Aww, this was going to be FAQs part II (so exciting, I know!!!), but I just kept writing. It's sort of a thing lately with me. That's covered later, too. Ugh. I suck.
1. How's London?
How is London? That is an excellent question. You see, my fine friends, I had a brief lapse in sanity while selecting my courses for UCL. I know what you're thinking. . .ME, have a lapse in sanity and/or judgment? But I assure you good people that it does occasionally (often) happen. And it went like this:
Me: Umm. . .they're not offering Medieval Archaeology at the graduate level next year. Or any of the maritime classes. Of course not. Freaking of course not. Now what am I going to do? No, really. What am I going to do? (I then proceeded to get angry and make evil eyes at the computer, which is actually less common than you would think. . .it's all about how often you pull something out of your bag o' tricks. The more often you do it, the less effective it is.)
M (TOTALLY uninterested): I don't know.
Me: Ugh. Now I'm going to have to be interested in prehistory. I can be interested in prehistory, right? I can. Sure. (Side note: No, I can't.) I'll just take this British and European Prehistory course. (sweeping arm gesture) I'm going to be a prehistorian. And this Applied Archaeology in the UK could be useful. Oh! Experimental Archaeology. I can deal with that. What do I take for my last course?
M: What are your options?
Me: Reads list of options. . .most are boring and have to do with the Middle East or the Mediterranean, which I'm sure are insanely awesome to study, and I'm too stupid to realize it. Archaeology of Modern Conflicts? Maybe? (cue: YES!!! Tell me to take it!) No, I don't think that will be useful. (Future Me: Who CARES? You'll actually be interested, I promise!) How about archaeometallurgy?
M: What's that?
Me: Metallic artifacts. Yeah, I think I'll put that down. I like artifacts. I like metal things. They had lots of metal in the Medieval period. Maybe I can use it if they let me do a PhD in Medieval Archaeology. We've got a winner! (Future Me: Oh my god, I cannot even begin. Run. Run far away, Past Me. It's not what you think it is.)
I'm annoyed because I look like a 12-year-old. No, not really. I was going to say the standard "Get pissed!" but that's sort of weird to say here, and no one gets it. That's sad. I had the most awesome supervisor ever in California. I took a really intensive lab class with her. We learned about lithics, I can name the parts of a flake, I can pretend to flint knap, and I can differentiate broadly between rocks. We did ceramics, and now I know about processing and decorative techniques, dating methods, tempur, and all that fun, fantastic stuff. We did historic artifacts, brief ossteology, faunal remains, archaeobotany. . .and I learned (in Jill's wise words) enough to be dangerous. (If you need help, that's because I'm not an expert. Got it?) I was expecting archaeometallurgy to be fun, Fun, FUN like that, but just with metallic objects.
So the first day of class, I get in, and homeboy in the front starts talking about Chemistry and all sorts of strange things. . .iron slag and smelting and metal grains (Wwwwwwtf are metal grains?), and he's pulling out all these insane science-y graphs. I had that fake "aha ha ha" smile on my face, and I could feel my eyes were sort of that abnormal shape they get when I'm totally not into a situation.
Oh, but then, my friends, THEN, he pulls out the big guns. We are expected to DRAW 4 artifacts and photograph them. The photography. . .that's ok. But the drawing? Drawing and I aren't really on speaking terms. It's kind of sad, and I keep making advances, hoping the relationship can be patched up, but drawing is kind of a jerk (you know, the kind who only hangs out with "special" people), and it's just not working out.
Why did I stay in it? Well, I've gotten increasingly neurotic since I've been here, and I'm convinced that everyone I encounter thinks I'm stupid. But really, it's because I say stupid things. As in, REALLY stupid things. Things that later cause me to think, "I really should never open my mouth again. Or I could just die. Either or." I'll cover this in a different blog post, because I've really let some nice ones come out. Anyway, instead of admitting that I suck at life, I stayed in, which really probably says more about this whole sucking at life thing than actually staying in did.
All this to explain why I haven't been existing for the better part of two months. I don't know how London is. It's getting warmer. Although that might just be my brain overheating with concepts that are better suited to someone with a degree in chemistry. If this happens again, my brain and I are not going to be on speaking terms, and that could get way awkward. (I really don't want to have to divide up friends. I have a feeling they'll all go with the brain.)
Last note: This picture annoys me. It looks so staged. But I'm keeping it in for the families. It has an associated awkward story about this guy at the Natural History museum who kept following me around, trying to talk to me, and then out of nowhere, he's like, "Here, let me take a picture of you guys." Um, no. Go away. But M thinks that's ALWAYS a good idea. Me, not so much. But if you know me, you already know I have an aversion to photographs of myself.
