Guess Who's Back...
Mood:  party time!
May I have your attention please...

The blog is back, like the spring leaves, and it's ready to rock. Funny how exactly when I don't have time to do a blog anymore I decide to do it again...woo woo hoo.

So while I've been MIA, lots of stuff has happened on this planet of ours, making it my duty to comment, I suppose.

1. Pope John Paul II:
While there are many issues on which we differed, I admire the late Pope for standing against the death penalty and finally forgiving Galileo, among other things. Regrettably, I've been having some doubts of late about my prospects for being chosen as the next Pope. I mean, I predicted at the last minute I wouldn't get into Davenport housing and TUIB, and frankly, I have the same feeling about the Papacy. But then again, maybe I'm just being the pessimist.

2. More John/Paul:
As in John Bolton and Paul Wolfowitz, appointed, resepctively, to the U.N. ambassadorship and the World Bank headship. Um...right. In related news, the YDN recently reported that famously sexist-leaning Harvard prez Laurence Summers would head Yale's Womens Studies Department next year. Of course, it was the April Fools Day issue. And therein lies the difference between Yale and the U.S. government.

3. Terri Schiavo:
This whole debacle was sick. It's over now.

4. Social Security and Arctic National Wildlife Refuge:
Sooner or later, these national treasures are going down, thanks to the Bushmen. And I'm not talking about African hunter-gatherers, though I'm sure they're on the hit list too, a little ways down.

5. Iraq:
I think we're still at war. It's hard to tell. Whatever -- war or no war, I'm still for peace.

6. Michellyne:
Honestly, of the final three "Starlet" candidates, she was my least favorite. Pathetic, judges. Her name sounds like tires.

Happy Spring all.

PREPARE FOR THE RESSURECTION!
The blog will return. Stay tuned.

Wheee!
So I spent the entire afternoon and evening at four separate archaeology functions! First, and least exciting, came ceramics lecture. Then we migrated across the street to a gathering hosted by the Anthro department, featuring a talk by my prof from Foundations last semester. He's retiring and has done a lot of amazing things. He mostly discussed his first field season in Iran after grad school, which entailed a number of ridiculous adventures. These included (but were not limited to) attempting to shoot gazelles while starving, staving off siad starvation with a bottle of lime concentrate (!?!?!?), destroying your WWII Jeep's radiator, taking the bus ride from helleating sheeps' feet until your liver gives out, flying through windshields, generally being delerious while not finding the site you're looking for, and finally getting some good work done and inventing (utterly by chance) the flotation method of screening. It was hilarious and almost Indy-quality in nature, and I wanted more than anything to be an archaeologist at that moment.

Then we had our annual undergrad meeting with a few faculty to discuss summer fieldwork options, the requirements for the major, what we would like to chnge about the major, etc. People's senior essays were there for our perusal. I got more and more excited to do all this stuff and go DIGGING! EEEEE! There's actually a special grant you can apply for to get money for work in Latin America, which I could use for one of the Peru programs I've been scoping out. This is on top of the money the department will give you. I like this game!

Finally we had our weekly happy hour in which we sipepd beer and ate leftover pizza and watched Eddie Izzard. "Geoff, God of Biscuits" will forever be our new alias.

Tomorrow I'm going to VT for the Northeast Climate Conference. It will be cold!

KYOTO.

Because it's about time. But what's wrong with this picture?

The blog lives!
It's been over a month since I updated, much to the dismay of my fanbase. But fear not! I and the blog have survived. I will keep it up on some sort of basis from now on. If I can excercise every day, I can surely spew out lovely meaningless sentences (other than the ones that become anthropology papers) as often. So I will. Coincidentally, this my 100th entry!

Happy thoughts abound:

It was sunny and 50 degrees this morning. Spring will come!
Howard Dean has returned! Vindication is awesome.
The Kyoto Protocol is going into effect tomorrow (sans the USA).
My classes are splendiferous. Archaeology rocks my universe.
I am getting Muir Trail fever again.

Goodnight.

Shop 'til you drop
Woo hoo. It's class selection time!

So far I've decided I would rather take a more difficult, very cool course on "Frontiers and Controversies in Astrophysics" than the basic non-math (read: high school) physics course. But I won't take either if I can get into one of two creative writing seminars. I'm pretty sure I want to take "Myth and Ritual," if I like the prof, and "Intro to Native American Studies," which both meet today. Finally there is the second half of "Archaeological Ceramics" which I started last year. Fun fun fun.

Is it just me or is it lame to start a new semester before all your grades from last term are in?

The Return of the Swing (Space)...ok, horrible. HORRIBLE!
Mood:  bright
A good day. I got enough sleep last night. I'm back with all my friends. There's snow on the ground and classes ripe for the picking. I'm remembering why I love school. In the bookstore today, Kate and I perused textbooks from all departments, tempted to buy fascinating-looking volumes for classes we never planned to take. Unfortunately I can't take the Fiction Writing class I wanted to take because, contrary to the course listings, the Department website and the prof say applications were due in December. Apparently over 100 people applied, so my chances might not have been so high anyway given my meagre body of work. So it looks like science for me, unless I get into one of two college seminars on writing (highly unlikely, since they're not D-port seminars).

We rearranged the common room furniture. we're not sure we like it, but we needed to change something.

And you thought Ashcroft was bad...
The President's new choice for Attorney General, Alberto Gonzalez, actually had to come out last week stating he was against torture. In any other administration, this would be obvious. Not so with Gonzalez, whose memos last year called the Geneva Convention "quaint" and not applicable to prisoners of the War on Terror. Some say his attitude contributed to the Abu Ghraib atrocity. He certainly has a human rights record worthy of intervention by Amnesty International. People for the American Way has issued a statement of opposition to his appointment, citing substantial evidence of this record. At MoveOn.org, you can donate money to fund their anti-Gonzalez TV ads.

Happy New Year, world.

Goodbye '04
Now Playing: "Step Into My Office, Baby," Belle and Sebastian
This is it! The decade's halfway through. So much has happened in the five years since fanatics everywhere were worrying about Y2K! Two disasterous deadlock elections, two wars, and many tragedies, including 9/ll and this week's awful tsunami in Asia. If you haven't yet, consider giving money to the American Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, or one of the many other agencies ready to aid the suffering victims overseas.

I can't say it's been a particularly great year. In fact, it's been pretty bad as far as the world is concerned. However, this is a new year. Maybe new good things will happen.

Here are my own resolutions:

1. Be more patient
2. Keep my hands away from my face
3. Get in better shape to train for Muir Trail 2.0
4. Do something for my own pleasure every day

O Come All Ye Faithful
We got our Christmas tree yesterday and I decorated it! It never really feels like Christmas until that amazing fir smell fills the house. It feels so great to be done with school.

I can't believe how much Christmas is being exploited, and I'm not just talking about commercialization. In Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana, an organization is trying to . That' not such a bad thing, right? Think again. They are petitioning to add "Merry Christmas" to the red-lighted "Season's Greetings" sign on the main government building and selling yard signs that read, "We believe in God. Merry Christmas."

Ok.

It would be one thing if these people were merely trying to reassert their faith, reminding us of the true meaning of Christmas (hint: it's not shopping). However, in today's context I can't help but see it as threatening. And it gets worse: one church in Raleigh, N.C., recently paid $7,600 for a full-page newspaper ad urging Christians to only buy from merchants who include "Merry Christmas" in their ads and displays.

Religion is becoming a bigger and bigger problem in our country, and more and more politicized. A survey by Cornell University found that 44 percent of Americans believe that Muslim Americans should have restricted freedoms just because of their religious beliefs. Unsurprisingly, most of them were Bush supporters. I guess nobody told them that Muslims also believe in God.