Michigan and other excitement

I've been a little frantic the last couple days, between Rhys' visit to the Twin Cities and my impeding departure to the University of Michigan for four days starting tomorrow, and blogging tends to fall to the bottom of the list when I have basically three work days over a two week period during Midterms.

I scheduled my MA Defense today. I'm pretty excited about it, actually. From my understanding, the three members of my committee and I will just discuss my two thesis papers, both of which I like and am proud of the work I did for them. I also like all my committee members, so really, it's just an opportunity to talk about things I'm interested in with intelligent, knowledgeable people for two hours. I say this now.

Michigan this weekend will determine my funding, and thus my ability to go there. It'll also be nice to see the department and meet more people in the program. This will all help me be able to begin to visualize my life post-Minnesota. Crazy. Still no word from Penn yet. I really wish they would just get moving; it will help to have all the information at hand when decision making time comes.

Also have dates for Israel this summer. Once again, I'll be there from about Memorial Day to the middle of July. Told you there was much excitement afoot!

And, finally, my friend Casey, fellow archaeologist, sent me this link for to discuss here. Alas, time does not permit the analysis this deserves, but I post for your general amusement:
Do these mysterious stones mark the site of the Garden of Eden?

I will admit to being genuinely perplexed at several statements made therein, particularly since the article appeared to quote *real* archaeologists in support of this wackjob theory. (Ian Hodder, hello!) But then I found a discussion of the same site in Smithsonian Magazine, and it all made sense:
Gobekli Tepe: The World's First Temple

So, there you have it, personal life and professional world updates all wrapped into one post! Tada!