Being An Archaeologist Isn’t Always Glamorous: Part Deux

From the research that brought you Being An Archeologist Isn’t Always Glamorous…  comes the thrilling sequel Being An Archaeologist Isn’t Always Glamorous: Part Deux! The location, Mainz. The cast, tripled! The weather, unpredictable. The commute, longer. The research, even less thrilling!

I have not written in much detail about what I am doing in Mainz for a month because there is really not much to tell. I arrived on *March February 25^th and settled into the museum owned guesthouse that is offered to visiting scholars for free if there is available room. I stayed there for a week, then switched to a friend’s (my friend from Vix 2011 that I referred to as The German) apartment for a week, and then back to the guesthouse.

When I have not been moving my stuff from one side of town to the other, I have been spending my days in a gigantic library. Why come all the way to Mainz for a library? Well, this library contains over 120,000 books on archaeology and history alone! Most of the publications are in various European languages (mostly German), and the focus of most of the literature is the archaeology of Europe. While we have many great libraries in the States, most of these publications are very old or difficult to come by across the pond. In short, it is a fantastic place for me to get some research done as many of the materials I need are available on site. Sometimes the reading is really great and I think, “This is just the thing I was looking for!” and other days, like today, I was almost bored to tears by a book I needed to finish and could do nothing after but watch a crappy zombie movie. Here is a highlight from Cockneys vs. Zombies:

So, on average, I am spending about eight hours a day in a library reading French. I have rather limited brain power for anything else after that. Luckily, after I arrived I realized I know several people in the city and have made new friends as well during my stay. I have been watching movies and TV shows as I do at home, and eating…a lot. I have rarely had a meal alone which is a nice change from my normal research schedule! The German has been a great host too and I have been comparing him to a Midwestern mother because he keeps making me eat! I fear I will be fat before I leave Mainz.

I have also shared some of my culinary masterpieces with The German and The Hobbit (another blogged about friend from Vix who came to town last week to visit!). As the former is an avid carnivore and the latter is a vegetarian, I tried to engineer some meals that would work for the three of our diverse food tastes. Baked gnocchi, stuffed peppers, and American-style pancakes were all successfully transferred recipes! Have not been drinking too much, though I was introduced to Schlappeseppel beer! Not only is it a delicious beer, it is a great word to say while toasting your beer (apparently the first time I tried to say it, it sounded like I already drank about five of them according to my wonderful friends)! I am trying to find a distributor in the States -- keep your eyes open!

To summarize, my time in Mainz has been spent walking from one side of town to the other, sitting in a library for eight hours a day reading French (because I cannot read German yet), visiting friends, and eating too much. All-in-all, it sounds rather boring, but each day has its highlights.

*Thanks Ami, for the correction! I am not that magical yet!

Being An Archeologist Isn’t Always Glamorous…

When last I left you, I was recovering from all of my travels in Dijon with my friend Sarah. There isn’t much to share about the five days I spent there. A lot of sleep was involved. Sarah learned English at the university, so she is fluent in both languages which makes her a good French teacher. She is really patient too and I took advantage of her abilities to practice my French. We walked around the city a bit and saw a few movies (Sarah works at a movie theatre – she gave me a bunch of movie promo t-shirts for my excavation, but I think I like them too much to get them dirty!). I watched the newest X-Men in French since I already saw it in English and figured I could piece some of the dialogue together. I also watched the second Twilight movie in French along with the subtitles in French to get used to hearing it – I figured the story is pretty easy and lame that I could follow along easily. I have to say, I like the French voices much better than those of the actual actors; when I got too tired to listen to the French for the last half hour of the movie, I was really disappointed to hear the actors’ real voices. The French ones had much more feeling to them and were loads sexier. Twilight still sucks.

Anyway… I said au revoir to Sarah on Monday and caught a bus to Châtillon-sur-Seine. Luckily the empty-for-the-summer boarding school at which I’m staying was very close to where I exited the bus. The lunch hour was just wrapping up when I arrived and found someone right away to get me into my room. I’m staying in a lime-green bedroom on the third floor of a boarding school. No one is here right now, so it is super quiet and all the lights are timed, so it’s dark every time I open my door to the hallway regardless of the time of day.

I have a sink in my room and a shower that doesn’t work, but works well for draping my freshly sink-washed clothes (see where the not so glamorous stuff is starting to sneak in?). I have the room to myself at the moment, which is nice. I throw stuff on the other bed occasionally, but don’t really use it. I do use the other desk for my food storage and eating area (my desk is used for its intended purpose). I have a little armoire/closet-like thing that has some useful shelves, so I’m no living out of my bag for once. I have to walk down the other end of the long hallway for the toilets and functioning showers. I don’t have a kitchen, or microwave, which leaves me with limited food options at the moment since I’m fending for myself before the excavation – mostly baguette, stinky cheese, fresh fruit, canned or dried meat/fish, and peanut butter from home.

After I settled in at my new home, I decided I should check out the museum just in case it is closed on Tuesdays like most national museums in France. I arrived at the main desk and muddled my way through some French asking to speak to the conservator because I was here to study some stuff (I’ll fill you in momentarily). As my good timing had it, his assistant walked in and took me up to the area I’d be working. I essentially have a desk in someone’s office that is apparently never around or it is just sort of everyone’s office to hold random things for the museum. The assistant’s name is Patricia (said with a French accent) and I like her a lot. She is very sweet and was really good about immediately speaking French slowly so that I understood. I hadn’t really planned on looking at anything, just wanted to check things out, but she had me downstairs a short time later and was pulling things from the display case for me to look at. We took them back up and I sat with the objects looking pensive for a while (couldn’t do much without my computer). After a short while, the curator, M. Coudrot, walked in and greeted me and talked with me briefly about my research. I felt I could sneak away after that and told them I’d be back tomorrow. I found a supermarket, ate some dinner, and fell asleep.

Now begins the really glamor-lacking, unsexy, and dull part of being an archaeologist. My plans for this summer are split between museum research and an excavation (you’ll hear more about the excavation as it begins). The museum research is cataloguing, photographing, and researching objects from a spot in the city I’m staying called, Source de la Douix (the spring/source of the Douix [river]) that later joins the Seine river which runs all the way northwest through Paris. The city of Châtillon sits on the Seine, which is why its full name is Châtillon-sur-Seine (Châtillon-on-[the] Seine) – Hopefully you all don’t mind the French lesson! The objects I’m looking at come from an excavation where they literally pumped out and diverted the water as it came out of the ground so that cavers could explore the caves further back and underground and also so archaeologists could have a peak at what was in the cave area because water sources traditionally had religious significance to prehistoric people. This is the sort of thing I’m writing my dissertation about and why I’m here to look at these objects.

I was told before I arrived that there were about 30-40 sculptures, about 70 coins, and then a handful of miscellaneous objects that I would be able to examine. When I arrived and said I had 12 days to examine it all, they laughed because there wasn’t that much in the display cases, which surprised me too. My first day of work was spent looking at objects, but mostly me thinking, “How am I going to drag this out that long…I’m going to be bored out of my skull if I get this all done in a few days…” The next day I talked with the curator some more and he said there might be some objects on reserve and that he would go check. He returned with three boxes of small finds. At this point, my mind went from worry of being bored to panic, “How am I going to get all this done before I leave?” And to make my panic worse, I found out both the curator and his assistant are leaving on Wednesday for vacation and that I will have to be done by then. I’m currently still in a bit of panic mode since now I have about a hundred small objects to catalogue in the next two to three days.

“What do you mean by catalogue?” you might be wondering. Cataloguing involves some very boring and tedious tasks. Basically I have categories of information I need to collect. My database includes: catalogue number, object type, sub-type, museum location (storage or display), inventory number, period, dates, material, preservation, measurements of all sorts, description of the object, excavation location, photos, comparanda, comments, additional bibliography of the object, and several other similar categories. I have currently completed this for 86 objects in the past four days. I spent most of yesterday sorting the new small objects that I will have to fly through, but they don’t require as much description as sculpture does, for example, so I should be able to get it all done. On top of this stuff, I have to keep notes as to points where I take measurements from on an object, keep photos in order so I know which objects are which in the photos, and the worst job so far has most definitely been sketching both sides of the coins because photos don’t really capture most of the details on these, especially when they are worn away.

Now that you have a better idea as to what most real archaeology and research is like, I’ll leave you with the visual of me sorting, writing, typing, and photographing a whole bunch of objects that are about the size of the tip of my finger. Enjoy!

Freedom!

Yay! I am officially finished with my first year of graduate school! The end of the semester was absolute madness between trying to do all the reading and writing for a 20-page paper in less than a week's time, grading my kids' exams/figuring out their final grades, and other end of the year requirements. It the end of it all came on Sunday. It felt very strange to finish with all that on the same day. I was so hyped up from it all I keep having to convince myself that I am truly done and that I didn't forget anything. Its been several days since then and I still feel like I'm missing something.

The first three days of my vacation were spent in front of my computer watching Heroes seasons 1-3 via Netflix, cooking (which I've hardly done this semester), and doing a little reading for pleasure. I even did some painting for fun the other night! The idea of not having to do anything academic for three months is mind boggling and wonderful. Christmas break was nice and needed, but I knew I had stuff to work on during break. For this lovely summer I now have ahead of me, I feel weightless!

I am also excited because I leave for Turkey in a month! Yay! This also means I'll be home in less than a month to see my family! Double Yay! I can't wait!

Can't remember the house situation last time I posted. I think I said I offered on a house and was waiting to hear... Well... The company who owned the house started to be really inflexible/ bossy and started trying to jerk me around with extra costs -- not to mention I didn't get the Truth in Housing report until after I already put an offer in (my mistake), which showed a lot of really required and expensive repairs. I withdrew my offer and abandoned the house. I still really love the house and think it would be awesome once fixed up, but alas. It was somewhat satisfying too because I stuck it to the man in a small way. Now, they are still sitting on the house and have had to lower their price because no one else wants it. It would have been off their hand already if they would have been decent people.

I had all but given up for the summer when another cute one came on the market. I put an offer in, but they decided to go with another offer instead. I must have been outbid since I offered full price on that one. Again, alas. I've decided this is the universe's way of telling me I am not meant to own a house this summer. Hopefully I will find something in the fall so I can get in there and get settled before winter hits. Another downside to waiting is that Minneapolis is one of the few places in the USA where the housing market is supposedly bouncing back. Bad luck.

Let's see...what else... I finally heard about my article that was supposed to be published some time this year. I saw a semi-final version a week or so ago which allowed us to make any revisions. The final, in-print version should be out in a few months. Yay! If I get a PDF copy of it I will send it via email to whoever is interested. Its full of science and statistics, some of which I could barely comprehend at the time, so if you aren't interested in reading it you can at least look at my name on the title page! :)

I've also notified my professor that I had the artifact analysis class (the weaving tool project I have mentioned) with this semester that I wanted to see our project through to publication. Bad because this means I have more work to do, good because it will solidify my authorship position, which means I'll have at least two publications before I get my PhD --- which is pretty rare! I have a few things I'm doing with that tomorrow. We photographed a bunch of the artifacts for that last week and tomorrow I am photographing the modern equivalents for these. Its pretty neat.

I met with the prof for this class last week too and she gave me a lot of praise about what a great job I did on the project and what a great contribution to this field of study it will be. I was super pleased with this and a little shocked because she seemed to think most of what I did was crap earlier in the semester, haha! I definitely needed the support though, it was a good way to end things. I also had to meet with my adviser at the end of the year and he too thought I made great progress overall. Yay!

I've definitely learned a lot this year, about my field and myself. I wont go into inner reflection via the Internet, but I spent a good deal of time pondering what exactly I want out of life, how I will get it, and what kind of person I want to be in the end. It was disappointing to me to realize I lost so much of my positive self this year (it felt like I was eating lemons/limes without salt or tequila), but I've figured out how to make and enjoy lemonade instead of attending lonely pity parties and I feel quite relieved as a result.

In close to this week's ramblings, I hope everyone has a safe and happy Memorial Day! I'm going to the zoo finally so I know I will enjoy mine!

Wrapping It Up Like a Christmas Present

I finally have a free moment to update! The past few weeks have been a toss up between being busy, exhausted, or house hunting. Luckily I seem to have solved one of these problems!

I'm nearing the end of my first year in graduate school --- holy cow that went fast! I have a lot of stuff to do before then end of the year still. I'm almost done with the big project (analyzing the weaving tools). I have one more big paper, and then a short 5 pager. I think I'm going to make it :)

Teaching is going well. Only one more lab this semester and I am done teaching for a few months!

I bought my ticket to Turkey for the summer. I'm leaving June 20th and will spend a few days in Antalya (be sure to click the link and see the Wiki page for photos) before going to my excavation site. The site I'll be at is called Alalakh. I'm getting pretty excited. I'll be there for over two months.

On to the good news. Don't want to get ahead of myself like I did last time, but it looks like I've got a house. I should explain, my offer and such was accepted, I'm just waiting for a good inspection. I thought I was going to have a house a month or so ago, but the inspection went poorly and I withdrew my offer. I've taken photos of the house already, but I'll wait to post them until I'm 100% sure. Keep your fingers crossed! Its a pretty big house in need of a good deal of work, luckily its mostly just aesthetics --- no major structural issues that I'm aware of!

Other than that, I've been trying to have some fun when I can. I planned on going to the zoo today, but it was much colder than the rest of the week has been and it was supposed to rain, so I decided to postpone it. I did manage to get a late breakfast instead which was really yummy! I get random cravings for biscuits and gravy some days. I'm not from the South as far as I'm aware... Tomorrow my friend Linda and I are going to the Minneapolis-St. Paul annual home tour. I figured it would be a good way to see what some of the other houses around here look like so I know what my competition will be when I go to sell mine in 5+ years and also it will be good for getting some ideas about how I want to decorate! I'll try to take pictures of the good ones!

Mmmmk...nothing else too exciting to report other than my strange eating habits: I've almost eaten an entire package of Oreos in two days (only one row left), chips with canned cheese, and some other strange things. That's the thing about eating natural foods/mostly organic, when you get cravings to processed stuff, you end up binging on it and then you feel like crap later, but you just can't stop eating. I think that illustrates some major food altering/added chemicals to make you addicted to the food! Yikes!

Stress.

Classes are busy. Super stressed.

Now addicted to coffee. Non-voluntarily awake-ness late at night. Tired. Need more coffee. Vicious cycle.

Important revelation had. Grad school is like joining the military. Breaks your spirit and re-trains you how to think. Don't like the former of these. Similar to domesticating animals.

Trying to find a house to buy. Stressful. Two fell through already. Still looking. More stress with a touch of constant nervousness.

Teaching is good. Didn't get the fellowship I applied for. Sadness. Will be teaching next fall. Lame.

Leave for Turkey around June 20th. Very nice.

Figured out my tentative committee. This is good. Narrowed down possible dissertation topic. Also good.

Weather is improving. Definitely good.

Finally updated blog. Very good. Will write more later. Satisfactory.

Ello, ello!

I have not been updating because frankly I am exhausted! It is the beginning of the "bad part" of the semester and it is going to be pretty crazy. I will try to share a few things though...

My classes are fine. I am working my ass off in my artifact course. I was up twice this week til 3:30AM and haven't gone to sleep before 12:30 for the others. Its pretty time consuming, but seems to be going well. I got over my own insecurities and trusted my judgment enough to name/label my bone tools that I am responsible for based on my own opinions and reasoning. It may sound like a ridiculous fear, but everyone in archaeology has an opinion and I had to really think about why I was making the decisions I was. I had to consider whether this would make sense to others and if it was logical. My assessment was going against previous work done on this topic and I feared I may receive strong criticisms for it. The work we are doing on these artifacts will be published eventually, so I want it to be thorough and good.

I have a wonderful bunch of students this year. I've received several compliments from a few recently telling me that I'm doing a great job as a TA, that my enthusiasm has not gone unnoticed, and that they appreciate the extra effort I'm putting in making sure they are doing well and that I care. It has really lifted my spirits and confidence. I tried really hard with my kids last semester, but most were so bitter toward the course that they didn't care how hard I tried/cared. I honestly do want to see them do well and I'm glad when they do. These kids are also doing much better in the course which also works well for me because I can start using up my vintage sticker collection. Haha! I tell them to look at the copyright dates on some of the stickers and they laugh because they are definitely from the late 1980s or early 1990s. I knew I didn't use them for a reason! :)

Let's see, what else, what else... We have spring break next week which I cannot wait for! Mom and Greg are coming for a visit so I will finally see some of the cities, haha! I will be sure to update about what we did/saw/went. I also have a lot of work to do, so it wont be all fun and games.

My undergraduate professor, Mark, that I went to Turkey with has a new series on the History Channel. The show is called Battles BC and airs Monday nights 9PM E, 8 PM C. It started this week. It was fun to see Mark on TV again (he previously was on the show Bible Battles). The new one is neat because it is filmed in the style of movies like 300 or Sin City. The budget is obviously significantly less, so the quality isn't as good, but it is still fun.

Mea is well. She has started sleeping on my side of the bed now (her big monthly move of the favorite spot). She is stubborn as stubborn can be though. I got into bed last night and kept nudging her out of the way and ended up with my feet under her. She couldn't have been comfortable, but she didn't move... Are children like this??? If so...ugh.

Anywho... I'll leave all you Michiganders with an interesting link. It is a photo-story from Time magazine called Detroit's Beautiful, Horrible Decline. It was pretty incredible to see these photos. I've always thought Detroit was an absolute shithole, but it really was something back in the day. I didn't even know half of these buildings existed. It is sad to see their current state because many are lovely, but broken and dirty now. Another strange experience I had looking at these was the feeling that I was at an archaeological site. Quite similar actually because the only things present are the structures and trash, no people or signs of life. Very eerie and apocalyptic.

Alright, on that cheery note, off to do work (hopefully).

What Would Charles Darwin Think?

Hello, hello! Happy Valentine's Day all! It has been an eventful week in history! Some of you may know that it was Abe Lincoln's birthday on Thursday, but it was Charles Darwin's 200th Birthday as well!

Since the first month of 1001 (the Human Evolution course I TA for) covers nothing but evolution and natural selection, compliments of Darwin, I figured it was only appropriate to throw him a birthday party :) Linda and I teamed up to throw an across-the-hall party Thursday evening chalk-full of Darwinian fun. We named each of our apartments after an island in the Galapagos where Darwin visited (I was Daphne Major and she was Genovesa). Our food was all themed around the Galapagos or Darwin as well, including: fruit, nuts, seeds of various sizes (tied to how Darwin figured out natural selection), a birthday cake with a Darwin fish on it, and seaweed salad, which was quite good I assure you. We also had Darwin-themed games such as "Pin the Beak on Darwin's Finch" and "Darwinian Pictionary." (Click the link to see the results of the game and the cake!) It was all quite clever and dorky overall, but it was a really great time :)

In general, that was the highlight of my week. Pretty uneventful other than the party, but good overall! Here is a link so you can have some Darwinian fun yourself! DEVOLVE YOURSELF!

The Ball is Rolling!

Before I get started with the update, I want to share an article recommended to me by a friend. I watched a documentary recently called Beyond Belief (about two women who's husband's were killed on 9/11 and decide to do something positive about it and help Afghan women who are also widows from violence), and have become interested in what is going on with the average citizen over there. I thought that this was another interesting case of someone helping the people over there, in this case, Afghan youth. Enjoy!

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On to the update. I've officially been through an average week in my new semester and the future looks bright! I am taking Anthropological Archaeological Theory, Pagans and Christians 100 to 430 AD, and Artifact Analysis. I honestly can't remember the last time I felt this inspired about my field and that I could actually contribute some new ideas to current body of knowledge. Its a really good feeling :) The semester is going to be a lot of work and I have a lot of reading each week, but I'm going strong so far!

I am teaching two lab sections again this semester. My kids are really great, such an improvement from last semester! They answer questions, pay attention, and understand the material...its wonderful! I am so excited to teach them!

In other news... I went to my first ever wrestling match last week. It was interesting to watch and to try to figure out the rules since I know nothing about the sport. It looked painful being stretched and pulled like they were. I was amazed at how much strategy was required, a simple placement of the arm could make or break one's lead. Interesting, though I don't think I'd want to go again.

I received and AeroGarden for Christmas. I decided to plant flowers first, just to make sure I get the hang of it before I try herbs or veggies. It is doing really well and gives me hope that I will be able to actually grow things in my apartment again. Its nice to see something green and alive everyday when it is so cold and snow covered outside... Here are some pictures of my little indoor garden so far :)
















Nothing else much to report. I'm going to the Winter Carnival tonight over in St. Paul. Hopefully I wont freeze my cheeks off (either set). We were supposed to get our end of January heatwave this weekend (a whole 30 degrees), but its not looking promising at a steady 18 degrees outside... I will be sure to post pictures of that next time I post...that is, as long as my camera doesn't freeze...

Spring Semester, Here I Come!

I find it laughable that they term the upcoming semester "Spring" term. Granted we don't have school for most of January, but spring is by no means in sight. I am pretty proud of myself though. For three or four days in a row it was below zero outside and I was comfortable (yes, I wasn't just admiring the cold from my apartment either). We have had a nice high of 20 degrees for the past few days now too --- mmm, toasty. Enough about the nice weather in Minneapolis though.

As I said, the Spring Semester begins this week --- hooray! It couldn't come at a better time. While it is enjoyable and I will be cranky about a week from now, I need a break from my apartment and Netflix. I subscribed when I returned from Michigan and have been quite addicted since. I wont even disclose the number of movies I've watched in the past 1.5 weeks alone.

One of the interesting parts of Netflix is that you can rate movies you have seen too so it can recommend new ones to you. Sad to say, I've ranked over 730 movies. Haha! I knew that I had seen a lot of movies in my lifetime, but I had no idea it was that many! That only includes ones that I have come across on the site too, not ones I've searched for. Terrible. After seeing that it made me realize how much time I waste and how all of those hours could be spent doing something constructive (does blogging count? probably not...). I guess when I think about it though, I am usually doing something else while watching a movie, like finding new recipes or responding to emails.

Speaking of recipes... I have been quite ambitious the past few days in the kitchen. Maybe ambitious isn't the correct word because nothing I made was that difficult, but it sounds impressive I guess... Anyway, this weekend I tackled homemade crackers and corn chips! I'm feeling very domestic at the moment and wanted to see if I could make my own and have them actually taste good. The crackers were a lot of fun. I started with a simple wheat cracker base and added a few extra spices, though I was only working with what I had and have much tastier ideas in mind. I rolled the dough out and used cookie cutters to make shapes instead of plain rectangles. The consistency ended up being similar to Kashi's multigrain/whole wheat crackers or a thicker, less greasy Wheat Thin. I want to give it a few more tries, but I will definitely post my final results as soon as I get them in order.

The corn chips were interesting. The flavor was on, but not the consistency/texture. They were super thin based on the recipe I followed. I have another one I plan on trying soon and again. It sounds like these would be tricky (which is why I said 'ambitious' earlier), but they really are not.

Alright, enough boredem for now. I need a break from the computer and Mea wants her dinner. Until next time...

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

Yes, yes, I have been getting a lot of crap since I've been home about not updating my blog enough. I am a very pattern oriented person and like to keep things neat and orderly...if they happen to fall into an obvious pattern while doing so, all the better! Why am I talking about patterns, you may ask? Back in October when I noticed my dwindling blog entry numbers, I saw that it was going 5...4...3... a very obvious pattern. How can I not just let it go 2 and 1? Which is partly why I haven't been rushing to the computer to add more entries. I know, this sounds like a thing a crazy person would do or think of. I always tell people I'm a little OCD and OCP(personality)D, but no one ever seems to believe me. Now you have some clear evidence that I am in fact, a bit obsessive sometimes, haha!

Anywho...while talking about my lack of blogging with my lovely friend from high school, Juli, she came up with a great idea. She said I could do an entry on my New Year's resolution. I told her I didn't have one except maybe to eat a bit more (I've also received a lot of grief about being too thin while home), but after I thought about it some more, I decided my resolution could be to blog more --- nice how that all worked out! This will be my last blog of the year (just so I can see the nice pattern), but I will try to resume in full force at the beginning of January.

January will probably be more fruitful than a good portion of the year because I have most of the month off from school, but I will try to keep it to at least once a week like I initially set out to do. I also didn't think people were reading it anymore (except for Ami because she used by glass bottle tutorial for her x-mas presents -- yay!), which is another reason I didn't make it a priority to update, but now that I know you all are, I will get on it a bit more :)

Alright, moving on to some updates... The end of the semester was a horribly busy time. I had 48 hours to grade 50 exams with 4 short answer/essay questions. Luckily the multiple choice is all graded on the computer, but ugh! the short answers were enough to keep me busy for about 10 hours straight. My friend Linda, a fellow TA, moved into an apartment kiddy-corner from me and we spent the evening (and early hours of the morning) grading the exam with Burt, another TA, over a round or two of Tequila Sunrise. I decided to be pretty nice to my students because I graded them pretty harshly most of the semester. I was very thankful to get their grades in and to be done with this semester of teaching!

Also during that evening I had a visitor come into my apartment. I was grading at Linda's, but would go back to my place periodically to check on Mea. I went back about 11 PM and Mea was fixated in a corner of my kitchen looking at the radiator. I figured there was a mouse or something because the wall and the floor do not connect there and one could easily come up through the wall and sneak in. I check under it and didn't see anything and checked as best I could in the radiator too, but saw nothing. I left and came back around 1 AM to discover all of my kitchen rugs bunched up against the walls and place-mats shoved off the table. I was wondering what the hell Mea had been up to when I finally turned the light on in the kitchen and the answer was hanging from the ceiling. Thats right, I had a bat in my apartment.

After letting out the customary girly shriek, I hurried back to get Burt and Linda to see what they thought. They were quite interested in the bat (I stood behind a wall and stuck my head in the room, haha). We left the light on so that the bat would not get startled later and just left him there. I barricaded Mea in the bedroom and bathroom. When I got back at 3 AM for the night, the bat what just where we left him, so I went to sleep in my bat-proof room.

Called animal control in the morning and they said they don't do bats, so I called my apartment and they had someone come over and collect him. We had some up and down temperatures in Minneapolis that week and it was likely that when it got warm, he woke up, but then when it got cold again, he kept climbing until he got somewhere warm to go back to sleep again. I think Mea was sad to see him go --- looks like she had quite the time with him! There were dusty polka-dots all over my kitchen from where it flew into the walls, floor, and table trying to escape the cat (he was covered in dust from climbing the wall and hiding in the radiator).

I love my apartment, but between the bat and the mold problems I had a few weeks ago, it makes me wonder if I should stay there another year... haha!

Other than that, the semester finished with little pain or grief. I don't have my grades back yet, but it looks promising. The drive home to Michigan was easy and I was lucky enough to make it here between storms. It has been wonderful to be home. I needed a break from the city and from my apartment. I'm quite happy I've been able to spend so much time with my friends and family. Christmas was good too! I received new kitchen stuff, several good vintage finds, and some books and DVDs --- plenty of things to keep me busy for a while!

I am heading back to Minneapolis January 7th. I will be sure to start updating regularly again. Until then, I wish everyone a very Happy New Year and good luck with your resolutions!

News, Newspaper, and Worm Friends!

I have been meaning to update and share some details from the past week, but I keep getting side tracked (i.e. yesterday's post). There was big news today that I'm just itchin' to get to, but I will try to get the other stuff out first.

I went to the farmer's market on Saturday morning, bright and early, to pick up some tea that I ordered from a local maker. I say 'maker' not 'grower' because she doesn't grow it, but instead, blends ingredients to create some of the most amazing, flavorful teas I've ever had the pleasure of enjoying. I first came across this magical brew two years ago when I was in Minneapolis for an Anthropology conference and the hotel I stayed at served the tea. I've patiently been waiting two years since to get my hands on it and I couldn't be happier! The blend that got me hooked is called Hi-C Punch, but I've found two other flavors that I can't live without -- African Fruit Bowl and Choco Mint (I drink this chilled with cream and sugar, brings out the chocolate flavor) -- AMAZING!!! Check out the Mrs. Kelly's Teas link on the side of the blog or click here (ships nationwide, just fyi).

Ok, got distracted again. While at the market, I bought a bushel of tomatoes, other veggies, and some strawberries. I spent the rest of the day and part of Sunday stewing tomatoes, making my homemade sauce to freeze, and trying out a new fruit leather flavor, strawberry banana! The tomatoes turned out great (this coming from the girl who loathed tomatoes until last year). The fruit leather also turned out great, but it took much longer than the first batch, almost double, because of the banana I think -- made it thicker and took longer to dry. Uneventful I know, but that was the majority of my weekend.

Ok, so my big news/ excitement for today is that I picked up my worms for my indoor compost! A girl was willing to give me some from her colony, so it includes some little bitty baby worms too. I brought them home, got their bedding together and introduced them to their new place. I have to give them a few days to settle in before I can start feeding them, but I already feel better knowing they are here and will help eat up even more of my waste!

I'm including some photos so you can see what they heck I'm talking about when I say 'indoor compost'...

Pile-o-newspaper pre-shredding, post shredding in bin, and worm friends and babies!

Here are some links about how to start your own indoor compost!

Vermicomposting

"How To" with photos (be sure to read a later entry of this blog before making yours, click here)

Where to Get Worms thought I got mine from someone on Freecycle.