Prepare for War!

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