Graduation!

I graduated yesterday, magna cum laude, with a B.A. in Anthropology. Yeah!

It was a long ceremony out on the football field, no shade. Kind of tedious. But I'm excited nonetheless.

Afterward, my family had a nice party for me.

My awesome party dress that took me forever to make. It weighed a ton and felt like wearing a quilt out in the summer heat.

My mother's best friend let us have the party at her house, because she has a really nice house with a pretty sweet backyard. She's known me since I was a zygote and was more than happy to help. My mother made me a three-tiered cake that looks like a Mayan pyramid. It was pretty rad, I have to say, and delicious!

Those sugar cookies were individually hand-iced by my mother with symbols from astronomy, languages, and even sci-fi(Sarah was so excited when she got one with a Stargate symbol on it!)

Pineapple Daisy bouquet from Edible Arrangements. They were lovely, I couldn't stop eating them.

We also had another bouquet dipped in chocolate, which was gone before I could photograph it.

She also got me a bunch of awesome anthro-related stuff like shirts that say "I Dig Bones" and "My Other Skull is a Neanderthal", an unlined notebook that says "Forensic Anthropology" on the cover, a coffee mug that says "Looters Suck", a pith helmet, a plastic femur and caveman's club that squeak(we later found out), and lots of other awesomeness.
I got a ton of really cool cards from my aunts and my uncle and friends. My friend Sarah gave me a jar of peach jam she made herself. She gave me some really delicious apple butter for my birthday, so I'm stoked to try the jam. My friend Chaz got me an 18-year-old bottle of Glenlivet singe malt, 'cause he's a rockstar like that. It's going on a shelf until it's old enough to buy it's own scotch.

Cheers!

England

Alice has invited me to come live with her in England rent free when she moves in December or January. There's a one-year master's program in Field Archaeology in Sussex, which is very attractive. I've decided cultural anthro is not for me, and without field archaeology experience, there's almost no way to get into physical anthro grad programs. There's a dig over there this summer that Alice is doing, and she's encouraged me to talk to Dr. Keller to see if I could get in on it as well. It would be a hell of an experience.
Plus, dude, it's England.

Spring? Finally? No...

Yesterday was gorgeous, today is even more beautiful, but it's all just teasing because in a couple of days it's supposed to start raining, and not stop for over a week. As long as I don't wake up to snow again like last week, it'll be okay.
I bought a picnic basket yesterday and filled it with tiny jars of fancy mustard and other condiments. All I need now are a kite and some nice weather on the weekend and good times will be had by all. I can get some awesome cheese from that cheese market: http://www.saunderscheesemarket.com/
Has anyone else seen that 17 Again movie with the kid from that Disney musical? Its just like all those other Freaky Friday-Big-13 Going On 30-type movies, but it was cute.
I also seriously need to get motivated to do some actual work if I want to indeed graduate in June. I'm so tired, even though I've been getting lots of sleep. Maybe I need to start taking vitamins again.

Adventures in Surveying

Yesterday Alice and Jamie and I did our best with our first outdoor lab in Dorwin's archaeology class. Of course, practical application is always different than methods in a book.

We spent a good half an hour just trying to make a perfect square. I was always that last nail that didn't want to work with us.

Of course, when Dr. Dorwin came over, he just touched the nail and magically the square came into alignment. Oh well. Did I mention it was raining?

Setting up the theodalite was a lot of Dr. Dorwin saying "Okay, now turn that, no, the other way. Too far! Back, no, the other way, here let me do it..."

Eventually we got it on our own, though.

"Hmm...egads!"

"Okay, now look like you've discovered something intriguing!"

How to have fun in labs:

Don's B-Day