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What was there before the Big People?

We grew up learning about these epic past historical states engaging in imperialistic expansions, their prowess and glory, and how their names were carved in history. Those of us who inhabit some regions of the Western Hemisphere have inherited law practices, terms and institutions from the Roman Empire. Persia, Babylonia, the Ottomans and the Mongols also have left significant footprints in history and our customs.

There also were other Imperialistic States that also took part in political and social expansions in the New World: The Aztecs, The Moches, The Mayas and the Incas, to speak of a few. Those States also left their cultural footprints among their modern descendants, even if those inheritances are sometimes hidden or frowned upon.

As a writer (and as an archaeologist-in-the-making) I ultimately have found myself in a dilemma: What was there before the Big People?

Those who also read past entries will know that I study archaeology. My thesis's subject is how pottery manufacture changed after the Incas conquered the Humahuaca Gorge.

What do we know about the Incas? That their empire was called the Tawatinsuyo, meaning ‘’The Four Regions’’ (it sounds like something taken from a fantasy work). At the moment of its maximum expansion, it had four regions (or provinces): Chinchasuyo, Contisuyo, Antisuyo and Collasuyo. They worshipped the sun and reptiles (snakes, mainly), practised sacrifices and invested in public infrastructure such as the Camino Inca or Qhapaq Ñan, a network of stone roads that goes across Ecuador, Peru, Colombia, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina.

Do you know what other Empire is famous for its roads? Ones that you can still find if you travel across the continent where it had its power, more than a thousand years later after its fall? That’s right. Rome.

Despite the geographical and temporal distances between both political entities, we can find some common ground between the Tawansintuyo and the Roman Empire. Both States were tolerant of the conquered locals’ religions as long as the residents incorporated Imperial Practices such as specific celebrations, the worship of certain deities in their public lives, and paid tributes to the centre of power. Such tributes could be in the shape of a workforce (such as soldiers), but also natural resources, food and artisanal goods. Of course, there are many, many, many differences, too. The Romans minted coins, which the Incas didn’t. In fact, the Incas utilized waved objects made up of threads and knots with different colours and textures called quipus: its function is debated until today, but most experts agree that quipus were used as an accounting tool (Keep in mind: quipus existed in the Andean societies before the emergence of the Tawansituyo). Unlike the Romans, the Incas lacked a writing system and yet had to administrate a territory filled with different regions, populations and ecosystems that provided diverse natural resources.

Knowledge regarding both empires is abundant. For many of us, studying the Roman Empire was obligatory content in the History curriculum of high school. To people living on the American continent, the Inca Empire also was a subject touched upon in History classes. The topic of this entry is not a comparison between both empires; if you want to learn more about the Incas or Ancient Rome, then I recommend you to watch these videos made by the people of Ted-Ed, such as The rise and fall of the Inca Empire, A glimpse of teenage life in Ancient Rome, Who were the Vestal Virgins, and what was their job?, or A day in the life of a Roman soldier.

What I want to write about is how hard is to find data concerning the small populations that also formed part of those empires, those who didn't belong to the elites in the centre.

Those accompanying me in the journey of publishing The Social Commentaries of a Villainess (TSCOAV, from now on) must have noticed the subtle mentions of Adriatic Veneti people (and more are coming on the way). Who were the Veneti? The population that lived in the Veneto, a region in the north-east of Italy that later got absorbed within the Roman Empire. We know that they possessed their own writing system and language, quarrelled a lot with the Celts and the main deity of their pantheon was a female writer. They also appear to have worshipped water and horses. Cool, fascinating and full of holes.

We have documentaries, books, chronicles, pop culture references and more that allow us to learn about past Empires. We see them as a group of cool political entities with fancy names surrounded by a halo of immortality and mysticism until we start to study them and notice that they also had inequality and social issues like us.

However, the foreign people incorporated into the central empire (be it through pacific or violent means) also had their own religions, beliefs and cultural practices. And sometimes, with all the focus put on the Big People, we end up with a tremendous lack of knowledge concerning these local populations.

Of the four regions of the Tawantinsuyo, the Collasuyu had an extension of around 700.000 km². Of those 700.000 km², the Humahuaca Gorge, in the Jujuy province of Northern Argentina, only has an extension of 155 km. And my work area is in the central region of the Humahuaca Gorge.



Don’t think that research is easy: there are a lot of archaeological sites distributed across the gorge, with different social practices and answers to the Inca conquest.

Southern populations showed armed resistance, but others were more passive and some were incorporated into the sphere of Inca dominance on rather good terms. There was a diversity of groups (Tilcaras, Maimaras, Omaguacas and Purumaucas, among others), men and women who identified in various ways, carried different histories, customs and lineages even if they more or less belonged to the ‘‘Omaguaca confederacy’’ as a bigger group. And here comes my issue: we don’t know much about these people; their societies, religious and cultural beliefs, clothing, families and more remain a mystery. The most utilised written resources about them are the Spanish Chronicles, which are biased and filtered through the eyes of the conquerors. The same places and people are written with different orthographies, the Spanish Chroniclers that worked in the area ignored local societies and beliefs and focused on recording information concerning military resistance and data provided by the Incas, who were… the previous conquerors of the region.

This is to work with the bias of the bias. The Inca nobility needed to justify their reign and introduced themselves as providers of peace and civilization (doesn’t this remind you of anything?) and such discourse was given to the European Chroniclers, who also filtered the data according to their Christian beliefs.

It’s a mess.

I’d really love to learn more about the religions and societies of the peoples that inhabited the Humahuaca Gorge at the time of the conquest, but I ended up with a huge hole concerning their lives. In fact, the first archaeologists that worked in the same area during the first part of the XXth century also noticed the lack of information concerning the societies and religions of these indigenous groups. Sure, Andean societies may share beliefs and ideas concerning the sun, the moon, the thunder, reptiles and Death nowadays, however, I refuse to believe that the people in Cusco worshipped entities with the same names and characteristics as those in the Southern Andes because that’s just impossible. There are kilometres of distance here.

Diversity exists and identities are varied, too. People in Gaul didn’t worship the same gods as those in Rome. Nor the Baltic indigenous populations nor those from northern Africa. As a researcher, I have found a huge hole concerning the social and religious practices of the populations that inhabited the Humahuaca Gorge. Fuck, the reason why I’m working with ceramic wares (from Museum Collections) in the first place is that an investigation with pottery is the most available resource to me at the moment. Money and time aren’t infinite and I’m supposed to graduate at some point in my life.

We know the Incas worshipped Inti (the Sun), Illapa (Thunder), Mama Quilla (the Moon), and Mama Pacha* (Earth and Fertility), among others. However, what I want to know, is what the populations of Humahuaca specifically believed in. Because there were other States and nations in South America before the Incas, and we know they didn't worship the same entities as the Incas. Most data obtainable here is about the Incas, not about what was there before then. And the Humahuaca Gorge was a peripherical region added in the last decades of the empire, so add that to the filter of invisibility.

And, while I was struggling with my frustrations and desire for research, I ended up with a similar situation in my hands, but a situation concerning a hobby.

Imagine my déjà vu once I began to notice how difficult it was to find data concerning the Adriatic Veneti as I researched lore for TSCOAV. And here, the struggle got bigger because I don’t read Italian fully well, therefore most study sources available to me are in Spanish and English.

The majority of the information concerning the Adriatic Veneti comes from Roman authors and archaeological research. Roman travellers and historians recorded the actions of the Veneti and their relations with other populations from their region, however, they didn’t write much about Veneti beliefs and societies. Those authors wrote about political and military aspects of interest to Rome, which, interestingly, it’s similar to the bias I have found concerning the populations in Humahuaca.

Archaeological sources about the Veneti describe votive offerings for the death, inscriptions in a language that wasn’t deciphered, and differences in male and female burials and food. It’s a wonderful way to enrich and complement what the writers have left behind (writings are biased and should never be used as the only source), but learning what happened over there may take European researchers a lot of time. With most focus placed on Roman Empire, there is a huge gap in knowledge here.


(Source)


At this point, whoever was brave enough to reach this point of this blog entry must have realized that this is yet another venting post. I can’t talk about this suuuuuper specific stuff I’m researching, writing (a thing unrelated to my thesis and that demands a lot of energy from me, even if it makes me happy) and building lore for, to my colleagues. My friends are patient with me, but that's to a point. And let's face it: this will sound awfully boring to most people.

In conclusion, I have landed myself in an annoying situation. Some aspects of each research (and one it's aimed at a type of media that's not even meant to be accurate) echo the other: a dependence on written sources that focus on aspects concerning belic and political issues for the appeal of a bigger, colonial power interested in expansion and attaining knowledge of further potential areas to control, and the dependence on a fragmented archaeological record and whatever publications I can find (this is especially hard to my resources concerning the Ancient Veneti).

People are children of their own conjunctures, both the past actors that witnessed and lived through the events that I’m interested in and us, as people in the present time that make questions.


*On a tiny note, we know her a Pachamama where I’m from.

(Updated on Jan 21st)


Sources:

Jan. 13, 2023, 7:28 a.m. 0 Report Embed 0
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Why do we celebrate Christmas on December 25th?

Hi. It's been a long while and Christmas is coming.

In the Southern Hemisphere, Christmas means the harrowing heat of summer and the annoying questions of with whom we will spend the festivities, when are we going to graduate and about our jobs. I'm on the Grinch team on this one.

The topic of this blog entry is the origins of Christmas and, more specifically, why we celebrate it each year on December 25th.

The date is traditionally attributed to be the day Jesus was born. However, no one is quite sure about the exact birthday of the historical Jesus Christ. December 25th sounds too specific for a date in past times. It's closer to the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere (and the summer one here in the southern side of things). It's close, but not quite on it.

We can tell the importance of solstices and equinoxes in ancient times: for agricultural practice, to create a feeling of unity among people during celebrations, to witness the reproduction of the seasonal cycle every year, to thank the deities people used to believe in, etc. Nowadays, those who practice paganism also celebrate dates related to the flow of the seasons. The changes in weather (and their influence on our moods) are essential for people.

Back then, Europe and the Near East were inhabited by populations who practised different religions. People didn't share a collective belief in Christianism (it would take a long time for it to happen).

Ancient sources don't provide us with an exact date for the birth of Jesus Christ. According to History:


(...) for the first three centuries of Christianity’s existence, Jesus Christ’s birth wasn’t celebrated at all. The religion’s most significant holidays were Epiphany on January 6, which commemorated the arrival of the Magi after Jesus’ birth, and Easter, which celebrated Jesus’ resurrection. The first official mention of December 25 as a holiday honouring Jesus’ birthday appears in an early Roman calendar from AD 336.


So, back then, the celebrated dates were Easter and January 6th. Those familiar with mythologies (or American Gods) will know that Easter is a celebration dedicated to a goddess of fertility and rebirth.

So, what made people add December 25th to their celebration calendars?

We owe that to a Roman Historian, named Sextus Julius Africanus.

The Enciclopedia Britannica gives us this:


The Roman Christian historian Sextus Julius Africanus dated Jesus’ conception to March 25 (the same date upon which he held that the world was created), which, after nine months in his mother’s womb, would result in a December 25 birth.


He wrote a Chronicle concerning the world's creation and proposed that it had an age of around 5500 years. Let's be patient with him: Sextus did what he could with the sources available to him at such times.

So, what happened on March 25th? Remember Easter? What season starts on March 21st for those who live in the Northern Hemisphere?

That's right. Spring. After the cold winter months, the warmth returns. Animals are born, people cultivate, sunlight becomes more generous, and the general mood improves for everybody. Keep in mind, that people lacked the means to hold an exact calendar by today's standards. But the dates were close, the temperature changes could be detected. After years of inhabiting the same environments, people just know how to recognize signals.

Interestingly, according to other sources, the historical Jesus might have been born in Spring. The Bible describes shepherds, and people don't take their cattle out in winter.

It's widely speculated that the Church chose December 25th as the birth date of Jesus to ease the conversion of pagans.

In Ancient Rome, people associated the dates of late December with two celebrations: Saturnalia and the birth of Mithra. Saturnalia was the festival dedicated to Saturn, the god of agriculture in Ancient Roman Religion, celebrated during the winter solstice to signify a new solar cycle. It's characterised as a hedonist event, with people partying and eating without measure. Mithra was an Indo-European god associated with light and loyalty and was very popular among the Roman army during those times. And, in coincidence with Saturnalia, the most important rites took place during the winter solstice. As such, it's strongly believed that the early Christian Church chose late December to celebrate the birth of Christ in order to attract pagans, adapting their customs. They co-opted people's customs and traditions while adding new layers of meaning until the new idea took over the previous one.

Keep in mind the established dates of solstices and equinoxes we know are because of the practice of using calendars: we do it that way because it's easier. In truth, the beginning and end of all seasons depend on the moment when the Earth reaches a certain distance from the sun as it rotates.

The Church based its reform on calculations. Sextus Julius did his math, and December 25th is the result. Before the institution of Christmas, the most important event for Christians was Easter, the resurrection day. It took centuries for people to adjust to the new date until it became so ingrained in our common sense and practices that it became unquestionable for us nowadays.

In conclusion: no one is sure about the specific moment when the historical Jesus was born. The day we use was established to ease the conversion of pagans, as the result of a politic of attraction and absorption, and even then, it's not the exact date: with the passing of centuries, calendars have changed, too.

But that's a blog entry for another time.


Sources:

  • Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Why Is Christmas in December?". Encyclopedia Britannica, 14 Dec. 2018, https://www.britannica.com/story/why-is-christmas-in-december.
  • Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Why Is Christmas in December?". Encyclopedia Britannica, 14 Dec. 2018, https://www.britannica.com/story/why-is-christmas-in-december.
  • History, Editors ''History of Christmas''. Posted on Oct 27, 2009. Updated: De. 6, 2022. https://www.history.com/topics/christmas/history-of-christmas
  • History, Editor. ''This Day in History. Christ is Born?''. Posted on Mar 4, 2010. Updated: Dec 16, 2021
  • Strauss, V. Dec 24, 2014 . Washington Post. Why is Christmas on Dec. 25? (It wasn’t always.). https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2014/12/24/why-is-christmas-on-dec-25-it-wasnt-always/
Dec. 12, 2022, 6:20 p.m. 0 Report Embed 0
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3 things I don't like about working in public exhibitions

This post is to talk (and vent) about my new job.

I'm at a science fair in my country. The place is enormous and the entrance is free, with no restrictions. It's State-owned and the faculties of some universities have stands in the place. As an archaeology-oriented anthro student, I was lucky enough to land a gig there. To be sincere, I started doing it last January, but the fair went on a hiatus from March to July.

It opened again during the winter break. And man, it was a mess. But since the job helps pay the bills, I'm OK with it. Please, don't misunderstand me. I like the place: visitors come and learn, experiment and educate themselves in different scientific fields. There are artistic performances, too. And the general public can go and watch them.

Considering the economic mess Covid left behind, as a friend of mine once pointed out, one of the good points of the fair is the fact children from humble families can go on recreational outings and enjoy themselves. It's expensive to go out. And I just happen to see more and more kids and families from humble backgrounds visiting the fair. And that's good. Unprivileged people have the right to be stimulated, enjoy themselves and witness pretty and interesting things.

And that is just one of the highlights of the fair. The place is inclusive (or at least they try to), artists have the chance to get their work appreciated and some visitors genuinely become absorbed. However, not everything is amazing. And here are some things I don't like about working on public exhibitions.


1. Some people come here expecting superficial entertainment


You see, teaching requires attention and patience. And for your audience to concentrate on it. Some families (adults, especially) immediately get bored and leave once they realize we don't bring them a simple entertainment that allows them to not think too much and then visit the next stand. I can’t shake off the feeling that people expect our talks to be like a TikTok video or an Instagram reel that they can quickly forget and jump to the next thing that fancies their interests.

Activities here are ludic and visitors have to get involved. We are supposed to interact with families and groups. Some parents just dump their children with us and remain quiet. In fact, it's hard to get adults involved. From receiving visitors, reflecting on our interactions with them and their answers to our questions, some of my colleagues state that they see people come to the fair expecting to just be entertained without making an effort. I get most of the entertainment industry out there (going to the cinema, the circus, the theatre, a concert) involves paying cash and receiving some sort of visual and/or soundly stimulus while making little effort.

Things here don't work like that. But the public comes with that idea in mind and you see it. Entertainment and science are not mutually exclusive. Adult visitors are often disinterested in the exhibitions. And we see it in the way they push kids toward us and watch us with their poker faces as we entertain them. Elena Achili, Elsie Rockwell (and many other authors) state that knowledge is supposed to be built on the moment, during the interactions between teachers and their audience. Everybody has their previous learning baggage, no one is empty of info. The tabula rasa metaphor doesn't work the majority of the time in real life. Everybody possesses information about something.

And sometimes, I find myself talking about DNA and genes and explaining them to children... to find out parents or young visitors have a medical or biological degree/study and just remain there, watching us with fish eyes as I speak with their kids. People are not forced to interact if they don't want to, but seeing the frigidity of some parents while they wait for us to be done with their children irks me.


2. You won't like how the exhibitions are displayed


Curators are not necessarily experts in the fields of their exhibitions and resources are not infinite. It's impossible to not find mistakes or be annoyed at the arrangement of the materials aimed at the public. Something we discuss as anthropologists is the fact that Hominid evolution is not linear.

There were many species living with Homo Sapiens. There already were hominins leaving Africa and changing into new species before modern humans left Africa between 80k and 50k years ago. And guess what? There was inter-breeding too. Some modern populations have genomes belonging to other species. Lovecraft's nightmare, huh?

One of the reasons why Darwin's theory was too polemic back then (and still is in some circles) was that it questioned some shitty precepts that still permeate our modern societies. Humans are not the centre of the universe. Forget divine origins. Nowadays we know that we share most of our DNA with chimpanzees (our closest ''cousins'' so far).

In our new exhibition, I have to spend the introduction explaining to people that the video they see at the beginning is not entirely right. Humans don’t descend from chimpanzees. They didn’t exist as a separate species. We come from a common ancestor.

However, the little mistakes and 'flaws' we see (such as the lack of lettering or illustrations) also push us to be creative. I can prepare my speech, pick my examples and move my body the way I see fit. We help people question their common sense. We must not forget that one of the aims of anthropology is to decotidianize and denaturalize common sense, to appropriate the Otherness and to question inequalities in our modern society.

Some archaeologists I know forget that. And there are many things I don't like about the current archaeological community, but that's another discussion.


3. Male guides love to talk


Here comes the polemic. But it's something that I've witnessed since last January and now I see again with the new guys who began working with us this past July.

Men fucking love to talk.

Most of my colleagues from last summer left. We had new people coming in. And not only anthro students but also from the Arts, Geography and History fields. Most are girls, few are guys. But bro, they love to talk.

Since I was among the few people left from the previous edition of the fair, the coordinators put me in charge of teaching some of the new hosts (Some Mcdonald's Klingon promotion thing). I went from being the one asking questions and observing my more experienced colleagues last summer to preparing the new people this winter. Needless to say, the change made me somewhat anxious.

Something I witnessed is that girls tend to be more insecure and talk less to visitors. But guys? They are confident, talk loudly and show what they know. And sure, they have the knowledge to back it up. But they are arrogant too. And they don't seem to realize this. One of the guys I had to share a shift with had to be hurried to finish his talk by one of the managers of the exhibition and later, me. If I end up surrounded by visitors who keep asking me questions after my turn is over (luckily, it doesn't happen often), guys have no problem pointing it out to me.

But don't you dare to signal for them to hurry. You'll see the annoyance in their eyes- or just be ignored. One of our archaeology exhibitions is about cave art, and we share the building with students from the Faculty of Natural and Exact Sciences (Same university. Just different faculties). And yesterday I witnessed something first-hand. Guides in the archaeology section take too long. And there are other stands for people to visit. The public has an attention span of five or seven minutes at most. Some of my male coworkers love to talk. And they can last between ten to fifteen minutes. Once the visitors are done, full of information and fascination with archaeology, some just become too tired to keep listening to others or hurry to leave the exhibition once they realize there is more to hear.

After watching one too many tense sights from the hosts from the Paleontology stand towards my partner (They either were very much into what he had to say or just annoyed because my male co-worker never seemed to be done) I told him to shorten the talk, to last around seven minutes because it wasn't necessary to share everything.

His answer?

That if he shared everything, the talk would last even more.

Man, the students from the other faculty are right. And my partner's arrogance really showed off. He may not have realized it but he didn't question it either. The interaction rubbed me off the wrong way. Especially when he told me that ‘'he had never been told that before'’. D'oh. Of course. Two full months haven’t passed since he began working with us. I had to tell him to keep the talk short because this wasn't the first time I heard that the people from the archaeology stand lasted too long. The observations from the guys at the next exhibition stand are fucking right. Just because we are first and are supposed to introduce the visitors to the contents of the exhibition, doesn’t mean we own the place.

Isn't it annoying how men immediately try to wash their hands and dissociate themselves from a simple critic? I remember the resigned look of one of my female co-workers when one of our partners from last summer didn't shut up... and we had another group ready to enter. Even the security staff comments on it!

I have the hypothesis guys love the power boost they get from sharing their exotic, specific and fancy archaeological knowledge with the fascinated audience.

We have to share, not be the protagonists. If I share some new info about the exhibition with the guys, they just don't care. I remember having to tell one of my colleagues (he was still new, so let's be patient) that the cave art in the exhibition wasn't from Patagonia only, but the north, while showing him the obvious llama paintings on one wall.

Guys don't ask many questions, either. The ones who do it are girls. I really prefer my female colleagues. They are more flexible, creative and easier to talk to. I feel relaxed when I share my shifts with girls. Guys leave me stressed.

Now, I wonder. Does it happen to other people? Are there any museum workers or researchers from other fields that could comment here? While Inkspired may not be as famous as Wattpad or other platforms, I'm sure we have a decent amount of science people to discuss this. And here ends my venting.

In conclusion, I like my work. I can teach, interact with kids, and make some people question their ideas or subvert them. Not everything is bad, creativity and flexibility are needed to interact with the public. All I'm sharing here are internal issues the general public is not to be aware of. But, well... this is the point. Objectivity is not real and there are issues even at places specially designed to be seen.


Sources:


Achilli, E. (2005) “Un enfoque antropológico relacional. Algunos núcleos identificatorios” y “El campo de la investigación sociocultural”. En Investigar en Antropología Social. Los desafíos de transmitir un oficio (cap 1 y 2). Rosario: Laborde Editor.

Balasubramanian, B. (2018, May 23). Human evolution is not linear. The New Indian Express. Retrieved August 28, 2022, from https://www.newindianexpress.com/cities/chennai/2018/may/23/human-evolution-is-not-linear-1818171.html

Blaxland, B., & Dorey, F. (2022, January 28). Homo ergaster. Australian Museum. Retrieved August 28, 2022, from https://australian.museum/learn/science/human-evolution/homo-ergaster/

Cerletti, L. (2017) “Antropología y Educación en Argentina: de condiciones de posibilidad, preocupaciones en común y nuevas apuestas”. En Revista Horizontes Antropológicos, N° 49, UFRGS, Brasil.

DNA: Comparing Humans and Chimps. (n.d.). American Museum of National History. Retrieved August 28, 2022, from https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/permanent/human-origins/understanding-our-past/dna-comparing-humans-and-chimps

Levinson, B. y Holland, D. (1996): The cultural production of the educated person: An Introduction, New York, State University, New York Press.

Wheeler, Q., Valdecasas, A. G., & Cánovas, C. (2019, September 3). Evolution doesn’t proceed in a straight line – so why draw it that way? The Conversation. Retrieved August 28, 2022, from https://theconversation.com/evolution-doesnt-proceed-in-a-straight-line-so-why-draw-it-that-way-109401

Aug. 29, 2022, 12:53 a.m. 0 Report Embed 0
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A little bit about me

Most people introduce themselves in their first blog posts. I didn't.

To be honest, this blog is a place for me to post my ''training exercises'' and share whatever subject interests me at the moment. And it varies a lot. This blog won't be updated often, since it mostly follows whatever inspires me at the moment. And being a college student in her last year, I can assure you there won't be many posts this 2022.

There is another reason, though. I started taking small gigs as a ghostwriter. I never got the experience to write professionally and can't share here what I do, but I can tell you it has been one of the most exciting things I've ever done. Especially because I really want to be away from customer service jobs for a while. It drains you, people are mean and the payment is miserable. (Not that ghostwriting pays well, either).

I really suck at ordering ideas and I think ghostwriting is a good activity for practice. I receive outlines and writing prompts, do my research, write it down and then correct it and rewrite it until I feel satisfied. And, if you check the dates of my posts, I can tell you it's hard to satisfy me. I always find mistakes and repetitions and need to fix them.

Most of my original works remain for weeks (or months) as drafts on my Google Drive until I check them out and edit them again. Right now, I have an original short tale about thunder deities, but I don't know when I'll upload it. I want to take my time and enjoy the process, after all, I started sharing my fanfictions and original tales here because it's a hobby. Ghostwriting for the money, fantasy and other bizarre shit for the soul.

Now, back to the ghostwriting topic. The other thing I like is deadlines. I can organize my schedule and work around meeting them. When I write for myself, I mostly follow my whims and feel frustrated after I don't meet them. But following the deadlines and indications of another person? Yeah, give that to me. It provides me with a structure to work around.

So far, I've only ghostwritten horror stories and short tales. And the former was rather hard at first: I hate scary movies and books, I'm a self-declared coward and avoid them as much as possible. This is why analysing the horror genre made me ironically get interested in it. Now I feel more comfortable working with it and even tried to watch a horror/suspense movie on my own: The WWitch. Some people find it too slow, but for me it was good. The fact I already did some research on the matter before helped, that much has to be confessed. I still remember how The Others (the one with Nicole Kidman) crept the hell outta me as a child.

The only other reason why ghostwriting is a useful gig is due to the distance. We are in post-pandemic (?) times, so travelling was a mess until not so long ago. Plus, my career of choice requires me to move a lot, so a job with people that don't mind me moving around is good. As long as there is a wi-fi connection and I'm able to meet the deadlines, then things are fine.

This ended up becoming a post about my job rather than about me.

Well, if you've read previous entries, then you'll see I study archaeology. My research topic is the Inca Expansion in Norwest Argentina and, if I can finally travel to Jujuy again, I'm supposed to work with decorative motifs in ancient pottery wares. Coronavirus didn't make things easy, but I walked around it by learning to use the (in)famous software of GIS and making visual analysis to try to guess how people in past times perceived their environment and put it in my maps.

Oh, yes. Not all archaeological job is done on the field.

Also, about the career choice, 27-year-old me would slap the naïve, 17-year-old me.

Aside from that, there is not much to tell about me. I'm a hobbyist barista and improvise drinks every once in a while. I love coffee and cats.

I fucking love reading fantasy, but I haven't been very motivated lately. Burnout seems to have come to stay for a long time, so, in the meanwhile, I write and explore shit while trying to get my degree and praying to receive funds for my research.

This will be the last post you'll see in a while, but I think it had to be done. There is a real person here.

Jan. 10, 2023, 2:07 a.m. 0 Report Embed 0
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