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!