The (reality)check is in the (e)mail

Don't ever wait to hear these words, or to think those words will someday end up in your inbox more appropriately... Looking out onto the horizon what do I see? I see chapters- my chapters. They are unknown at this point and it is exciting. I have not known self-discipline as I have these past 2 years almost. I have never felt compelled to discipline myself to the extent that my mind takes control of my body. The experience was so necessary, but I relish in knowing it is coming to an end. It's not so good to be so rational for so much of the time in all matters of life.
This rites of passage nears. If you asked me 5 years ago if I'd be going to graduate school I would of... well, I wouldn't of necessarily believed it for sure. That I went through the program in less than 2 years seems incredible, or exhausting- yes exhausting. It's so close to the end that I'm getting excited, impatient and exhausted all at the same time. Makes for a butterfly breeding farm in my stomach indeed. All these emotions choked up inside of me because I can rarely find the time to release them through yoga, running, the beach, the mountains- whatever. Turning down social events because I either have to study or I just have to have time to catch up w/myself and sink into a round or two of wall staring- which I might add has been thoroughly worth it...

Let's see one of last months highlights was driving to Kula to go to my dentist... a friend said, "I don't know who looks forward to going to see the dentist Holly". They don't understand- he's a throwback from the 60's this guy- a dentist to cherish for sure. It helps that he tells me I need to take up a diet of cotton candy & soda pop... Such a smooth operator that one. I actually did contemplate cotton candy at the county fair but opted for a carmel apple instead.  Tomorrow is the ukulele fest at the MACC so this takes precedence over wall staring. I've already told Santa to bring me either a tenor or concert ukulele... I've been good, that's bad.

Closer on the horizon though is Oahu next weekend. It is the annual Society for Hawaiian Archaeology (SHA) conference where everybody gets together & listens to what projects are going on throughout the Pacific. I'm excited for one of the keynote speaker's lectures on Friday night about the Polynesian Diaspora: The Chumash Connection and Beyond:
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****Keynote Address****

The 23rd Annual Conference of the Society for Hawaiian Archaeology (held in conjunction with the University of Hawai‛i at Mānoa 75th Anniversary)

 

"POLYNESIAN DIASPORA:  THE CHUMASH CONNECTION AND BEYOND"

Terry L. Jones, Professor of Anthropology and Chair

Department of Social Sciences

California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

Four years ago Kathryn Klar and I suggested, on the basis of material similarities (sewn-plank boat construction, compound bone fishhooks) and complimentary linguistic evidence that there was at least one contact event between the Chumash and Gabrielino of southern California and Polynesian voyageurs.  Since then, the long-dormant case for contact in South America has been renewed based on mtDNA and radiocarbon findings that indicate a pre-contact presence of Polynesian chickens on the coast of Chile. In this talk, I’ll review the evidence for Polynesian cultural contact with the Americas in the northern and southern hemispheres and ponder the question of why American (and some Pacific) scholars continue to dismiss the possibility of such contacts even though the passages involved were well within Polynesian seafaring capabilities.

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Professor Terry Jones has worked as a professional archaeologist for 30 years, mostly on the central California coast where he continues to study hunter-gatherer ecology and maritime adaptations. He has published over 30 scholarly articles in such journals as Current Anthropology, American Antiquity, the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, and the Journal of Archaeological Science. His dissertation on the prehistory of the Big Sur coast was published by the U. C. Berkeley Archaeological Research Facility, and he has published seven other, monographs and edited volumes, including (with L. Mark Raab): Prehistoric California: Archaeology and the Myth of Paradise (University of Utah Press, 2004), and (with Kathryn Klar): California Prehistory: Colonization, Culture, and Complexity (Altamira Press, 2007). In 2008 he received the Martin A. Baumhoff Award for Special Achievement from the Society for California Archaeology and the California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo Award for Distinguished Scholarship.  He is editor of California Archaeology, the journal for the Society for California Archaeology.

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DATE: October 23 (Friday)

TIME: 7:00pm

PLACE:  UH-Mānoa Campus, Hawai‛i Institute of Geophysics (HIG) 110

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Yes always a kick to drink adult beverages w/ ones contemporaries & swap stories of adventures in the field. It's going to be a weekend of friggin cool cats conversing about what we love to do, and what fascinates, and frustrates, and amazes us and keeps us going. Really looking forward to jumping out of my current academia frame of mind concerning teaching English as a 2nd language and back into my academic roots- what spawned it all. What spawned me into this thing that I am. I've forgotten a lot about that person, or haven't had the time to to consider how much of that is still me so I'm looking forward to having my mind blown- to get outta my present state, out there on the horizon, drifting in a sea of desire, into the endless sunset.

The (reality) check is in the email? I seriously doubt it at this point. And even if it is, I've already drifted miles away into that endless abstract sunset that leaves me amazed w/life & my place in it.  That same sunset that leaves me shattered w/happiness when granted viewing privileges from the front row, down by the orchestra in the pit where the ocean roars.