Time is marching onward as I count down the few remaining days till my departure. With only a week before D-Day I am starting to feel the pressure. This has nothing to do with the trip itself, but rather with everything that has to happen BEFORE I leave. At the risk of sounding disrespectful, I am sort of feeling like I am attempting to storm the beaches of Normandy.
Preperations for the trip are of course taking up a lot of my time, and it is a nice distraction from studying, but it is the actual studying for my exams that is seriously getting extremely challenging. As Im sure many of you have heard me moan and groan about continuously for the last few weeks, the trip has forced me to push all my exams into the last week of classes rather than have them in the examination period. This means I effectively have no study time in order to consolidate. I have been busy for the last few weeks, not only handing in major assignments, but trying to study for upcoming exams next week (I am writing on monday, tuesday and wednesday and leaving on thursday!). I am really quite drained, as is evident in me tryingto wake up this morning. I awoke at 8am thinking 'Ok good job. A few more minutes before you get up wouldnt hurt' and then promptly going back to sleep until 12.
Anyway, enough about exams. I am trying to procrastinate here. Preperations for the trip are going semi-well. I am mostly on top of packing and getting everything I need. A few bits and pieces of clothing and essential items here and there and I should be set. I have managed to make contact with about 18 other Mitrou Field School students thanks to the wonders of Facebook. We are fast becoming comrades in arms and it is proving very useful as inevitably through our discussions we come up with things I would never have thought to think about in the first place. We are definitly a mixed group, but I think we will all get on relatively well. I am the first to arrive in Athens on the 6th of June, and I will be staying at a place called 'Athens Backpackers'. This is quite a modern hostel that is extremely central, caters to budget backpackers from all over the world and is run by an Australian family. It is cheap and the facilities look extremely good. During this time I should beable to hang out with Jasha for a few days. It will be awesome to catch up as I havent seen him since he disappeared over the horizon last year on his trip to Kenya. A few of my fellow 'archaeologists' will trickle in slowly, and hopefully by the morning of the 9th about 7 of us will make the bus trip up to Tragana together. If you thought the coming of the Dorians was something that upturned Greek Civilisation, wait till Greece is invaded by 18 hyperactive archaeologists in training.
So all is well. The only major snag that I have encountered is dealing with the Overseas Working Holidays people. Yes I am still yet to secure a job in England. This is fairly serious as I NEED the extra money. Not only for Europe with Rishi but also to stay afloat while living in England for 4 months. They were supposed to call me weeks ago with a job interview via the phone, but I never heard from them. I have since sent countless emails and phonecalls to my Liason but despite her assurances that she will 'sort things out' and 'look into it' I am not confident. Fingers crossed that it will work out. It has to work out.
Thats all the news I have for now. I will post again soon, hopefully once more before I leave.
Thanks to everyone who is showing interest in this running, albeit chaotic, commentary.
Chris
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Monday, May 5, 2008
So Close, Yet So Far
Well as of today (the 5th of May) there is exactly one month to go before I blast off, which comes as both excellent and nightmarish news. This is all rolled into one gigantic blob of reality that is currently making a beeline for my face. I seem to be living in a bi-polar twilight zone at the moment where things are happening both extremely quickly and unimaginably slowly at the same time. As the day approaches, I am finding myself getting more excited and impatient by the minute. It seems like every time I turn around to take a look at the countdown another few days have passed.
A few major things have occurred since last I wrote. First of all, the ball has been set rolling with regards to me finding a job in the UK when I get there. I have lodged my application with 'Overseas Working Holidays' and they have in turn passed it on to an organisation called 'UK Pubs'. The theory is that they will call me any day now and conduct a phone interview, making sure I am suitable for any position they may have available. It shouldn't be too much of a problem as the job revolves around customer service, and believe me when I tell you that working as the sole employee on a petrol station during peak hours is all the experience you will ever need in patience, adaptability, stress management and customer service. I should be able to come up with answers to any questions they throw my way.
Secondly, I received all the information for Mitrou a few weeks back. The pack contained an unpublished article on the excavations up to the end of 2007. I have made this my bible and have been religiously pouring over every snippet of information I can find. Reason being that the more you know when you arrive on the site the easier it is to adapt and the less you have to have explained to you. I have also been trying to find out as much information as I can on nearby and contemporary archaeological sites which should give me a good idea on what artefacts and remains we should find.
Interestingly I have also been informed that the inhabitants of Tragana (the village we are staying in) do not speak a word of English. I don't know much modern Greek except for a few basic phrases so this should definitely make life interesting. I will be trying to learn as much modern Greek as possible in the next month, and also hopefully while I am there. In the event that this fails miserably (as do most of my budding ideas), there will of course be people working at the site who will be able to act as translators, but that's not nearly as fun! We will also be at least 10 miles away from the nearest ATM and Internet connection. Never fear though, because I will still be able to update this page often, it will probably just be in weekly chunks rather than every few days.
It looks like my good friend Jasha, who has been gallivanting around the UK and Kenya for the better part of a year, may be in the neighbourhood when I arrive in Greece so we will definitely try and meet up. I seem to have inadvertently picked up a couple of spare days as the dig will only be providing accommodation for us from the 9th of June. This means I have 2 nights in Athens with which to explore the city a bit and hang out with Jasha, maybe picking up a snorkeling mask (Tragana has excellent snorkeling apparently) while I'm at it.
It is now getting to the point where I am starting to think about all the things I will miss while I am gone. Relationships have to be put on hold, I will not have the same degree of support from friends and family, no home cooking, and certainly very little spare time to just relax. While some of these things are more of an issue than others for me, I am relishing the opportunity to assert some degree of independence and also the opportunity to go on something as amazing as this trip. The important things will still be here when I get back.
Till next time (assuming I survive this years major assignment season and still have the ability to type).
Chris
A few major things have occurred since last I wrote. First of all, the ball has been set rolling with regards to me finding a job in the UK when I get there. I have lodged my application with 'Overseas Working Holidays' and they have in turn passed it on to an organisation called 'UK Pubs'. The theory is that they will call me any day now and conduct a phone interview, making sure I am suitable for any position they may have available. It shouldn't be too much of a problem as the job revolves around customer service, and believe me when I tell you that working as the sole employee on a petrol station during peak hours is all the experience you will ever need in patience, adaptability, stress management and customer service. I should be able to come up with answers to any questions they throw my way.
Secondly, I received all the information for Mitrou a few weeks back. The pack contained an unpublished article on the excavations up to the end of 2007. I have made this my bible and have been religiously pouring over every snippet of information I can find. Reason being that the more you know when you arrive on the site the easier it is to adapt and the less you have to have explained to you. I have also been trying to find out as much information as I can on nearby and contemporary archaeological sites which should give me a good idea on what artefacts and remains we should find.
Interestingly I have also been informed that the inhabitants of Tragana (the village we are staying in) do not speak a word of English. I don't know much modern Greek except for a few basic phrases so this should definitely make life interesting. I will be trying to learn as much modern Greek as possible in the next month, and also hopefully while I am there. In the event that this fails miserably (as do most of my budding ideas), there will of course be people working at the site who will be able to act as translators, but that's not nearly as fun! We will also be at least 10 miles away from the nearest ATM and Internet connection. Never fear though, because I will still be able to update this page often, it will probably just be in weekly chunks rather than every few days.
It looks like my good friend Jasha, who has been gallivanting around the UK and Kenya for the better part of a year, may be in the neighbourhood when I arrive in Greece so we will definitely try and meet up. I seem to have inadvertently picked up a couple of spare days as the dig will only be providing accommodation for us from the 9th of June. This means I have 2 nights in Athens with which to explore the city a bit and hang out with Jasha, maybe picking up a snorkeling mask (Tragana has excellent snorkeling apparently) while I'm at it.
It is now getting to the point where I am starting to think about all the things I will miss while I am gone. Relationships have to be put on hold, I will not have the same degree of support from friends and family, no home cooking, and certainly very little spare time to just relax. While some of these things are more of an issue than others for me, I am relishing the opportunity to assert some degree of independence and also the opportunity to go on something as amazing as this trip. The important things will still be here when I get back.
Till next time (assuming I survive this years major assignment season and still have the ability to type).
Chris
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