Friday, June 13, 2008

Photos of Chacchoben are up!


19 Temple 2
Originally uploaded by kactuswren
I have finally uploaded photographs of my visit to Chacchoben to my Flickr account.

Chacchoben is a Mayan ceremonial center in the Yucatan about which very little is known. Only one scholarly work has been published, and it is written in Spanish (I've requested it through inter-library loan, and I'm gonna try to decipher it!).

Visitors are allowed to see the large Temple (Temple 24), and two others nearby which are on top of a large platform (you can see the large stairway that leads to the top of the platform in my set). There is another unexcavated group of temples a short distance away that is part of the same complex.

I'm working on a personal project to pull materials together and get a better overall picture of Chacchoben, and I'll be post it it here when I do.

A Crazy Summer, followed by an Important Fall

SUMMER 2008

I'm two weeks into summer school: Spanish 101 every night of the week, and an internet course on Urban Politics. It seems that all I do is get up, go to work, go to class, go home, go to bed.

I'm taking Spanish 102 in the second 5-week session, so I will complete 11 total credit hours before the beginning of the Fall semester.

FALL 2008

Once the Fall comes, I'll be busier than ever:
It is only nine miles shorter to drive to Tucson from my house (as opposed to Flagstaff), but my wife has convinced me that the more friendly year-round weather will make it a better choice. I have already been accepted to Arizona as an unclassified Graduate student, and I've already registered.

I'm going to be taking a Mesoamerican Archaeology course from Dr. Takeshi Inomata. He is a Mayanist (he's currently doing fieldwork in Guatemala), and I think I would enjoy working with him.

Before the Fall semester is over, I will need to submit all application materials to the various graduate schools in which I'm interested. I plan to apply to the following (presented in alphabetical order, NOT the order of preference):


SPRING 2009

I still need to finish up my B.A., and I'll need to take the following courses to make this happen:
  • Spanish 202 (at ASU)
  • One more Physical Anthropology course
I only hope that Dr. Johansen is teaching ASM 246, Human Origins! Otherwise, I will end up taking a lab course such as Fossil Hominids or Primatology (takes LOTs of time), or maybe something easire such as Peopling of the World.

The big mystery, of course, is where will I be in the Fall of 2009?