General Hospital.........our House?

Which one should it be, hmmmmmmm............ I'm doing my best to joke about this, though I really feel like crying. I've come to the conclusion that a network really should pick up on my family's story. Injuries galore; it could make a great show! Since coming home my Dad has recovered from his bicycle injury quite nicely, though he still can't chew the tough stuff. Tirzah is on the mend from tearing her ACL and ripping her miniscus the day after I got home, and today the neighbor kid smacked Theodore with a two-by-four and broke his arm! While we we're in Israel Malachi visited the emergency room for some kind of cut.............who's next?! I'm not about to volunteer, my family has had enough of the emergency room, and I hope it's sick of us too!

The Lutheran Vatican

If you're lucky, you'll read this on a Thursday and thus have no reason to be offended-- if such ridiculous humor offends you. Yes, I am in St. Louis Missouri, known by some as: The Lutheran Vatican. What am I doing here? Um, taking a mini-vacation I suppose.......why am I writing about it in this blog? Dad and I stopped by KFUO today after chapel, and before attending Greek with the illustrious Dr. Voelz. To make a short story even shorter: Paul Clayton is going to interview me tomorrow morning at about 8:40. Therefore, disregard what I typed earlier about reading this on Thursday; if any of you are crazy enough to be up at this hour, surf over to www.kfuo.org and listen to me make a fool of myself live. For the sane, it will show up in the archives later; if I have a particularly vain moment I may even post the link on this blog.

I have no more complete thoughts left in my head this morning; everything is too busy. I plan to blame the very strong, but very delicious coffee I had this morning. In light of this dillemma I am going to take this opportunity to type a paragraph that doesn't make sense at all. As a writing consultant I often have nightmares about students who bring me entire papers in this style; especially when the paper is thirty pages long and submitted by a graduate student. My next thought amuses itself in recollection of Dr. Voelz sporting a combat helmet in his summer Greek class this morning. His stuffed weasel was also highly amusing. And speaking of the Seminary, my Dad was looking through his fourth year student directory and found a picture of Dr. Chambers in his second year; he looks exactly the same but with less hair, which is saying a lot since he doesn't seem to be balding yet. To end this highly disorganized paragraph, my thoughts turn toward Kristina's latest post and hippos in tutus rolling down hills chased by....was it alligators? This sounds fascinating, I'd love to hear more.

P.S. Ted Drewe's here I come!

There's no place like home, There's no place like home...

I found my way home without the magic red shoes, but unlike Dorothy I came home to the aftermath of a different type of storm. A tornado was not what blew my Dad off his bicycle that fated Saturday as we were evacuated. He claims it was the shockwave from a ketyusha rocket that found itself into an interterrestrial wormhole that led to the highway he was biking on. By the time I saw him he looked much better, and that was all the cue my sister needed. Wednesday morning, the day after I arrived home, I awoke to the doorbell. There on our porch lay my dingbat sister, after driving herself home from gymnastics at the Y (the idiots actually had her drive home!) Following an MRI yesterday we learned that she had completely severed her ACL and ripped her miniscus, but she's still begging to go to the Exploring Church Careers Event in St. Louis this weekend, so we're still going, she can't have surgery for another two weeks anyway. I always knew my family was abnormal, but the injuries of the past two years are really beginning to define us ( my mom crushed her elbow in a biking accident and injured her knee the same way my sister did in a trench last year, and those two injuries followed crushing her hand in a car trunk). I'm proud of myself, all I did was get evacuated from a potentially dangerous warzone in a foreign country.
If injuries aren't enough for me to contend with, Vacation Bible School was the straw that broke the camel's back, or how about it's knees, or shoulder, or face, as my family likes to do it. I was just incredibly thrilled to be back in time for VBS, especially upon learning that I would be teaching the 3rd-5th grade class; what a treat. It's over now, I can breathe, and not have nightmares about four foot tall monsters with kool-aid mustaches. All right, I must admit, all in all, it's great experience, and I remember back to my vbs days; if my teachers had felt as I did, and thereby hid under their covers, I wouldn't be where I am today.
I still would rather be digging back on Hippos. As some of my other team members have written; I'm angry. After much time to think about events, I know that I'm not angry AT anyone. This was out of our control; it's part of life, sometimes bad things happen. But then again, on a base scale, yes, I know exactly who I'm angry with. I'm angry with anyone who had a hand in the aggression, forget sides, forget justification, I'm selfish and I wanted to stay and keep digging. Don't be alarmed, my logical side heavily outweighs thoughts like these, but I find that acknowledging exactly how I feel helps me to process my frustration and get on with life. Ultimately, I have decided that the experience leaves me more with a sense of respect for both sides, odd as that sounds. The Israeli/Palestinian question in no way presents a clear solution, and how can it- when every decision will affect the lives and homes of two very different peoples?

Stuck!!! The Greatest Adventure of my Life.

I am socially anxious. People, especially lots of people make me nervous. I suppose it's not a big deal, and really kind of dumb--but I accept it, and I'm moving on. For as long as I can remember I have avoided people--in recognition of this, and in an attempt to remedy my anxiety, I often shove myself out of my figurative "nest," and attempt to fly. Well, here I am, at Ben Gurion airport in the midst of hundreds of people, only some of whom I know and feel comfortable with. For the time being I'm not "flying" anywhere, literally, or figuratively speaking. I dive-bombed from my nest, and landed flat on my rear. From this vantage point, and having nothing else to do, I write about being stuck; the one time in my life when being stuck is probably the best thing for me. I am not stuck in my house, my hometown, or even my dorm room 3 states away. I am not comfortable with where I am--in fact, my rear is quite sore from the rough landing I had. Or maybe it's the rock-hard mattresses, the googleplex of bus seats, or hard plastic chairs at bus and airport terminals. In any case, here I am at rock-bottom--and determined to learn from the experience. After all, the only the direction I can go from here is up.
Lesson number one, and I say this grudgingly--Travelers insurance is a good idea, at least it is if you plan on spending several grand to go to Israel and while you're there war breaks out and evacuation is necessary. Ah, c'est la vie, I've been exposed to archaeology and now I'm hooked--the real challenge is finding the funding--hence do purchase travelers insurance--adventures are expensive. And then of course if you have insurance, sometimes you can get a flight right away......or you can be on stand-by forever like me.........part of an adventure, I am part of an adventure!
So yay for my first serious flight experience! If one bad cliche wasn't enough, I'd like you all to know that, yes, I'm ready to get right back on the horse, (or in this case a camel or donkey might be more appropriate) and start digging again. Hippos was amazing--I've been looking forward to this since fifth grade when I read Paul Meier's, "Skeleton in God's Closet." History, connections to the past, and a desire to bridge the vast stores of wisdom and culture across time; these things drive me to travel across oceans and continents- in search of a buried city. While there, I found more than just a buried city, and I don't just mean a manical desire to pick rocks and boulders Dr. Anders. I found more than enough potsherds to build several pots, which inspires a newfound appreciation for the durability of plastic--except when it's a plastic pottery bucket and it's cracked and won't hold water to soak potsherds in. The world still holds it's conundrums today. I found friends; wonderful friends--just another reason to keep shoving myself out of the "nest." I do so appreciate those who can handle my socially awkward ways-thanks friends! I found dirt-and lots of it, everywhere! Good thing I'm somewhat fond of dirt. Speaking of dirt, I found renewed humility. I spent time with 7, or was it 8 doctors, and those who weren't--might as well have been, for the knowledge and experiences each brought to our group could have filled several thesis over. I am truly blessed to have spent time with such wonderful people.
Sitting in this airport I have not found patience, but instead grasp it desperately, as slowly it begins to slip away and is replaced by a soreback and tired eyes. They say whatever doesn't kill you-only makes you stronger--at this rate, if I live, I should be able to lift large trucks with my gluteal muscles!

Sunset over the Sea of Galilee

In an attempt to catch up, crazy, crazy.

Some time ago I wrote concerning the daily life of the archaeologist on Hippos. Midway through explanation my brain shut down and I was forced to end with an explanation of our water breaks. Though my blogs are out of order--and so are the pictures (refer to picture of me standing near The Dome of The Rock, and notice that my blog really doesn't mention my trip to Jerusalem at all); I apologize. So I'm backing up, and here we are again at daily life following water breaks. Well, at the risk of sounding facetious: we dig. That's how to describe it the short way, here's the long way.
To begin excavating a square an archaeologist with big muscles, unresolved anger or stress, or a Stallion like Stephanie, seizes the pick-axe and lets it fly. The top-soil, or dirt (cause it's not worth anything) is the hardest to remove after years of archaeologists, energetic non-aliens, and bulldozers have packed it, and rocks and boulders, into a cement-like consistency. After a fair amount of this garbage dust has been loosened the square's team has what we fondly refer to as a "turreah party." One bucket of dirt at a time is removed from the square and hauled by hand or wheel barrow to a dirt pile. Any pottery, bone, or other interesting small finds are not kept when found in the top layer of soil because their original location is non-determinable; meaning that they are of no use in analyzation. I do wonder though, what would Doctor Schuler say if somebody found some gold just under the surface? half a pot? an inscription reading: Hippos public library, founded by.........453 AD. Yes, highly unlikely, but a question to ask nonetheless. Wow, I really wandered there for a minute. But as some say: "not all who wander are lost."
When the color of the soil changes, that signifies a change in loci, meaning that we now collect all finds in buckets and paper sacks. Stephanie the pottery empress, also referred to with much affection as SFR: small finds rudolph, carefully labels each bucket and paper sack in order to collect pottery sherds, roof tiles, bones, tesserae, and roman glass. Occasionally metal is found, usually in the form of a nail; this is especially exciting because along a structure it could mean a door nearby and in a tomb it could mean the remains of a wooden coffin. All these are then brought to the lab where Empress SFR and I (as assistant to her highness) then process each piece. I fill out field cards and count and weigh the finds and then Stephanie analyzes each piece to determine it's size, what it was used for, and any other interesting details. In the spirit of my digression I would like to mention a time before I realized that the Empress' "small finds" title referred to the size of pottery, glass, and bone sherds. There was a time in my great ignorance that I was highly amused to discover what I thought was achaelogical trash talk; after all, the rudolph reference referred to her bright red sunburn (which she has now remedied with a hat). Alas, "small finds" is not a derogatory archaeology term, for as Dr. Schuler says, "there are no small finds in archaeology, only small archaeologists............." I'm 5'3" hmmm.
And now to continue. Picking and turreahing follow and fall into some semblance of a rythym, the only interruptions thereby being the removal of particularly large boulders, and the finding of structural walls or other large and significant buried finds. When this happens work slows somewhat as we carefully dig around the area hoping not to collapse or crush anything. Nothing else to report here until breakfast is called, always an exciting time, but never anything new. As we head to our abandoned military building we are sure to expect much of exactly the same thing: bread, cucumber and tomato salad, boiled eggs, turkish coffee, and various spreads including some nutella (ok so that stuff is fun). After 3 hours of digging anything tastes good and we all eat ravenously.....or at least we all eat, even though inevitably we create dirt smears on the outside of our boiled eggs (we eat them anyway).
Moving on to an NEC (northeast church project, that's us) favorite. Between ten and eleven (that's about 2 to 3 your time) the Kibbutz gives us a fruit break. Typically nectarines, plums, or pears, and very delicious, even with dirt on our hands (hey we're building our immune systems up). So we sit for a few minutes and eat fruit, drink water, and become energized (hopefully) for the next hour or two before we head back down the hill at the end of the day for lunch at the kibbutz. All you 9 to 5ers, how does 4-12 sound to ya? It's interesting but a person can get used to it.
Following the actual excavation the team also scrubs pottery, attends lectures and logistical meetings. In the afternoons there are naps to take and swims in the sea of galilee, blogs to write (cough, cough), books to read for the archaeology courses, and pictures to send home to family members. In the evenings, in addition to lectures and meetings we also have devotions led by team members on the shores of galilee; it's a great experience and the sunsets are glorious as my picture proves.
Well, that seems to be it; kudos to anyone who actually read through all of that, and maybe were even interested. If you have any questions I'd love to answer them, and yes, I do plan on taking some pictures of the site soon and posting them also on the blog. If not today, then tomorrow will follow an account of our adventures in Jerusalem and Bethlehem. As soon as something happens there will be an update on the evil pigeons and the pigeon whisperer as well. Todah!!!

A monk reads at The Church of the Primacy of St. Peter

Pigeon Whisperer

I'm back. Isn't it exciting? Ok, maybe not.............at any rate I was previously discussing the daily life of an archaeoligist and almost fell asleep myself because it was so boring--I mean tiring, yes tiring, there is no way that picking rocks and hauling dirt off a Roman street could ever be boring..........unless you're normal. Our team's first square is now cleared and we have moved from E5 to E8 to open a new square. We had to skip two squares in order to allow Tractor Man to get through and haul away our boulders, but we'll eventually dig there too. Pictures will follow of this amazing event..........someday, when I get my camera up on the hill-as you can read I'm pretty good about making picture promises I can't keep. Speaking of amazing events I have a video recording of our Canadians singing "O Canada" that I have to post somewhere on the web- it's jolly good humdinger eh?
Wouldn't it be funny if I never actually told you why I titled this post something so absolutely ridiculous? Half of you just looked to see what I titled it, ha! The other half of you didn't bat an eyelash because you're so used to my eccentricities. Anyway, as you may have read on Kristina or maybe even Amanda or Andrea's blog: we have demon posessed baby birds outside the window of our apartment. Yes, demon posessed, or maybe just really really really evil ones. These feathery atrocities (at least I'm assuming they have feathers, they could have scales and fangs for all I know) sqwawk during every single hour of the day!!!! I'm this close to calling child services on their parents because they obviously never feed the nasty little buggers. The interesting part of this horrid experience is that our evil window neighbors seem to be connected somehow to the dimmer switch in our bedroom. Yes, I'm very serious--the dimmer switch. Kristina and I have discovered in no uncertain terms that the demons outside our window will inevitibly squawk at all times, but the volume will increase as the light decreases in our room--almost like a volume dial on a radio. No lies. So, as murderous plots form in our heads, meanwhile Lyle's pants rip. Ha! the plot thickens! What do Lyle's pants have to do with evil birds and pigeon whispers you ask? Well apparantly word got around that I know how to sew, and so Lyle owes me a favor cause his pants ripped. The one thing I really want, is a bird exterminator, but Lyle won't do it, because Fred won't even let him kill scorpions! Ooooh another character--Fred is on the Haifa team with Lyle, and he likes animals and bugs, and scorpions and stuff. So Lyle asked Fred to come with Amanda and I across the kibbutz to try to remove the evil birds from our window. Walk, walk, walk, Fred and his friend Ron suddenly realize they should have called a cab to get to our apartment because the walk across the kibbutz is just too much for them, poor guys. As we are walk, walk, walking, and Fred and Ron are huff, puff, puffing, we explain our problem, and the dialogue goes something like this:
"So Fred, we've got some evil birds outside our window that squawk, all day long, and all day night."
"Wow, you have pigeons that squawk all day night, what time is that?"
"Well Fred, they're not exactly pigeons, we think they're just baby birds, and I"m tired sorry I'm not talking very well. Do you think you can get rid of them?"
"Are the pigeons in the window? They probably are."
"Well, we're not exactly sure where the BIRDS are nested, will you be able to find them?"
"Who do you think I am, the pigeon whisperer?!"

Need I say more? This blog is long enough, I shall continue the story, after a short break.

Finally an update!!!!!!!!!

Update for last Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday:

As there have been no blogs for a while some of you may have guessed that I am busy; others with more imagination probably assume that Dr. Schuler traded me for an electrical adaptor and some pita bread. Never mind them, Harvey the giant Rabbit will keep them company. I am still here, and still hard at work—or play, however you prefer to look at it. I dig holes in the dirt and hike small mountains and listen to questionably genuine stories—but no one offered me a piece of the true cross yet, so I guess I’m alright.
Tuesday was great, I really am beginning to feel my rhythm, and yes, there is a rhythm to digging out giant boulders and hauling buckets of dirt one at a time. The tune sounds somewhat like The Emperors Death March from Star Wars, but the actual work is not quite so intimidating. Speaking of more than meets the ears—as far as eyes go, there is more than dirt and boulders in the square my team is working on. In addition, the fill also contains shards of pottery and bone, tessera (small clay squares that serve as a base underneath mosaics) and Roman glass and roof tiles.
As pottery assistant Ihave begun to learn to distinguish between all different types of pottery and fill (don't be impressed everybody has to)--and it's not easy either! Fine ware, coarse ware, handles, rims, bases, cook ware, pot, casserole, bowl, juglet, and so on and so forth. On that note; exciting finds of the week included a coin, much of a large pot, not fully excavated, several city and structural walls, and the continuation of the Roman street in the square my team excavates.
Some readers maybe wonder how a typical workday runs; here are a few words, or paragraphs, hmmm... Wake up is around 4 am--we all drag ourselves out of our beds and put on our sturdy cotton pants, wool socks, boots, and tee-shirts. Into our packs we throw tissues, wet-wipes, a multi-tool, masonry trowel, 2 liters of water, and sometimes a camera and/or notebook and pen, among various other small specialized tools. The rest of the tools are provided up on Hippos. A granola bar and coffee are recommended because breakfast is not til 8. Once ready we drag our bleary-eyed selves out of our apartments and toward the bus which takes us down thehighway and partway up Hippos. Barely able to see our feet (mostly because our eyes aren't all the way open) we struggle up the steep and stony path past abandoned military barracks and tunnels and mine fields- and to the northeast church-which is well....northeast.

Once digging begins Dr. Schuler sets his watch andyells out a water break every 25 minutes. Once when he didn't Cameron shriveled up and Andrea had to roll him up and carry him down in her pack and rehydrate him in the Sea of Galilee; he's had a slightly wrinkled look ever since then. The rest of us drink 4 liters of water during our 7 hours on the dig, and we're fine.

The rest of this riveting report shall have to wait, Ihave to wash my waterbottle and be up to dig in a few hours. Much love, hope you enjoy the pictures, many more to follow!