The Arrogant Emu

I hadn’t known quite what to expect of the conversation of these graduate students, but I had been looking forward to meeting majors in Classical Archaeology. What would be their reasons for pursuing a somewhat arcane field, in the teeth of a culture in which it is probably considered more valuable, both morally and financially to major in, say, Mass Communications?

Also I was curious about graduate students. Graduate School In The Future was eating my soul

And I was afraid. You will hear many such admissions from me, so you had better get used to it. Looking at the list of people, with their majors all listed under them (Classical Archaelogy… Near Eastern Archaeology… Classical Archaeology….Archaeology…Classics…Classical Archaelogy) I worried that I would be the most ignorant one there, who had by some mistake been admitted to a high class of trained professionals, and would spend the entire dig being in the way and looked at askance.

So for all these reasons I was interested in the lunches, when everyone got together and ate and chatted for an hour.

The conversation at the lunch usually took a very populist tone - jocular, not to say bawdy. This was at once interesting, reassuring, and slightly disappointing. But it did begin to cure me of my fear of graduate students.

Iohan, Fero (the married student with his Ph.D in sight, and a new-born son at home), and Arditta had invented a game, from which they were to derive amusement for the entirety of the dig. Iohan would point to Fero. Fero would point to Arditta. Arditta, with a large and cheerful grin, would point to his crotch. The point of the game was to watch the startled viewer as they helplessly followed with their gaze the direction of the pointing fingers. It could be played with only one person, too.

Pointing at things is like handing people things: they will automatically look where you are pointing, and they will automatically take something if they are offered it.