Orientation

Was so much fun! I got there a little early and there was only one other girl in the room so I sat near her and we chatted while other people started to fill up the room.

Turns out there are supposed to be 22 people in my cohort! There are 13 in last year's, and another 10 or so in the third year plus group. The graduate student coordinator, Dr. Loewe lead the meeting and basically told us what was expected of us before we could graduate, gave us a short bio of all the professors in the department, and discussed a few of the classes we need to take and possible paths for some of us - like I, as an archaeology focus, would take some geology classes and remote sensing and that sort of thing.

We went around the room and introduced ourselves, and I thanked my lucky stars I had gone to Ethiopia because everyone except about four students (including myself) had graduated with their BA years ago and worked in places like Chile and Greece and done additional "minor" work in California, Arizona, and the greater West, as well as being directors of the local historical society or having two Masters' degrees already. Where do people find TIME for this?? I need to hurry up and get a book published so I can keep my own end up.

After Dr. Loewe had talked a few of the other professors looked in and talked about themselves - Dr. LeMaster, the department head, Dr. Schindler, who is in charge of the new filmography division of the department (apparently one kind of MA you can get here you can produce a film for your final project instead of a thesis), and Dr. Quintiliani, who is really nice and actually got her MA at CSULB.

Then we "ended" the meeting and started talking to each other and the professors. I asked Dr. Loewe about the field schools - since I heard a lot had been canceled - and he said there were usually two or so a year, and if there was one at one of the other Cal State universities that I really wanted to do, I could go along on that one. He said most of the things that had gotten canceled were two or three week study abroad opportunities they would do several times a year before the recession hit and no one had money for flights anymore.

I signed up for the anthropology association, talked to a couple of my fellow students, and then walked to the plaza nearby to this restaurant called L&L Hawaiian Barbecue and got a chicken rice bowl to go. I got home and was so starving I barely took my shoes off before I started in on it and it was SO yummy!

I spent the rest of the evening half asleep in my armchair, watching tv shows and enjoying my last few days of having nothing to do. I had a bowl of chocolate fudge brownie ice cream for dessert and it was really the perfect night in.