bag of nails

1. So, I finally finished my post about the weekend. Whew. (See below this one.)

2. Yesterday was the first day of classes of the winter semester, which is, you know, exciting and all that. This will be my tenth semester, not counting my field school, and it's looking like it's going to be a fairly challenging one. Let's see:

• Latin. Yup, the grand prize for passing Latin last semester is... taking more! We're reading Cicero (actually this whole reading, the Pro Archia), instead of learning more grammar and exercises, so hopefully things will be slightly easier. Or at least more fun. I rather like Cicero.
• Archaeology of the Maritimes. Ooh, that should be easy, what with the field experience and the lab experience, right? Wrong. It's going to be a seminar, and one with two of my very favourite things: group work, and presentations (three). YUM. Snarking aside, I am looking forward to the work and even the assignment, because it looks really interesting; she's decided to teach it as a sort of introduction to how archaeology works in the real world (CRM) as opposed to academic research, which is free to pursue its own pace and aims but tends not to put food on the table or roof overhead. The group project will consist of splitting the class into three imaginary CRM firms, doing up proposals for a hypothetical project at the headpond of the Mactequac Dam, which we will then present to Sue, a professional CRM archaeologist, and the provincial archaeologist at a meeting in a board room. It should be fairly intense. I'm a little afraid, honestly.
  
• Honours Seminar in Anthropology. This is the second half of the course, with less theory and more methodology. This seems to translate into learning how to apply for funding and writing thesis proposals (which we then present), which are important life skills for academics of any stripe. Also, the text, called Auto-Ethnographies, is really, really interesting. Interesting enough that I am halfway through reading it, having bought it yesterday. I'll probably write about it another day.
• Augustus, Architect of the Roman Empire. I thought this was going to be a typical Kerr course; I can recite the standard Kerr syllabus by rote. Not so! It's... a seminar. With presentations. I'm not exactly happy about that, but I suppose it won't kill me.

So as you see... lots of presentations, with a little Latin in there just to keep things interesting. I'm excited about all of the classes individually, but as a semester... I'm a little concerned for my sanity. Even just one presentation is (literally) enough to make me cry.

3. And then there's work.

• I met with Sue yesterday and again this morning to talk about my work study position and what we're up to this semester. So far I'm writing up a report of what I did last semester, and then probably shoring up that work as she sees fit. I'm also going to be doing a (relatively) quick bulk cataloging of the site 2 material (last semester I did site 1) and going to Metepenagiag to screen more material, and hopefully learning how to use some very expensive, very cool archaeological software for modeling some of this information.
• I'm still working a few hours a week on the Crafts Council website, which will probably entail finally getting the members' section together.
• And I've agreed to do similar work for a local craftsperson/entrepreneur, John Welling, which will be interesting work.

4. So, in amidst all of this, I've been knitting some very cool socks from this chart, somewhat modified for my needs, and I've taught Sean to knit. He finished his first dishcloth today, which was pretty exciting, and now he wants to embark on learning to knit in the round so he can make some ribbed legwarmers to make his boots more practical.

5. Sue showed me this today, and we had a good laugh.

6. But now I must run and do some Latin homework and some readings for my Classics seminar and also some writing for Sue. And maybe some grocery shopping, because I suspect we are running low on some key ingredients to our veggies-pasta-tuna diet.
Tonks is sleeping on her face. I kind of want to copy her fine example. The first week of class/work/life is getting to me a bit, I think.