theyellowhobbit

I have a paper on the Idrimi inscription/text due on Wednesday, October 31st. Knowledge of what the Idrimi text is is not required to understand this post, but you can wikipedia it if you feel like it.

I have 2 primary sources and 7 secondary sources that I need to use in the paper. Mind you, this is a 6-8 page paper. I'm about halfway through the sources, I think.

I was reading a source today that at one point said something along the lines of "This argument is really compelling, even though it relies heavily on the archaeological evidence." WTF? Since when was reliance on archaeological evidence a bad thing? It's archaeology. You don't mess with archaeology. Needless to say, I was annoyed.

The article was also published with many typos. Dr. M corrected a few in his book which he photocopied it from to give to us. I ran into Dr. M. in the library today and asked him about the article (actually I had it with me since I was working on it right then) and if he was proofreading it prior to publication. He said they were just his notes, and I could use them if I liked. I also told him about the insult to archaeology (which would have been a footnote in my paper had I not run into him at that time).

Seriously, you text people need to respect the archaeology. We're the ones who find you your documents. We give them context (which you ignore). We see the bigger picture (ditto). We get hot, sweaty, and dirty¹while you sit in your air-conditioned office in your pristine tweed suit-jackets (which you wear despite the fact that it's 80 degrees out). And then we publish articles, but you're the real scholars, since texts are always superior to archaeological finds because texts have words (even though these words are usually misleading).

Also, I noticed that most of the articles we're reading for this class are written by males. I really am starting a career in which I will be the minority. But that means my dating odds are better (assuming the male archaeologists/Near Eastern scholars are approximately my age, single, and Jewish). And then the odds will be good, but the goods will be odd.

¹ Not to say that I don't enjoy the sweaty, dirty, ickyness. I totally love it (provided I'm not getting injured). I'm just saying that text people take archaeologists for granted.

I survived the GREs. The bus was late. I had a bit of trouble finding the suite. But still I got there early, and had some time to relax.

I started the test. After the 2 essays, I got a 10 minute break. So I left to go to the bathroom, and the bathrooms are outside of the suite. Unfortunately, when I walked back the door was locked. I spent some time knocking on the door and panicking, since you get penalized if you go over your 10 minutes. Eventually someone let me in, I grabbed a quick bite to eat, and went back in.

Since the GREs are a computer test, you find out your scores right away.

I got a 700 in math.
I got a 570 in verbal.

Obviously I should have started studying sooner. But even so, I don't know how much it would have helped. I lack the ability to do well on analogies. It's just not my thing. Though maybe I could have gotten more of the antonyms right had I known more words and their meanings. Unfortunately you can't omit questions on the GREs.

Now I feel like all of the time that I did put into the GREs (Friday busride, Sunday night, Monday, and Tuesday) was wasted. I isolated myself and put myself through this insanity for nothing. And now I have to do even more work on the thesis. I need around 2000 words today if I really want to take NaThWriMo seriously. But I still need to do more research, and that doesn't count towards my word count.

When I got to the anthro museum after the test, I checked my e-mail. I received an e-mail back from the director of the Ein Gedi dig.

( the e-mail )

Sorry to waste your time, maric23. But I do appreciate your help.

I probably can't volunteer, because that costs money, and I've used up all of my grant sources. So unless someone is really nice and wants to buy me a round-trip ticket to Israel, there's no way I'm going this winter. I've been fighting against the inevitable.

I suppose I'm no worse off than I was before on that one, but I feel kind of embarrassed that I asked about staff positions, even though it wasn't like I did anything wrong.

Now I feel doubly disappointed. The Ein Gedi thing just added insult to injury.

I know that I have the ability to write a really great thesis that will impress grad schools. I know that my grades are pretty good, especially within my major. I'm coming from a good school. I have a lot going for me, but still the GREs make me feel stupid. They feel like an immutable assesment of my thinking processes, an evaluation of my inherent intelligence (or lack thereof). I know in reality this is not the case, that the GREs only evaluate how good you are at taking the GREs. I have no problem reading anthropological sources and understanding them and discussing them. I have no problem interviewing people and doing ethnographies. I'm good at digging, and recording, and taking elevations, and washing pottery and bones. And waking up at 4:45 AM. Shouldn't all of those things matter more than the 570 in verbal?

Bar Ilan, Hebrew U., and Harvard Divinity do not require GRE scores. If I only applied to these 3 programs I might be able to get away with not retaking the GREs and subjecting myself to this torture again.

I really should take the rest of the evening off and relax after my mashing shift is open. But I doubt that is going to happen.

I had my photo shoot for my senior portrait today. It went quickly. I'm not sure if any of the pictures will turn out good, but oh well. It's really just for the yearbook. I suppose my parents could order pictures if they wanted to. But the shoot itself was free. :)

I then decided to shoot some of my own photos, which I'll post later. And halfway through I realized that the iso sensitivity was still set at 400 from my fire pictures at JitW! No wonder everything wasn't as shiny as it could have been. I fixed that and took more pictures.

I had an appointment downtown, and when I came back I went to lunch. There were cookies so I was happy. And I had meat for the first time in a week. Huzzah!

Then I walked with levana_b down to the library. I went in and pulled out the computer. And I had gotten an e-mail from Ben saying I should bring 2 or 3 relevant sources (but fortunately not the whole 17lbs. Yes, I told him about that.) But I was already there, so I e-mailed him back and asked if I had to make that trip back...

Only to find that I didn't have my assignment for anth 451 with me, and I needed to work on it. So I had to go back here anyways.

Now I'm in my room. I redid the outline and now I'm working on filling in all the random things in my intro. I put most of the methodology into the next chapter, though, so I don't have to write it all out yet. I'm smart like that.

Of course, there are people working on the roof of the building next door, playing loud music. They were doing it this morning, too. Luckily they started at like 9:30 and I had woken up at 8. (Actually 7:30 but I went back to sleep since the alarm was set for 7:55)

And my back still hurts and I have a knot in my upper left arm. A knot big enough that I can actually feel it. So I guess I'll go looking for a massage tonight. Though unfortunately I also have to do my presentation for Anth 322 on the Mac and PC users.

The current to do list, in the order they need to be done:
Anthro thesis intro
Write Gerianne about the classes I'm petitioning for counting towards my major
Anth 451 homework
Anth 322 homework
Eat dinner at some point, theoretically
Get a massage
Study for the GREs
Start writing up the JWST sources I'm accumulating
Write Stern about my progress when I actually have made progress
Start working on the JudeoBlogosphere project
Your mom*

Wish me luck!

*Assuming your mom is more homework, which I doubt any of your moms are. If you were born from a thesis then you probably have more problems than I do.

The classes for spring 2007 are finally up.

The only GIS course being offered is City Planning 666 (sounds ominous, doesn't it?) Here's the description:

L/L 666. Modeling Geographical Objects. (B) Tomlin.

Introduction to the use of geographic information systems (GIS) in urban and regional planning. Reviews the conceptual foundations of GIS. Students achieve proficiency in Arc View.

Even though it's a 600-level class, it has no prerequisites. And apparently Dr. Tomlin knows a lot about archaeology, or is an archaeologist, or Ben had him for GIS (and got an A+. Meanwhile, he doesn't believe in A+s. I really think I should get an A+ on my thesis, considering that I work on my thesis more than I work on all my other classes combined. I eat, sleep and breathe thesis. And besides, I numerically had an A+ in Biblical Archaeology, but only got an A. One shiny A+ on my transcript is all I need. Or maybe 2, since it would be weird for my thesis grade to go down 2nd semester.) and he's like the world's leading GIS expert. Definitely one or more of the above. So I'll be taking it.

My other class next semester will be the Monge Class of Death (quite literally- ANTH 210, Death: an Anthropological Perspective).

So I'll have class from 3-4:30 on Tuesday and Thursday, and class on Wednesday from 12-3. So I'll have 3 days of class instead of 2, but I could sleep in really late every day, or get up early and work in the museum library until it's time for class. And I get Monge! What could be cooler than that?

As soon as registration opens, I'm registering. Hopefully I won't have any trouble signing up for the City Planning course.

So in the 3 hour convo with Micah GS about archaeology, I asked him about grad schools. And he said if I told Aren Maeir, the professor running the dig, that I wanted to go to Bar Ilan for my master's in archaeology, I would get in. [Well that and assuming that my grades aren't bad. I think my grades are pretty darn shiny...] It's as simple as that.

In other news, I was at a dinner for Mr. Adler [no relation] who worked at temple Emmanuel teaching people how to lein and lead services and everything for the past 36 years [he was actually my senior project advisor] and I thought that perhaps Katharina Galor would be there, since she's a member of the shul and there were 500 people. But she wasn't. Which is sad because I wanted to beg her for measurements of the mikva'ot in Qumran, since if anyone had them it would be her. After all, she was the one who wrote the article I used as my main Qumran source for my paper... But no. I'll have to track her down.

And Ben still hasn't e-mailed me back about any of my many questions. Maybe I'll tell him about my wonderful discovery.

For Mother's Day, or perhaps for the one Sunday I'm around RI in May which happened to be on Mother's Day, I gave a lecture at Agudas Achim on the history of Zionism [the abbreviated version] and life in Israel. Of course, the part about history lasted approximately 25 minutes, since my notes weren't so extensive and it had been years since I've studied this material. [I find myself wondering if I'll be this way in another five years with the stuff I've learned at Penn...] And everyone was more interested in Israel anyways.

I got finagled into making lasagne for dinner for everyone. It's mostly gone now. It was pretty good. I need to stop being good at cooking so someone else can cook instead...
-------------
So last night I got an E-mail from Ben about thesisy stuff, which means he still is in contact, though unfortunately he only writes e-mails on the weekends in the summer. Gah. But at least he can be my advisor for the anthro thesis for next year! Yay! I wrote him back about the following dilemma:

( from the e-mail I wrote, since I'm lazy... )

*The link was not in the original e-mail. I added it for y'all.[Or would that be "all y'all"?]

**I wasn't going to spell it out in the e-mail, but "putting my entire life on stand-still," in this case, refers to the possibility of ever getting married. I want to make aliyah. I want to marry a guy who wants to make aliyah. Such a guy, if he's serious about the idea, would either already be in Israel or probably would be planning to go there in the near future. I doubt a guy would find something to do in America for 6 years while I finish my PhD. Hence me asking the question about transferring/dropping out. I'll be 28 when I finish my PhD! And I don't even know if an American PhD in Anthropology is respected in Israel.

Ok, fine, I'll grant that that's not a big issue this second, since it's not like I'm dating anyone right now. But I'm just afraid that if I wait until I'm 28 to even start dating, I'll be screwed, and since in Judaism everyone gets married young [yes, that's a generalization], there won't be any guys out there. And I'd like to get married before then if I find someone. Which i won't if I'm stuck in America.

So I guess the question would be "where is a good graduate program that is located near a vibrant Jewish community full of young singles looking to make aliyah within the next decade?" That's not a question Ben could answer.

Or alternatively "who do I have to bribe with deli-roll and biscotti to get into grad school in Israel?" I assume the deli-roll and biscotti should work. I can send them in with my thesis.

Or maybe I can just marry a rich guy who has his own private plane and can afford to own two houses- 1 in America and 1 in Israel. And we could fly back and forth between the 2 countries, so if one of us was working in America and the other was working in Israel, we could still live together and see eachother and not be like those married couples who have to spend years apart. But I doubt such a man exists.

Dr. Erickson is in Puerto Rico for the weekend. Thus, Ben and I are not meeting with him tomorrow at 2.

*Facepalm*

In other news, Ben does not believe in A+s. [Or the +/- system in general] Maybe Penn doesn't believe in A+s either, since they still are a 4.0 in your GPA. But I pointed out that this is my first class at Penn where I've ever had the numerical score to qualify for an A+. And, well now that I know I can't get one, there's no reason at all for me to be trying this hard on the paper. I gave him fair warning. Time for laziness!

Nope. Didn't work. But I think I'm going to leave and get dinner...Or not. Let's see how much I can write.

I was in the museum working on my midterm for Ben's class, which I realized I was nowhere near finishing, since it's such a slow question to work on and there's so much detail to sift through.Argh, I say to myself. Since it's due at 3:30 PM, and I have class from 1:00PM on.

Fortunately, Ben has office hours between 12:30 and 1:30. So I stopped by at 12:30, and he wasn't around, so I decided that I wanted to see what the roof looked like [there's a chain after the 5th floor on the staircase that has a sign hanging from it, saying "not an exit" or something like that]. So I ducked under the chain and went up, but I decided not to go out since I heard voices. One was male.

So I duck under the chain and start to head down, and lo and behold, Ben Porter is on the staircase. So I get to talk to him. Yay!

And I ask him how much he wants us to write, and he tells me what I was planning was way more than necessary [I had only taken notes up until now...] And everything is all clear and happy. Then I tell him that I have class from 1:00 until his class, though I could skip into to archaeology or primate behavior if he wanted me to finish the midterm now. Of course he wouldn't want me to do that, so I get a shiny extension.

And I give him a shiny mishloach manot of biscotti and marzipan ["How did you get Marzipan?!" he asked. By my Hobbity powers, also known as my parents.] All is well.

I have until wednesday night/thursday morning, which means a long tomorrow and wednesday. The question isn't even hard, just long!