Dear Jeebus, I Love Anthropology

thinking about: you're the color, you're the movement and the spin...

So I contacted the UAS anthropology professor some time ago so I can "keep a hand in" the field and stimulate my social science neurons. We had a very fruitful meeting in which he explained his background experience and projects. He had a multitude of great ideas and was very personable to boot. An adopted son of a local Tlingit clan, he suggested he introduce me to some of the elders and maybe get invited to some upcoming potlatches. That would not only be an amazing personal experience but will flesh out a lot of the dry textbook stuff I read in college about them.

One project he posited for me to work on is an ethnography of sorts on the Filipinos in Juneau. They have a really strong presence not only in this city but in the entire state; they're the largest Asian population in Alaska. He knows the editor of Alaska History, a board-reviewed journal, and said if I incorporated archival research into the contemporary scene, I could probably be published. How awesome would that be??? I'd have a published article before grad school, and I won't feel so angry about my Anthropology nemesis (who shall remain nameless).

The professor is also some bigtime caver/mountaineer and does work for the U.S. Forest Service. Some of the projects they work on are caving expeditions in the Tongass Rainforest where they drop into caves and map them out doing all kinds of GPS work and stuff.

Professor: Well, there is this other thing you could get into... but, it takes a certain type.
Me: I'm a certain type! What is it??
Professor: They're called "pit projects" and they hike around 12 hours a day looking for caves. Then they drop into them, and sometimes they're totally vertical with walls smooth as a baby's butt, and we just use a single rope technique...(at this point, my mind fogs with caving terminology)...accident, too bad.
Me: Wait, what? Accidents what?

But seriously, if I were to go for it, he said I'll be trained over the winter to participate next summer. So I'm thinking, mother of pearl, this is the stuff of National Geographic Extreme Edition and even if I suffer vertigo more often than I care to admit, I will just have to suck it up and go for it. Cuz honestly, how often do kids fresh out of college just get to go on paid spelunking adventures in Alaskan rainforests?? In your face CRM boys!

Yet another project he hopes to have in the works (dependent on receiving a grant) is an overview of cultural assessment in Glacier Bay.

Booyah! That is so beautiful. It would basically involve kayaking to remote islands to do ground surveys for Native cultural property.

Well well well, I may just have to quit my position at BBBS! (Of course I won't; I don't want to be flighty with my commitment like that. And I do love this job.) But if all these things goes well, then I will probably stay in Alaska a little longer than I originally planned.