{"id":4024,"date":"2026-08-16T17:12:48","date_gmt":"2026-08-16T22:12:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/?p=4024"},"modified":"2026-08-16T17:12:48","modified_gmt":"2026-08-16T22:12:48","slug":"buckets-are-heavy-good-thing-you-are-all-strong-and-capable-oles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/2026\/08\/16\/buckets-are-heavy-good-thing-you-are-all-strong-and-capable-oles\/","title":{"rendered":"BUCKETS ARE HEAVY!!!! Good thing you are all strong and capable Oles."},"content":{"rendered":"

So you\u2019ve signed up to be employed by the Turkish government\u2026well here are my words of wisdom, and as my peers learned this past summer, Whitney is always right. I will refrain from repeating advice mentioned in previous posts. You know by now that your work days will be hot, sweaty, dirty, and long, and you should pack clothes accordingly. But to take it a step further, I think it\u2019s important to know that you will be doing some pretty serious heavy lifting. Buckets, wheelbarrows, rocks, and roots are all insanely heavy. But those who pushed themselves, carefully and safely, found that they were stronger than they initially thought, and returned home jacked and empowered. So come in with a strong work ethic, an intention to push yourself out of your comfort zone, and maybe with a healthy weight lifting routine that has been priming your muscles all summer. Aside from digging, your schedule is still pretty packed. While you will certainly be itching to sleep in on days off, my roommate and I found it extremely beneficial to continue to wake up early (even waking up at 8 gets you 3 more hours of sleep) to fit more into the day. You will have blog posts due Sunday night and full day field trips on Saturday, but that shouldn\u2019t discourage you from going to the beach (we enjoyed going 9-12 on Sundays and then working on our blog posts in the later afternoon)! Make the most of your time in Gazipa\u015fa, and be intentional with your time and energy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

My time here has been beyond rewarding. I\u2019ve made life-long friends and memories, and I feel intense pride and empowerment with the work I\u2019ve done. I realized quickly how much of a privilege it is to be an undergraduate intern at an active excavation site, and an even bigger privilege it is to be entrusted with the task of telling the stories of ancient peoples. It\u2019s mind-blowing to truly feel how you, in the present, must directly interact with the past in order to construct knowledge of people, objects, and places. The most rewarding process is building a theory that is disproved so intensely and suddenly that it constructs a new, and even more exciting theory. You might as well start preparing yourself now for how many times you will be so insanely wrong about something. It\u2019s humbling, thrilling, and empowering all in one big blow. That being said, my most memorable experience would have to be the moment my entire unit discovered the inaccuracy in our belief that we had hit bedrock when a hole appeared in the center of said bedrock. It was the last day, and we went from believing that we had found the bottom of our unit, to then instead discovering the beginnings of a wall. Literally could not have been more wrong, and because of that, our final hours were hectic, stressful, exhilarating, and full of constant amazement and curiosity. How freaking fun, and all because we were brave and curious enough to be wrong.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As a college student abroad, this internship has taught me that I can do physically, intellectually, and emotionally challenging things, and I thrive when being confronted by said trials. Archaeology is that beautifully scrumptious mixture of those different kinds of challenges, and consequently carries with it a well-rounded and all encompassing feeling of accomplishment. And to put a lovely little bow on these reflections, T\u00fcrkiye is the best place to have all of these experiences and personal growths as it is filled with the kindest and most welcoming people I have ever had the privilege and pleasure to meet and work with. Be warned, for you will most certainly leave T\u00fcrkiye a different person.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So you\u2019ve signed up to be employed by the Turkish government\u2026well here are my words of wisdom, and as my peers learned this past summer, Whitney is always right. I will refrain from repeating advice mentioned in previous posts. You know by now that your work days will be hot, sweaty, dirty, and long, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5729,"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-4024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Iz8A-12U","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4024","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\/5729"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4024"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4024\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4033,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4024\/revisions\/4033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/antiochia2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}