Tuesday, June 19. Dr. vom
Tuesday, June 19.
Dr. vom Mundvelt, the director of the dig and indeed all of FSU’s operations in Italy, would be paying us a visit today. The FSU students were worried and on edge. Some were eager, indeed desperate to please and felt no shame about their nervousness, practicing over and over their presentations about their trenches. Most of these were undergraduates. The graduates, by comparison, tended to be calmer- or at least, to put on a show of calmness. They also apparently had a great deal riding on this visit.
I was nervous, of course. I am scared of most people. But curiously, everyone else’s nervousness emboldened me quite. Also I had nothing riding on this visit - even if I were to prove myself the very stupidest, most empty-headed person on the dig, before the most important person there, I could leave and have it have no bearing on my future.
Of course, being a stranger here (and now here was discernably interdepartmental politics of FSU and not Italy) I was eager to impress. *
*I am, if not happiest, at least most at home being a foreigner. At least a foreigner in this respect. I come to most people from the outside, and I like it when that externality is as complete as possible. (That way I have an excuse when I don’t know what the heck is going on, as is invariably the case no matter how much on the inside of a situation I am)
Growing up a foreigner is, I think, what gave me to have my hatred of being considered one in other countries. (I especially hate being thought an American… if I can’t fit in for reasons of not knowing the language at all or having the wrong color skin, I’ll at least adopt a British accent.) That’s one of the reasons I started studying languages in the first place. I loved going to Spain and being thought Spanish… nothing made me happier. Plus you get things cheaper.
Of course, the two things I consider my main talents, photography and linguistic skill, are completely at odds here. Wanting to not look like a tourist helps me with languages but hurts me with photography. Ah well.
October 6th, 2002 at 6:35 pmIncidentally, I think I finally figured out why I’m happy to wear a three-piece suit, walk around Annapolis, and have people stare at me, but I’m never take any pictures in Annapolis. You can’t pigeonhole a young man in a three-piece and derby, you can’t say "fuckin’ kids in their three-piece suits and fuckin’ hats," but you can say "fuckin’ tourists takin’ pictures of everything." Does that make sense?
October 6th, 2002 at 6:38 pm