Wow. And not in a good way...

From Heo Cwaeth - Unfreaking believable is about right...
http://heocwaeth.blogspot.com/search/label/Unbe-freakin-lievable

Not much to say today...

and I've been singularly unable to write an interesting blog entry all week. Partly due to the several small assignments due around now and perhaps I've blown all my "short but sweet" writing skills on those.

So what did I have to do?

2 Book reviews - sadly on books I was pretty "meh" about. Both were difficult to write about for that reason. Possibly the hardest was concerning a book that I didn't think much of, but so many other people often comment along the lines of "This is the most profound book evah!"

The other book should have been interesting, and certainly had all the elements to be interesting(an archaeologist working with paleolithic cultures in Ontario), but the execution of the whole thing was.... dull. Maybe because it read more like a diary? "Dear Diary, today I found the best site - it has this kinds of soil, and artifacts in different positions and I got to have pizza for lunch!". How do I recap that kind of writing?

3 Class Presentations -

Presentation 1 - A group presentation on Heritage Tourism. One in which I nearly came to blows with another classmate and graduate student, who took it on herself to be the arbitraitor of what was relevent to the discussion and what was not. She used this attitude quite well on the little undergraduates and they heeled quite nicely.
However I did not. When I first suggested that we should include a section on managing cultural resources, she didn't understand what I meant. When I went on to say that perhaps we should talk about how site managers protect and conserve the resources everyone is coming to see so that it's around longer, she said, "I don't really think that relevent."

It heritage tourism - its Stonehenge, UNESCO World Heritage Sites, its about preserving that little designated house(1840) down the street, its about making sure people don't carve their own initials into the stone next to the petroglyphs etc.

She shrugged and said,"Yeah, but I really don't think that's important to our presentation. But. You can do it if you really want to." And you all know what kind of a voice she'd have to use for that.
Me? I said, "Yeah, I think its important, since you don't have a tourist site without the resource. And since this is a planning and management class for heritage, I think there are going to be several people in the class who might be interested."

I was right.
Can I say that again? I was right!
And, I had the pleasure of hearing the prof compliment us on our presentation, "...especially for including resource management. That's an overlooked component most of the time."
Hah!
Of course, it helped that I had pictures of Stonehenge, Lascaux, Petroglyph Park and Spadina House to help me along.

Presentation 2 - was for my Environmental Recreation and Tourism class where I presented on Wanuskewin. Since this site is one of my favorite places in the world, my big difficulty was making sure I stayed on topic (no "I remember..." stories) and on time. Which I did. Plus, the Saskatoon Berry Jam was a big hit.

Presentation 3 - Law. I sweated big on this one and all for nought. It was postponed until our makeup class on an upcoming Saturday. It's on the Meewasin Valley in Saskatoon. And I'm nervous about it, because I'm not sure if its all legal and analysed the way its supposed to be. I wish it were behind me, but on the bright side I now have some time to read and edit it again.

You know how I said I had nothing much to say? I may have been mistaken. Whether my rehashing is interesting to you is another matter...

Later!

one of the stories

http://thevanitypress.blogspot.com/2007/03/george-will-wrong-again.html#links

The only part missing is the repetitive, drone mentality of much of these so called jobs.
Retail? Call centre? Who grows up to say I wanna be a telemarketer...

Yesterday's house...

In yesterday's post I showed you this picture. This was the structure I chose to feature for my architectural assignment. My mission was to pick out an example of Second Empire and talk about it.

Second Empire is named after the "Second French Empire" of Napoleon Bonaparte the Third. This empire did not last very long (about 18 years) and wasn't known for much except for really cool art and design. It is responsible for popularizing the Mansard roof, a style actually deveoloped back in the 17th century by Francois Mansart. However, it became extremly popular first in France around the 1850's and then spread out as a style to the rest of the world.

It's a very formal style when its all done up, but the addition of a Mansard roof makes it possible to use the attic story more efficiently. For this reason you'll also see it in much humbler styles, such as row houses, because it allowed more use of small spaces. I've seen it done "Pioneer" style too, out in Saskatoon. But the style mostly died out around the 1890's.

So one day in January, me and my lovely Assistant Jim went hunting for Second Empire houses in Toronto. And found out there was a lot of them around, some of which I may one day post here. This was one of the first ones we took and it got Assistant Jim so excited he insisted on taking several more - both on his cell phone and real camera. In fact even though I knew I'd be using this one - because I'm practically in love with it - Assistant Jim dragged me through several more hours of searching. It was not unlike shopping with my mother.

But since I love both my mother and my Assistant Jim I will not say any more about either of these activities.

But this house, this house I love. It was built in the 1870's as a duplex, so even though its built up in a very grand and formal design, it was meant for the use of two families and their servants.

See, here are the front doors- you can see how fancy the brickwork is by our standards, you've got a little bit of a look at the roof shape, and check out the windows. I think they look a little like eyes.

You'll also notice a small round plaque beside the left door. That tells you that this duplex is the childhood home of former Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King (b.1874). Note that this is a heritage plaque. Because this house is listed, not designated. That means that its not safe from destruction.

Next, I'll show you my favorite bit of the house-

Isn't that neat? There's one on either side of the duplex so each household can have one. It's very likely the original kitchen, built so that the family would not have to endure cooking smells (because that was not considered part of a polite dining experience back then) nor would the family have to deal with heat of the kitchens in the summer.

And I'm BACK!!!

Really. Don't all rush in at once there....


I don't think I've blogged since, ah, January. And I think it was same equivelant of a sign that says "Back in 5!" on some shop door and despite knowing that its going to be more than five minutes you wait anyways. And then the person never comes back...

So. What have I been up to? The usual grad student life - scrounging for money, doing piles of reading and attending classes.

I have to say, I'm especially pleased about the combination of class that I have this term. They are, if not about archaeology, about a lot of the issues that surround archaeological practices and heritage resource management in today's world. Land Use Law, Native & Non-Native Relations in Canada, Resource Management in Recreation and Tourism, and a University of Waterloo class that tackes Heritage Planning.

This is a big change from last semester where, being new and overwhelmed and not sure of how to pick out my path, I took stuff that was not as related to topics near and dear to my heart as I would like.


The down side of this was a lot of stress as I learned a huge pile of information about stuff I'd never really studied before and that a lot of the time, I just felt overwhelmed.

The upside was that most of what I learned gave me an environmental framework to use as I continue to put together my next plan of study draft. I learned how to relate my interests (archaeology) to other disciplines. That can only be good.

This semester is almost a relief, because I recognize so much more of the content. I'm also having some of those cool experiences where one class feeds into another.

But I fear I'm catching "gradschool mouth" that horrible condition where once you start on a topic, you keep going on and on... instead I'll just post a picture of one of my assignments. I'll tell you about it tomorrow.