I've always given my employer a lot of credit for being so supportive of my efforts to go back to school, even allowing me to take courses during the day and flexing my schedule to accommodate.

Well, the good times are over here too, it seems. I was notified that full-time employees would no longer be allowed to take college courses during regular business hours. In these tough times, they want to get everything they can out of their existing workforce, and I get that.

When I was taking lower division anthropology courses at the community colleges here in Phoenix, that was no big deal-- most were offered at night. Graduate courses are another issue entirely. This severely restricts what I can do, and certainly eliminates any possibility of attending NAU any time soon.

Lots of thinking to be done...

Labels: goal, nau

Sometimes a little thing can make a big difference.

I've been feeling as though my educational plan was stalling-- I'm about to finish the last anthropology course of my B.A., and had no real prospects for next year. ASU won't accept me (since my BA is from there), and I wasn't excited by my UofA experience in Tucson.

I had looked at the Fall 2009 schedule at NAU, but all of the graduate classes I would consider taking were at highly inconvenient times, with any one of them causing me to basically miss a day of work every week. Given the current job market, the last thing I need to do is draw attention to myself by asking for exceptional treatment.

I have no idea why I did it, but I looked at NAU's online schedule for the Fall again... and noticed that Dr. Smiley's Lithic Analysis course had been moved to Tuesday afternoons at 4:00pm!

I applied to NAU as a non-degree-seeking grad student, and e-mailed the professor to make sure he was OK with me taking the class. He replied almost immediately that I was welcome to take the class, so I guess I'm heading North next semester.

How does this fit? Well, if I apply and get accepted into the NAU Masters program for Fall 2010, I can already have 6 graduate hours to apply to the program (plus 3 more transfer credits for the graduate seminar on the Preclassic Maya I took in Tucson).

Labels: goal, nau

I have three weekends left to finish my research paper for ANTH 553 (Mesoamerican Archaeology). Why can't I make myself get it done? The task seems daunting, so I guess I'm avoiding it.

25-40 pages, including bibliography. I have most of the sources, but I've read only a fraction of them. A little advice: Don't do it like this! I began collecting possible sources back in late September, thinking I had a great start. But now, my back is against the wall, and I may not be entirely successful.

I think the #1 thing getting in my way is one big fact: My original idea for the research paper isn't going to work. I had hoped to find sufficient data on the Late Preclassic Maya Lowlands that would allow me to identify the way that neighborhoods were organized. Unfortunately, that information is buried several meters below Classic and Postclassic construction phases.

So the big challenge is to read about the Late Preclassic sites and try to identify some other indication of changes in social organization, since floorplans of the communities will not be available.

I wrote this hoping that admitting my anxiety and avoidance might help get me back on track. We'll see!

Labels: goal, maya, mesoamerica

The Spring 2009 semester is quickly approaching, and I just registered for my final undergraduate Anthropology course: Human Origins. The really great news (beyond the obvious fact that I'm nearly finished with my B.A.) is that this course is taught by Donald Johanson.

Yep, the famous paleoanthropologist who discovered Lucy teaches an undergraduate course on the subject every other semester right here at ASU (the home of his Institute of Human Origins).

Even though I'm planning to specialize in archaeology, I've always been fascinated by the mysteries involving the human family tree. I'm really looking forward to this opportunity.

Labels: asu, goal, humanorigins

I found myself in a bit of a predicament when I went to register for Spring classes.

I'm taking a graduate seminar at the University of Arizona in Tucson this semester, so I am not currently enrolled at ASU. Before I did this I checked with my department, and I was told that I could take one semester off from ASU without any problems, but that if I took two or more off consecutively, I would need to re-apply and get admitted all over again.

It turns out that the person in the anthropology department was misinformed, and when I chose not to enroll this semester, I was dropped from the university. When I called to find out why I could not register, I was told that:

1. I would need to fill out an all-new application to the university ("Better start it right now, sir."). This includes listing my high school, all colleges I attended...
   
2. Because of a high volume of applications, I should not expect an answer (i.e., am I accepted) for at least three weeks...
3. I would have to move to the latest catalog (i.e., my degree requirements might change)
4. I should have filed a Leave of Absence form to avoid the whole mess.

The lesson here: Ask the right questions, at the right time, of the right people. Know the process at your university!

I have worked it all out, and I will be able to register. All is well, but it was a wild ride.

Labels: asu, goal, hints_and_tips

I've been putting the GRE off for years... so I finally scheduled myself to take it (and paid the $$$), hoping that the pressure of the deadline would motivate me to study.

That's not exactly how it worked out. I ended up only studying the night before the test, using the ETS Test Prep CD that I received from ETS after registering for the GRE. Even so, I managed a 660 on the Verbal portion, and an 800 on the Quantitative.

The good thing about the prep software is that the interface looks just like the real one on the computer-based test, so you should definitely take all of the practice tests that are included on the CD.


SOME ADVICE

Stuff you should know about taking the computer-based test:

1. You must answer every question as it appears-- you cannot skip questions and come back later. This significantly alters your test strategy, if you have taken previous standardized tests on paper.
2. WATCH THE CLOCK during your essay portion. I was still re-typing a sentence in my conclusion paragraph when the screen went blank and then told me my time was up.
3. Bring an energy bar (I prefer BALANCE Bars) and leave it in your locker for a snack during your 10-minute break.

Stuff to know for the Verbal portion:

1. How to comprehend what you read.
2. Lots of vocabulary. The analogies are the hardest part, since you need to understand all the possible nuanced meanings of the words.

Basically, either you know this stuff or you don't. If you don't, then you need to set aside several months to improve your reading comprehension and your vocab.

Stuff you should learn, understand, and memorize before the test:

1. The Pythagorean Theorem. Several of the quantitative questions ask you to solve problems which involve right triangles.
2. The formulas for both the area and the circumference of a circle.
3. Remember that the ratio of a square's side to its diagonal is 1 to the square root of 2 (1.414).
4. The area of a right triangle is its base times its height, DIVIDED BY TWO.
5. Be able to solve a system of linear or quadratic equations.

General strategies:

1. DO PRACTICE TESTS. These help you assess your current state, and get you accustomed to the format.
2. GO TO BED EARLY. In the final 24 hours prior to the test, a good night's sleep is worth way more than any more studying.
3. DON'T FREAK OUT. If you know basic mathematics and some properties, you can probably figure out most of the answers. I solved one problem where they wanted me to compute a value in a series the right way, but I just did it by hand, working out each term individually. I got it right.

Good luck. and remember-- you can always take it again.

Labels: goal, hints_and_tips

I still haven't recovered from the summer.

Taking two semesters of Spanish in only 10 weeks (with an Urban Politics course thrown in for good measure) meant I missed the whole thing!

I succeeded, I suppose, given that received a grade of "A" in each of the three courses. Did I learn much Spanish? Not really.

It is already the third week of the Fall semester, and I am behind, behind, BEHIND. Spanish 201 is much harder than I thought it would be, and I have yet to finish the weekly reading in Dr. Inomata's Mesoamerican Archaeology course at the U of A.

Here's a tip on learning Spanish: DRILL. Make flashcards of nouns, verbs, and specific conjugations. Do them over and over and over. It's a little like multiplication tables: You just need to memorize a bunch of stuff to be successful later on.

Commuting to Tucson is no big deal. I leave the Phoenix area around lunchtime, arrive on campus early enough to sit down and review my reading (translation: DO my reading), and go to class. Afterward, I get dinner at one of the eateries near campus and begin the drive home around 6:30 pm. I'm home before 8:30, and take the rest of the day off from school worries.

The drive is a bit boring, but I have a Sirius satellite radio (150 stations and nothing much to listen to), and I also listen to a few of the Coffee Break Spanish podcasts. I really recommend these! They're useful, fun, and free.

I'll post some info on the Pre-Classic period in the Maya Lowlands when I get a chance.

Labels: goal, uofa

SUMMER 2008

I'm two weeks into summer school: Spanish 101 every night of the week, and an internet course on Urban Politics. It seems that all I do is get up, go to work, go to class, go home, go to bed.

I'm taking Spanish 102 in the second 5-week session, so I will complete 11 total credit hours before the beginning of the Fall semester.

FALL 2008

Once the Fall comes, I'll be busier than ever:

• Spanish 201 at Rio Salado college (it's an Internet course)
• Graduate course in Anthropology at the University of Arizona in Tucson

It is only nine miles shorter to drive to Tucson from my house (as opposed to Flagstaff), but my wife has convinced me that the more friendly year-round weather will make it a better choice. I have already been accepted to Arizona as an unclassified Graduate student, and I've already registered.

I'm going to be taking a Mesoamerican Archaeology course from Dr. Takeshi Inomata. He is a Mayanist (he's currently doing fieldwork in Guatemala), and I think I would enjoy working with him.

Before the Fall semester is over, I will need to submit all application materials to the various graduate schools in which I'm interested. I plan to apply to the following (presented in alphabetical order, NOT the order of preference):

• Arizona State University (Ph.D. program in Anthropology)
  
• Northern Arizona University (M.A. program in Anthropology)
  
• University of Arizona (M.A. program in Anthropology)
  
• University of North Texas (Online M.A. program in Applied Anthropology)

SPRING 2009

I still need to finish up my B.A., and I'll need to take the following courses to make this happen:

• Spanish 202 (at ASU)
• One more Physical Anthropology course

I only hope that Dr. Johansen is teaching ASM 246, Human Origins! Otherwise, I will end up taking a lab course such as Fossil Hominids or Primatology (takes LOTs of time), or maybe something easire such as Peopling of the World.

The big mystery, of course, is where will I be in the Fall of 2009?

Labels: asu, goal, nau, unt, uofa

Two days ago, I turned in the term paper for Dr. Smith's grad course, Archaeology of Ancient Built Environments. I don't have an exact count, but I suspect I spent over 100 hours on the research and the writing. It's not as good as I would like it to be-- if I decide to clean it up and really finish it, I already know many of the changes I would make.

My paper, entitled "Neighborhoods in Non-urban Settlements: A Cross-cultural Comparison," used criteria originally developed to demonstrate sub-settlement groups in the Anatolian Neolithic (in Turkey) in an attempt to find neighborhoods in Native American pueblos right here in the Southwest. This will be the topic of a longer post as soon as I get the chance. I'm creating a Powerpoint slide show that may be worth posting, for those of you who are interested.

I still have another research project in the works with Dr. Martin, and I'll be finishing my data analysis very soon. More on this later.

I'm just glad I can finally get a few full nights of sleep.

Labels: archaeology, asu, goal

Here's what I have:

• forty-two credit hours in Anthropology coursework, GPA: 3.97
• A certificate that says I won the Undergraduate Research Assistantship award at ASU
• 4 weeks of archaeological field school experience
• 2 years of research work with a professor
• Glowing recommendations from two professors

Here's what I don't have:

• Acceptance in the graduate Anthropology program at Northern Arizona University.

I returned from a college-hunting trip (for my daughter) in Colorado to find two letters from NAU. The one from the Anthropology Department was somewhat friendly, stating that either my application was not competitive enough or that my research interests did not line up well with those of the professors in the department. The letter from the NAU Graduate College was much more blunt: "Your application was not competitive."

I've already asked the graduate coordinator to please explain to me the aspects of my application which failed to meet their standards, and hopefully this will be a productive thing. Right now, I'm still pretty depressed about the whole thing-- and I keep wondering which is true: 1. They just don't know me, or 2. I'm not good enough.

There are some good things I can take from this:

1. NAU's program really is pretty competitive! If I'd been accepted, I would not have know for sure.
2. You can always do a better job on your application. I've identified about twenty things I would do differently if I could (and I will do them for the next one).
3. I can finish my B.A. in Anthropology. Having the B.A. is a good thing-- it means I'll finish my foreign language work, and have a minimum credential for moving on to graduate studies. Who knows-- this may have worked against me at NAU.
4. I have plenty of time to finish my research with Dr. Martin. By May of next year, I'll have my B.A. and two publications.
5. I can still choose something other than Archaeology. I've been having doubts about choosing Archaeology as my subdiscipline, so now I have time to reconsider.
6. I have another year to pay off debt and save. If I'm planning to go part time at work, I better be as financially secure as I can be.

As depressing as this has been, I have to remember that I'm in the middle of a very demanding graduate seminar. Now I REALLY need to do well in this.

I couldn't help myself: I already registered for next semester at ASU. I'm taking the two remaining courses I need for my Anthro degree, except for the foreign language component. For Spanish, I'll take two summer sessions starting in June, and I'll have completed my four courses total by May of 2009. Yep, I should be able to graduate.

As for graduate school, I'll need to see what happens. I might still try the Online Masters in Applie dAnthropology at UNT, or I might commute to the U of A in Tucson. But for the next 15 months, I know I'll be right here at ASU.

Labels: goal, hints_and_tips, nau

This has been an exciting semester so far, and an immensely busy one. I'm taking ASB 591 Archaeology of Ancient Built Environments, I'm still working on a paper with Dr. Martin, I still have quite a bit of data entry to do for Dr. Smith, and I'm sitting in on Dr. Martin's graduate seminar entitled Biology and Society.

This seems like pretty good practice for graduate school-- since I'm doing all of the reading for two seminars and working on a major research project. If I am lucky enough to get accepted into the Master's program at NAU, it can't be much worse (except for the drive).

In Dr. Smith's Built Environment class, we're reading up on how the many ways that archaeologists propose for inferring culture from architecture. We've had some really stimulating conversations (there are five us us unrolled in the class), and kicked around many things I had never considered.

We've covered new broad topics each week:

• The Meaning of the Built Environment - reading mostly works by Amos Rapoport, who proposes that the environment can possess lower-level meaning (cues for what we are supposed to do), middle level meaning (e.g. identity, status, power), or high level meaning (e.g. world view, spiritual meaning). Intriguing urban design/social engineering controversy: Urban planner Robert Moses designed expressway systems in New York City, and supposedly designed the expressway bridges with such low clearance that public transportation (buses) could not go under them. This discriminated against the poor communities (few had automobiles) preventing them from visiting parks, baseball, etc. He is even credited by some with driving the Brooklyn Dodgers out of New York. read more at Wikipedia.
  

• Settings for Activities - Dana Anderson, Susan Kent, and more Rapoport. We covered the definition of "activity" and "activity areas", discussed the types of activities (daily, subsistence, ritualistic, production, consumption), the types of activity areas (shared or dedicated), and Rapoport's concept that activities cannot be viewed alone, but as part of a larger activity system. He believes that settings are also part of larger setting systems.

• Habitus and Home - Looking at domestic structures, Richard Blanton, Kent Lightfoot, and others looked at methods for identifying meaning. Most of these authors make it clear that to gain a full picture, one must combine data from archaeology, ethnohistory, and even oral histories.

• Housing and Communication - House construction and design is to a large extent a consumer decision... how much to spend, etc. Blanton looks at how the decoration and design of a house communicates on multiple levels: What group the owners are in, their status in the community, etc.

• Roland Fletcher - His model for settlement growth is pretty interesting (although I'm not sure what it can be used for if you are an archaeologist). It grows out of his belief that interpersonal interaction and limits on communication increase as settlements get larger, ultimately limiting the size of growth until the interactions are curbed or new facilitating communication technologies emerge. See The Limits of Settlement Growth.

We have 8 more weeks of topics, usually reading 6 papers per week. I need to read a related book and write a publishable review, and I also need to produce an original research paper, some kind of cross-cultural comparative study using existing data.

If I can survive this semester, I should be able to handle the real thing.

Labels: archaeology, asu, goal

Okay, I know it's been a long time since I posted. For the two of you who still check occasionally, I apologize.

I'm going to try to post more often, especially since things have been getting more interesting for me as a student.

Some highlights:

• Dr. Martin and I are close to submitting a paper on an important discovery we've made regarding the social effects on the sex ratio at birth in Africa. More details once it's on its way.

• I managed to get all of my application materials submitted on time for the Anthropology Masters at NAU. Now I just have to wait... I should hear in the next few weeks.
  

• I'm taking a graduate seminar from Dr. Michael Smith: Archaeology of Ancient Built Environments. Tons of reading, tons of excellent discussion, and tons of stress are making it a novel experience.

I'll be posting separately in more detail on each of these topics real soon now.

Labels: asu, goal

It's the Fall semester, so it must be time for Dr. Hudak's Principles of Linguistics class. I've been looking forward to this, mostly because it is the only field of Anthropology about which I still know NOTHING.

We're beginning with phonetic consonants (for English), and we already have a quiz tomorrow after only three class periods.

There's not much to report yet, but it's good to be back on campus.

Labels: asu, goal, linguistics

I hopped in my car last Tuesday and took a drive up Interstate 17 to Flagstaff. As I approached the end of the interstate (yes, it actually comes to an end in Flagtown), the Skydome figured prominently in my field of view. Home to the NAU Lumberjacks football team, it is the largest building on the South campus of Northern Arizona University... and my landmark for where to turn.

I had an appointment with Dr. George Gumerman IV, the chairman of the Anthropology Department at NAU. I wanted to learn more about the department, the graduate program, and to discuss the feasibility of joining the program and commuting from Phoenix.

It was great talking with Dr. Gumerman and seeing the Anthropology facilities. They are very focused on the experiences they provide for their graduate students. they place an emphasis on the importance of working with your cohort, whether just exchanging ideas or collaborating on research projects. they do not offer a Ph.D., so the Masters students get all the attention.

They have recently revamped their website, and there is a lot of information about the department and its faculty. The primary focus at NAU is on Applied Anthropology, but they also offer thesis-track programs in both Socio-cultural Anthropology and Archaeology. I mentioned to Dr. Gumerman that I had considered the University of South Florida (another school with a strong Applied Anthro program), and he noted that NAU had placed several of their graduates into the Ph.D. program at USF.

I proposed to Dr. Gumerman that prior to entering the Masters program officially, perhaps I should try commuting to NAU as an unclassified graduate student, taking one course and seeing how it all works. Much to my relief, he agreed. He recommended the Lithics course which will be offered in the Spring semester, and I can hardly wait.

So, what about the commute? Well, it took me 110 minutes to drive from Pinnacle Peak Road and I-17 (that's basically where I work) to the parking lot outside the Anthropology building in Flagstaff. The return trip was almost identical... so that's almost four hours, roundtrip. It was an easy drive, but also easily the longest drive I've ever done in a typical day, even in the sprawling Valley of the Sun. I'l willing to try it, though!

NAU does not have a foreign language proficiency requirement, so the only class I still need in order to be accepted with no deficiencies is Linguistics, and I'm taking that in the Fall from Dr. Hudak. Looks like it's time to start asking for recommendation letters, since all application materials for the masters program are due at the end of January.

I'd still like to learn Spanish, and with a four-hour commute, some language tapes might be just the thing.

Labels: goal, nau

Okay, so I still need two Anthropology courses to graduate (Linguistics and another Physical anthro course), plus a "Literacy & Critical Thinking" course, and my foreign language.

It's going to be pretty tough to get all of these completed by the summer of 2008, and even if I succeed, I can't take any more courses that I want to take. There's a really great class being offered (for seniors only) that includes a lot of research, and I still want to take a good Mesoamerican archaeology class.

I decided to take up the subject once last time with the undergraduate advisor, Jennifer Gordon. We talked for quite a bit, and in the end, she agreed that if I was planning to apply to graduate school for the Fall of 2008, then I only needed to worry about getting the courses that a graduate program would care about. They are NOT going to care whether I took a "Literacy" course, and they won't even care if I never finish a B.A. in Anthropology (I have nearly 40 credit hours in Anthro, plus an earlier B.S. in Computer Science).

So, I'm going to continue taking Spanish, and then take Anthropology courses that I want to take (i.e., that are in the area I wish to pursue as a graduate student).

I have dropped the courses I was originally registered to take in the Fall (2007), and instead signed up for ASB 337, Prehispanic Civilizations of Middle America. I'm going to take Spanish 101 this summer, and continue with 102 in the Fall. In the Spring of 2008, I hope to take Linguistics and keep going on the Spanish. By then, I will have applied to graduate school, and I can just kiss my undergraduate life goodbye.

Of course, I have a final exam THIS semester, happening one week from today... so I better keep my mind on the present, for now.

Labels: goal, hints_and_tips

It's been a wild ride this semester. In the last couple of weeks, I've been working on a research paper for Human Osteology Lab, and I finally finished it (the night before it was due, of course). You can read Bipedal Adaptations in the Hominid Pelvis here.

I'm studying for the final exam in the same course, but that hasn't stopped me from celebrating my good fortune: I won the Spring 2007 Undergraduate Research Assistantship Award from the School of Human Evolution and Social Change here at Arizona State University!

My research proposal was one of two chosen from a large field of entries, so I consider it a high honor. I'll be continuing to work with Dr. John F. Martin, investigating the connections between the sex ratio at birth and birth order in Africa. It's not a fortune, but the award will pretty much pay for my tuition and books this coming semester.

Labels: asu, goal

I met with my mentor the other day (all undergraduate anthropology majors at ASU have a randomly-assigned mentor) to discuss my future. As you might know from a previous post, I've been feeling a certain urgency to get moving toward grad school, so I thought I would float a few of my ideas with Dr. Schwartz.

He listened to my concerns and my ideas, and then said what he had already told me six months earlier: "You need to figure out what you want to do, and then go for it."

*sigh*

He's right, of course. I pointed out to him that even though I like the idea of doing something in Anthropology that can make a difference (e.g., Medical Anthropology), it still didn't excite me as much as reading about new discoveries such as the Olmec writing or the Dikika child.

So, even though I feel as though I must apply to graduate school Real Soon Now, perhaps I'm being a little hasty. I've decided to continue on at ASU for a while, taking interesting courses and hoping I get that one big inspiration. I have already pre-registered for next semester, signing up for two courses:

• ASM 246 Human Origins (taught by Donald Johanson!)
• ASB 362 The Neolithic Revolution and Its Consequences

My wife will shoot me if I don't drop one of them (she feels that a full-time job, three kids, one wife, and an ongoing research project with Dr. Martin means I can only handle one course at a time), so I better figure out which one has to go. If I win the Lotto between now and then however, I might actually add another course!

I can still change my mind, of course... applications are not due at NAU until February 15th.

Labels: goal, hints_and_tips

It's the Fall semester of 2006, and I'll still have three Anthropology courses remaining after it's over (Linguistics, another Physical Anthro course, and an elective). At the rate I'm going, even taking Spanish in the summers, I'm on track to graduate with my B.A. in the Fall of 2008.

By that time, my older daughter will have finished half of her Sophmore year in college, and my youngest will be only six months away from college. I'll be 47. And a half.

Could it be that I need to accelerate things?

The truth is, I do not need to have a B.A. in Anthropology to begin a Masters. By December, I'll have 37 credit hours in Anthropology, and sufficient coursework in the various fields to satisfy the entrance requirements of pretty much any graduate program.

So how can I begin my graduate work earlier?

I have found three options, all of which would allow me to begin my graduate studies in the Fall of 2007 (one year from now, not two or three):

• Arizona State University - I know it's a long shot, but I'm no ordinary student. At least it's conveniently located! I'll need three letters of recommendation and excellent GRE scores.
  

• Northern Arizona University - It's a second-tier (mayber third?) program, only offering a Master of Arts. It would be one hell of a commute, but since they offer each of their grad courses as 3-hour sessions on a single day, it's do-able.

• University of North Texas - Now that's a tough commute! Just kidding... they have begun the nation's first Online Masters in Applied Anthropology. You visit campus for a couple of days at the beginning to meet the faculty and other students, and then again to defend your internship report. They claim it will be equivalent to their on-campus program.

All three options require me to do the following by the end of December:

1. Write a statement of purpose. Yikes! I don't know if I want to do Medical Anthropology, Archaeology, or something else entirely. How can I write one of these?
2. Get letters of recommendation. this could be tough, since not enough professors know me well enough... yet.
3. Take the GRE. It's offered in October, so I better take a sample test this weekend.
4. file all the appropriate applications with each institution's Graduate College, as well as with each Anthropology department.

There's more, of course, but these are the big items.

Even if I'm succcessful in getting my self accepted to at least one of these programs, it's still a long road. I can count on taking at least three years for the Masters, which means I would begin work on a Ph.D. at age 49... I better get started.

Labels: goal

It was nice to have the summer off, but now it's back to the quest.

This semester, I'm taking Human Osteology from Dr. Gary Schwartz. We've already had three lectures and one lab, and I'm loving it. I simply had no idea what was going on inside of bones! These puppies are extremely complex, dynamic systems, and we tend to think of them as being so static.

I'll probably end the semester ready to change my area of emphasis within Anthro again... or maybe even decide to major in Biology, or go to Med School! It's all quite exciting.

Here's a quick osteo-factoid: You have a completely new skeleton every ten years.

Labels: asu, goal, osteology

My final exam is behind me, and I'm not taking any courses this summer. I really enjoyed Dr. Abbott's Quantitative Methods course, but I missed doing work on anthropological subjects.

I'm now helping Dr. John Martin with a new project, and it's quite interesting. I cannot disclose any details until he has published, but it deals with African countries and the practice of Female Gential Mutilation (FGM), which is also referred to as Female Circumcision, or Female Genital Cutting.

If you are looking for more information, Wikipedia has a good article which discusses the various types of cutting, the cultural origins, and the medical implications

Labels: goal

I stopped by my advisor's office today to discuss classes for the Fall semester, and received some unexpected good news: The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences has changed the requirements for the Bachelor of Arts degree. The good part of this is that they have replaced the prescribed general studies courses with a simple "whatever your department says is ok" rule. As a result, I'm several hours closer to my second Bachelor's degree!

Now, I only need to take my three remaining Anthro courses, a related elective, and one "L" class (the "L" stands for "Literacy"). Oh... I do still need to demonstrate foreign language proficiency... but I'm planning to take Spanish at the community college.

Even better, it is possible to find an "L" class that also fulfills my "related elective" requirement, meaning I have only four courses plus Spanish remaining.

Now I have to figure out how to get into grad school earlier...

Labels: goal

This semester I'm only taking one course: Quantitative Methods for Anthropological Research.

It's not really an Anthropology course (in spite of its name)-- it is a Statistics course. Dr. David Abbott, an experienced archaeologist and more recently a professor at ASU, has put together a course that wastes no time on theory. Instead, he is presenting us with increasingly complex and useful tools to solve practical problems encountered in the real world.

The textbook, Statistics for the Social Sciences, is rife with errors. In spite of the fact that it is a newly-issued third edition, there are more errors in the problems sets/answers than I can count.

Fortunately, I've been able to get through the material presented by Dr. Abbott quite well without paying too much attention to the text.


What's Next?

I've been struggling with the direction I should take, and now my time of decision is upon me (pre-registration opened yesterday). Should I continue on toward the B.A. (which means taking 4 semesters of Spanish, and about 12 additional hours of Liberal Arts coursework), or simply take all the undergraduate Anthro requirements and start applying to Graduate School?

If I stay the course for the B.A., it forces me to take courses that are expedient, rather than the ones I really want to take (e.g. I'm likely to take Disease and Human Evolution instead of Fossil Hominids for one of my Physical Anthropology courses because the Liberal Arts College says I need a "Bridge" course).

If I instead change my focus and work toward Grad School acceptance, it would free me to take courses I'm passionate about, and put more energy into finding good undergraduate research opportunities. This option has some problems, of course.

I'm still committed to remaining in the Phoenix area until June 2009, so my only option for graduate school is Arizona State. Sure, I'm getting to know the professors, and letters of recommendation mean a lot, but if I apply and I'm not accepted, I'm out of options (other than continuing to plod through the B.A. program).

Back to the present...

The Fall 2006 Schedule just came out, and there are NO Anthropology classes that fit well into my schedule. My two best options are ASB 337, Prehispanic Civilizations of Middle America, and ASM 341, Human Osteology Lab. Both of them will cause me to leave work in the middle of the day multiple times each week, and I'll need to make up the hours.

Things would certainly get better if I could just hit the lottery...

Labels: goal

Every time I take courses in a new anthropological subdiscipline, I love it. I started with an infatuation with Archaeology, then fell head-over-heels for Social/Cultural Anthropology. Now, I'm only a couple of weeks away from completing my first Biological (formerly known as "Physical") Anthropology course, and I can't get enough.

ASM 104 has been as easy as its low number indicates, but I have hung on every word. I already knew the overview of the story of human origins, and we even covered it for a couple of weeks when I took ASB 222 (Buried Cities and Lost Tribes). I just wasn't prepared for how interesting it would actually be.

Paranthropus boisei

Every time Heather Smith (the instructor) would move to the next slide of her extremely organized class materials, I had more questions... questions that I'm sure she never expected to be answering in a 100-level course, although she had no problem doing so (she's a Ph.D. candidate at ASU in Biological Anthro).

I was sitting at a table during one of our lab sessions, looking at across at a skull of Paranthropus boisei (previously known as Astralopithecus boisei). I knew there was significant sexual dimorphism w.r.t. body size, yet the anterior teeth (incisors and canines) were not really any bigger than my own (this is true for P. boisei males and females).

Gorilla gorilla

I was wondering: How that could be? In extant (currently living) species of apes, not only were males much bigger than females, but the guys also posess very large canines. But here was a 2 million year old hominid where the males were much bigger in size, yet they lacked the large teeth for threatening (or attacking) other males.

(I think it is interesting to note that both P. boisei and G. gorilla are vegetarians. The enormous sagittal crest along the top of the their skulls was an anchor for the large temporal muscles needed for chewing fibrous plant stuff).

Recent hypotheses propose that this was an indication of monogamy in P. boisei-- that perhaps the males didn't have large incisors because they didn't need them for male-male competition over females because each male mated with a single female... "just like humans."

I immediately had felt like there were a couple of problems with this line of thinking. First and foremost, humans were not monogamous until very recently in our history. Nearly all documented human cultures in the past (and many still today) featured polygynous marriage patterns. Monogamy is a pretty recent idea for humans, and still far from universal.

Second, representatives of the Paranthropus genus thrived for a million years on this planet, and in spite of their small canines, males were significantly larger than females. Humans, on the other hand, show only slight dimorphism in comparison.

Oh boy... I'm getting pretty wordy here. Suffice it to say, I have another hypothesis to counter the "Paranthropus was just like us... monogamous" argument, but I'm keeping the details to myself until I can do some proper research and write something up. Yep, I'm working on an outside-of-class research project. See how totally consumed I am by this new thing?

I'm probably taking a Linguistics course next semester, so I can go crazy over my final anthro discipline.

Labels: goal, humanorigins

Week five of the semester has come and gone, and it is finally taking its toll. I'm not behind yet, but I can feel it slipping away. Two classes at once may be biting off too much.

This weekend will probably tell me how the rest of the term will go: I have a 5-page paper due in my Indians of the Southwest course, and I still haven't begun to write. It's a good course. Dr. John Martin is an engaging and entertaining lecturer, as long as he's not reading from his notes. He's had so much first-hand experience with the cultures here is the Southwest that he has a great story on every subject.

I was lucky enough to visit Havasupai canyon in June, and was all the more interested in the Hualapai and Havasupai when we covered them in class. Dr. Martin knew quite a bit about them, and when I was reading about them in Volume 10 of the Handbook of North American Indians, I discovered why: John Martin lived with the Havasupai for a year and used them as the subject for his doctoral dissertation (he received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1967).

I've really been enjoying my Physical Anthropology class! Learning about primate anatomy, elementary genetics, and human evolution has been a blast (although it is very easy at this level).

I'll post my paper as soon as I get it done.

Update: It's done. Here's the PDF version of my paper on the Tewa Origin Myth.

Labels: goal

I just today finished a week-long archaeological field school at Elden Pueblo, just North of Flagstaff, Arizona.

This was my second full week at the Arizona Archaeological Society field school, directed by Peter Pilles. He is the staff archaeologist for the Coconino National Forest, and is the director of the Elden Pueblo Archaeological Project.

Elden Pueblo is a 65-room pueblo with trash mounds, smaller pueblos, kiva, a large community room, and numerous pit houses that both pre-date and are contemporaneous with the main pueblo. It is the type site for the Elden Phase of the Northern Sinagua tradition (A.D. 1150-1250).

I spent the entire week finishing off work on Pithouse 8, a masonry-lined, rectangular pithouse which had been abandoned , burned, and filled. Later, an above-ground pueblo was constructed on top of the filled pithouse.

Our objectives were to clean out fill which had accumulated since last season, attempt to excavate in search of the South pithouse wall, and expose a bit more of the profile on the East side of the 8-foot deep excavation.

We were able to clarify the stratigraphy of the East side of the pit, but never located the South wall. We found hundreds of large pottery sherds, a few pieces of worked obsidian, and some animal bone.

It was a great experience. Due to the importance of identifying and analyzing all the levels in the pithouse, Peter Pilles spent several hours in our unit, guiding us through the identification of the strata. He can see things I would never have found on my own, yet were obvious once he pointed them out.

Labels: fieldwork, goal

That's because my grade report finally came in for ASB 311: I got an "A"! The take-home final was not that easy, and I was a little afraid that I might end up with a B+.

I'm already registered for next Fall. I'll be taking another class from Dr. Martin (Indians of the Southwest), as well as an introductory course in physical anthropology from Mesa Community College (Stones, Bones, and Human Evolution).

I glad it's Summer, but it's gonna be over soon!

Labels: goal

I had an appointment recently with an advisor from ASU's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (CLAS) where we discussed how many of the classes from my first B.S. would apply toward the new B.A. in Anthropology.

It looks like the requirements are stiffer than when I originally attended in the mid 1980s. In addition to all of the courses required for my major, I will also need to take courses which meet the following requirements. Many of them could count toward my major:

ASU General Studies
"L" Classes - "Literacy and Critical Inquiry" (6 hours needed, so pick two)

"C" Courses - "Cultural Diversity" (3 hours needed, pick one)

"H" Courses - "Historical" (3 hours needed, pick one)


CLAS - College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
"HU" Courses - "Humanities and Fine Arts" (3 hours needed, pick one)

"Bridge" Course (3 hours needed, pick one)

This totals up to 18 hours of additional requirements, although I can definitely take 9 of these hours as part of my major. Still, that's three additional courses whicch I did not expect to take.

For details on these new courses, see my updated plan.

Labels: goal

The Spring semester has begun, and I'm finally attending class at Arizona State University.

I'm taking ASB 311, Principles of Social Anthropology, from Dr. John Martin. It was pretty cool to be back on the ASU campus after all these years! I was amazed at how much looked exactly the same as when I attended there in the early 1980s. I felt a bit out of place in the classroom with 40 other students, all of them appearing to be less than 22 years old.

We're going to begin by studying the Dobe Ju/'Hoansi, and follow that with in depth looks at three other cultures.

Labels: goal

I just posted to the site a research paper which I wrote for ASB 214 (my comparative religion course). I was inspired by reading the DaVinci Code, and decided to dig deeper into one of the claims made in the book.

Please read The Council of Nicea: Promoting Jesus from Man to God? ...but only if you're interested. There's also a PDF version.

Labels: goal, religion

We had our second exam tonight, and I think it went pretty well... considering that when the weekend began, I had 14 academic papers to read (so much for changing my "cramming" ways).

One of the 12 essay questions dealt with a paper we read in the section on rituals, a paper which every Anthropology student reads, sooner or later:

Body Ritual among the Nacirema, by Horace Miner, originally published in 1956.

Here's the abstract:

Most cultures exhibit a particular configuration or style. A single value or pattern of perceiving the world often leaves its stamp on several institutions in the society. Examples are "machismo" in Spanish-influenced cultures, "face" in Japanese culture, and "pollution by females" in some highland New Guinea cultures. Here Horace Miner demonstrates that "attitudes about the body" have a pervasive influence on many institutions in Nacirema society.

It's not very long (about 1100 words), but is an excellent study of the peculiar rituals that can be found in a society. I strongly recommend that you read it! Please feel free to add comments to this posting afterwards.

Labels: goal, religion

Well, here it is-- Monday already. I'm taking ASB 214 (Magic, Witchcraft & Healing) as a night course at Paradise Community College, and it meets every Monday night. Have I done my reading? No...

And the reading for this class is not casual. Our textbook (Sacred Realms) is a collection of journal articles relating to the development of religion in human culture. They are usually 20 pages long, the verbiage is dense, and the print is tiny. Still, here I am with only hours to go before class time, and I haven't done my homework.

What's the deal? It's not as if I'm only 19 years old... what happened to self-discipline? I know that Tuesdays are my best day for doing homework since I have no other commitments, yet I always spend my Tuesdays doing something else.

I can obviously get by in an undergraduate class with a minimum of effort, but I better develop some study habits before I hit graduate school, or I'll drown for sure.

Labels: books, goal

I've decided I want to be an Anthropologist. This is not a simple thing-- I'm 43, have a wife and two children, a mortgage, and a high-paying job in the high tech industry.

Nevertheless, I'm going to give it a try. This web site will be

• a chronicle of my journey,
• an archive of my original work,
• a resource for reference materials available on the web, and
• a "how to" document for those who might follow.
  

Wish me luck!

Paul Wren

Labels: goal