Without hesitation I would repeat this experience again. A day hasn\u2019t gone by that I feel a little homesick or worn out, but these negative feelings pale in comparison with positives incurred. For everything I have gained, experience, knowledge, friends, professionality and perspective I have lost my fair share. I have shed gallons of sweat, cut ties with selfishness, left behind a few socks, and removed myself from modesty. Collectively I feel whole, and unabashedly myself.<\/p>\n
Removed from any and all sense of familiarity I am in my own. Validation and sense of purpose are two things I have earned. While I am infinitely more learned in the proper way to dig a damn good hole, I also realize that I have a long, long way to go. I thought I would be walking out of here with my noggin filled to the brim, educated as a burgeoning archaeologist. However now I realize how far away from that end goal I am. Even more than that the end goal itself is a falsehood. Without sounding too cliche this feels like the start of journey that will last the rest of my life. I have a lot to work on, my documentation needs to be more intensive, and my thinking more critical. But these realizations are valuable himself, as long as I do something about it.<\/p>\n
Stress has been a big problem for me in my life, but here if feel pretty carefree. Even though I am soaked to the bone in sweat, and caked in dirt there is cleansing quality to the work we do here. I do think the states are a better fit, I do feel an attraction to the river valleys of the midwest where I grew up. While I can\u2019t imagine what working there will hold but for now this is more than enough. I really hope I get the chance to come back. Looking at the site and seeing all that is left it pains me to imagine missing out for even a day. Unfortunately my time here is coming to a close, but it also is starting to feel like it\u2019s time. I am out of clean clothes, and a steak sounds really good.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Without hesitation I would repeat this experience again. A day hasn\u2019t gone by that I feel a little homesick or worn out, but these negative feelings pale in comparison with positives incurred. For everything I have gained, experience, knowledge, friends, professionality and perspective I have lost my fair share. I have shed gallons of sweat, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1413,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Iz8A-n8","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1413"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1434"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1434\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1440,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1434\/revisions\/1440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}