Decorating

It is the time of year for moving, at least for those in the college world. I helped some of my old roommates decorate their apartment. They painted one wall.

I think it ended up looking pretty good, but I'm still not sure I would love living there. I think I might be constantly looking at it and noticing the imperfections. I can understand it more then the other wall though.
The other wall was filled with pictures and a mirror. Way to many in my opinion but it was kind of interesting because from a design point of view I had a feel for whether pieces should be higher or lower on the wall or if the colors matched, etc. Basically, I realized I could do it. I could decorate with too many pictures and trendy sayings, and do it well. I just would rather not and probably never will. I'm not saying it's bad, it just isn't me.
It reminded me of Taran Wanderer by Lloyd Alexander where Taran tries various crafts and is actually pretty talented at all of them but isn't interested in any of them until he tries pottery and loves it but isn't actually very good at it. (At least I think that's how it goes. It's been more then 10 years since I read it). I wonder how frequently that happens that people have talents for things they don't actually care about pursuing.

Deadlines and Writing Ramblings

One more week. That is all the time I have left before school starts again. This is rather a depressing thought, but there is at least one thing that I find useful about change such this, I am doubly motivated to accomplish things.

I crammed the last month and a half or so before I left on my 18 month mission full of finishing projects including a cross stitch project I had started when I was 6 or 7.

At the beginning of August I realized that my summer was drawing to a close and I set myself a plan to write more diligently in the hopes of more or less finishing the first draft of my second book. I'm not sure that will happen because my book keeps getting longer... but nevertheless I have been doing quite a bit of writing. It is a Robin Hood retelling. I have always loved Robin Hood and retellings but not historical fiction. When historical fiction is done well, meaning well researched and accurate as well as all those other pesky things like a good plot and character development it can be great, but the problem is that it often is not particularly accurate. I thought anyone who choose to write a Historical fiction was crazy.... and yet here I am writing one. It puts me in mind of a certain symmetrical black ceramic plate I saw in a museum on a fieldtrip I took with my ceramics class. We were supposed to pick an item and then recreate it. I blatantly told my professor the person who choose it must be crazy. And then I picked it myself.

I have set my Robin Hood story in the 1270s which is later then many of the Robin Hood stories (meaning King Richard and Prince John are not characters). I have done some research but there are still many questions I have, and still more questions I am sure I have not even thought to ask. Some of these questions I have put off but I will definitely have to research them eventually.

Another thing that has been interesting about writing this is that one of my main point of view characters is very different from me. Both of my point of view characters in Legend Speaker react to situations similar to how I would react. They are almost like different flavors of my own reactions rather then completely different but Hob is different and as a result I might have to go rewrite many of the earlier scenes because I hadn't gotten a very good feel for that difference yet.

Anyway, enough ramblings. Here is to natural deadlines.

Archaeology and Paleontology

When I was studying archaeology people would often ask whether I was digging up dinosaurs. Now that I am studying paleontology people ask me if I do archaeology.
I like Latin roots so here is their literal meanings based on the Latin roots based on this page on wikipdia.
"archae" means ancient
"pale" means ancient or old
"ont" means being

On my recent paleontology dig I found it interesting to compare archaeology and paleontology.
The similarities:

• the artifacts/bones are mapped on a grid system
• Artifacts/bones are closely labeled 
• a clean hole is a happy hole (as in get the dirt and the rock bits out of the hole so you can see what you are doing)
• it takes a little bit to get your search criteria right but once you have it isn't too bad
• people always stand around and take pictures of you because you are on the "inside of the zoo"

The differences (well a few of them):

• In archaeology you dig square holes, in paleontology you dig around what you want to take out
• In paleontology you take home some of the rock still stuck to the bones, in archaeology you get rid of all the dirt
• In paleontology there is a more overall interest in the geologic history of the area

Also, sometimes when I worked in Archaeology I would get annoyed that people would just stand around and watch instead of helping out, just get in and dig. On this trip I stood around a lot because (1) I didn't know what needed to be done and (2)even when I did know what needed to be done I didn't really feel qualified to do it. So overall, I felt a little more sympathetic to those I had been annoyed at before.

Being Capable Or Allowing Others to Be Capable

When I was a teenager my Mom asked me and my older brother's friend to fix some shelves in the basement. Or maybe she just asked him. Either way I kind of hijacked the work and kept trying to do everything. I wanted to use the drill and the saw etc. Afterwards I felt really dumb. I ruined his chance to be helpful and acted like a brat. After that I have been more cautious about "showing off" with manual labor especially when there are males involved. I have heard that it is important to the male ego to be able to be strong and helpful and capable.
This week I went on a dinosaur dig with some people, many of them guys. At one point we had to change a tire and several other times there was things to be carried or lifted. Some of it I physically could not do or it would have been very awkward but some of it I knew how to do, and would have enjoyed doing but I stood back and let them do it. And hence was bored and felt kind of useless.
I am assuming the guys weren't saying I couldn't do it they just wanted to take the brunt of it, which is nice. I guess I just haven't figured out a good compromise.