Sections I and II may be subdivided into subsections 1A, 1C, etc. Please reference Appendices IV-XVII included in the supplementary material for more information.

Hi everyone, sorry for the lag in my posting an update. I've been very busy getting classes sorted out and trying to figure out how the university system works here. The following entry is divided into two sections, for your reading pleasure and convenience. The first is all about classes, and is kind of boring, perhaps, so skip that if you're so inclined. I'll probably never know the difference. The second is all about general happenings of my day-to-day life, like the Ghost walk I went on. So it's probably just a bit more interesting. So. It's like a pick-your-own-adventure. Or no, you know what it's like? It's like the board game LIFE, where you can either chose to go to college and suffer the losses —of time, in this case— but maybe come out ahead in the end (i.e., read Section I), or dive straight into all the fun stuff (skip Section I and go to Section II). I hope it's not too similar to LIFE, however, because I always lose that game. But I only ever play with Liz, who has a "unique" interpretation of the game rules. So make of that what you will. (Love you Liz!!)

SECTION I

Classes officially started at the University last Monday, but I didn't have class until Tuesday. I can't remember if I've said this before, but the classes I'm in are Neolithic and Bronze Age Archaeology, Funerary Archaeology, and the Writings of Christopher Marlowe. These are all 3rd year classes, which is the highest level you can take as an undergrad. They are therefore all very serious courses and the professors' expectations are very high. A lot of prior knowledge is assumed coming into the courses, and in the case of the archaeology classes, it's knowledge that I generally don't have. That's not really because my education at OSU has been lacking; it's because my archaeological focus has been on historic archaeology in the Pacific Northwest, which doesn't really transfer over much. 

Despite this, I thus far find my classes very interesting. I don't want to go into too much detail about what I'm studying, because I know that my readers may not really have an interest in it. :) So I'll tell you the coolest things about my classes. For my Neolithic class, at the end of the term we have a field trip to the Peak District where my professor, who specializes in landscape archaeology, will lead us around to various sites and tell us about them. The Peak District has many Neolithic sites, such as dolmans, standing stones, and burial mounds. So I'm looking forward to that A TON. 

Funerary archaeology is all about how humans in the past have interacted with death. So this class is NOT about finding out how or why an individual died (I was disappointed about this at first). Instead, it's about examining burial practices looking at what those practices tell us about the culture in question in general.  For example, say a burial is discovered in which an individual is found to have been painted entirely with red ochre. The question asked would be why the red ochre was used: What did it mean to the mourners? Where did they source the ochre from? Why was the person mummified? How? These are questions that are interesting to me, at least, so I'm happy in this class. Additionally, we'll have a whole section on Egyptian cosmology, which is never boring. 

I don't have too much to say about my Marlowe class. There's nothing about it that would be all that interesting to anyone who's not an Elizabethan/Jacobean literature nerd. I'm excited about it because I get to study C. Marlowe, a playwright contemporaneous with Shakespeare, some more. I've studied much of his work previously, but I'm interested to see a different take on it. Right now we're reading Tamburlaine the Great, which is about a Scythian shepherd who rises to rule over much of Asia and the Middle East. There's war, romance, awesome speeches, and great poetry. In Marlowe's time, Tamburlaine was one of the most loved and popular plays around (more popular than many of Shakespeare's), and the character Tamburlaine is an incredibly powerful one. Here's one of my favorite passages, in which Tamburlaine is described by one of his enemies: 

As princely lions when they rouse themselves,

Stretching their paws and threat'ning herds of beasts,

So in his armour looketh Tamburlaine.

Methinks I see kings kneeling at his feet, 

And he with frowning brows and fiery looks

Spurning their crowns from off their captive heads.

Tamburlaine is a fascinatingly powerful individual — He's at once cruel; merciful; devout; heretical; intensely romantic and gentle with his love, Zenocrate; intellectual; savage; and brutal. But somehow it works. Anyway, if you're ever wanting to read something out of the ordinary, give Tamburlaine a try. It's worth it! 

I didn't get off to a great start in this class, however, because I wasn't allowed to add it until late in the week. English lit classes here have two meeting times: one early in the week where the prof lectures and no discussion takes place, and one later in the week where you meet in a small group with the prof to have discussion and workshop. I, therefore, missed the first lecture and had no idea what to read in preparation for my discussion group, as I couldn't access the online information. So I merrily showed up for my discussion group, expecting to be able to hide in the back. Much to chagrin, there was no "back" since the "group" was made up of three other people. Throughout the session, I struggled to recall the major plot points of Tamburlaine, as it's been at least half a year since I read it. I was able eventually to say some semi-intelligent things, I hope. The professor was pretty understanding, and she got me all set up with the online system after class. I'm busily reading the play now, in an effort to make up for lost time. I wish I had my edition of the text here, because it's all marked up with notes and insights from my previous class. Oh well, I'll just have to start from scratch, I suppose. 

SECTION II

So now for the interesting stuff. On Tuesday Tanya and I went on a ghost walk around downtown Sheffield. We'd walk along, stop outside of some old-looking building, and be regaled with creepy stories about the ghosts who were no doubt STARING AT THE BACKS OF OUR HEADS RIGHT NOW! I tried to take pictures, but my camera is officially broken, and only took like 4 pictures before dying. I finally got so frustrated with it that at our last stop I began bashing it against things in hopes that it would work. It's logical, okay? I figure it has a short in it or a non-connected something, and maybe hitting it on things will gently reconnect the...things...inside...the camera. yeah. And you know what? It actually did turn on and take a couple of pictures after one particularly violent bang. But then it died again. ANYWAY, that's all to say that I don't have a lot of pictures from this event. 

Our first stop was outside a pub called The Graduate, which has been around since the 1800's. During that time and until pretty recently, Sheffield was known as the most crime-ridden, violent city in England. According to the guide, this club was the meeting place for the steel barons who ran the city, and they (of course) also happened to be Freemasons (you know, the diabolical good 'ole boys club that runs the world). The gist of the story was that these Freemasons got involved in some messed up stuff in their grasping at power, and sacrificed a barmaid in the basement.  Her bloody, screaming ghost haunts the pub to this very day. He went on to make some claims about how, when archaeologists exhumed the area near the pub they found unmarked sack burials, and could tell from the bones that the victims had been alive for all of these horrific things. I couldn't help but quietly laugh at this a bit, because it's actually pretty impossible to tell if injuries on bone were sustained peri- or postmortem. You can tell if they were sustained like, 2 weeks before, because there would be signs of healing. But there's no way to tell a stab wound sustained a few hours or even days after death from one sustained less than 2 weeks before, no matter what "CSI: Miami" and lieutenant sideways would have you believe (huh, Dad?). So science triumphs once again! 

After three or four more stops, the tour ended at the Queen's Head pub, which has been standing since the 14th century. At that time, Sheffield still had its castle and the pub was the royals' hunting lodge. (The castle was dismantled by Oliver Cromwell during the English Civil War. Sheffield managed to make him really angry somehow.) The Queen's Head is haunted by at least three ghosts: a little boy, a washwoman, and a Cromwellian soldier. We got to sit and sip hot chocolate as the guide told us their stories. I had chosen a spot in the far corner of the room, which I thought was very cozy when I sat down. It had been really cold outside, and so a warm corner and hot chocolate (the best I've ever had) was perfect. However, as I sat there, about halfway into the story of the soldier, I started getting really cold. I figured there must be a draft or something. About 5 minutes later, the guide turned, pointed at me, and said, "and there's been many reports that the ghost likes that corner where this young lady is. He sits on people's laps and makes them go cold, or he kicks their feet." I tried to smile neutrally ("oh, haha, yes, soooo scary!"), but I was seriously creeped out. It would be different if I got cold AFTER he told me about the corner, but no, it was before. So make of this what you will. Maybe there was a draft, maybe there wasn't. I had goosebumps, which I suppose is the general goal of a ghost walk. 

Later in the week, on Thursday, I went to an Erasmus social with my German flatmates. I'm not technically an Erasmus student, so I wasn't sure I was okay going, but they claimed it was fine. When we got there, they had a table covered in 3x5 flag stickers that they were slapping on people according to nationality. I thought, "oh, snap, they'll only have European ones and won't have one for me and they won't let me in!" Oh the drama.... So, to their excited query of "where are you from!!??" I went, "ummm... I'm from the US. I bet you don't have one for me *emo hair flip*" The flag-distributer joyfully shouted, "NO! WE HAVE FLAGS FOR EVERYONE!!!" and produced a US flag. The Erasmus students are generally crazy like that. I had a pretty good time at this social and met lots of people. I met a Canadian and managed to insult him by guessing that Ontario was above Oregon and Idaho. Apparently that's really, really wrong, but I haven't cared enough about Canadian geography to look up where it is. (hahaha...) I don't know why Canadians seem to expect Americans to have spent the time memorizing their provinces. I certainly don't expect Canadians to know where anything in the US is. I figure we should know generally where countries are, and beyond that is unnecessary. I apologized, but to no avail. Oh well. I saw all my French friends and met new people from Germany, Holland, France, Finland, etc. All in all, I was glad I went.  

Okay. There's a lot more that's happened, but I'm saving it for another time. Thanks for reading, and I hope you all are doing well. I really appreciate all of your comments and emails!! Let me know if you're around for Skyping, but remember that there's a +8hrs time difference. 

Last thing: Here's a picture of the sad, sad little bag of tortilla chips that took me a 40 minute walk and 2 days of searching to find: 

Ah, the salty, crunchy taste of victory.