Smithy of Lies

Graduate Programs in Australia

nobody@vox.com(Loki) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 23:50:33 -0800

So basically, I figured it out. I'm in love with archaeology and that's what I want to spend my life (or at least this first half of my life doing). I reassessed why I wanted to be a doctor in the first place and it was simply because I wanted to help the people in front of me. Basically I'd imagine what it would feel like for someone in front of my to be hurt and injured and I couldn't do anything to save them at all. That's why I wanted to be a doctor.

Then I realized, I could help the people in front of me by simply becoming an EMT (emergency medical technician) which is basically something like a paramedic, and what I can do is at least save the people in front of me or at least preserve their life long enough to get them to a hospital. With this, I think I satisfied my need to help the people I meet, and not feel helpless in case a situation might arise.

So yes, I'm now in the quandary of finding out the best way to pursue archaeology. I think I definitely want to do it out of the US, and I'm basically going with Australia. With an EMT certification under my belt, it will be fairly easy to immigrate into Australia I think with a work-study visa, as that's a profession in demand. The problem now is figuring out where in Australia I want to study, and more importantly, exactly what I want to study.

I'm pretty sure I want to study a more scientific methodological aspect of archaeology. It will put me much more in demand than a purely Humanities based Archaeology degree. Besides, it's what I've been specializing in so far, with my B.S. in Anthro. (Tons of science and math)

The hardest science in Archaeology however deals mostly with radiocarbon dating, geomorphology and geoarchaeology, and zooarchaeology.

The issue with me though is that I have a pretty good background in genetics, and I'm wondering if I can apply that somehow. It doesn't seem that there are any programs in that though. I have done a zooarch class, and I'm planning to go for a minor in Paleobiology (furthering my bioarch experience), and I wanted to get some volunteer experience with my zooarch prof, but as I said before in the last post, I don't think we're on very good terms anymore.

I've done a bit of research and I think my choices are as follows, from my number one choice to my number 4 choice:

University of Adelaide - South Australia (Bioarchaeology/Biological Anthropology/Forensic Anthropology)

Flinders University - South Australia (Archaeological Sciences/Bioarchaeology)

University of Queensland - Queensland (Ancient DNA Analysis)

Australian National University - Canberra (Archaeological Science/Biological Anthropology/Environmental Archaeology/Quaternary Science and Dating)

Monash University - Victoria (Bioarchaeology/Geoarchaeology/Methods and Theory/Field Archaeology)

Southern Cross University - New South Wales (Geoarchaeology/Geomorphology)

I'm not entirely sure about what field of it I should go into though, so my choices may change accordingly. What it seems to me is that ANU has the best programs, while Adelaide is one of the best Universities.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Jeez.

nobody@vox.com(Loki) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:53:43 -0700

Sometimes I just need to stop feeling sorry for myself and buck up dammit.

I've been feeling really down today and yesterday simply because one professor got mad at me because of a misunderstanding and it made me remember all the times when people seemed to get unreasonably mad at me for no reason. It made me think that no matter what I do, people still seem to dislike me for no reason, and that's probably why I have no friends.

So right now I'm basically slapping myself and telling myself to snap out of it. Sometimes people are just in bad moods and may unintentionally be angry with someone, or their misunderstandings can't be helped, or they're simply assholes in the first place and not worth befriending. I'm a pretty awesome guy if I say so myself, and if people don't wanna be friends with me, that's their loss. I'mma just keep my chin up like I always do, and smile like I always do, and if people don't like me for whatever reason, be it the way I look, my personality, or my tastes, well nuts to them. There's always other opportunities out there. Just because I miss one doesn't mean that I'm doomed.

It's not my responsibility to please everyone. =]

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

My Darwin Day Short Reflection Assignment

nobody@vox.com(Loki) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:39:57 -0700

Great Minds May Think Alike...

But I bet they find it annoying when they do…

By: Christopher Faber
28 October 2009
EVE 10

Darwin-monkey-wallace-cjmadden

Two-thousand and nine marks a great year for recognition of amazing advances made in the field of Natural History. Or at the very least, it marks a great year for giving a lot of attention to this one guy in history: Charles Darwin, (I’m sure you’ve heard of him somewhere; he was really big back in the 1860’s; just had his 200^th birthday, you know him). On the eve of the 150^th anniversary of his hard-hitting book on the mechanisms explaining why certain animals look different from each other (i.e. like one species of a Galapagos finch and another species of Galapagos finch; or like one species of Galapagos finch and a zebra), I, being the party pooper that I am, would like to bring attention to the stealer of his thunder: Alfred Russel Wallace. Darwin was a confidant of Wallace, and Wallace spoke to Darwin about many of his ideas. It was no surprise then that Wallace should send first to Darwin his essay titled “On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type;” a work that had outlined the very principles of the concept Darwin had been working on for years but refused to publish: Natural Selection. Of course, faced with the possibility that someone else might get credit for his idea first, Charlie-boy finally got past his bout of procrastination and raced to publish his “Origin of Species”. As we know it today, the live-by motto of academia is “Publish or Die”, a harsh rule suggesting that if you don’t have the mental fitness to publish your findings immediately, another individual with no such incapacity to write out a quick abstract and follow up, will outcompete you for resources (public eye, academic notoriety, etc.) claiming the find as their own, leaving you to wither away into scholarly obscurity while they thrive and live on to produce more successful ~~offspring~~ research with their newfound grant money and other benefits. Ironically sounds a bit like natural selection, eh? So why did Darwin not publish as soon as this bombshell of an idea popped into his head? Well according to Sir Julian Huxley, (descendant of Thomas Henry Huxley, known to be Darwin’s Bulldog, a loyal sort of companion that no good scientist should be without

[– wait… What was that boy? Someone is attempting to do a satire on Darwin before me? Well sic’im Huxley! That’s right, go for the throat! …Ahem-]), Darwin had a “cautious, and almost diffident, temperament [which] held him back from publishing his conclusions.”

Not much of an excuse if you ask me. But then he goes on to say that Darwin would not publish “until he could support [his conclusions] with adequate facts.” I guess this is a bit more excusable. Regardless, if Darwin didn’t have the connections that he did (specifically Joseph Hooker and Charles Lyell, in addition to his bulldog), as well as holding a higher status in the scientific community than did Wallace, I suppose we would be celebrating Wallace (week?) Day instead of Darwin Day. Is having a great deal more data than your competitors to support your theory more important than getting the idea out there in the first place with your name on it? I honestly have no idea, as I’m merely an undergraduate student, and have yet to face the dog-eat-dog politics in the realm of scientific advances. All I know is that in order to independently come up with the idea of natural selection pretty much at the same time Darwin did, Wallace would have to be just as clever. And as an equally gifted person, in the midst of an entire year celebrating the affluence of Darwin’s revolutionary thoughts, Wallace doesn’t deserve to go overlooked or underestimated. So, cheers to two intelligent men who came up with the same idea at the same time and somehow managed to live through that frustration.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

I think I...

nobody@vox.com(Loki) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:50:53 -0700

... intend to become a permanent citizen in Australia. =/

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Grad School

nobody@vox.com(Loki) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:29:35 -0700

Basically at this point in my life, I'm at the crossroads. I made the decision before, but it never really hit, and I didn't know how much I'd really love the alternative.

I've been conflicted as to whether or not, I should pursue my life, sacrificing myself to help others, or merely living for myself doing something I know I'll love and be happy doing for the rest of my life. I'm luckier than most people in that I know that if I pursue this one career, I will be happy in it, and it's something I've loved since childhood. There's no real conflict as to what I should pursue for happiness.

However, my goal was also to live a story and set an example. I wanted to grow up helping others as my job. And that's why I wanted to pursue medicine, even though it's not something I have much interest in, nor have any great love for. I made the decision to do all that I could to go to med school. As a result, it's been a hard road, and I'm barely there. But now, the decision is setting in. And this course could soon prove permanent. If I go to grad school get a Master's in Public Health, there's no going back from there.

I did the field school last summer, with my family expecting that it would rid me of my love for archaeology, actually being out there and doing the work, but instead it only reinforced it, nearly a hundred fold, that day or night, it's almost the only thing I can think of.

I have now scryed a second path. Graduate school, abroad, in Australia National University at the Center for Archaeological Research.

Two roads, two very different endings. And for the first time in my life, I can't really think of a way to marriage the two, or of a way to put off my decision for later. And I don't think it's possible to do one and attempt to do the other later.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Sometimes...

nobody@vox.com(Loki) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 23:21:13 -0700

Sometimes when people are in a slump, while it may seem that the most useful thing you can do is to give them advice, what they really might need is simply some encouragement. And a "do your best". Chances are, if you thought it up, it's a conclusion they could have very well drawn by themselves a long time ago, and simply need a bit of motivation to put it into practice.

Sometimes when a person who rarely complains does make a complaint once a while, they're simply doing it to relieve stress. They want maybe just a smidgen of sympathy. Not more people to tell them that their situation isn't all that bad and that there are more people that have it worse. Or that they should just suck it up.

Just a few notes for me to remember when I'm dealing with people with problems. (I tend to be a person that likes to give advice, or telling people to look at the bright side of things and that they don't have it that bad. I just recently found out that I might not have the best way of going about it, by having just gone through the same thing and I didn't need the advice, etc. I would have appreciated a bit of encouragement much more.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ugh. This weekend/week is a stressful nightmare. I've worked pretty full shifts for the past few days, in addition to being down with the cold, and a ton of midterms and projects coming up all in this week. I've been studying a bit at a time a couple days a week, but not everyday like I initially planned. The way I set up my schedule I should have a few hours in between each class to sit in the library or somewhere similar and study. But I keep missing my early class because I keep oversleeping so I only come to the later class and don't study. >_< As a result, I fell very behind in the material.

Last night I crammed, and got only 2 hours of sleep. I worked till midnight that night as well, after a full 9 hour shift with my full on cold. It was a horrible day. I crashed today, and called in sick for work. (my boss didn't sound very happy since this is the second time I'm calling in sick this month, and it's only my first month =[ ) I'm now preparing for my ecology midterm tomorrow. I also have work tomorrow, but I think I'm on the verge of recovery. The only thing I'm worried about is that I have a primatology presentation the day after.

I started the project research early, but I couldn't decide on what specific topic to do my project on. It only came together like last week, when the cold hit and everything went to hell. ;_;

Oh lawd. I only hope I can make it through this storm. =)

I'll do my best.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

A Brave Story

nobody@vox.com(Loki) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 02:33:39 -0700

I just found an anime movie that is probably going to be one of my favorites of all time. I'm surprised I've never heard of it before, seeing as how it's such a great movie. It has an art style reminiscent of Spirited Away and a somewhat similar plot. It's called Brave Story.

http://www.animecrazy.net/brave-story-movie/

Watch it you.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

I'll find it

nobody@vox.com(Loki) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 08:18:37 -0700

One day, I'll find that smile again. The one that weathers misery and repression. The one that gives encouragement, even though you can see sadness in the eyes. And this time, I definitely won't let it get away.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Not Good

nobody@vox.com(Loki) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 23:31:52 -0700

I'm already slipping for this quarter. Missing classes due to getting up late/notatall. My bike is in for repairs so I've been taking the bus.

I haven't worked the past few days. I was supposed to work today, but even though I missed all my lectures today, I went to my discussion because it's required for my grade. I was in such pain, it was nearly unbearable. There was some type of shooting pain in my abdomen and I felt really queasy in addition to having a bit of a fever. For the past 2 weeks I've been having bad digestive problems as well, including headaches. I might have the flu, but it seems to be mild on most days/non-existent, and only flares up on certain days. So I called in sick for work today, and fell asleep for a good many hours.

I've been researchin a bit for my primatology presentation I have to give in two weeks. Hoping to do something related to Hanuman Langurs. They seem a bit interesting.

I've also been trying to design my own rice pudding recipe which I can make with the leftover rice I always tend to have after I cook rice for dinner. Most recipes include ingredients which I don't normally have at home like heavy cream, or they require uncooked rice (which will just leave the leftover rice wasted), or they have annoyingly complex preparation processes, so I just look at a number of recipes and mix and match ingredients and procedures to hopefully come up with something easy to make with the ingredients I have. I'll test out my recipe tomorrow.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

My Egyptian Horoscope

nobody@vox.com(Loki) — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 11:38:22 -0700

Horus

Sparkling personality, intense will, intelligent, understanding, impatient to exert influence.
Colors: male: red carmine, female: gold
Compatible Signs: Bastet, Geb
Dates: Apr 20 - May 7, Aug 12 - Aug 19
Role: God of the pharaoh
Appearance: Form of a falcon-headed man, wearing the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt
Sacred Animal: falcon

What is Your Egyptian Zodiac Sign?
Designed by CyberWarlock of Warlock's Quizzles and Quandaries

Read and post comments | Send to a friend