We're going to the dig site tomorrow for the first time, so I'll know what I'm really up against then. I should be used to the humidity by Tuesday, so hopefully being outside will get easier soon. Right now it feels like walking into a wall as soon as I go out of the air conditioning. Now I know what people are talking about when they describe the heat/humidity in Austin. I grew up in that level of crap weather, so Texas & Hawaii feel normal to me. But Guam's humidity is even higher, believe it or not (I didn't believe it until I got here) so even though it's not actually that hot it feels horrible. It's just sticky and wet outside, like the inside of a greenhouse.
There's a beach right next to campus as it turns out, but it's all rocks and reef so I'm too afraid to go in. Reefs scare the crap out of me, since they're full of poisonous things pretending to be harmless. The thing that really killed my desire to go into the water there is the aquariums. Each dorm building here has an aquarium in the common area that is full of fish people caught at that reef. Apparently they catch them, have them in there for a while, let them go, and catch different ones. The tank in my dorm is full of lion fish. Oh hells no. I thought, okay, well they're bright and obvious so maybe I can deal with that. Then someone took me over to the other dorm and showed me the stone fish.
Imagine, if you will, a rock. A lava rock covered in algae that sits on the bottom of the ocean, with a dusting of sand. Then add poison that will cause you to lose your foot. That is a stone fish. When they pointed it out to me in the aquarium I almost said, where, behind that rock? I thought they were playing a joke on me for a good ten minutes before I saw another fish poke it in the eye and it winced.
So anyway, I'm never going in the ocean again.
I guess that's the trade off you get in the Pacific. Sure, you can go hiking and camping without having to worry about venomous snakes, rabies, skunks, big cats, coyotes, bears, etc. But god help you if you want to go swimming. Not only are there poisonous animals, there are plants around Hawaii that you can't even SEE that will get in your suit and give you a painful rash all over. There are also rip currents that will sweep you away, and caves that will suck you in if you get too close. Oh, and there are giant centipedes that sting. Never before did I think a rattlesnake would look appealing... At least you KNOW when one of those is around.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Nature sucks big eggs
Arrival!
More on Maui will continue over the next few days, as I have not had internet access but I'm now in Guam and I'm SUPER EXCITED.
Well Guam is pretty interesting. It's very, very American in a lot of ways that I was not expecting, so I feel weird. This isn't the US, really, but it is at the same time. The currency and language is the same, which is really throwing me off. You'd think that would make it easier but for some reason it's actually kind of unnerving. I feel like I can't possibly be doing things right, since anywhere else I could possibly go overseas would be different. Even if they spoke English it wouldn't be the same kind of English, and no one else uses American dollars, or has the same tipping culture. They also don't usually drive on the right side of the road, or have the same kinds of traffic signs. It has all the symptoms of being America, but it's also so obviously NOT America that it feels unnatural and strange. It doesn't feel foreign enough, I guess, compared to anywhere else I've been, but it's also not American enough to feel like home. If Dr. Saethre really does give extra credit for a tattoo of the word “liminality” maybe he would also accept a tattoo in the shape of Guam. Maybe I can get extra credit just for proposing this idea (note to self, try this next semester) since a tattoo in the shape of Guam would probably just look like a deformed mole to most people.
The dorms are also liminal as all get out, with much nicer rooms than any of the dorms at UH but with what may be the nastiest bathrooms I've ever had the pleasure of using. There's AC in the rooms but not in the halls or bathrooms, but unlike the halls there are no big open windows to keep air circulating. Imagine, if you will, a toilet/shower room that is full of the most stagnant, humid air you have ever experienced. Imagine that the pipes from the bathroom above are exposed in many places and occasionally they drip what you hope to god is clean water, that there are lizards living in the faucets and behind the trash cans, and that the toilets' flush is so impotent it can't even clear out toilet paper in one try. There are also no shower heads and the water rushes out of pipes in the wall like a garden hose, but that's actually kind of awesome and I'm considering taking the shower head off my own shower at home now. Despite everything else, that shower leaves me feeling nice and clean, probably due to the fact that the water pressure alone is capable of taking off a layer of skin. Ahhh.
The rooms are sweet, though. The two beds are separated by two bureaus, one for each person, down the middle of the room. There's a ceiling fan above that, and a window AC unit on one side. You actually can't hear much of what the other roommate does because the window unit is pretty loud-- there are even two separate lights over each side that can be turned on/off independently. UOG 1, UH 0. I will take your funky steamy toilets any day if it means a cold, private bedroom.
While UH has a surplus of wild cats that roam campus, UOG has wild dogs. The cats at UH will run from you if you go anywhere near them, even if you offer them food. Earlier as my roommate and I were walking back from eating dinner, we passed a stray dog laying next to the building. We looked at her and said hi, and she decided we were her new friends and followed us all the way back to the dorm. She picked up sticks and things and wanted us to throw them for her, and a few times she ran ahead of us because she seemed to know we were going to the university. I even saw her look both ways before she crossed the street. UOG 2, UH 0.
Monday, May 31, 2010
From Maui, With Love 2
They came back about an hour and a half later with the good news that the rental car company was on their way with a new van. Yay! But someone had to wait for them, obviously, so not everyone could go. L's parents decided to stay, so the remaining five of us crammed into the compact and went to Hana.
Almost two hours later, the tow guy calls us to say he's just left. By this time it's already pitch black outside where L's parents are. He doesn't get to them until after 9pm, and they got here after ten, but all was fixed! Yay!
The next morning L's great uncle Goro ran into the other rental with his truck and obliterated the passenger's side mirror.
On the plus, the rest stops along the way are populated by some kind of feline-chicken society
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone because I am a consumer whore.
From Maui, With Love 1
As some of you know, I went on a trip to Hana, Maui with L and his family. I had no reception in the valleys, so I had no way to update! Booo.
Hana is a very small town on the far windward side of Maui, famously the deathplace/grave of Charles Lindbergh and the area Oprah purchased to prevent unwanted commercial development. To get there you can fly from the Kahului airport (which is in the middle of the northern shore) into the tiny Hana municipal airport. Or you can do what most people do and make THE MOST RIDICULOUS DRIVE EVER through Maui on these ludacrous winding mountain roads. The roads were originally gravel and not made for cars, so on the most dangerous curves and precarious ledges and bridges, it dips into one lane only. One lane TOTAL. People coming the opposite direction have to wait until oncoming traffic passes by before they can proceed. The road also can't go for more than 100 feet without making some kind of loony hairpin curve. Apparently it's so jerky ride that many people get seasick. It makes the 52 mile drive take somewhere between two and four hours depending on traffic and the condition of the roads that day.
About halfway there we got a flat. The right front was flat like I have never seen, it was FLAT. Riding on the hub cap flat. At first I was like "oh we have a spare, we're good." the. We hear sshhhhh coming from the rear right tire.
Eff. Okay, we'll call AAA or the rental company to come help. Take out my handy Internet phone and OH no reception. For any of us.
Okay well, we were smart enough to get two vehicles! The other can go on ahead and get a tow truck. What's that? There's no tow truck or mechanic in all of Hana? Okay. Well they can to ahead and call someone then.
Here's the road right behind us
In front of us is a bridge that makes another one lane hairpin, and across the valley (to the right of that photo) is this
Can you see the road?
L's dad and brother go on to make a call and and they're leaving, his mom adds "make sure you're back soon, once it gets dark there are no lights on this road."
Friday, May 14, 2010
In which I misinterpret Alice Cooper
YESSS THE SEMESTER IS OVER I'M DONE FOREVER AND EVER AND I WILL NEVER HAVE TO DO WORK EVER AGAIN AS FAR AS I AM CONCERNED RIGHT NOW OMG.
Time to eat cookies and jump on the bed and stay up AS LATE AS I WANT. HOT CRACKERS I AM SO EXCITED. I think my grade is effed in a couple of my classes I don't even caaaaare. Wait I care a little bit because I just got my Emory info packet in the mail and I really, reeeaaally want to go there but I don't know if I can possibly get in. I think if I don't I might as well go wait tables since there's nothing else I'd really like to do but ANYWAY FOR RIGHT NOW I'M GOING TO EAT ICE CREAMS AND WATCH MOVIES AND SLEEP FOREVER.
Actually I can't really get used to being done with work so I got a Chamorro language tape to study before I went to Guam but it's probably the most useless thing ever. It has a dude repeating phrases over and over and telling you to repeat them but it never tells you what they're saying. There's no accompanying book either, so I guess I'm just screwed. Normally I would just get some books but since I've never, ever heard someone speak Chamorro I don't know how to pronounce anything.
I also checked out some books on Micronesian archaeology and got some unpublished research from the University of Guam on excavations done in the area we'll be looking into. What the hell why am I so determined to keep working now.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Piggybean
Check out my newest impulse buy. I have dubbed him Piggybean.
Piiiiggybean, Piiiiiiiiggybean, looks like a piggy and a bean
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone because I am a consumer whore.
