First and foremost, I am incredibly thankful that I heeded other\u2019s advice to not bring any clothing that I am remotely emotionally attached to on this dig. I\u2019m 3 loads of laundry in and I see little to no progress in removing the dirt stains from my tank tops! I absolutely expected hard labor and a lot of grime, but lord it is another level in this field. When I brought up the fact that I was staying in Gazipa\u015fa for a few weeks to do an archaeological dig, the receptionist at my Istanbul hostel\u2019s reaction was to laugh at me and warn me that I was probably going to die of heat stroke. One week in, I can gladly say that I\u2019m still kicking (but definitely feeling the effects of the humidity).<\/p>\n
As tough as the work is and as bone tired as I am by the end of every day, I have enjoyed myself so much on this trip so far! It feels really gratifying to push myself to my physical limits and realize that I\u2019m stronger than I originally thought I was capable of. Every rock lifted, wheelbarrow dumped, and cliff hiked reminds me how good it feels to contribute to a project on this scale. I\u2019ve had physically intensive jobs before, but the fact that the work done here has such an impact on both the local community and the overall story that we\u2019re telling about Antiochia has really been a big motivator for me. I\u2019ve known that I wanted to go into archaeology as a career for a while now, but the wide variety of paths that are at my disposal gave me a bit of decision paralysis. Seeing all the different professions and personalities working together on site has been really fun and shows that it helps to have a team with diverse knowledge. After working a few days here (with 3 weeks to go still), I\u2019m starting to realize that being directly in the field is kinda calling my name. I love feeling both physically and mentally accomplished by the end of a day, and it\u2019s a strange feeling to be doing processes that I\u2019ve yet only heard described in textbook readings. I\u2019ll gladly endure the thin layer of dust over my entire body every day if it means that I can experience that same rush.<\/p>\n
In the past few days, it has really set in how lucky I am to have my first field experience in a place like Gazipa\u015fa. The history of the area is so ingrained in the identity of the city, and I really respect the attention it has been given. I have had the most overwhelmingly welcoming and kind interactions with people here, whether it be in a coffee shop or at the beach. In the event that I ever come back, my priority will most certainly be getting a firmer grasp on the Turkish language beyond the basics that I grasped from the online program I took. The people here have been so lovely and I want to be able to engage in a better way beyond Google Translate. The food has also been INCREDIBLE, and I truly do think that I could eat the same dish at \u015eefim for a month straight without getting sick of it. I also hold the women who prepare our breakfasts and lunches at site as the backbone of this whole operation in my mind. I am, however, concerned that I will go into withdrawals once my access to good \u00e7ay is cut off. (Customs will likely be appalled by the amount of Cin cookies stuffed into my suitcase as well.) I\u2019m so grateful that I\u2019ve had the opportunity to come here for a purpose like this, and I can\u2019t wait to see what the next few weeks hold.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
First and foremost, I am incredibly thankful that I heeded other\u2019s advice to not bring any clothing that I am remotely emotionally attached to on this dig. I\u2019m 3 loads of laundry in and I see little to no progress in removing the dirt stains from my tank tops! I absolutely expected hard labor and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5733,"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_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_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},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3821","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-ZD","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3821","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\/5733"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3821"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3821\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3823,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3821\/revisions\/3823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}