She Likes Coffee and I Like Tea

I don't know what it is about Anthropology that makes me make really, really indecisively rash decisions.

Actually, that's not entirely true. I've been vaguely toying with this idea for a while now, I only DECIDED for it in one fell swoop. But, much like when I went to the 6-week field school in Maryland in the spurt of the moment, in the last three days I've decided to spend my entire June in Erie, Pennsylvania.

'But what endless possibilities could there possibly be for you there, Nella!?' you may ask.

In short, bones. In long form, Mercyhurst College's Forensic Anthropology Summer Short Courses. I've been flirting with forensic anthropology for...eek gads, too long, but definitely since I took the Intro course at NYU. And--as the fall doth approaches, and the time for applying for grad school is nigh--it's do or die for me to figure out what the hell it is I want to go to grad school for. True, I could just hold on applying for another year but where's the fun in that! Let's spend the summer agonize over the direction my professional life will take and how I'll be able to support myself, let's worry about where my heart truly lies, let's roll the dice and take some classes and see if I can't find a winner!...or in the very least, knock a few possibilities off my list.

What amuses me is that this is EXACTLY what I was going through when I was choosing my major back in the sophomoric NYU year of my college youth. I seriously had a hand written list of some 13 majors that interested me, and I went DOWN THAT LIST and PHYSICALLY crossed one off at a time, forcing myself to research each and narrow my choices until I was left with Biology, History, and Anthropology. It wasn't until I took two Anthro courses that spring that was I caught hook, line and you know it.

So, I suppose the point of this post is that in the four weeks I'm at Mercyhurst, I'm hoping to FINALLY get an idea if this Forensic Anthropology stuff is for me. I mean, if by the time we're blowing up pigs in cars to practice mass fatality disaster reconstruction I'm still undecided about Forensic Anthropology, and I would THINK it would be safe to say it's not my cuppa tea.


UNRELATED: My GOD I need to overhaul and consolidate my tags. And maybe even actually start USING them.

Well, the fiction rewriting wind has left my sails, I'm back in the creative doldrums. I've taken up the piano again to an attempt to whiddle away the time without having to think, since thinking only makes me think about what I've lost and that just makes me melacholy. Good news is that I'm making progress in relearning "Rupert Knight". If the computer downstairs had been connected to the internet, I can't help but think that I would have done my usual of emailing my writing to myself, and I wouldn't have had to depend on the Floppy of Doom, and I wouldn't have lost my writings, and I wouldn't be in this funk.

God. Damn. It.

Water under the bridge, alas. I think I shall put off retyping what I retyped until after I get back. I leave tomorrow for the first leg of my defection to the South, three legs in total. First, Cousin Jessica's confirmation in Annapolis, Maryland. Then, a return to the North about a week, and then down to Florida to Disney World, since my family has been sorely lacking in it's crack. If my laptop wasn't a Death Trap of Rebooting (see below) I would bring it along, but there's too much shit on my laptop to DARE risk Fate again. And then, the night I get back from Florida, I have to drive down to Maryland so that I might start the 6-week archaeology field school the next morning. 6 weeks of eight hour days excavating in a Coastal Maryland summer. You are all welcome to come on down to the sites and point and laugh at me slaving away at a slave site. No, seriously, we're excavating the plantation Fredrick Douglass grew up on, we're going in and digging out the slave quarters.

BUT ANYWAY. I shall try to keep you all updated on my southern (EDIT: I stand totally corrected by my eternal roommate. I SHALL be south of the Mason Dixon. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mason_Dixon) You may laugh and point at will) exploits. The goals of the summer are not to be killed in Maryland, not to total whatever car I have to drive in Maryland, to finish editing this damn story and send it out to people to read it over and get impressions from, and to at some point, make whatever little bit of money I can. We shall see how I fare.

Well, my summer has officially begun. Tootle pip! Wish me luck and all that.


**So, my laptop. Have I told you all about this odd turn of events? I brought my laptop home a few weekends ago, and I had tried to secure it in my suitcase, cushioning it in clothing in the hopes that's it wouldn't get too jostled on the Long Island Railroad. Well, imagine my chagrin when I took it out, started it up, only to discover that NOW, whenever I jostle or move the screen, my laptop REBOOTS. IF I manage it jiggle the screen back into the right position that is. Otherwise, it just shuts down, and valiantly FAILS at trying to restart. I think it's time for a new laptop. Now I jut need money and I'm set!


( And because it make me feel better, I wrote out my frustration. )

EDIT 12:30 am:

GODDAMNIT!!!111!!1!1!??!/1/!!!re%&^&^*%$#q@$!%#@$%#@$%^&*(*&%^%#q@!#%^%$

I missed House M.D. tonight.