Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Well I have been pretty MIA lately…but I haven’t gotten any frantic e-mail’s either so I assume no one is over worrying too much about my meanderings in China.

The past week as been pretty standard in terms of work, though in this past week we did discover a new tomb, and a few new sites. This past weekend we picked up Henry- a professor from Michigan and a legend in the field. Now that he is a part of the team, there is a different standard and expectation. We have been working later days, until the sun goes down. It’s hard because it pushes everything into later hours…sometimes I really feel what is expected is very unrealistic and down right unhealthy. Yesterday we had to cover this very large, terraced hill. This would have been okay, if Alice had put all 9 of us on there…but instead she split everyone into 3 groups. One group wasn’t on the hill at all, they were out doing test cores in the fields where we discovered a site. The other two were split and made to cover the two separate mounds of the hill (said mounds were massive by the way). By putting so few people within one area, you lose sight of everyone pretty quickly, which is very unnerving if you fall or get hurt. Despite this, I take my mark and set to follow my transect around the entirety of the hill. At first it is easy. The terraces were well defined and had wide edges. I dug at the cuts with my pick looking for any traces of pottery or shell or bone. As I followed east, the hill became steeper and my terrace ledge more narrow. Eventually I was met with a huge face cut (read: cliff). Alice radiod me to let me know that I would need to clim to the top to get around the face of the cliff and then head back down to my terrace and reclaim my transect. Climbing up was a challenge, but again, this side of the cliff wasn’t too bad. Once I found myself on the other side, things changed. Trying to climb back down was…an…adventure (read:near death experience). The other side of the cliff face was so steep, it might as well have been the cliff face itself…oh mr. hill my my my aren’t we deceptive, pile on some grass and you appear climbeable..but alas you are not. By creeping steadily down the hill, I had a few close calls which merely resulted in me sliding down a few feet…perhaps my innerself was posing it’s objections to where I am this time of year…I should be sledding down snow covered hills, not trapesing down rocky ones. There was one tumble I took which really pushed me to my limits. I tumlbled down, and everything spilled from my backpack…my camera, my compass, my walkie talking, my phone, my water bottle, my glasses…I managed to roll through something with prickers…I laid still…knowing I was okay, just startled…but the sigh of relief for not being hurt quickly turned into rage…I believe my line of thought was “fuck this fuck this fuck this.”

Seriously

Fuck this

I could have broken my kneck and no one would have known. To have asked me to find a way back down that hill and to my transect was not only irresponsible, it was fucking insane. I grabbed my pick and just started hacking away at this stupid hill. I would walk about 10 steps and do it again. Eventually I found myself in someone’s terraced garden. Bamboo and Melon trees, with their green branches shielded the sun away and I finally felt calm again. I sat down and just meditated for a minute. When I looked North, I realized if nothing else, I knew exactly where I was…I could walk off that hill any time I wanted, and be able to tell someone exactly where to come get me. Not only this, I realized that I had made it back to my transect. So I kept going until Alice (field director) finally radio’d me to just head down the hill and back to the village…apparently she had realized how difficult this trek was and how ridiculous it was to have so few people on it.

Today was a lot of flat area, rice paddies, green houses, etc so that was a little less demanding…though at the end of the day I was covering a field with Henry and there was a horse in the middle of the path/transect I was supposed to follow. In general, I don’t like getting close enough to anything non human whose bite could potentially take of a limb. But henry said, oh that horse is nice just walk around him..or her..yeah that’s a her. I saw that the horse was tied up, but there was enough rope to give her a good radius of running space. She did look harmless so I kept walking sure enough…as soon as I was within 2 feet of Mrs Ed she keeled back and started charging for me…I’m sure the look on my face was priceless…I’m pretty sure I dropped a “jesus fucking christ” in front of Henry, though I’ve heard him say much worse. I sprinted away trampling some farmers cabbages wih the horse not far behind…I got far enough away to where her rope coud not reach. That was a close one.

Today I am up for another day of work…we didn’t really do anything for thanksgiving here…they had wine at dinner, but of course I don’t like wine so even that token of celebration didn’t even appeal to me. It was okay though…luckily enough the 60 degree whether leaves me feeling like it isn’t really november and that I’m not actually missing the hoidays. I’m sure I will be overwhelmed in December when christmas cheer hits me out of no where. Perhaps I will start listening to some christmas music.

Thank you to everyone who wished me a happy thanksgiving. I hope everyone is having a great meal!