Nafplio: very shiny. Also, heads up.

[hawkwing_lb]

I'm running out of things to do, though, so it's probably a good thing I'm headed back to Athens tomorrow and home on Wednesday. Since I have a four-day tolerance for sun-and-sea relxation, after which I start twitching and looking for work, either in the form of museum visits or daytrips or lengthy hikes.

And since I'm running out of money (dear god, I should not have been seduced so by the consumable souvenirs, but so pretty, so tasty, and my grandmother needs something), I'm not about to take any trips. Or hire any bikes.

(Quince and figs preserved in honey. Alcoholic stuffs. Very pretty postcards. MY MONEY WHY DO I SPEND IT?!)

Heads up: Tor.com will be running a semi-regular column by me from next week, in which I stir shit and talk about women and feminism and things. I appear to have reasonably close to carte blanche with topics. But I do not think I will spend much time reading the comments.

Now there are ringing church bells outside and I am tired and slightly hungry. So I think perhaps I will go and nap and then have some food.

Comments

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

Doesn't wandering around a Venetian fortress sort of count as work? Since it's archaeological/historical/built heritagey kind of stuff???

I just can't switch off, wherever I go. I have to snoop around museums. If someone's digging a service trench across a road, I have to poke my nose in it, just to see what the subsoil looks like. If there's a lumpy bit in a field, I automatically go 'hello? What's that?'

Oh dear. I think I must love my job/vocation/profession whatever.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Not my period, so it's all relaxation. :)

(And I'd seen all the museums before.)

It's not the kind of profession people enter without love, is it, really?

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

This may sound unlikely, but over the last few years I've met a few archaeologists who've seemed to treat it very much as a regular job and you find yourself wondering why they bothered in the first place. Strangely enough, they don't usually make it past their first temporary contract with us as they just aren't as good at their job as someone who's got real passion. Whether they're trained in Classical archaeology, history with a little dash of archaeology thrown in for good measure, or whatever.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Huh. Why would you do field archaeology if you didn't love it? Not for the money and life of ease, for sure!

I mean, I will never love field archaeology because mud and dust and insects and arthritis and fiddly drawings and plans. (I cannot, even with graph paper, make a remotely accurate drawing without at least an hour of sweat. And life is too short to weep over bits of paper.) But the kind of research I'm doing? Going around working from maps and plans and leftover bits to make sense of a totality of experience? Yeah, that I love.

(Data. Give me tiny fiddly bits of information to make sense of and I'm happy as a pig in muck who's just discovered it can fly.)

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

I can relate to that!!

Unfortunately, it's impossible to work in the commercial side without having to do excavation, but the very cunning and canny can try and push their special interests towards the more desk-based skills so their fieldwork experiences are reduced considerably.

And another point to note: an archaeologist with skills, abilities and aptitudes for working with finds, illustrations, surveying or GIS is infinitely more valuable to a small company if they have the capacity to be punted out on the occasional watching brief or evaluation (shudder!!!).

Seriously. Unless you can get a secure foothold in academia or a museum job, you could do worse than make a career in developer-funded archaeology.

Though Ireland might not be the best place to try right now...

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I can see that.

I honestly think that when I finish my degree, my best bet is going to be freelance writing and TEFL, if I can't break in the academic door. (Although I'm looking at further master's degrees in urban planning and sustainable development with greed in my eye. No, self. No more college for you. Get a job.)

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

Urban planning?

That sounds eminently and appallingly sensible!!

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

It's all about use of space!