We're in Grad School Now. It's Serious Business.

Why yes, the name of the blog has changed. "Trailhobbit" was near and dear to my heart. Don't get me wrong. But as someone who has neither watched/read about hobbits nor set foot on a bona fide trail in some time, I felt it was time for a change. Particularly since the confusion with the original tripod blog led me to tack the inelegant "V.2" onto the end, I thought the name was a little, well, archaic.

Why The Holoscenester? Well, it's a pun. The Holocene is the geological epoch from 11,500 years ago to the present. The Holoscene, therefore, is the scene that has been big for the past 11.500 years. You may know it better as Civilization, but that's a problematic term these days that no true Holoscenester would ever use in earnest. Those who consciously follow the trends of this Holoscene are called Holoscenesters. Or anthropologists.

Which brings me to another point. I'm going to try to up the sophistication in this blog a little. *GASP* No way! Okay, sophistication -- which clearly does not encompass fangirling over Gerard Way and copious use of emoticons -- may be a strong word. Let's try...relevance. Remember when Trailhobbit used to report on the news? Well, the Holoscenester can't, I mean can't bear to read the news much anymore, and besides there are trillions of semi-professional and professional blogs covering that already. Instead I'd like to post (1) commentary on life as a grad student archaeologist, (2) actual cool stuff in archaeology, (3) anthropological observations of modern phenomena, be it the labyrinth of academia or MCR fandom. Primarily, this is still going to be a personal blog, but ideally a personal blog with a focus. There is, in theory, a difference between a blog and a LiveJournal, and I'd like to start respecting that. After all, if you're going to have four web journals, why be redundant? Mind you, I will still fangirl here when there is an actual event (concert, signing, album release) to fangirl over. And I will still occasionally make posts about what I had for dinner (see below). It's just that, in addition to those things, I hope to filter much of this blog through an anthropological lens. There will be less "I felt tired today / My default eyeliner ran out / (insert inappropriate language here)." It's about tone as much as content, and about what I leave out as much as what I put in.

Now we return to our regularly scheduled programming: What I Had For Dinner!

A month into our relationship, I finally deflowered my frying pan! I'm pretty proud of myself. When we entered class this afternoon, we were presented with leftover lunch from another event, and even though I'd already had lunch, the first rule of grad school is never turn down free food. I was disappointed by the dryness of my Tuna Niçoinnabe sandwich, and since I had, after all, eaten lunch, I thought I should take it home and salvage it. (I couldn't simply throw it away, because it contained capers.) So I decided to dress it with a couple slices of American cheese I'd snagged at a cookout some few weekends ago, slather some SmartBalance on the outsides of the dessicated rye, and grill it. In my frying pan. And guess what: it was GOOD.