I really don't like children. So it's definitely a good thing I didn't get into Teach for America. I might have died. Or killed the children. Or something.
This week is the archaeology camp for kids, which I kinda got roped into helping with, since Sheila is running it. There are eighteen kids in it, ages 9 to 11. It has been a truly exhausting week And it's only Wednesday. I'm taking tomorrow off, though, since it's my birthday, and Friday the parents are coming in the afternoon for a show-and-tell thing, so I think the worst is over.
It hasn't really been that bad. They're good kids, for the most part, it's just that there are a lot of them. There are a bunch of adults too - Bekki the education director has been helping part of the time, and Brittany the education intern, and Ivy who is a 'camp assistant' and me. And yesterday Sheila's daughter who is studying to be a teacher came too. But the kids still outnumber us. Eighteen is too many, I think we've all agreed, but they apparently were having to turn people away from the camp because so many wanted to sign up. Part of the problem is that there's such a wide range of reasons why the kids are in the camp - there are some that are really interested in archaeology and want to learn this stuff, and there are some who would rather be roleplaying, or reading, or playing baseball or video games, but their parents wanted to get rid of them. Or decided they needed some history/culture in their lives or something. And a lot of the camps are fine for kids who aren't necessarily into the subject, but this one really isn't - there's way too much sitting around and learning what archaeologists do for anyone who isn't all that interested. Also, it's a relatively new camp, so it's still getting worked out - the balance of doing stuff to learning stuff is off, I think. Today wasn't too bad because they got to do a mock excavation, rotating through digging, sifting dirt and washing artifacts, which they enjoyed. But it did mean we were out in the sun *all day* and it was over 90, so that kinda sucked.

But Laura and I went up to her house and swam around in her pool and had tacos with her family and then went and got ice cream. So that was very fun. And tomorrow I am going to sleep late, and maybe spend a couple hours cataloging in the nice air-conditioned, children-free collections center, and then go out to dinner with my family ^_^

The Archaeology Field School started today. Was truely brutally hot here, but other than that it went well. The majority of the group is people who have excavated before, either with us or in other field schools, so that's nice. (And there's nobody younger than 15, which is excellent. Two years ago we had a bunch of children, which was awful, so Sheila put a lower limit on ages.) I don't think I'm gonna dig this year, it's supposed to be really hot all week, and I don't think I can stand being hot and covered in dirt, too. Especially since I'm not commuting this year, so I don't have air conditioning to go home to. And I've never liked digging that much anyway, I tend to get tired of it pretty quickly, especially when we start getting deeper into the pits and it's harder to get down in. So I'm going to concentrate on the lab stuff, and on the scanning and things that I've already been doing for my internship, which can be done inside, in the air conditioning. And Sally, the lab supervisor, wants to concentrate on getting the cataloging done rather than supervising people doing lab work, so I'm going to be in charge of supervising washing artifacts, which I always like to do. And she's going to show me how to catalog, so I can keep doing that after the field school is over. Which is will be useful, because Sheila only works one day a week, so the volunteers who do the cataloging can only come in on Wednesdays, which means it takes forever to get all the artifacts done - we just finished the ones from the 2008 field school. Part of the problem is also just the number of artifacts we're getting from this site, we've got boxes and boxes full, and the relation is something like 10 hours of lab work for every hour of field work. So.

If anybody's interested in reading more about the field school we've started a blog (which I'm in charge of) at digsstrawberybanke.blogspot.com

Went home over the weekend, which was good. Went out for Dim Sum for Father's day, played Nancy Drew games with Julie. Had a discussion with my parents about whether we really wanted to buy me a used car...leaning towards no. Monday was a pretty normal day, but the rest of the week's been a little crazy.

( crazy week )

Today's been much calmer, I've spent most of it scanning the box of stuff Sheila gave me. It's a very strange collection of photos - some of them are reconstructed artifacts from past archaeology digs, which makes sense. But then there are random photos of other things that I'm sure aren't in our collection. One section looks like somebody's trip to a ceramics factory, cuz it's got lots of pictures of exhibits that definitely aren't from our museum, and one of what looks like the outside of the factory. So I have no idea. And then later I'm going home for the weekend again. We've got reservations tomorrow at the chocolate buffet in Boston. I've been wanting to go since I was like 10, so as a graduation celebration for me and Julie we're going.

I have a room to myself now, which is making me so much happier. The 'boys' Kimberly saved a room for are actually 30-something grad students, so it'd be kinda creepy if they wanted to live in a house with a bunch of college-age girls. Plus they live close by. So I appropriated the room that was set aside for them as my own (after making sure my housemates didn't mind), moved all my stuff down today. I think having my own space will help, though I will try not to be antisocial and hide out in it too much.

Monday afternoon I spent some time at the public library, which is only about two blocks from the house, so that's nice. Can't get a library card yet, because I don't technically have an address. They said have Kimberly or someone sign something saying I'm living here for the summer and that'll be sufficient. Then we had a reception with most of the museum staff, and all of the interns. Liz, Ben, Matt, Bridget and I are the collections/curatorial area interns. I'm overlapping with archaeology, and Ben is a little too, he's also working with Preservation because he got a grant related to his grad school research, something about climate change affecting the seacoast and historic buildings? Not entirely sure. Liz is going to be working mostly with Kimberly, planning the special exhibits for the next two years, one about a Portsmouth hero in the Civil War and one about fashion. Matt is doing research on Leonard Cotton, who built one of the buildings on the Strawbery Banke property. Bridget is doing general collections stuff, I think, working with Tara who's the collections manager. Then there are Emily, Rachel and Brittney in the education department, who are all working on projects associated with various camps, Laura in horticulture who is designing an interactive tour of the gardens that will be available for download to iphones and such, and Mary, who is working in marketing. And thus will probably never see the rest of us again, since she's also not living in the house....I feel kinda bad for her, that seems lonely. Though Kimberly had mentioned arranging all-intern events or field trips, so that should be good.

Then Monday evening I had my interview at Rugged Bear, which was fine, and when I got back we all watched 13 Going on 30, which was fun. We can't get the TV to work, though, so we had to watch it on the computer...And it was only 8:30 so we decided to take a was around Portsmouth, which was fun. I get the feeling we're going to be watching a lot of movies, since the tv doesn't get actual channels and the internet is kinda spotty. Though Portsmouth is supposed to have a lot going on, so maybe we can find some fun stuff to do in town.

This morning Tara took us on a tour of the collections, which was fun, and Kimberly took us on a tour of the current special exhibit. That was slightly less fun, but only cuz the exhibit is paintings of Portsmouth, and I'm not that interested in art. But some of her stories about getting the paintings for the exhibit were fascinating. And this evening Laura, Brittany and I sat on the lawn to eat dinner and talked, and Emily and Liz joined us later, and that was nice.

And tomorrow's Wednesday, so Sheila (archaeologist) will be working, and I might actually get assigned something to do, which would be excellent.

Well, I'm here. Still going back and forth on whether that's a good thing... I met my housemates - Brittany (roommate), Liz, Laura, Rachel and Emily. Everyone seems really nice. Liz and I are collections interns, Rachel and Emily are education interns, and Laura's horticulture. And then there are Ben, Matt and Bridget who are also collections interns, but not living in the house. Well, there's some question about whether the guys will be staying here part time, I guess - Kimberly saved a room aside for them. But if they decide not to, I might move into that room...Brittany seems a good roommate, but I'd really rather not have one at all. Haven't had to do any cooking yet, Mom and Dad took me out to dinner last night after we moved me in. Still haven't found out what I'm going to be doing for my internship, either. Today was our first day, and we had a meeting of the collections interns with Kimberly, the curator, and Tara, the collections manager, but our 'assignment' for the day was to get to know the museum and go on the tours and stuff. Not that I mind spending time at the museum, but I could probably give most of these tours. So I wandered around a little this morning, came back and had lunch, and am trying to decide what to do this afternoon. I may go over to the public library or something. And then there's a reception with the museum president at 4:30. And this evening I've got an interview for a part-time job at a children's clothing store. I'm not sure if I want a job or not - on the one hand it'd keep me busy and earn me money, both of which are good, but it might also prevent me from going home on weekends, which I was hoping I could do, since I'm not so fond of the living arrangements here.... I guess I'll see what, if anything, they offer me. Transportation might be an issue, too, because it's over the bridge in Kittery, Maine, and I'm not sure I can get there without a car. Mom left me her car for the first couple of days, and we're trying to find me a used car to buy, but don't have one yet. And there doesn't seem to be a bus that goes from Portsmouth to Kittery, which seems odd. I might be able to bike there, though, it's only a couple of miles, though I didn't bring my bike. But if I need it mom can probably bring it up on Wednesday when she comes to take the car back.

Mom and I went up to Portsmouth yesterday, so we could check out the intern housing for the summer at Strawbery Banke (and to get some straight answers about the details of the internship, since they've been very bad about returning emails and phone calls). So I know now that I start June 14th, which is good. But I'm not so thrilled about the housing. I was really hoping that there'd be at least one single and I could grab it by virtue of being up there before anyone else, but they're all doubles. So that kind of sucks. No air conditioning, but I was expecting that. Kitchen with pots and pans and stuff, which is good cuz it means I don't have to buy those yet (no diswasher though, ugh). Living room with a tv + vcr. And the bedrooms are this god-awful red/orange color, it's hideous, I have no idea what possessed them to paint the walls that color (or to make paint in that color in the first place). Not much storage space either, but I'll only be there for 10 weeks, so I probably don't need to bring that much stuff. I picked the biggest room, since I figured that'd help when dealing with my roommate (and hey, I survived sophomore fall at Wellesley living with Jenny in the world's smallest double, so I ought to be able to survive the summer, too). I'm also not sure how many of us will be living there full time - five, I think, and there are four doubles. But Kimberly (the museum's curator) was kinda vague, I think there are also a couple of people who will be living there part time, because their houses are nearby. I'm hoping that I'll get one of them as a roommate. But I think she said that two of them are boys, so she's reserving one room for them, meaning that the five of us girls who will be there full time will be spread over 3 rooms rather than 4. I dunno. Hopefully my roommate will be nice and everything will be fine. But I'm a little worried. Also about having to feed myself - I guess we'll have to decide if we're going to share cooking or all fend for ourselves or what. But I figure breakfast and lunch just require cereal and luncheon meat, so that'll be ok. And I actually calculated that I have enough money in my savings account that I could eat dinner out every day that I'm there. Not that that's the best use of my money, but at least it's comforting to know. So we'll see. 

My sister might not come to my graduation.
I knew there was some hoopla about it, because it's on the Friday of her last week of class, and baccalaureate and the Phi Beta Kappa initiation are on the Thursday evening. And she's got a chorus concert Friday evening, and the dress rehearsal is Thursday. So last I heard there was some question about when we would be able to go out to a celebratory dinner with my grandfather (who is coming all the way from Colorado!) and that it might have to be Thursday instead of Friday because of the concert, or that Julie might not be able to come because of dress rehearsal. And I think mom made some comment about how Julie was upset about missing her last day of class. But it never occurred to me that meant that she wouldn't do it. Until I got home (yesterday) and this afternoon Dad was like 'we need to talk about the plans for graduation because Julie needs to get permission to miss the dress rehearsal if she's doing that instead of coming on Friday' and I was all 'wait, WHAT?' Because apparently they decided that coming to the stupid phi beta kappa thing was a good substitute for graduation itself, and nobody bothered to tell me. And I know that its her last day of class of her senior year of high school, and that they'll be reviewing for exams and stuff, and it'd be bad to miss it. But, hello? It's my college graduation! So now I'm really upset. Am I being ridiculous?

The last day of classes was today, technically, though I don't have classes on Thursdays, so I was done yesterday. It was really quite a good last day, almost perfect. Morning I had my early modern Europe seminar, and presented on my research paper. Yes, the one that I hadn't done any research as of Sunday... But it went quite well, I think. Plus there were bagels. And then I picked up my yearbook, which is beautiful. Afternoon was my Colonial America seminar, in which I listened to other people present, and we ate brownies and cupcakes. Then I lay outside in the sun and read a book for awhile (a non-schoolwork book. free reading, as we used to call it in middle school) and then was the history department dinner. The departments all do this at the end of the semester, have dinners for the majors/minors, generally free food and alcohol (and often drunk professors, highly amusing). So that was fun, I sat with a bunch of girls from my Colonial America seminar, and our professor and one of the other department professors. I got toasted to, as the history club president, which was highly embarrassing. Funny though, as the head of the department who was making the toasts was already quite tipsy when she started them, and just kept rambling on, toasting the senior history majors, and the senior IR history majors, and the junior history majors, and the professor who's retiring this year, and me. She's this teeny woman, maybe 5'1 and 100 lbs, so she can't hold her alcohol at all, despite being Russian. She didn't sing this time, though, at the Fall semester party she brought a bunch of russian songs to play and tried to organize a sing-along, except that she was the only one who knew the words. Anyway, after that I came back to my room and putzed around for a while, and then it was time for decorating. Every year for the last day of classes, the seniors decorated the campus (the inside of the academic buildings, mostly) in the class color (ours is purple). Which of course has to be done in secret, after everyone has left the buildings, so we met up about 10pm. Generally you decorate whatever department you're majoring in, but I did the philosophy department rather than history, partly cuz history had more people doing it, and mostly because my friends Jackie and ShanShan were in charge of the phil dept. So the three of us, and another girl, Leslie were there from 10 until about 3am, decorating, which was fun. Jackie had brought her computer, and we blasted her playlist of disney songs. The buildings generally have a theme (which is hard for purple. the other colors are red, green and yellow, which all have lots of good theme-y things, like communism, hell, forests, money, yellow-brick road, etc. but there isn't so much for purple) and our building was monsters, so we did the phil department as flying purple people eaters. We printed and cut out bunches of purple people eaters, and glued the professors' faces on them, and then put the students faces on stick figures running away. And each professors' door has them as a purple people eater with a speech bubble saying some sort of philosophical thing about purple people eaters, appropriate for the professors' area of study. Which was hard, especially since we left it until like 2am, and the four of us have had lots of the same professors, so coming up with ones for the other people was difficult. Oh, and of course we hung lots of purple streamers, and mardi gras beads, and balloons and pompoms. It was awesome. I don't have a camera, so I don't have pictures, but Jackie and ShanShan took lots and I'm sure they send them to me at some point. But here are some that other people took of the other buildings.

Anyway, it was almost 4 by the time I got to bed, so I slept really late today, and then I went to work for my last day. And Deborah (the phil dept administrative assistant) gave me a card and a barnes and noble gift card from everyone in the department, which was really sweet. Tomorrow we've got our last history club meeting/picnic and the phil department dinner, which unfortunately are at the same time, but I'm gonna try to go to both. And then I'm going home, yay! I've got papers to write still, and I'll be back and forth a bunch, because we've got an open house for my book arts class, so we can see each other's projects, and an ice cream trip for the history club eboard, and then a bunch of senior week activities after finals are over.

Classes end one week from today. That's a slightly terrifying thought, but also good, since I'm really ready to be done with schoolwork. Not that I will be done in a week, of course, exam period doesn't end until the 17th, and I still have papers to write. The one for my Colonial America class is 90% finished, though, which is good. I plan to finish it tonight and send the draft to my professor and see if she has any comments. And I did the presentation for that class this week, so I'm done with that. The other two, on the other hand..... Well, the philosophy one should be fine, no research involved in that, and for the presentation we only have to talk about the conflict we're writing on, we don't have to have any of our own ideas formulated yet. But the one for my Early Modern Europe class is going to be a problem, I need to present on my research and stuff and I haven't done any yet. Well, I did enough that I could turn in my proposal two weeks ago, but nothing more than that. Clearly that's going to be this weekend's project. I'm writing about the rise of the novel, though, so at least some of my research is going to involve reading novels, which might be fun. Except that I have to analyze, not just read, and they're 18th century English novels, which aren't usually high on my list of entertaining reading... Ugh. I hate having to do a research paper on a topic I'm not really interested in, but that's what I get for taking a class because my advisor is teaching it, and not because I'm particularly enthralled by the subject matter. Anyway, I'm getting there. I've got two more class sessions for my book arts class, and I think I can finish the project in that time, rather than having to go in outside of class. Of course, that's way more fun than any of my other work, so I wouldn't mind going in outside of class, but I'm sure my time would be better spent on my papers instead.

Course, if I actually spent time working on my papers rather than procrastinating so much I'd probably be done with all of them by now. My work ethic has completely gone out the window, it's a good thing I'm graduating. Been watching a lot of CSI: New York. I've fallen really hard for this show, somehow I went from 'meh I don't like it as much as the other two CSIs' to being totally obsessed in like 5 weeks flat, and I'm not quite sure how that happened. Yeah, I watch too much television... I went to see Laurie R King in Boston on Tuesday, that was exciting. Actually, I skipped my philosophy class to do it. I feel bad, but it was totally worth it. And it was student presentations in class, so it's not like I missed anything important. And Professor Wearing is a Laurie R King fan too, so she understood. And I bought her a signed copy of the new book to apologize lol. Anyway, it was cool, she read and excerpt of the new book, and answered people's questions, and then signed books. So then I stayed up until 2:30 Tuesday night to finish the new book...

I'm getting a little concerned about my internship this summer. When I talk to Sheila at the beginning of April she said they'd let me know about housing in a couple weeks, and that I should talk to Kimberly, the curator, about the stipend and when they want me to start and all that logistical stuff. But I didn't hear from her, so I sent her an email a couple weeks ago, and I still haven't heard back. I guess I'm gonna have to actually call them... Because if I don't have housing, I kinda need to know that so I can look for a place to live or a car to commute with or something.

I usually go home for the long weekend, but this year I have too much work, so I stayed. Which means that I haven't been home for three weeks and won't be home until the end of the semester in another three or four (depending on how long into exam period I stay), which is a longer stretch than usual for me. Pathetic, I know. Mom came down on Saturday to bring me groceries, which was good.

But I digress. Anyway, I have three 20 page papers to write before the end of the semester so I needed to stay. And I thought I should probably stay for Marathon Monday at least one year, since it's a big tradition. Not as fun as everyone makes it sound. Part of the problem is that I've been short on sleep lately, so I went to bed at midnight-ish and set my alarm for 10. But the girl next door apparently decided that 9am on a holiday was a good time to have several very loud friends over, so I got woken up early, which was not pleasant. And I  had trouble falling back asleep, even with my earplugs in. I should have just gotten up then. I knew that they closed breakfast at 10 but I didn't realize that they were actually closing the dining hall, usually you can still go get cereal after they stop serving hot food, but today the gates were down. So I didn't get breakfast. Which didn't put me in a good mood for the marathon, I went out for a few minutes, but it was a lot of people screaming and cheering and some people running past. Not very exciting.

The afternoon was reasonably good, I managed to finish the research for my Colonial America paper. 900+ pages of 16th century documents in the last two days. >_< And then I decided the next thing to do was pick a topic for my philosophy paper, because the proposal for that is due on Thursday. 4.5 hours, a long phone call with my mother, and a lot of tears later, I still don't have a topic and I'm miserable.

( somewhat technical linguistics/philosophy discussion )

I sent my professor an email asking if I could meet with her tomorrow, so hopefully I'll be able to get a little clearer on what, exactly, the boundaries of the assignment are, which should help me pick a topic. And she might have some suggestions for articles I could read that compile/evaluate the various scholarly work that's been done, rather than having to read everything ever written. I feel better just having this all written out, though, it's a little clearer in my head what exactly my possible topics and the issues with them are. Which is better than the last time I went to talk to her, where I was just kind  like 'ummmm I don't know what to write'.