— begin public service announcement —

Hello all!  It’s me again, your friendly neighborhood expat here to remind you to get registered to vote/subsequently exercise your suffrage by, you know, actually voting.  Today is the last day for you all in Kansas to get registered!

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Following on that note, I cast my ballot last night from, of all places, my living room.  Since I won’t be in the US, I had to register as an absentee.  They emailed me my ballot, I filled it out, and emailed it back.  They’ll keep my ballot secure until the counting process begins on Nov 8.

It wasn’t exactly how I imagined I would be participating in my first election, I had been really excited to actually able to go to the polls and experience the American democratic process first hand, but it was pretty cool.  And in a little way, I think Hillary would appreciate a vote coming from me, a young lady, abroad, trying to get the best kick-ass education possible.

so soft, so warm. ❤

Other than that… I turned in my first essay this weekend.  It was a source crit of Donald MacLeod’s Gloomy Memories in the Highlands of Scotland, a first hand account of the Highland Clearances as experienced on the Sutherland estate.  Yesterday, I went to kickboxing class (I really missed kickboxing from back home, and tbh punching/kicking things is a great stress reliever.) and then right over to the CSE for a climbing competition. Busy.  I also finished knitting my scarf! (Yay, supporting local businesses and making my own stuff!!)  Now I can get back to knitting my blanket.

Today, I didn’t have anything until 3.10, so I spend all morning working on my Osteology short report about Infant Burials from Vlasac and Lepenski Vir, two Mesolithic/Neolithic sites from the Serbian side of the Iron Gates Gorges.  And surprise! Both sites were about thirty minutes from where I was excavating this summer in Schela Cladovei in Romania!  That report is due in on Oct 25 (the 601st anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt!).

This weekend, I’m off to the Scottish Crannog Centre near Loch Tay with my Archaeology Class.  Crannogs are Iron Age houses built on stilts over lochs.  After the organic timber infrastructure collapsed they fell into the peat-boggy loch.  A lot of organic material such as textiles and even some food have been preserved from Crannogs.  It means that I’ll miss the Mystery Meet with the EUMC… but Crannogs.

Then it’s back to the essay grind with my first Archaeology report due in on Halloween.  My report is on an artifact of my choice from one of the collections in the Early People’s Gallery at the NMS.  Depending on which collection the artifact came from I’ll answer one of the set questions.  I chose the Deskford Carnyx, a sort of Celtic War Trumpet found in the north of Scotland.  So then I’ll discuss this topic:

What is the changing nature of warfare and conflict that can be detected in the artefact record? What implications may this have for our understanding of society at the time?

Early thoughts for the report are that I’ll look at the connection between prestige and prowess in warfare in Celtic societies.  Thinking about how warfare moved from survival to creating/keeping status in society and how from the archaeological record and written records from the Romans that it appears Celtic society was linked very tightly with war.  The Carynx was a highly decorative object used in everything from religious ceremonies to warfare.  They’re often found as probably votive offerings in peat bogs but depictions of them were heavily distributed in Roman military propaganda as the ‘symbol’ of the Celts.

Anyway.  Enjoy the folk jams this week.  Very October.  I also discovered those cute little emojis you see in the post … you get to make your own that looks like you and I’m yelling because emoji me is the greatest.

I’m off to a talk about Post-Excavation Strategies at the NMS in about an hour so I’m making a quick dinner.