Meeting with Ben
Dec. 1st, 2006 03:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
theyellowhobbitThe meeting went well, and he was ok with me not staying up all night to finish the materials section. He just wants it for before the 15th, which is fine by me.
He treated me to breakfast, so I got a caramel sundae latte. I normally don't drink caffeine unless I'm drinking for the taste of the drink, since I can wake up with my archaeologyness. So by the end of the meeting I was quite hyper, and I'm still a bit bouncy.
I have to drop Qumran and look at Sepphoris instead, because Qumran is too much of an anomaly. I want to look at Qumran specifically because it's an anomaly, since I'm making the point that bathing practices were not unified in that time period. But then he said it would be a more complex argument, and I said that more complex is better. Then he said I didn't have space and I said it can be 120 pages, of course I have space! And then he said I didn't have time and I stopped at that, because I realized that less work is better. I'll talk about Sepphoris in the historical part.
(The whole reason I can do Sepphoris is because Katy Galor is my archaeological heroine, and she sent me an article on it!)
Other than that- he agreed with my assessment of SBL and the Indiana Jones hat, and liked my idea for Remedial Archaeology with Dr. Schuyler. And then he said he can do an independent study with me in the Bronze Age if I'm worried about graduating with enough anthro credits. I think I might do it anyways, regardless of whether or not I can get my Bar Ilan credits (which I really do need. And they were 1000$, so I should rightfully get them...)
And Ben gave me lots of ideas in terms of looking at the rooms that were around the miqva'ot, and their purpose in the ritual.
And I have to explain the whole idea of Jewish Law in my thesis, since the people reading it might not know about halacha. I forget that not everyone has an extensive knowledge of Judaism. I explain the purity laws a bit in the intro, but I even have to talk about the fact that Jews have all these laws and that we have to follow them and that there's an interpretive tradition. I have to give a date to the book of Leviticus as well. Since it's not a part of my argument, I can just go with an academic date, and it will be ok. I think it was written in 1250 BCE when Moses went to Sinai, but if I write that it's from 500ish BCE in my paper I wont get struck down by lightning.
Over break I have to write the halacha section, which hopefully will overlap with my JWST thesis. If it does, that will be nice. That's why Ben assigned it to me for break. And then next semester I have to turn my thesis into a thesis, and organize the sections and work on the actual writing mechanics and stuff. Now that I'm mostly done with the research it'll be just like any other paper, except that it's bigger. But it doesn't seem big and scary anymore.
Now I'm thinking of maybe doing my PhD at Brown and studying with Katy Galor, since she's awesome. And then I'd be near Boston and in RI and I could live in Providence and do my laundry for free at my house. And I can go to NJitW easily, though SJitW would be more of a challenge. But Brown has money so I'll be stipended, and that will be good. If I wanted to save money I could live at home for the first year, though I'd rather not. If Katy Galor isn't at Brown by then, I guess I'd have to follow her elsewhere. I'm not sure whether or not she has tenure...
And there's also the issue that there are no Jewish males my age (or my age in 2-3 years) that arent yeshiva bochurs in Providence. But I'm not going to let that influence my academic decisions, because I have faith that Hashem will send me my bashert, and things will work out however they are supposed to. Maybe he can just move to RI with me, and if he really was in need of a job he could always work at Adler's. And then after I get my PhD we can be off to Israel/wherever that's not RI.
*Update* Lotan is Kosher and I could stay with my cousins on Yahel during Shabbatot if I dig at Yotvata (the website says no independent travel since they don't want the students off on their own during the dig. However, I won't be an undergrad, and I know Israel better than most of the students who would volunteer). Not the ideal, since I love Jerusalem, but a few weeks with Jodi Magness is worth the non-Jerusalemness. And I'll be living in Jerusalem for the next 2 years anyways. And I haven't seen my cousins in a while. And I love Yahel, even if I'd be the only shomer shabbas person there. It's doable, and I've done it before.
Yotvata's website:
http://www.missouri.edu/~rndbp3/Yotvata/YotvataRomanFort.htm
(This also means we aren't staying at Yotvata, so no Yotvata ice cream every day :( Alas!)
He treated me to breakfast, so I got a caramel sundae latte. I normally don't drink caffeine unless I'm drinking for the taste of the drink, since I can wake up with my archaeologyness. So by the end of the meeting I was quite hyper, and I'm still a bit bouncy.
I have to drop Qumran and look at Sepphoris instead, because Qumran is too much of an anomaly. I want to look at Qumran specifically because it's an anomaly, since I'm making the point that bathing practices were not unified in that time period. But then he said it would be a more complex argument, and I said that more complex is better. Then he said I didn't have space and I said it can be 120 pages, of course I have space! And then he said I didn't have time and I stopped at that, because I realized that less work is better. I'll talk about Sepphoris in the historical part.
(The whole reason I can do Sepphoris is because Katy Galor is my archaeological heroine, and she sent me an article on it!)
Other than that- he agreed with my assessment of SBL and the Indiana Jones hat, and liked my idea for Remedial Archaeology with Dr. Schuyler. And then he said he can do an independent study with me in the Bronze Age if I'm worried about graduating with enough anthro credits. I think I might do it anyways, regardless of whether or not I can get my Bar Ilan credits (which I really do need. And they were 1000$, so I should rightfully get them...)
And Ben gave me lots of ideas in terms of looking at the rooms that were around the miqva'ot, and their purpose in the ritual.
And I have to explain the whole idea of Jewish Law in my thesis, since the people reading it might not know about halacha. I forget that not everyone has an extensive knowledge of Judaism. I explain the purity laws a bit in the intro, but I even have to talk about the fact that Jews have all these laws and that we have to follow them and that there's an interpretive tradition. I have to give a date to the book of Leviticus as well. Since it's not a part of my argument, I can just go with an academic date, and it will be ok. I think it was written in 1250 BCE when Moses went to Sinai, but if I write that it's from 500ish BCE in my paper I wont get struck down by lightning.
Over break I have to write the halacha section, which hopefully will overlap with my JWST thesis. If it does, that will be nice. That's why Ben assigned it to me for break. And then next semester I have to turn my thesis into a thesis, and organize the sections and work on the actual writing mechanics and stuff. Now that I'm mostly done with the research it'll be just like any other paper, except that it's bigger. But it doesn't seem big and scary anymore.
Now I'm thinking of maybe doing my PhD at Brown and studying with Katy Galor, since she's awesome. And then I'd be near Boston and in RI and I could live in Providence and do my laundry for free at my house. And I can go to NJitW easily, though SJitW would be more of a challenge. But Brown has money so I'll be stipended, and that will be good. If I wanted to save money I could live at home for the first year, though I'd rather not. If Katy Galor isn't at Brown by then, I guess I'd have to follow her elsewhere. I'm not sure whether or not she has tenure...
And there's also the issue that there are no Jewish males my age (or my age in 2-3 years) that arent yeshiva bochurs in Providence. But I'm not going to let that influence my academic decisions, because I have faith that Hashem will send me my bashert, and things will work out however they are supposed to. Maybe he can just move to RI with me, and if he really was in need of a job he could always work at Adler's. And then after I get my PhD we can be off to Israel/wherever that's not RI.
*Update* Lotan is Kosher and I could stay with my cousins on Yahel during Shabbatot if I dig at Yotvata (the website says no independent travel since they don't want the students off on their own during the dig. However, I won't be an undergrad, and I know Israel better than most of the students who would volunteer). Not the ideal, since I love Jerusalem, but a few weeks with Jodi Magness is worth the non-Jerusalemness. And I'll be living in Jerusalem for the next 2 years anyways. And I haven't seen my cousins in a while. And I love Yahel, even if I'd be the only shomer shabbas person there. It's doable, and I've done it before.
Yotvata's website:
http://www.missouri.edu/~rndbp3/Yotvata/YotvataRomanFort.htm
(This also means we aren't staying at Yotvata, so no Yotvata ice cream every day :( Alas!)
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no subject
Date: 2006-12-01 08:26 pm (UTC)You can be all hedgy about the Leviticus dating--note that while tradition says blah, most contemporary scholars place the date at blah because blah... right?
no subject
Date: 2006-12-01 08:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-01 10:00 pm (UTC)I assume you mean you're planning on giving a very-high-level-*over*view of Jewish law, not trying to explain the whole megillah, as it were.
best,
Joel. Who doesn't believe in bailing out oceans with teaspoons.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-03 04:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-03 01:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-03 04:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-03 06:04 pm (UTC)