On the back slope

In just about a week I'll be hopping my annual flight outta here to Israel. It always strikes very suddenly, this summer thing (which I suppose is liable to elicit a few disgruntled ... grunts, from readers who have real jobs). It'll be interesting to get back into the field and see if I'm able to keep thinking when I'm in the heat of the action, so to speak. More heat than action, typically. The skeletons are mostly pretty tame.
That is to say that after a first year in grad school (3 huzzahs) and the ensuing layering of perspectives,* ideas and entirely too much theoretical thought (I don't actually think there can actually be too much), I'm curious to see whether it will really be impossible to make room for critical thought during a dig. As a staff member (10x10 meters for me, this year) the workload is prohibitive, which means that usually any free time is spent staring at walls hoping for a quick death, and not in profound (or affected) consideration of what cultural assumptions I may be expressing by my choice to excavate those pits in a certain way.

"Following this prodigiously verbose and obscure statement, he returned to occupying an otherwise delightfully vacant evening with video games."


*en français, s'il vous plait.