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awhyzipI've submitted my last final for this semester. Please consider this overview as if it were posted a few days ago when I thought of it: That's why the tenses may be weird:
My tasks for finals time --
Cognitive modelling is meeting one more time, on the study day. I've already made the basic structure of the model by that day. (This is the assignment that I submitted today.)
I spent a good deal of time during our Thanksgiving trip to my grandmother's doing reading for my Anthro term paper. Yes, I'd had the books for a while, but I just hadn't opened them! As I read more, I realized with a growing sense of certainty that while the Inca quipu are very interesting, I truly had no question or interest in them. No interest in them of the sort that translates into "paper thesis" very well.
So I gave my presentation on that Monday, avoided mentioning the details of my paper-to-be, and fudged an inquiry as to the question my paper would be treating. The idea was really growing in my head that what I would love to do would be to try out making one of these things. To make a quipu! It would be like highschool -- which had been my main issue with the topic since the day my professor encouraged me into it. I couldn't imagine writing anything more than what would be essentially a book report on the topic --- and that is not the stuff a college-level essay is made of! Just to explain it, with no theorizing.
Filled with anxious concern since the due date for the paper itself was less than a week hence, I went to my professor with the idea of making a model quipu. For those of you who may not know, a quipu is a device made from colored, twisted, and knotted strings, used by the Incas in Peru as a recording medium. Nothing too technically complicated. I'd managed to score a color photo in a new book (all of the books except that very one had pictures only in black and white while they raved about the brilliant colors of the cords! heinious. This is how rare a color image of a quipu is: when I showed the 4 photo plates in my book, my professor got excited and asked me to let him borrow the book as soon as I was done with it!) I am so glad I screwed up my courage and went to see the professor and make my absurd request. He said YES! He said that making a model quipu would be a fine final project and it would fully cover the paper assignment. I wouldn't even have to write a thing.
This was perhaps the best news ever that I have ever gotten regarding a class assignment. Whee!
So, I spent much of my time in the first week of finals preparing the cords and assembling the object. I set up a suspension hook and spindle assembly in my hall lounge and spent most of my time there. It was really fun, and the quipu came out quite well. But enough about that because now I am tired.
Perhaps I will write about the rest of my finals later. Tomorrow I am moving out of my dorm for winter break. My plans are minimal. A trip to New York, perhaps for New Years with Ellen, a group outing to the Two Towers (not opening night this time...oh that was great), and two weeks of housesitting my own house. There will be schoolwork to do, too, though; I can't quite get away from it all
My tasks for finals time --
Cognitive modelling is meeting one more time, on the study day. I've already made the basic structure of the model by that day. (This is the assignment that I submitted today.)
I spent a good deal of time during our Thanksgiving trip to my grandmother's doing reading for my Anthro term paper. Yes, I'd had the books for a while, but I just hadn't opened them! As I read more, I realized with a growing sense of certainty that while the Inca quipu are very interesting, I truly had no question or interest in them. No interest in them of the sort that translates into "paper thesis" very well.
So I gave my presentation on that Monday, avoided mentioning the details of my paper-to-be, and fudged an inquiry as to the question my paper would be treating. The idea was really growing in my head that what I would love to do would be to try out making one of these things. To make a quipu! It would be like highschool -- which had been my main issue with the topic since the day my professor encouraged me into it. I couldn't imagine writing anything more than what would be essentially a book report on the topic --- and that is not the stuff a college-level essay is made of! Just to explain it, with no theorizing.
Filled with anxious concern since the due date for the paper itself was less than a week hence, I went to my professor with the idea of making a model quipu. For those of you who may not know, a quipu is a device made from colored, twisted, and knotted strings, used by the Incas in Peru as a recording medium. Nothing too technically complicated. I'd managed to score a color photo in a new book (all of the books except that very one had pictures only in black and white while they raved about the brilliant colors of the cords! heinious. This is how rare a color image of a quipu is: when I showed the 4 photo plates in my book, my professor got excited and asked me to let him borrow the book as soon as I was done with it!) I am so glad I screwed up my courage and went to see the professor and make my absurd request. He said YES! He said that making a model quipu would be a fine final project and it would fully cover the paper assignment. I wouldn't even have to write a thing.
This was perhaps the best news ever that I have ever gotten regarding a class assignment. Whee!
So, I spent much of my time in the first week of finals preparing the cords and assembling the object. I set up a suspension hook and spindle assembly in my hall lounge and spent most of my time there. It was really fun, and the quipu came out quite well. But enough about that because now I am tired.
Perhaps I will write about the rest of my finals later. Tomorrow I am moving out of my dorm for winter break. My plans are minimal. A trip to New York, perhaps for New Years with Ellen, a group outing to the Two Towers (not opening night this time...oh that was great), and two weeks of housesitting my own house. There will be schoolwork to do, too, though; I can't quite get away from it all
