May is just around the corner and with it comes graduation. Usually people are terrified because they have no idea what they have planned after graduation. There are infinite possibilities, but in this job market everyone scrambles and is terrified. I, on the other hand, am terrified for a completely different reason.

I have a job and internship (potentially) lined up. They're waiting for me. They want me. One actively sought me out. I want this. I want to start my life. But the entire idea of real life scares me to my very core. I have do the nine to five everyday thing and be away from my family and friends. I know I will be lonely and depressed to be away from them. But to prove to all those who never believed in me that my dreams have came true, being passionate, hard working, and never stopping. I'm almost there.

My only obstacle now is finishing my thesis which came to a stand still during the move of the lab. My boss is a very brilliant and wonderful woman. But when she is in the lab with me, I can get nothing done. So that is another problem right now. The plan currently is to have the first two to three pages written by this Monday. Here's to hoping my luck with jobs will carry over to my paper. 

Just Another 6 or So Months

With just one more semester of college I have a lot to do:

Earn 12 more credits
Finish an honor thesis (on the comparison between Ries Hastings and Hovey Lake decorated pottery)
Find a job here
Find a job for the real world
Get letters of recommendation
Survive

It doesn't seem like a lot, but I feel as though I might go crazy. There's all this pressure to get everything done. I have to do this honor thesis which will be what makes or breaks me for the next few months. I have been working on the research since this summer, but I still have an entire site of data to gather along with reading and other references that could help me out.
Getting a job after graduation is probably most important despite my thesis. CRM work will be hard to find since the ISS project on the East St.Louis site will be coming to a close and the market will be flooded with those with much more experience than me. I want to work with a friend that is currently in Wyoming. She had wanted me to work with her this summer, but I couldn't because I was working in the lab. Perhaps they will still have use for me.
I don't want to leave my family or friends, but I know that there are no jobs for me here. I will probably end up far away. It will be worse now that I have a boyfriend that I'm extremely attached to (he won't be graduating for a while). I'm scared to start out on my own.

But I'm really terrified about being alone.

The Beginning To The End

Since May, when I last updated, I have been working in an archaeology lab and having that hands on experience has really made a difference in my understanding of how to go about things. I never had done real lab work and it is a lot cataloging, analyzing, and data collection. Here's a link to "A Day of Archaeology" in which I participated in ---> http://www.dayofarchaeology.com/archaeologist-in-training/. I went in there knowing nothing that I was expected to do and now I feel prepared for whatever the world has to throw at me (in Midwestern archaeology that is). I have made even more connections because I was able to do a small dig in our local courthouse. My boss, Cheryl Munson, has really shaped how I will study and practice archaeology in the best way possible.

Onto future things...
This Monday will be my last first day of my undergraduate career and like usual I am terrified. With only 24 credits separating me from a degree. It is also the last semester that I will have an archaeology class (with my ex that last time I mentioned him was still my boyfriend). So that should be fun. For now all I want to do is survive and make it to where I need to be.
Which is still TBA.

A**Hat

Hey Andy,
If you find this I will be impressed.

New Experiences

I am extremely pleased to announce that I am now working in an archaeology lab through my university. It has only been two weeks but everyday I am overjoyed about going in (even if it is early in the morning). Perhaps it's because it's still the "honeymoon stage" but I can see this as being great forever. I can see myself being happy with these for the rest of my life.

The woman I work under is a very experienced archaeologist who has done a lot to save sites from being looted in the state. She's worked at Hovey Lake and various places throughout the Midwest. She knows so much that it boggles my brain and frightens me that I must seem so... naive.

Today was frustrating at times because there is so much information and old forms of technology that I thank God I didn't have to deal with computer programs like "Quattro Pro" or "WQ1" files. (I still can't get over that she has documents on her computers from the year my sister was born: 1993!). I had to convert some files into excel and the old computers HATED IT. I forgot how much I hated dial-up speed. But it got done.

Currently I am working on sorting out different rims of vessels. Doesn't sound exciting, but it can be difficult because they types just flow into one another so drawing the lines of where one type begins and another ends is a problem. But then again many archaeologists have problems with labels, but it is a generalization that must be made at times. 

Tomorrow I shall start to organize data on excel which I have little experience with, but I'll just jump into it and hopefully swim. My boss dropped the pressure that she's really trusting me with this data and I need to do it perfectly. Which is only causing me to panic.

But...

I think I'm going in the right direction.

Chiefdoms

Chiefdoms are how some archaeologists like to classify different polities but this term is so loaded that it cannot properly describe everything that is called a "chiefdom". Traditionally, a chiefdom has a complex society with a centralized power or religion over a people that has surpluses of materials and thus a large power over the area. There is a large problem with this terminology. Some many different social structures can fall under this category, so it makes every place seem the same when they are indeed not. This did not come to light until the study of Cahokia in the past several years. It is considered a chiefdom, but so are many other places that are very different from this epicenter of trade and power. The terminology is very loaded and misleading so the real problem is how do archaeologists come up with ways of comparing societies without having these terms? So far, there's no real solution.

In my opinion, as an undergraduate that is still learning, I think that simply noting the common areas and comparing them is enough. There really is no need to have these different terms like chiefdom, state, tribe, (MEGA-STATE as a graduate student joked this evening). These labels only generalize societies which can make distinctions less obvious to the general public or even archaeologists.

This rant is brought to you by my professor asking me to come to her house for a talk by her husband for her graduate class. I highly suggest his book Chiefdoms and Other Archaeological Delusions.

Side note: I'm dating the other teaching assistant in one of my classes. It's an archaeology romance. <3

Memory

This has nothing to do with my usual archaeology talk or relatedness. This is something more personal.

Memories that I want to remember but I'm afraid are already slipping from my mind.

We use to be with each other constantly. It took me long to gain your trust and really allow me to know you, but once we got past that point we were the best. I remember when I knew we were extremely close:
I had gotten an bubble tea and we took turns shooting the bubbles at trees and failing miserably. I begged you to let us stop and dip our feet in the creek. You said we could stop and rest but you wouldn't put your feet in. I begged for you to anyways, but finally gave up and stuck my own bare feet in the cool stream while sitting next to you on the limestone. We sat there talking of nothing. I noticed you take off your shoes and put your feet in the water, but I didn't say anything. I wore a smile though. And when you took a drink of my bubble tea without asking I knew that that was it. We were as close as I could get as a friend.

We stood in the cold at the bus stop. You had said something to upset me and I had turned away. I hadn't worn a warm jacket and was cold. You were always so oblivious to when I was upset. I asked if I could lean against you because I was cold. You agreed. I leaned my head against your chest and felt its warmth against my cheek. We stood in silence. I was crying. I have no idea what you were doing. All you said was "You smell nice." I sometimes wonder if you knew I cried that night.