How can you breath, think, move, even exist when you are facing the first hours of a morning with an average temperature of 32º? Oh yes you can... well sort of...at least you think you can handle that til it becomes noon and then the sun hurts on your face and the air makes your whole body remember that it s 42º with a feeling of 45º to be precise....
Anyway, this week has been a really exciting, busy and definitely HOT time. I travelled 1500 km (well 3000 return)by bus to where my thesis supervisor lives, carrying my loving flakes and crowded excel forms in the hope that the end of the nightmare was getting closer and closer. *WRONG* indeed. Is it possible to revise 2200 flakes each one with its 15 variables analysed in exactly 4 days with a daily average temperature of 35ª? I know it`s not but i did keep the spirit up!
Point is... For richness and diversity analysis it`s compelling to have a look at the lithic tools it`s not enough with debitage, something that my mind was already trying to show me. I wouldn't mind doing but.... oh yes... do we need to sample the tools too??? I covered my eyes...well more than probable cos it s more than 700 pieces including broken arrow and dart points, knives, scrappers etc etc etc etc and god know what else.... I just dont want to think about it til I come back from IE.... I love doing that thing and i do think i have the patience too... well at least they aren't snotty, smelly and loud like my school kids so it can`t be that worse...but it`s definitely TOO much and I didnt like my supervisor telling me *you will need more time than expected* cos time is precisely what I lack of.
I already have lovely dreams about flakes with insect legs crawling and climbing the magnifying glass and the caliper; I do think I`ll need some advice from Steve to broaden my oniric experience.

As for the rest, well trying to pack half my uni in a suitcase, a rucksack and a handbag, and of course it`s not working. It wouldn't be sweet to have to pay 20 euro per extra kg to those Italians *tuttuts* So I`m going to bend my back near a 90º angle if necessary to avoid it. This means that probably I will have to wander around Dublin streets half naked or lightly dressed cos in this situation I choose my papers over my winter winnie pooh slippers (that reminds me that I saw a lovely set of winnie the pooh suitcases... they were too pinkish for my taste but it did certainly catch my eye ;)

On the sporty side of life...Do those plastic balls from the world-cup draw have different weights? ...those bastards... again a group of death ... orangie Netherlands, Serbia (considering it was officially known that the committee didnt know exactly where to put these people they just simply said "oh yes, the argies are available and open to all kind of ethnic interaction.. and there they went... to our zone) and Cote d'Ivoire (not to be discarded as easy...they were the best national team in the African league it seems) so... basically they want us out as soon as possible. It wouldn't be that suspicious if it wasn't because *my dearest brazilian friends*' group consists of Australia, Japan and Croatia (the best one of that zone indeed) and we don`t have to forget about the fierceful Germans who also got it quite simple with Costa Rica, Ecuador and Poland (a piece of cake in terms of football performance)
Anyway, my forecast for July 9th 2006 final match is Brazil-Germany, I guess I should bet a big amount of money I *just might* be lucky ;)

After catching up with blogs today I send a special hug to Steve and I hope his phone has international dialing service too... if ever needed, thou I`m sure that being in Ireland will make costs cheaper and definetely more time available if he ever feels, needs, fancies or wonders with whom to have a *dyslexic chat* *hugs*

That's all for now.... I do need to submerge myself in the world of hermeneutics; nice and entertaining guy this Ricoeur lad.

Oh almost forget, It turned up that one piece of debitage was a clear product of a non expertise flintknapper along with other evidence of flaking negatives on fractures-probably retouching practice- so it suggests that there was some kind of beginners training in this site which feels really...exciting. In fact that piece reminded me of my first attempt to make a bifacial tool... making easier to spot it as such cos it really sucked!

and yes... Nothing new in the sky....
It`s been a busy week, but happily getting closer to the end of the year and so the end of school days. My kids have been behaving quite well considering the high temperatures, the tiredness and their numb teachers so I guess i can`t really complain. I`m going to miss them (ironic indeed...), it`s the nice feeling of having left something important to someone, I`m not quite sure what it is that i`ve carved in their minds, but I hope it stays with them in the shape of a warm memory from childhood. They had fun, They have learnt at least *something* but above all I hope that I`ve helped them to be somebody in their future lives, with the DOES or the DO in the wrong place but at least someone who knows about responsability, effort and having a good heart. I dare to say, it`s the end of a stage in life which I enjoyed and learnt from but not without regrets and frustrations as I guess life is supposed to be.
As for flakes.... ermm... yes... it looks like I will have to analyse 200 a day average to get all this sampling done before Dec 5th..... which means... don`t sleep, don`t eat, don`t watch TV and forget about the existence of nature, the spinning of the world and FAMILY!... Unfortunately the last thing won`t be possible to accomplish; This week starts a marathon of nephews and nieces birthdays...The magic of autumn and wintery evenings that makes possible a clustering of babies by the end of the year. Anyway, I`m happy of seeing them grow up and become the most unbearable, spoiled but beautiful kids in this drooling auntie's life.
Having expressed myself, duty calls with the shape of... of... something that looks like a feather but not exactly, rather it looks like a chunk of broken rock that seems to have some meaning in the archaeological field, at least that s what they have been trying to teach me all these years... not sure if they have convinced me yet, but impossible to escape from it.
Ah yes... got my *famous* blueish shiny superpowered glasses fixed!!!!!!! Well it seems it `s their last fixing, according to the *experts* so I guess i should start preparing the funeral and my moaning with it... They have seen too much, felt too much and certainly know the intensity of any squeezing, the speed of the irish wind, the roughness of the irish pavement, and the load of floppy asses.
So thats life!

Yes.... flake number 1250 has been reached and thats only half the way....
God knows what waits ahead!
more flakes?¿?

In the previous entries lies the proof that reminds me why I shouldn`t be near pc`s...

Well... I suppose I have to write something... something like.... "Come back later I don`t have time right now" ?!? Nevermind.
Everything is shiny at the moment, trying to get a 48-hour day at the flee market, but looks they are all gone, so I guess I`ll have to manage with a 16- hour productive one :(
Anyway! Things need, must, should, ought to be done... so that`s where I'm heading ;)
Oh Oh... this has spell checking! ( this means I _have_ to make use of it?)

Well... I might be having a deja vou or something... but I do remember typing a first message indeed. Anyway, that was about not having time and things that needed, ought to, should, must, be done and trying to get a 48- hour day in a flee market, but not being lucky....
So, I just say all is shiny thou busy :( and I promise I`ll make use of the spelling check tool that is down here for the sake of those who will complain!