Random thought: I think I only pretend to be smart. Sometimes I'll throw around phrases like "Ouch! I hit my medial malleolus!" or, when I'm brushing my teeth, "My spit sinks below the soap bubbles because it's denser." Or whatever.
But apparently I'm not really all that smart, because I'm incapable of comprehending certain things. For instance, my sister-in-law was asking me about Pottermore-- which would seem like kind of a dream for me, because, HELLO, it's more Harry Potter, but which I only joined today after she asked if I was a part of it and I realized I'd never gotten around to even looking at for some reason. She asked what house I was in. So I went to the website to find out how to get sorted into a house so I could be sly and pretend like I already knew. And I spent fifteen minutes exasperatedly yelling (probably in a nasally voice for some reason), HOW DO I CLICK THESE THEEEENGS???!? And I realized...yeah, I'm dumb.
Or, like I mentioned a few posts ago, how I can't even do proper math, and apparently the moon is only a couple kilometers away.
The list goes on. Apparently I don't actually know how to blog either, because...what exactly is this post about? I don't know. But check this out:
You all know this by now: I graduated. Or rather, I walked across a stage, shook the hand of a man I've never spoken to, accepted an empty diploma case, and waited for the rest of my college to do the same. Technically I have one class to finish up, and I have until mid-June to do it.
But man, it felt great.
These are my archaeology peeps. We made it through Field School, Lab, and Senior Thesis together, and now we've graduated together. The group started with like 20 people, and they dropped like flies after and during every semester...
Love these kids
My parents and Sam's parents all came up and out to help commemorate the walking-across-a-stage. Sam's parents didn't make it into any pictures, but I'm still happy they came out.
Sam, me, Mom
My Dad couldn't hold still, so here's another picture of him. Very cute.
Pretty
They took a picture of me in front of a green screen before I walked. It says "Proof" across it, which I guess is better proof than my non-existent diploma that I've graduated.
The campus is our world
I'm disappointed at the background options though. I think I like this better:
Don't ever ask me to do photo editing in Paint for you
Gather round, children, and I will tell thee the tale of Blackbeard's Ghost!
Lo, these few weeks ago, a fair lady was docking her vessel when a spoiled young duke in his father's ship slammed into the hull of the fair lady's. The contents of the lady's ballast spewed forth. It took nigh unto an hour for the law keepers to arrive, and when they did, they blamed the lady, laughing it up fuzzball with the young duke.
The fair lady was not wealthy, and there was no way for her to sail the seven seas. Fortunately, the ship was insured by the land of USAA, and they purchased the lady's sunken ship. She was able to afford another, smaller, vessel...and from thence came BLACKBEARD'S GHOST!!!
Sad face
In other words, I crashed the truck, it was totaled, so we bought a new one with the insurance settlement. We named it Blackbeard. Whoop!
The old-timey filter add to its mystery
PS, Mike if you read this, yes, we can go hike that waterfall now.
The past couple of months have been crazy-town in the Wasden household (well, this Wasden household, anyway). Probably the next couple of posts you see will be recap of that. First up, I had a couple of research conferences I presented at (sort of...I stood next to artfully designed posters that I thankfully never had to pay to print).
At the end of March, I braved a 5am-van-ride with other (smarter) BYU kids and drove up to Weber State in Ogden to present at the National Conference for Undergraduate Research. My presentation slot was right at the start of the conference, so after my two-hours of standing around, I met up with my good friend Mike who lives in the area and we spent a few hours talking before it was time for me to head back down to Provo.
My Poster at NCUR
Looking towards the rest of the presenters at my session
Creepy picture of myself to prove I was actually there
At the beginning of April, I presented two posters on two different research projects at the Fulton Research Conference here at BYU. One was on the Greek goddess Nike, and how she is actually a symbol of Ancient Greek identity, and not a lesser goddess to be ignored (this was actually my senior thesis...I wrote a 34-page beast on the topic). The other was on the research I did on the falcon mummy (which turned out to be a fake...) and how it can be applied to modern museum practices.
Over achiever?
Presenting at these things made me feel like a super awesome professional something-or-other. I've been working on the research for these projects for years (4ish for the Nike one and something like 2 for the mummy one). It was fun to explain them to people that were legitimately interested in them (people that came up and asked "So...did you actually do any work?" I wanted to punch in the face).
And a bonus, my mummy research won first place at the Fulton Con in the Anthropology division! I got a shiny blue ribbon and a $300 check that they promise will come to me in the mail before the end of May... I hope so, cos we need to pay the rent.
First time for first place!
I love doing research. I'm a sucker for it. I do it for fun. Heck, I even have a research project planned for this summer, even though I graduated. Maybe I'm crazy?
I haven't posted in ages (thanks, school and stress). In the meantime, Blogger decided to change EVERY LITTLE DETAIL in its publishing setup, so if things look weird today, forgive me, I'm (re)learning.
Today I learned that I get more than twice as many hits from Russia than the US. Which is a little freaky. Other fun countries that wander (perhaps unknowingly, I hope not regretfully) here include the UK, Australia, Canada, China, Cyprus, Germany, Italy, and Serbia. That's in order of how many hits. That's also alphabetical (starting with Australia)...sketchy.
I also learned that Google refers people here based on searches such as "scottish clan tattoos," "practical magic," "sappho pompeii," "the world is our campus," "digeridoo benefits," and "I'm tired of digging holes." I don't know who would be searching those last two. Sorry if it was you.
Anyway, even though I haven't posted in weeks (reeahlee-- and if you get that reference you win a prize), today is a rip-off. All I have for you at the moment is a song slash movie recommendation. Here it is:
Sam grew up in a place in Texas where apparently there was a substantial Indian community. Subsequently, he grew up really liking Bollywood movies. His favorite is one called Om Shanti Om, which he made me watch with him a couple of weeks ago. Besides the fact that it was really, really long, it was really good. I enjoyed it. Mostly it was really funny, and there was a lot of drama mixed in (plus hyjinx, trickery, singing, fire, murder, reincarnation, movie-making, silliness, etc). It has a really complicated storyline that I'm not going to attempt to explain in entirety, but, for the sake of you understanding the song I'm including here, I can tell you that it's about a struggling actor who's in love with a big star (who he is in love with before he meets her...natch), and such and such. Basically, in the song, he sneaks into the opening of one of her movies and imagines himself in the scenes with her, getting in the way. Also interesting is that the different "scenes" in the song are sort of an homage to the different types of Bollywood movies over the years. So that's why they go from being pirates to playing tennis or badminton or whatever it is in a matter of seconds. But it's a really fun scene, and I always catch myself singing the song or pretending I know how to dance to it. EM-barrassing.
So! Enough explanation. Just watch and listen, and I promise you I'll have another couple of (more interesting?) posts very soon. I mean really, you're on tenterhooks waiting to hear about my new car and my new diploma case (diploma pending), I know.
It has Spanish subtitles (maybe that's a bonus for you?), but it's the best sound quality I could find (also the video is about 7 minutes, but the song is only about 5 minutes):
Here's something random for you: I like listening to Enya sometimes. It reminds me of my childhood. Today "Orinoco Flow" came up on my iPod and suddenly I had visions of my little brother Ian doing his interpretive dance to the song, tiny tie flying askew as he fell to his knees dressed in church clothes (why?), holding a book (or was it to "Book of Days"?? Help, sisters!) aloft with "sail away, sail away, sail away..." echoing in the background and the synthesized strings plucking away. Have a listen:
Mark is a friend of mine. We went through some stuff together a while ago, and I know he helped me-- I only hope I was able to help him some. I find his courage inspirational (and of course the courage of everyone else in the video). I'm proud to know him, and I'm sympathetic to the struggles people go through. They should know that they are not alone, by any means. This video brought tears to my eyes.
Also, it's been snowing almost non-stop all day. We've had a 50-degree drop in temperature in the past two days. The semester is almost over. Hang in there (although maybe I'm talking to myself).
