Sunday, July 18, 2010

Why the blog?

I can't really believe it either, but yes, I have gotten a blog. What's even more astonishing is the fact that I got the idea from my father (his is http://squarepeggarden.blogspot.com/). I'm not nearly as skilled at writing as he is, but I realized that this may be the easiest way to keep everyone informed on what I'm doing.

Before I forget, let me explain the name. When I was little, one of my favorite songs was "Wild Mountain Thyme," an old Scottish tune that I adored because the refrain had my name (Heather) in it. Another favorite song of mine from recent years is called "Lads Among Heather" and is also an old Scottish song which happens to include my name. Since I'm Scottish and since I liked these songs, I felt that the hybrid of the names, "Thyme Among Heather", was not only a wonderful play on words, but also a connection to both my ethnic heritage and my childhood. It doesn't really have anything to do with archaeology or my travels, but there it is.

I will say that this blog is meant primarily for family members and close friends, and again, the purpose is to create an easy way for people to know what I'm doing, where I am, and see some nice pictures. Given the frequency of my travels over the past five years (nine countries on three continents), this seemed like a good idea.

This isn't only meant for my travels either. I have a profound tendency to forget to send updates and other general letters stating my general whereabouts, so this is meant as a sort of running update for my daily life. After all, that's technically what a blog is, isn't it? :)

A few cautionary warnings about the nature of this blog: first, if I give updates on my research, know that it is still academic research that has not been published. Therefore I will not discuss it in detail here, just give general updates on how it's going. Also note that the topics between posts may not really relate at all, since I'm just updating on my daily life. Finally, if I happen to be in a foreign country, there will certainly be some sort of lag between posts, since I cannot guarantee my access to the internet.

So I guess that explains the blog, at least to the degree that I can think about at the moment. I'll write another, more interesting post about what I'm doing this coming week, my research, etc. in a moment, but wanted to get this out of the way.

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