elanya

They decided yesterday to close the school until 11:30 (which is a really weird time, if you ask me - why not just say noon :p). This morning I woke up at 8, and took jola out fore a walk to survey the damage. We did't have much actual snow, but the reads were *very* icy. I have some pics up on facebook - I took her to the park to chase her ball, which was pretty cute :3

They decided to just call it a day round 9:00, so, hooray, snow day! I was in the middle of making pancakes and bailey's spiked hot chocolate!

And realizing that my garbage disposal pipes were acting up again -_-

And then I found that even though I was scheduled to work 8 hours today, I'm only being given 4 for the snow day, so I have to work extra next week

And then Jola was sick on the carpet (better than the bed I suppose - she horked up a piece of the hook I gave her the other day)

And then I realized I was out of paper towels, and had used the last of my hot chocolate *and* baileys.

And then I remembered that I left most of the stuff I need to do any productive school work at school.

Bah!

Maybe I'll see if i can get my knitting sorted out and watch some more Clint Eastwood flicks

My school progress has been slightly derailed by the reading of a really kick-ass Atlantic maritime histoty of Bermuda. It is making me thing about many thing, and I'm enjoying it a lot! I'm probably about halfway through the actual text, which is about 500 pages.... plus another 200 of notes and index. Its a big book - probably this is why it costs a$50! Also it is Hardcover. It is only a matter of time before I order my ow copy :D

In food news, I have been doing a bit of experimental cooking lately. On Sunday (Maybe Monday?) I made a brisket in the crock pot, only with the addition that I added a bunch of Stuff! in the bottom! Stuff being: a can of diced tomatoes, 1 chopped green pepper, 1/2 a chopped onion, 2 dice seranno peppers, a ton of garlic. I used a rub on the brisket that i don't remember the details of exactly (I made a ton of it last time I made brisket, inspired by various internets recipes.... it is chili powder based, with garlic, salt and pepper, cinnamon, and maybe coriander? Cloves? I forget, honestly). I also threw some more of the rub in with the veggies. It turned out really well - the meat infused with the veggie flavours a bit, and the veggies all stewed up and got infused with the meat juice, and the brisket didn't dry out too much when cooking. Success!

Tonight I made some brown rice, and used the juice that I'd saved from the veggies to make a risotto, as I have been craving carbs lately and hope this will be a better option. I also added the rest of the veggies to it, nom nom nom...

Of course because it is frickin' cold in here (bah on lack of insulation), I decided I should do some baking to round out the healthy cooking... So I juuuust took some experimental brownies out of the oven. Now, I could probably have found something similar to what I wanted by checking the internets, but I was feeling experimental! I wanted chocolate peanut butter brownies! So I made normal brownies, and also some peanut butter stuff to swirl in (I wanted something like cheesecake brownies, only without the cream cheese..). The stuff was an egg, 1/2 C pb, and a tablespoon or so each of sugar (I was using unsweetened natural pb) and flour (as a thickener). It was probably too thick, actually! I filled the pan a little over half-way with brownie, then loped unequal portions (whoops) of pb and brownie batter on top of that. I had to smooth it out with a spatula, and I suspect it got a little more blended than I would have preferred. We'll see when I cut them open, which should be soon @_@

Its been kind of nice to have a night where I'm not super tired to catch up on house stuff - I did a bunch of dishes, and used my kitchen, and generally feel better about life. Tomorrow I am going to go swimming with Megan, and am looking forward to it (how I feel when the pool looms large in front of me is a different matter...). It is going to be cold again tomorrow, and maybe snow tomorrow night or Friday morning. I heard reports of now this morning too, so here's hoping we might see a bit this year!

Now I'm gonna read more about Bermuda :D

ETA: brownie turned out very well!possibly need more of the PB, though that's a lot of PB...

I'm hoping to start doing regular Progress Reports soon on how my Dissertation writing is going. I think it might help me keep... well not on track, but at least make me aware of how much I am and am not working :p

I need to get into some kind of habit of working at home, even if it is just researching. And regularly. Even if it is just an hour. The bi-weekly longer sessions at Starbucks I've been having with Merc are much better, but even then I can feel my focus lagging...

Anyway, we'll see where it goes. I have a big chunk of my theory stuff written out, and I'm working in the Atlantic History bit. That is going to be fun to write - I have a lot of the material, I just need to work it all into its proper context.

I've been pretty busy with other, more interesting, life bits lately, but I really need to buckle down on this!

I proooobably shouldn't be starting a million side projects, but I'm telling myself I need thing to use as carrots to motivate me to do real work! After 10-10:30, you can go play in the Underworld Chat. If you have done 1-2 hours of work tonight, you can write for an hour, or knit, or etc...

This has worked well for me in the past! Lets hope I can do it again :x

I'm trying to be more organized about my knitting also, in the hopes that i will not have to start this thing over again. So I've got stitch markers, and I'm writing stuff down, and using lifelines.... wish me luck :D


At work, I am close to finishing the slides that need doing right away. In fact, depending on whether or not the Encrustations fall into that category, I may be done before I finish writing this entry :p Otherwise, 5 to go! After that, I have 14 more binders of stuff that is less pressing. I'll probably switch to only working on it once a week, or in the mornings or afternoons or something. I have a bunch of photography I need to catch up on, and that is what I'm going to focus on tomorrow. Meanwhile, the knitting should help give me something to do when I'm at it :D

In other news.... I have a ton of meat at my house that needs eating! Twice last week I took stuff out of the freezer to make dinner and never got a chance, for various reasons. And to add to that, on Saturday I bought some hamburger to take to a BBQ and got there too late to actually cook them! A shame - they had garlic and jalapeños in them, and were stuffed with cheese :x I also have a piece of tilapia, and some lamb ribs.... I cooked the burgers and fish last night, and have the fish with me for lunch today. I ate some of the burgers yesterday (for lunch, and dinner) but still have a bunch. Dinner tonight, I guess! The ribs are in the crockpot - I am hoping they'll be good, as I couldn't find any good directions for lamb riblets! I rubbed them down with olive oil, lemon pepper, coriander, and cinnamon, and threw some sherry and water in the pot with them. We'll see how that goes :x

And this is the last slide if the unprovenienced artifacts binder, so yes - done before I finished the entry! I just wanted to do a quick to Do list here:

-Give JJ her flea meds
-update the board with dates on above
-Solo at 7 (yes yes... I'm such a hypocrite :x I'll do work after! I promise!)
-Work on Diss (see! ^-^)
-Laundry? (do I dare? D: D: D:)


...I thought there was more :x Ahh well! Have a great day everyone :D

So, I took my computer in today to be looked at. They charge $65/hour for a 'rush' job, which means in the next 2-4 days, as opposed to 7-10.... and he told me they are busy atm so it would probably be closer to 10 :p he could have been full of lies, but even seven is a long time for me!

Anyway, since I already checked the lcd inverter, that should narrow it down a bit, I hope. I think it is a bad connection somewhere, really, and I am hoping that it will be really obvious to them -_-

So anyway, I am really only going to be online from work or school (where I am now) until it gets fixed. so, I may go a little crazy. I am in theory here to do work, but I have mostly been catching up on internet things :p

I am opening files now, though, so that may result in productivity....we can only hope ;p

Today has been sort of a wasted day. I was slow leaving the house, then came to school with just enough time to cobble together a really crappy short presentation for the Brown Bag 'what did I do for my summer vacation fieldwork' talks, then went to the gym. Because Megan and I had to get a locker, and she only has an hour, we didn't stay very long - also, I wanted to make it back for said talk, since I *did* manage to out something together.

Short and sweet workout. Well okay really we had like 25 min, and did bench press and a teensy bit of warmup cardio ;p

Then the lecture, which ran from about 12:30 to 2. I think mine went over well enough, for what it was. And since then.... I don't know how to start stuff! I need supplies to start artifact cataloguing. I could go home, and then do some errand running in that regard. The two school things I need to be working on this term are artifacts and actual Writing. I need to figure out how I am going to organize my time... Maybe since I have two personal work days, I can have one for writing/research, and one for artifacts? At least the French translation I am working on seems to be going more smoothly. Once I am done with that, I'll turn over my evenings to more writing, i expect. At lest, I'll try.

I think I was the only one who had any free donuts at lunch. What's wrong with people? :V

Well, I'm here before eleven - I'll consider that a win.

I have a bunch of things I want to do today, other than just working on artifact processing.

-talk to donny about teaching next year (again)
-talk to Kevin about money (again), ha.

...I'm sure there was more.

Anyway. I got an email from my dad this morning asking em about summer plans. Then I was talking to Ryan, who is moving, and both these things have been making me think.

I really really enjoy/prefer living on my own, but I know I can live with people. However I have a shit ton of Stuff, and two pets. I'm not exactly a slob, but I'm not the neatest person in the world either. I like having my own space, and then some. On the other hand, if the rent is going to go up again this year, as it has ever year since I moved in, then where I'm at is less attractive. Even if moving would mean having to paint my walls :p

I still don't know what I am going to do this summer. My grandmother is ill - still in the hospital after her fall a month or so ago. I'd like to see her, and maybe my dad. But there are also other peeps that I haven't seen in forever (Julie and Steve!) that I'd like to see (well, also Jodie and Stephen and Kiera, but that's even more of a pipe dream). And also Underworld @_@

Ugh.

Oh also I got my Glasscock rejection letter. Yeah, don't be discouraged from applying ion the future, my ass :p

So.... with my paper half written, I an changing its focus. This isn't going to require a lot of changes - mostly it will better reflect how things have been coming out already. Instead of focusing n race/class/gender, i am going to look at the performance of identity more broadly, and focus mostly on The Shadow. Could this be because I'm 12 pages in and havent finished talking about the title character? Yes, yes it just might ;p

Anyway, I need to:

Load the dishwasher
Go pick up some groceries (cat littler, breakfast, something to get me through lunch and dinner)
Write like a fiend!
'Class' tonight @_@
decide if I'm going in to work at all tmorrow and let Catherine know :x

Good times!

Off to the store.

I managed to get all of my list stuff done, but then it was 9, and my night stalled out early, so I watched the end(!!!) or Utena with curtana, and it was all awesome bt in a way that really I can't figure out how to explain. Its a really powerful story about friendship and love, and the line (circle?) between slefishness and selflessness, and the power of our own memories over ourselves. Anyway, it is awesome. An no one turns into a race car, but boys do get their pictures taken on one shirtless. because photography = preserving a moment = preseving memoy and/opr preserving youth and sexy vitality. Or somethin. Anyway.

Then I did some writing for a game, and now I am going to bed! My body is both moaning from yesterday's workout and begging for more, so maybe I will do some pushups to keep it satisfied. For the record, front squats are awesome.

Sleeeep!

Oh no wait I got derailed talking about utena and didn't talk about any of the stuff I'd intended.

hem.

I need to find some more stuff for my display on Saturday afternoon. I have.... a pot? I'd like some other 'artifacts' that kids can handle. I also have a groundstone axe I made, I guess I could use that :x but I need moooooar stuuuuuf! So I need to sort that tomorrow. i am thinking about taking a half day to do that and also work on artifacts tomorrow afternoon, and also catch the AIA lecture about Viking longships :D 'cause it is at 5:30, and if i leave at the normal time I'll miss it :/

Okay, now sleeeeeep!

I don't update enough in here for my own liking anymore. feh!

So, have some cool Hungarian music (different song from the one I put on fb already ;p):




Also, in my class tonight we might get free pizza. Yay, pizza! Also, of note for local people, this weekend is Shipwreck weekend. I'll be giving a talk, woot! At 9:10, oh joy @_@

Not 100% sure what i am doing in the afternoon, but if in doubt, dress as a pirate @_@

Better get on that, eh? :x

My department is seriously considering a name change from the Department of Anthropology o the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology.

I am not especially fond of the idea, (not that I have any real input into the matter), and I am trying to decide if I am just being resistant to change or if I just disagree with their reasons. Unfortunately, this is only semi-coherent, as I don't have the time to put together something more organized. I have actual work to do, strangely enough! But this is important enough to be to take a half-assed stab at, at least.

The main arguments *for* it are, as far as I can determine...

1. We have a disproportionately high number of archaeologists on staff (mostly because of the Nautical program), and the new name would therefore reflect that difference.

We actually just got sent a chart one of the faculty prepared, that shows that compared to 91 other institutions (I don't know all which, though), we have one of the highest ratios of archaeologists to other anthropologists (see what I did there) in the country, at 54%. We also have one of the higher ratios of combined archaeologists and biological anthropologists to other anthropologists in the country, at 69%. I have no idea how exactly this is supposed to be relevant, as bioarch is *not* archaeology, but considered one of the four fields all on its own. Also - we don't have any linguistic anthropologists that I'm aware of, so what his is really saying is that we still have 31% of the faculty who are cultural, and only 15% are bioarch. Really, my problem with this argument boils down to the question of why having a large number of archaeologists magically separates the sub-discipline from its parent. Get enough of them together, and archaeologists are somehow not anthropologists anymore?

2. Because the new name would better reflect the reality of the department, we would attract more undergrads. We need to attract more undergrads because of the financial crunch and related budget crunch.

First of all, this only works if you assume that kids applying for college know what archaeology *is*, and don't know how to find the relevant department otherwise. Which seems a little silly to me, as the rest of us archaeology types throughout the years seem to have figured it out. The real cynic in me expects that we're going to get a lot more 'so when do we get to the dinosaurs' type questions if we take *this* attitude :p Anyone interested in anthropology has to take one of the many many intro courses anyway, all of which at least briefly discuss the four fields... So anyone considering the department as a major will have already encountered us in that sense. Anyone who googles 'tamu archaeology' is also going to find us - it really is not that hard. Do we have any evidence that kids who are interested in archaeology have trouble finding us? Maybe I'm just not understanding the argument here. maybe they are tying to argue that kids have a better idea of what archaeology is than anthropology, and might be more willing to check out the department.... and, you know, the intro to *anthropology* courses.... because of it? You don't think they're going to go 'where are the into to archaeology courses'? It just seems tricksy. Luring them in is going to create expectations that we're not exactly prepped to handle, because some of our archaeology faculty DON'T TEACH UNDERGRADS! EVER! My program specifically has very slim undergrad course-to-faculty ratio :p and not all the courses taught are even really directly relevant to archaeology, in name or content, and sometimes both. If you are just looking at the undergrad offerings, then our department's distribution is a lot less clearly weighted towards archaeology. In fact.... looking at the catalog of courses offered since 2008, archaeological focused ones only make up around 10% of the undergraduate offerings. Bah.

Obviously the name change is not relevant to attracting students at the graduate level in the same way. At that point, it becomes a completely different and much more internally (to the discipline) political issue, which I haven't seen considered at all.

3. Other reasons
There are some other reasons given, but those are the main onces I've seen pushed. One of the others was that Nautical arch is really not explicitly anthropological, so the general department name is not reflective of what we do. Which really just makes me cringe, because, of course, we *OUGHT* to be *more* anthropological, in my mind. Another is that no one really knows what the department does. And this is just going to send the message that what we do is 'archaeology', which is not anthropology. So, yeah...'hi, did you dig up any dinosaurs lately? Did you find any gold?' The name change is not going to promote any understanding of the department or what we do - it is just going to create more separation in the mind of the public between archaeology and anthropology :p Again, I don't see how this is going to potentially protect us from budget or program cuts. Another is that other universities have split their departments or deal with archaeology separately. As I referenced in regards to attracting graduate students, this is a disciplinary/political issue that no one is *apparently* talking about. Bah. Hello elephant, how are you and how did you get into the room?

I am more or less okay with the four fields approach, though really I think there should be more integration within the discipline (or more recognition of existing overlap, in some cases), not less (and I am going to reference a great blog article for a bigger discussion of the issue, though it focuses on linguistic anthropology, over at Glossographia). The separation is acceptable *within* anthropology, but the idea of defining archaeology as separate from anthropology bothers me. I really am not convinced by any of the arguments presented, as you can see. So... there is the 2cents I currently have time for :p

Now I need to do some real work.