It\u2019s crazy to think that I\u2019ve only been here a week because of how much I now know about myself and have grown in this short period of time. One of the biggest things that I\u2019ve learned is that I can do this. I can go to a new country with people I don\u2019t know very well, leave my family, dog, and everything I\u2019m used to, and not just survive, but thrive in a totally new environment. I have been surprised by how much I have loved it here even though it is so different than my home. On my first day at the site I wasn\u2019t sure what I was doing and was worried I was going to break ancient artifacts or mess up the dirt. I have broken pottery and messed up dirt, but I am no longer concerned with wrecking things because I\u2019ve learned so much from just being on the site and feel way more comfortable digging. I know that there is still a world I don\u2019t know about archaeology, but I\u2019m starting to slowly become a part of that world.<\/p>\n
Something else that I know about myself now is how much history interests me. In high school my history classes were never very interesting or fun. My teachers weren\u2019t engaging and didn\u2019t make the content come to life, and so I always thought history wasn\u2019t for me. Working on an archaeological dig sounded amazing from the moment I heard about it, but the history aspect wasn\u2019t the part that drew me in. As I work on the dig, I can actually physically hold history in my hands and be the first one to find things that haven\u2019t been seen in years. There is an excitement to know about the past I have developed that I\u2019d never experienced before this trip. I am excited to go to back to school and have a new perspective as I go into history classes and learn about the world. Learning hands on is one of the ways my brain works best, and I love that I get to do that every day while I\u2019m here.<\/p>\n
This trip is both what I expected and what I didn\u2019t expect at the same time. I am learning a lot about the world around me and about myself and I am ready for what\u2019s to come in the upcoming weeks. It feels like I\u2019ve been here for a long time but also like I got here yesterday. I don\u2019t want this to end and I know this is an experience I will cherish for the rest of my life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It\u2019s crazy to think that I\u2019ve only been here a week because of how much I now know about myself and have grown in this short period of time. One of the biggest things that I\u2019ve learned is that I can do this. I can go to a new country with people I don\u2019t know […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3285,"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-2337","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-BH","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2337","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\/3285"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2337"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2340,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2337\/revisions\/2340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}