Example: Procrastination.

So I find myself... procrastinating. I am scared. Graduate school is a big deal. Who accepts or denies me, where I attend, who I study under, all of these things may dictate the rest of my life. I have all of my applications completed and the fees will be graciously covered by my mother. It's the damned Statement of Purpose that has me stumped and attempting to find anything else to worry about so I don't have to think about it. Silly, I know. But think about it. I am putting all of my hopes and dreams, everything that I want to do with my life, on a piece of paper to be objectively evaluated so that somebody can tell me that what I want to do is worth while or a joke, in which case I should just go work at McDonald's. I have no hopeful words to leave you with today, nothing inspirational or anything of the sort. Only anxiety. Here's to a more optimistic blog next time.
CatyCate (archaeologist in the making)

Wherever You Go... There You Are.

Dr. Seuss is a man whose word we should live by. Life can be as simple or as complicated as the story book rhymes that we grew up with. Long nights, early mornings, illness, accidents, all nighters at the library, professors who don't like you, professors who expect only the best from you, and all the other trials and tribulations of being a college student, why would somebody ask for more after completing their undergraduate degree. I have a simple answer, because we are masochistic at heart. We enjoy putting our noses to the grinding stone, constantly pushing our selves near insanity and relishing the sleep in our beds after three days of living in the library and sleeping on the couches in the hallways. And when we get those 20-page papers back with a hand shake from the Dean of your department, you know it was all worth it and you do it again and again and again. So, not only are we masochistic, we are also insane. Grad school is what you go through during your undergraduate degree only multiplied. Expect to never sleep. That day of recover after the all nighter? It never comes.
Now, after preparing for grad school for, literally, two years, the time has come to put up or shut up. Grad school applications, plus the money for them. GRE, plus the money for the test. GRE, plus the money for study materials. GRE, plus the time allocated for studying the expensive study materials and taken away from your other studies. Meet and greet with potential graduate advisers, plus the money for the trip. And through all of this, the only thing I that calms me down is remembering that "Wherever you go, there you are." There is nothing else I can do if I am already giving 100 % of myself (even if I feel like I am not and can squeeze out a few more drops of 'me'). And tomorrow I take the GRE, and the rest of my life still goes on. I still have projects to do and tests to take and bills to pay and applications to send in and elbows to rub. All this happens regardless of what happens tomorrow. I continue to exist outside of this test.
CatyCate (AMAZINGLY intelligent archaeologist in the making)

Hello World.

I'm not very good with technology. Not at all. I can work my laptop for the exact and necessary purposes that I need it for, I can work a digital camera because I know how to work the less savvy cameras that were used not too long ago. Printers? TVs? Fancy coffee makers? HAH!
So why have I decided to start this blog in spite of my aversion to the future of technological social interaction? Well, there are a couple of reasons. Sometimes, I have the urge to share with the world something profound that happened to me or another, even if I am the only one who will ever see it. More to the point, and probably a very selfish reason, I want to publish my work. I have a few news articles that were never published by newspapers that I would like people to be able to read because I am very proud of them. The last reason is because I am an archaeologist and would like to document my adventures in Central and South America (even if my mom is the only one to read them) So there. I've been sucked into the trendy world of blogging and, help me, tweeting.
Wish me LUCK!
CatyCate (archaeologist in the making)