*stunned silence*

Wow - a moment of metaphysical wowness. I have a comment on the previous post from someone I've never met and therefore have never pushed my blog upon! When I read it I had this moment of profound shock and awe. There is always in the back of your mind, as you blog, that the blogosphere is open and free to the millions of people who have internet access and that there is the probability that someone somewhere will read what you've written. But to have actual proof of this is something completely mind boggling. I know I have about four readers who may be reading my posts. Four people I have shoved this blog at and have some evidence that they do, in fact, read it.

But there are also the unknown people who lurk and read. Who are they? How many do I have?

I have got to figure out how to put some sort of counter on the blog. Or maybe not. I'd hate the counter to get to six and then stop. That would blow my temporary high regarding my famousness and popularity.

No, I didn't start blogging to become famous and get a book deal and live the rest of my life in comfort and joy. Not that this would have been a bad thing... But I was quite content with my four readers (all friends, because really, who else would read my drivel). I still am content with that number of people.

The book deal, comfort and joy does sound nice, yes?

Anyway, apart from the stunning revelation that there are other people out there on the internet, I have decided that I really must stay away from knives. Especially when it is cold. I blame the coldness of the kitchen for the slight slip yesterday that took off a small chunk of my nail on my right middle finger. No blood though, I brilliantly sliced only the top half of part of my nail off. How talented is that?!

There was the mincing of garlic one moment (and this is why I am desperate to move and be done moving every three months, because then I could get to my garlic mincer and be done with this fine knife work using a chef's knife) and then next holding my finger under water waiting for the blood to begin gushing. I've sliced off my fingernails before. Both with an automatic cheese grinder (oh yes, I stuck my finger in an automatic cheese grinder, completely by accident, about 12 years ago - I also stuck my finger in an automatic typewriter when I was about 5 and my mom hit "return" not seeing I was helping her push the rolly bit along) and with knives and it's always resulted in a lot of blood. The running down your arm kind of bleeding experience. So I expected blood. I waited and waited and nothing happened. I taped my finger and finished cooking. Later I examined the nail and discovered my own little miracle. There is just enough nail left on that part of my finger to protect it. And it'll grow out in probably a week. I didn't cut THAT much off. I thought I had originally, but that was the shock seeing my finger, not the cold rational of the Archaeogoddess a few hours later.

On a more positive note, I took the Foreign Service practice test yesterday. You have to time yourself, which turned out to be difficult. I have never quite learned that function on my watch and there were some incidents where I thought I had paused it but had not so I gave myself an extra two minutes to finish, but then I finished under time anyway. I like tests. I really like multiple choice tests.

I didn't do so well on the general knowledge part. I did okay, but I know very little about labor laws or management skills. I got all the math questions correct, which was shocking, but then they didn't ask the train question (two trains are traveling towards each other blah blah blah). I did really well on the English part of the exam. This was a bit of a shock, because English was always one of my worst classes. I seem to have picked up the important bits though. I can tell their, there, and they're apart. I can apparently recognize a dangling modifier, even if I can't define the term or even point to one. I did get a little distracted by the articles that I had to read for reading comprehension. They were interesting and I wanted to google them to read more.

I ought to do some reading to prepare. Unfortunately the books suggested are not in any of the libraries in Denmark. Go figure. So I will have to get creative.

For now it is back to dissertating. The other day I ended up making additions to four chapters based on three pages of someone else's dissertation. Mostly with footnotes. I had an epigram from Martial that I had quoted from one source but I didn't like the translation, this dissertation gave me another source for the same epigram and I prefer that translation - it is much closer to what I understand the Latin to be. Oooh, that is an awkward sentence. I found the correct citation of Livy so I could go and find the information I knew was there, but not exactly where. There is nothing like trying to remember where you saw a passage in a large text. You can skim for days and never find it. With other books it's not a problem, you don't have to site the chapter and verse, but with ancient texts you do.

Right, enough talking about dissertating, it's time to do it!

The trouble with research.

The trouble with research is that it piles up. There is the stuff you need to research and thus goes on a to-do list and takes up valuable thought processes and then there is the physical research debris that you cannot get rid of, because you never know when you might write that article or thesis or need to start a bonfire.

The result is that you have potential research piling up metaphysically, current research piling up on your desk, and previous research piling up on your bookshelves.

I have research coming out of my ears. And most of it, tragically is not my own.

No, I'm not stealing other people's research, I am talking about the Danish Boy's research.

If we were to measure book shelf space and use that to judge quantity of research the numbers would go:
9 feet of research space for the archaeogoddess
16 for the Danish Boy - and that's only archaeological research, there's about another 2 feet of philosophy, 1 foot for journalism, and 2 feet that I'll be generous and say we share since they are encyclopedias (of ancient Egypt and the Near East, which I am not currently working on, but hey).

The most frustrating thing of all, at least to me, is that he's not even doing archaeology any more!! That's valuable space that is being taken up with large binders labeled "Akkadian" and "MB tombs: method and theory". Some of these binders are thicker than the binder I have for one chapter of my dissertation. (Space taken up by all dissertation chapter research: 1.5 feet.)

This is because we have very different ways of doing research. I tend to read something, take a page or two of notes and then if I need to see the book or article again, I check it out of the library, again. I deal with finite quantities of data at a time, chapter by chapter and so apart from the huge stack of library books I may have circulating around on the floor, my research space remains small. Lifetime of sharing bedroom and/or office space teaches you to minimize. The DB, on the other hand, has no problem collecting EVERYTHING he may ever need in perpetuity, because he's always had lots of space.

Now, you may be thinking, why, since you've moved and all, don't you just pack it all up and put it away in storage.

Because, dear reader, while the research may not be so useful for me or him, it is useful to the rest of mankind. Also known as those other archaeology student friends of mine.

I have become the one stop shop for research. Need to know something fast? Ask the AG, if she doesn't know it off hand, she can look up the right reference. Got a large topic and don't know where to start? Ask the AG and she'll put you on the right track and possibly even set you up with a preliminary bibliography. And get this: she can even do it for archaeological subjects she knows NOTHING about!

I am... the Archaeogoddess!