Jenny's SIR

Ah semester in review time once again...what could be more enjoyable than reflecting on the anguish and pain all over again, re-opening wounds and salting them with anticipation of next semester's requirements! Here goes:

If I had to sum up this semester in a mantra, it would be: forage, sleep, farm, repeat. I spent the better part of the first couple of months working with the Forest Service and finishing out the season's fieldwork. In addition, I finally managed to pull together my Farmer/Forager research about an hour before presenting it at the GBAC. That was the highlight of the semester, since it was my first 'real' presentation, though I still feel like I got jipped out of a really good 'Simms makes a scene' moment. According to Dr J, everybody's favorite Little Elf Man has decided--after 20 years, mind you--to accept that his theory needs work and he needn't be offended by those who attempt to move it in a more reasonable direction. Thank heaven!

I finally finished my paper version of that research today, actually, and have washed my hands of the great J himself until I get it together enough to defend my thesis proposal...so much for doing THAT in October! The delay has actually worked out, though, since it gave me a change to become better acquainted with Matt Seddon, the new Utah SHPO, and get him on board as a committee member. Charmaine and I took him out to Vernon to talk about eligibility and chaining on surface sites. We couldn't resist showing off our homesteads and, being the fellow rust-appreciator that he is, Matt was interested in my thesis and offered his assistance. His insider track on the Level III project, etc is really going to help when I get into the comparison of homesteading at Benmore to railroading in the area! Matt's a great guy--it's nice to know that someone with a personality is up there reading our reports.

I only took one class this semester--History 566: Sources and Problems in Utah History. Thomas Alexander came out of BYU retirement to teach it, which has turned out really amazingly since he's pretty much the world's expert on all things Utah history. It was interesting to see the difference in the historian approach--as we chose our books from the selected bibliography, I noticed that the three history students most often chose those that were focused on a specific individual's experience. In contrast, I tended toward those that were broader and emphasized the history of many in a specific place. Granted, I also tended to choose the shortest book on the list...dunno why those thick history types didn't think to check lengths online--there was often a wide range of lengths from 150 to 400. All in all, the class has done little to provide thesis sources, which was my initial hope, but has really assisted me in putting all my little rusty bits into context.

That's about it. Fairly uneventful. I spent a lot of time out of town or otherwise occupied with non-school items, so I've been really bad about getting the prelim for 42WS1931 out from field school last season, but now that the Fremont paper is done, I'll be better able to knock that out.

Up next, back to heavy course loads with History of Archaeology by Jamie Bartlett, SW Seminar by Jim Allison (this one's gonna be great, the texts books look pretty good), and that GIS class that Molly and Brad took this semester. I'm also hoping to delve into my thesis pretty seriously, atleast as much as possible without completed field work, and to finish up the 9 season Vernon PIT report. This is gonna have some pretty nifty 'fun with lithics' moments, if all goes well. It may lead to some sort of publication on the paleo-archaic points out there, but we'll see what we find next season. I'm still all melty over the 8-inch edge-ground concave base beauty I found in August. Sexy, sexy...even if it HAS been cow trampled into 6 pieces! Dang Bovines.