Home again, home again

I'm home. And I'm exhausted. Our trip went relatively smoothly, we saw everything we wanted to see and had a lot of fun. There were some interesting events while travelling though - including a huge sandstorm on the Desert Highway which led to a massive accident that we drove past minutes after it occurred, followed by one of our fellow passengers having a heart attack! One of our flights home was also delayed waiting for a connecting flight, which had almost the entire passenger list on it - consisting of people who proceeded to provide the loudest flight I have ever been on. This was particularly frustrating since we had gotten up at 1am to make our first flight.

So, interesting and exciting.

I'm now busy processing all the information and experiences I had while out there. I was surprised by some of the sites I visited, and thoroughly enjoyed that.

Didn't give up. . . might still live

Well, pursuant to my last post, I have indeed been running around getting things organized. Top of the list was visas, second was flights. Flights were particularly exorbitant because we were traveling over Easter weekend, though we seem to have mitigated that by flying out on the Saturday. Next on the list is a hotel to stay at when we arrive at 1:30 am. Once again, because it is Easter weekend, I am finding that any place reasonably priced is totally booked up, making this difficult. NOrmally, we'd just sort it out once we arrived, but since this is such a short trip and because I have a number of research goals I need to accomplish, I can't afford to have a slow or tired start. So I'm still looking to find some place that I"m happy with.

In other news, I had a meeting with one of my supervisors this morning, and we spent a good deal of time brainstorming over the various things we could do to measure smell ourselves. I think we may have gone a bit overboard, but I foresee some sniffing in my future!

Visa application - or - Why I want to quit before I start

I'm going on a research trip this month, and have a bunch of grant money coming in to pay for it.  Unfortunately, the money doesn't arrive until early in the month, so I haven't been moving very quickly on booking things like flights or applying for visas.  Now, it's a week before I intended to leave, and I'm running around like a crazy person trying to make up for the fact that i put things off so long.  I think it will be fine, but I could do without the extra stress.  

In fact, this pre-travel planning always makes me wish I was just staying home.  I love travel and do quite a bit of it, but every time, I just want to lay down and pretend it isn't there.  I guess this is why people go on all-expenses-paid tours rather than doing things themselves!

This is the same as grant applications, scholarships, and all the other things that an academic has to do in order to survive, and I dread it.  Ugh.

Life!! Ack!!

Well, life has taken over.  The past week has been really stressful for me - mostly because I've been feeling overwhelmed.  As a result, I've been making use of the tried and tested method of a to-do list to keep track of things and reduce my stress level.  I find that when I write the list of things down it means that I can focus on doing something without worrying that I'll remember to do the other things.

That being said, I am slowly starting to feel back in control of my life because I have:

Prepared and given the 4 lectures I needed to

Prepared and printed the poster for the poster day next Friday

Taken care of some admin things for grants

Called the Syrian Embassy

Gotten a handle on a timetable for my research trip

Met with my supervisors

I still need to:

Plan and book research trip

Including: apply for visas, book flights, ensure grant payment

Work in office

Poster day (Fri)

Practical teaching (2 Fridays)

Work on thesis (any spare moment)

Go to Stonehenge (Fri/Sat)

Go hiking (next Sat/Sun)

Sleep - presumably

All this to say, life is busy and I'm running around quite a bit

Experiencing the divine and pilgrimage

I listen to a really good podcast The Dark Side of Fey. The most recent episode was a thought-provoking one on Experiencing Deity. The discussion itself was fascinating, and an issue that I have struggled with myself, it triggered some thoughts on recent issues concerning experience and archaeological sites.

My field work is located very close to the famous site of Catalhoyuk. This site is now the pilgrimage location of many different goddess groups due to some scholarship from the 60's that suggested that the Neolithic community living at Catalhoyuk were goddess-worshippers. While this interpretation is no longer accepted in the archaeological community (many of the images are now believed to be bears rather than women), the pilgrims continue to come and are an integral part of the experience of visiting Catalhoyuk.

To these women, and indeed any pilgrim of any religion, the act of travelling to some particular location brings them closer to the divine and allows them a truer experience. I find this difficult to reconcile. On the one hand, I am a pantheist and believe that all things are divine, therefore no one location will provide a "better" or "truer" experience than another. On the other hand, I truly believe that you gain a better understanding for having visited a site, and have submitted many grant applications for a research trip through the Middle East based on this very belief.

Does location matter?

It seems as if I'm a hypocrite, because I would say that it didn't matter for spiritual reasons, but for academic reasons it does. But, my spiritual beliefs center around the understanding that divinity is everything and that there should be no separation. How does that work??!

Having this contradiction handed to me means that I need to reevaluate my assumptions, and I think it is very true that different experiences are available in different locations. You see/feel/smell/taste/etc different and therefore travelling is very valuable (thank goodness!), but I can't justify prioritising one experience, or one person's experience over another. All are perfectly valid and valuable, and should contribute a person's understanding of the world.

This means that the women who travel to Catalhoyuk to experience the lives of the "goddess-worshippers" will gain something from their trip, but also means that they should not think that it is the only place they can connect.

Engaging with the Community

As I walked home last night with a few friends, we passed a restaurant where a man was smoking outside with his son.  We had had an unexpected snowfall that day, so the boy was entertaining himself by making snowballs and throwing them at passersby.  The three of us were on the other side of the street ignored the boy (he was about 10 - no need to encourage him) and he proceeded to come and throw his snowball at us.  I am no wilting flower so proceeded to give the kid a hard time about throwing snowballs at people, telling him that a snowball was *exactly* what I needed to top off my evening and thanking him sarcastically for it.  (Note - father said nothing).

I then walked face first into a pole.  Ouch.

Of course, kiddo thought this was frickin' hysterical and what I rightly deserved for having the gall to tell him it was inappropriate to throw snowballs at strangers on the street.

I got home, sore and my face throbbing, and I was really pissed.  Not at the boy, really, but at the adult who stood and let his kid throw snowballs at strangers with no regard to his relationship with the community.  I can only imagine what sort of holy terror this kid will grow up to be.

This is a common problem where I live, parents do not seem to be engaged in their children's relationship with the community around them.  No one bothers to teach their children how to interact with strangers and how to be a functioning member of society.  This might explain the number of rude and infantile adults around here as well.  

It can be truly unpleasant to go out into the world some days when common decency seems to have fled.  So what can we do?  My husband thinks that if every single person who had been hit by that kid's snowballs had taken the time to tell him off, he would have eventually gotten the idea, but I also think that he was probably looking for the attention.  Also, is it our responsibility to teach kids manners?  In some cases I think it probably is society's responsibility, but it is also a parent's responsibility.  

What do you think?  How can we engage with our community and deter undesirable behaviour?  Can we teach kids good manners when the parents don't seem to care?  Should I have kept my nose and dignity intact by not talking to the kid (and therefore not walking into the pole)?

Locating Yourself

I passed a girl on campus today who was talking to a friend about a possible weekend away.  They had just finished their exams and were looking for some fun.  Girl A mentioned that they should go to the coast.  Girl B asked where she wanted to go and Girl A replied that they should go to whatever coast is closest!  And laughed at her ignorance as to where the closest coast was.

To be honest, I laughed too.  To put it in perspective, I live in a city that was heavily bombed in WWII because it was a port city!  We are on the coast!  

I find it so hard to believe that someone could be so oblivious to where they are in the world.  I guess this is one of the downsides of housing undergrads in isolated residences and ferrying them back and forth to campus.  They have no need to wander around and find the port, or any other major features of the region they live in.

I want to experience as much of the UK while I'm here, and to that end I was up to Windermere for the day to see the largest lake in England.  I try to get out of this city as often as possible to see what else there is close by (and sometimes not as close!).  Traveling and seeing how places fit together is one of my passions, so I find it so hard to understand when people have no interest in their surroundings.

*sigh* Now I have map love. . . . must go find my Lonely Planet.

Bye!