It's almost spring. I feel it in my bones

[crantz]

As I'm typing this, my cat is doing elegant leaps around the table to topple mom's grading paperwork wherever she lands. Beautiful. Graceful. Annoying. Mom doesn't appreciate me laughing, but what can you do? Show respect? In this economy? I'm certainly not going to interfere with nature's way: re the cat's inherent naughtiness.

I made it through the valley of midterms - and know for a fact I passed one of them quite tidily. The other was a real bugbear because it was a take home that I fell under a hormonal malaise for a few days while doing it and I didn't get to enjoy my week off as much as I would have liked or at all. I do not recommend hormones. They're a real rip off.

My first spin class (part of program: survive archaeological dig without digging my own grave) did not go well in the sense that they gave me a refund in the first ten minutes. It TURNS OUT I can't make my feet go forward in the stirrups without intense pain! I'm a broken individual! I'm going to be seeing a PT because this really strikes me as not an ideal body format?

I'll be doing walking laps and minor weights instead to increase my stamina and overall strength. I wish I had a cheats console so I could just set body strength and stamina up to max without having to mess with anything else.

Speaking of the archaeological dig ie field school, I sent in my paperwork to get approved to go on it and now it's a waiting game of it actually goes through. Last year's field school was cancelled because not enough students were interested! I don't get that. How can you NOT want to hike into the middle of the Canadian prairie and dig for six hours in high heat?

Meanwhile in regular school, the pottery (from 1300s!) we're sorting is going well - I found pieces that fit together and reassembled pieces of a vessel and that was very cool. Everyone else had gotten to do that already and I'm glad I finally found some! Thankfully we're only being graded on how much work we do, not what fate hands us in the excavation. And I work like a busy little beaver.

My ongoing personal mystery on whether an archaeologist ever unearths some pottery and goes 'wow, this pottery really sucks!' or a projectile point and goes 'wow, whoever made this was pretty inept' has been solved as the professor really ripped into Bessant pottery and points during class the other day. Ugly, crude, etc, were all used. And then she mentioned that Avonlea, in the same area, was very pretty so now I choose to believe Besant style was its era version of Brutalist architecture and see if I can really annoy her by making this into a bit.

Also did you know North America once had camels? That lived in the arctic? Fun fact. They were also huge. And that there's species of mammoth besides the woolly mammoth? You can use their remains to date human remains because they only lived in certain time periods.

I'm finishing up now, the cat has started flinging things off the table.

Comments

[phosfate]

Ask your PT if ankle weights are a good choice. You don't really notice them until you take them off, and suddenly you're inadvertently kicking the shit out of everything.

I'm scared of spinning, since you'll recall the last time I rode my bike it fell on me and gave me a concussion.

[ashenmote]

Yeah you should get that checked out.

I did know some guy in Wild West times imported camels for some US desert, my Lucky Luke comics taught me that. But I never heard about the arctic giant camels.

Why would there be any other mammoths? What else could they be other than wooly? Please tell me they were feathered.

Also, it is not very brave of your professor to have a feud with potters that lived ages ago.

Also, you are really good with words.

[crantz]

I could train like Goku!

Well spinning has turned out to not be for me either. But thankfully I came out without any head injuries, just pride injuries.

How is your skull dent?

[crantz]

It's very neat what used to live here...

They must have gotten woolly as the temps went down! But the two we focused on that were pre-woolly were huge but no wool! Just skin! They had that mammoth sloping back though, that elephants don't have. And one had straight tusks and the other had big curved ones.

It might be brave considering how often artifacts turn out to be haunted with angry ghosts.

Aw shucks, thank you.

[phosfate]

Still there, but nothing like as pointy as it was.

[phosfate]

There's a movie about the camels, called Hawmps.

[crantz]

It will distinguish you when an archaeologist digs you up. 'Dented Skull Hominid, probably a warrior of some renown'

[phosfate]

"This says 'Schwinn.'"

[crantz]

"This must have been their chosen one"

[lavendertook]

I did not know about the camels and alternate mammoths. I'm glad you survived mid-terms. Take homes are always cruel and destroy your off time. Cats: the anti-archeologists.

[crantz]

The climate changes going down here did a real number on the megafauna of North America. We had all sorts of cool stuff. Now we've got moose!

I'm glad this isn't just me having an issue with the take home! It was my first time and I was like 'ah yes, this shall be easy' and then it was NOT.

Cats! Wonderful little beasts but also menaces.

You know what animal is the real enemy of archaeologists? Gophers. They dig through sites and totally displace the artifacts and put them out of context. The picture of a gopher that was used in the notes looks a lot like it's saying 'heck them archaeologists'

[tainry]

go cat!
also lol brutalist architecture analogs... XD That is a great thing to have wondered! <3

[crantz]

THANK you. Sometimes I think we don't consider often enough how much humans just do things for the #aesthetic. If existing has taught me anything, so rarely does 'it works well' actually end up being the determining factor in a design.