Category: PhD Life
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The 2018 Excavation Season Wrap-Up!
I’m baaaaaaaaaaack! Missed me? Probably not, if you were following along with my project’s social media (Facebook, Twitter, and website). For those of you who missed out, however, here’s a bit of a recap of the past three weeks of excavation at the Covesea Caves in Scotland. So, the good news about my recent field
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On Excavation Season, or How to Battle the Great Outdoors With a Trowel
It’s just about excavation season for most of us in archaeology! I will be excavating for a few weeks so this blog will go on a bit of a hiatus until I return – until then, here’s a few tips for anyone about to set off on their first excavation this summer. The weather is
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When the Stress of the PhD Meet The Anxiety of the Visa: On International Postgraduate Studies, Financial Anxieties, and Everything Else That Scares Me
This week I had scheduled a different blog post to be published, but I felt as though it didn’t seem right to not write about something that has been on my mind lately. And by “lately”, I mean “for the past few years”. As many, if not all, of you know by now due to
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A Few Tips for Conferences When You’re Super Anxious All the Time Like Me
Hi, it’s your friendly neighbourhood academic with anxiety here to talk about one of the scariest things in academia: conferences! Unfortunately for many of us, “traditional” academia requires that we make appearances and presentations at conferences (even though they’re expensive…and we don’t always get the financial help needed to attend…and it takes time off from
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The Bone Collector: Building A Personal Reference Collection
Although I guess you can say I’ve been a zooarchaeologist for the past 3 years, I’ve still been a bit behind when it comes to my own personal reference collection. It’s not a necessity for zooarchaeologists, of course, but it’s always good to have – plus, it’ll become important if you go into consulting work.
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Doctor, Doctor, Gimme the News: Bone Assessments in Zooarchaeology
Today I wanted to give you all a sneak peek into my current work – although I will admit that this is a bit more of a mundane part of my research. But zooarchaeology isn’t always exciting…sometimes it’s playing Bone Doctor and assessing bags and bags and bags and bags of bones! Last week, I’ve
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From the Question Bag: Fish Remains in Scotland
James Green asked: I know in the US South amia calva is one of the most common fish remains found in sites. What is the most common there? Well, as someone who seems to have been knee-deep in fish bones since 2014, I’m glad you’ve asked! Let me preface this by saying my area of
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On The Average Day of a Zooarchaeologist, or “So like, what do you even do?”
There aren’t many zooarchaeologists in my department…in fact, I could probably count the amount of zooarchaeologists in my department on one hand. Which means that most people in my department probably don’t even know what I actually do in my day-to-day work life! Let alone my non-archaeologist friends and family (I’m pretty sure my own
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On Imposter Syndrome, or What Are We Even Doing?!
With my transfer report coming up within the next month or so, things have been pretty stressful over here. Unfortunately I find myself not having fun poking around things in the lab, but pouring over drafts and corrections and trying to synthesize my transfer report*. So I figured this might be a good time to
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On Getting Through Bad Days, or How I Almost Set My Flat On Fire
A few weeks ago I wrote a blog post about mental health in academia. I didn’t really expect to write another post in a similar vein so soon, but I had a bad day today. As always, if this sort of content makes you feel uncomfortable, please skip! I don’t mind. I occasionally get hit
Animal Archaeology 