleeved shirts and some tanks for underneath. When you wear 4-5 layers each day, and both sweaters, they become fairly smelly fairly quickly. Who knew?

So that's pretty much it.

Except you know when you find out something that you just haven't thought about? Did you know that they have hedghogs running around free over here? That they just show up in peoples' gardens nd what not? I hadn't really thought about where hedgehogs come from, in my mind they come from the pet shop. Weird.

back in the act

Well you'll all be very pleased to note that I have arrived safely with little to no fuss. I apparently stayed up way to late last night (10:00 Cambridge time), because I didn't wake up until a marvelous 1:00 pm (also cambridge time). I'm still telling myself that it's alright considering that's, what, around 6:00 in the morning edmonton time, so really I woke up early.
I'm not usually that jet lagged, but I should have gone to bed earlier. I was so knackered that it wouldn't have been hard.
So things I must do today now that I am out of bed:
Get some books
Get some fruit
Get an alarm clock (forgot mine... hmm maybe that's why I slept so late)
Get unpacked (from Edmonton)
Get packed (for Greece)

Sounds like a good day. And yet I still have this urge to go back to bed.

gingerbread and puppy dogs

The holidays were good. Very enjoyable indeed. Full of lots and lots and lots of food. Crafty Bean was right in saying that too many people worry about their weight between Christmas and New Year when we really should be worried about our weight between New Years and Christmas. I obviously wasn't worried enough to stop eating everything in sight anyways. But I had fun, and am pleased. (the above photo is a gingerbread house my sisters and I made from scratch. Most of the credit goes to my little sister for making all the gingerbread and the icing, but I helped decorate! very important...)

And that's my puppy. Because she's cute and I miss not having her around when I'm away. I like having someone (or rather something) to cuddle even if she is just a fuzzy version of the devil.

And, as you may have noticed with the photos, I did get a digital camera for Christmas, so I have resolved to try and take more photos of my world and things that excite me so that I can share them. I know you might not be excited by them yourselves, but still. I don't know for sure when I will be coming home, it could realistically be not until next Christmas (and September at the earliest at any rate). Considering I leave on Thursday, I have a feeling I won't be seeing everyone before I go. An unhappy case, but probably true, so keep blogging please. I like to know what's happening in your world.