“Four Toe”
Because a lot of stuff happened to me today I picked tonight to start writing an ‘archeological journal’. I really got here a few days ago on Sunday. This is probably a better time to start this anyways because I know the people a bit more and I won’t just complain about how obnoxious it was to get here via the UK train system [though I did giggle every time I heard the town name, Cockfosters].
So far the average day has consisted of us (19 students and 16 staff peoples) waking up to silly songs played on one of the staff member’s cars, eating [a cold breakfast of mainly toast and cereal stuffs…and of course, tea] and then walking for 15 minutes from our campsite which is on a large field owned by a really British guy named Neil, to a Methodist Church in the town of Lyminge. We then sit and hear a lecture until 10:30 am when we have a 30 minute tea break. Then we either do an exercise that revolves around archaeology or we go to the field site and dig.
Today we went and learned about stratigraphy at the church and then at 11 we went and dug. I got up late for some reason so I did not eat any lunch. This was the first lame part of the day. [This sounds kind of odd even to me but I can only assume that I meant that I did not have enough time in the morning to make a lunch due to my waking up late.]
Also, because this is England, I was worried about the rain. But so far it has been really sunny and hot, and when we dig we do so on a site that is composed primarily of white chalk. So we got the sun hitting our backs and it reflecting off the chalk into our faces. I was already sun burnt and I did get more sun burnt today but it wasn’t a big deal. But as always I was sweating like a robot that was made to sweat a crap load [I’m a little embarrassed of this simile] and drank lots of water. During our lunch break I at one good kiwi and two bad ones…I think I'm getting too detailed…
This is what was lame about today: I was throwing my trowel into the dirt at the site trying to get it to stick up from the ground. I was getting really good at it and so I was trying to do it really fast and that is where I effed up. I threw the trowel into my foot. It went straight threw the thin layer of nylon on the top of my shoe and stabbed into my toe. At first I thought that I could just walk it off but when it still kept hurting I took my foot out of my shoe and saw a hole with blood seeping out at the top end of my right foot. I knew I needed a Band-Aid but also knew that EVERYONE would not stop making fun of me, so I asked Rebekah (CO College student) for a Band-Aid w/o telling her why. She looked and asked me why I needed it and I told her a vague story about a cut on my toe.
Here it is, a couple of weeks after the initial event.
She then told me that I should go and ask Helen for a Band-Aid and that I probably should tell her what happened. So I did and went to clean out my toe. The gash looked awesome and I sprayed it with the hose that was on site. Then Helen, this super nice British woman who I guess is also in charge of first aid, came and looked at my foot for a while. I think I got a lot of attention about my toe and that pretty much let everyone know that I threw the trowel into my foot.
I got the nickname Fourtoe from John a supervisor, I got made fun of a lot (not in a malicious manner) and then I sealed the deal by also cutting my finger with my pocketknife while trying to carve a monkey head into my trowel's handle. [I still need to finish that.]
Me being dumb enough to stab my toe with my trowel made Neil want to know my first AND last name, which was odd but whatever.
All and all, I guess it is a good thing that today so far has been the worst day I’ve had since I've been here considering it wasn't soo bad.
I’ll write more about everyone and the site tomorrow, hopefully. [I didn’t.]
