chasing after time

I feel like I am running after 2006 it’s going so fast. The new year has just started, and I’m already crazy busy.

My workload is temporarily doubled because it’s expanding with the start of a new semester. I may be sent to Ketchikan at the end of the month because the new hire there quit to move down south.

I submitted an abstract to present under a subsistence session for the Alaska Anthropology Conference in Kodiak this March. That gives me less than 2 months to begin and finish research that I just pulled out of my butt last Friday afternoon. Preliminary investigation at the State Historical Library yielded a couple useful photographs and only one book previously written on the subject. I have a great big black hole in recorded ethnohistory to fill which makes it easy on one hand since virtually everything I can find is original and new, but also makes work more challenging since I’ll have to be extra resourceful and adept at getting accurate and provocative information.

Next week, I’ll be the TA for an Anthropology of Religion seminar-styled course. That means that aside from catching up on the classic texts, I have to become acquainted with contemporary subject matter enough to be at least two steps ahead of mostly non-traditional students (i.e. a decade or two older than me and therefore could more easily call me out on screw-ups).

I also started doing a work exchange at the neighborhood gym. A four-hour closing shift every Thursday night gives me unlimited access to the facilities. As hectic as my schedule is, I wonder if I’m ultimately just donating 16 hours of my time every month to save them on labor and employee insurance costs.

Then again, I did squeeze in something fun this weekend: I watched my favorite story live on stage at Marlintini’s (yes, of infamous US Men of Steel Male Dance Revue fame). Hedwig & The Angry Inch gave their last Juneau performance this past Saturday before touring Seattle and other cities. It rawked. Despite knowing every single word to every song and practically every monologue, I sat there squinched into a non-seat (the crack between two chairs pushed as close together as possible) so I could be in the 2nd row and loved every single moment. It’s like being 11 years old and watching a real life Cinderella dance with her prince just three feet in front of your idolizing eyes. Except this Cinderella is an East German transvestite whose prince stole the good stuff and ran.