Memories

So, I thought it would be appropriate  to finish off my blog posts for this semester by writing a post about memory, since it is our theme for our last week of class. I had originally planned on writing this near the beginning of the course, but I feel it fits much better at the end. This post is definitely going to be very personal, but I think it's good to get personal feelings out in the open, especially when you've had them weighing on your shoulders for awhile. For this post, I'm just going to open right up about my own personal experiences with death, and the memories associated with those experiences. It's going to be tough for me, but I think it will be good to get it out in the open.

In general, I consider myself to be lucky when it comes to personal experiences with death. I had lost some friends in high school, but most of those people were barely more than acquaintances that I shared classes or other friends with. I never lost anyone close to me until I was 22 in 2009. Up until that point, I had only lost pets. And don't get me wrong, losing a pet rips your heart into many pieces. They're kind of like a fuzzy little sibling or child, so when you lose one, it hurts all the same. But before I delve right into losing those close to me, I'd like to share my first two experiences with human death that I can recall.

The first memory I have of a death, was when I was very young. My father, whom I've mostly been out of touch with for many years, came to us to tell us his mother, my grandmother, had passed away.  I'd never met her before, and that, coupled with being so young, kind of left me in a confused state. I have fuzzy memories of being hugged, but that is about the extent of it.

My next experience, was with the loss of a friend. She had passed away in a fatal car accident during our high school years. I think I was around 14 at the time, which would have made her 16 or 17. I remember going to her funeral, which had an open casket. Up until this point, I had never seen a dead person in real life. So, a friend of mine and myself walked up to the casket to pay our respects, and all I can remember thinking is, "she's not smiling.  It's so not like her at all..."  To this day, I can still remember everything about how she looked. Even though she was dressed up in her favorite clothes with her hair all done, she looked entirely different. This was a girl who smiled ALL of the time. It impacted me hugely.

In 2009, my grandmother got sick. She had suffered from diabetes for a very long time, and was slowly declining. A few days before I was to meet my boyfriend, now fiance, my grandmother was hospitalized. The day we were going to visit her, had also been the day my boyfriend was to arrive, and consequently, I stayed behind to wait for him to show up. I know deep down, that it was probably better to remember her as the woman that she was rather than what she must have looked like laying in a hospital bed, but it still kills me knowing that I never got to see her before she passed away. It's okay though, I had extra support, which helped me stay strong to help my family. I tend to be the person that doesn't show hurt in order to be a rock for everyone who is. In the end, I felt sad, but relieved that she would no longer be suffering. That fact helped me through her death. One day, I will travel to Edmonton to visit her grave on her family plot.

Not long after the loss of my grandmother, our family suffered another death.  This time, it was my uncle, who had, in general, been fairly healthy and active. I remember waking up, going on facebook, and reading one of my friends statuses saying that there had been a terrible accident on the main highway into town. At this point, they thought it was a woman (my uncle had long hair), so I really thought nothing of it other than sadness for the person who had been lost in the accident. I had been talking to my mom on the phone when she received a call from my uncle's significant other, so she went to take the call.  She then called me back, told me it was my uncle, and I think everything kind of fell apart for me at that point. As far as I know, we don't really know what happened to cause the accident. That, coupled with the fact that it was very sudden, made the impact of his loss increase exponentially.  Some time before he passed away, I had taken a photo of one of my favorite places on Salt Spring Island, Vesuvius Bay.

"Sail Away", Vesuvius Bay, Salt Spring Island, BC

This also happens to be the same bay where my grandfather scattered the ashes of my uncle. When I took the photo, it had originally just been a reminder of a place I loved, and a photo I was proud of. Now, it holds incredible significance to me. Looking at it now, it not only reminds me of those fond times, but also of my uncle. It's humbling to have this photo to look at whenever I think about him.

In my own personal experiences, I've found that sudden loss is far more tragic and painful than the loss of someone who was slowly declining, even though it still hurts a great deal. This course has definitely made me think about all these types of things, including the loss, how they were buried, significance of landscape, etc. Not only have I learned about burial and death in many other contexts, the class has also helped me understand the loss of those I love.

Anyways, that's all I've got to say about this. I hope anyone reading this appreciates how difficult it was for me to get it all out in the open. I certainly feel better having it out there to share with others, and to have thought about it in a different manner than I would normally thanks to the aid of this course. So, thanks for listening (with your eyes).

I'll most likely keep this blog going after the end of this class, but I have to say, it's been a slice. Thanks for following the blog and for reading!

The Anglo-Saxon Princess-Nun?

When I went to check my e-mail this afternoon, I noticed my grandfather had sent me a link to an article from the BBC News page. The article is titled Anglo-Saxon Christian grave find near Cambridge 'extremely rare'. Grandpa was right on the money when he sent me this one, and I went to read it straight away.

Apparently, the burial (inhumation) of a teenage girl, about 16 years old, was found near Cambridge. The burial was dated to the mid 7th century AD and the article states that this was the time when Christianity would have started to be introduced to the Pagan Anglo-Saxon kings. The girl was buried on a wooden bed, and was found with a gorgeous gold and garnet cross on her chest, that would have possibly been sewn on to her clothing.

L: Image of a recovered skull; R: Image of the gold and garnet cross 

She is found in a cluster of four burials, and is the only one with a cross. In the article, it states that because of the burial type and presence of grave goods, it suggests a conversion period between Paganism and Christianity. It was also suggested that the quality of the jewellery as well as method of burial may indicate that the girl was from an elite or royal family. After having discussed this briefly in class, I went back to read a couple other articles on the subject.

Originally, I was thinking it was pretty neat that they may have found evidence of the transition period between Christianity and Paganism. However, I got so caught up in this, I completely overlooked the idea of gender and status, other than what was stated in the first article.

When I read the original article, I hadn't thought about the tendency to think about how if we find a burial with lots of stuff, or really nice stuff, we automatically jump to royalty or elite because they stand out. I suppose, after having read so much about these types of burials (after all, they are the ones people tend to talk about), perhaps it was just second nature to me? Maybe I was just tired and not thinking. After discussing this in class, I realized that this happens a lot, and really should be taken into account if we are to look at status of an individual objectively. Just because we call them 'princes' or 'princesses' or anything else, really, doesn't necessarily mean that's what they were. Interpretation is a powerful tool. We need to make sure we're not jumping the gun on how we interpret a grave just because there are pretty sparkly things. Don't get me wrong, though, I definitely like the pretty sparkly things. Overall, I think it was probably a good assumption in this case that whoever this girl was, she was probably well off, or, at the very least, whomever buried her was, given the types of things she was buried with and the location in which she was buried. To go as far as to call her a princess, seems a bit of a leap for me, though. That said, I've always been a bit wary of titles like that without significant proof, rather than a hypothesis.

When we discussed this in class, the idea of the women being Nuns intrigued me. Another article mentions that it appeared all of the women found died at approximately the same time. They cite Anglo-Saxon chronicles as stating England had been hit by the plague around 664 AD, and mention that archaeological evidence suggests these four women died around that time. Archaeologists also found the remnants of a long timber structure, as well as other buildings with storage nearby. It was concluded that the 'princess' and the other women may have been a part of a monastery based on their gender, burial, the nearby structures, and the presence of the cross. I feel like this interpretation is sound given that many different factors were taken into account, and they weren't just basing it off of simply the cross, or simply the gender, etc.

In any case, this find is very interesting to me. I am absolutely looking forward to reading more about it in the future. Feel free to discuss if you disagree (or agree) with my thoughts, or simply would just like to comment!

References:

BBC News, 2012. Anglo-Saxon Christian grave find near Cambridge 'extremely rare'. [online] Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-17378845 [Accessed 16 March 2012].

Keys, D, 2012. Remains of dark ages princess in a field in Cambridge. [online] Available at: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/remains-of-dark-ages-princess-found-in-field-in-cambridge-7574249.html [Accessed 24 March 2012].

The Test

Well, better late than never, I always say. After a bit of a rough week and a bit, I've finally had some time to contemplate a website (or page in my case) in order to give our rubric a bit of a test run. Our group has decided to do our project on Pictish burial. Our focus is on a site called Forteviot, in central Scotland. When we chose to do this site, I don't think we realized that nothing had been published on the site just yet, as it is still 'new'. So, because of the limited sources, I thought about taking a bit of a more general approach to test our rubric out. I was Google searching for pictish burial, the picts, etc. Surprisingly, not finding a whole lot. Apparently death photos of Osama Bin Laden are related, though!?? Not quite what I was looking for, Google.

Anyhow, I happened across a webpage on a website called Wikinut. Considering this is a public website in which any old person can sign up and write about whatever they please (at least, from my understanding), I didn't have a whole lot of hope in it. However, the information that was provided, brief as it may be, actually was pretty decent. I had read about/heard about much of what the author of the article was discussing, so I kept reading. Once I arrived at the end, I noticed that there were even a couple of references that I recognized! So, on the basis of that, I decided to do my test on this webpage.

Our rubric contains categories for a data base and cooperative work. This article was only written by one author that I can see, and there is no data base within the work. Naturally, I have removed these two categories from this particular test, as they are not relevant. That leaves us with Content (/20), Content Accuracy (/15), Layout (/15), Research/Bibliography (/15), Spelling and Grammar (/5) and Citations (/5), for a total of 75 possible marks. Our original rubric is set up to be out of 100 marks. Round numbers are our friends.

In terms of content, for the type of page it is, I think it provides a nice introduction and overview to who the Picts were, and the types of things associated with them, such as their symbol stones and burials. The author spends most of the article discussing the Pictish symbol stones (but briefly), which makes sense seeing as that is what they are generally "known" for. Overall, the content itself is good, but not super. I would give this category a 13/20. I feel like I need to bunch Content Accuracy in with this paragraph also. As stated before, a lot of the information here, I had read about or heard about prior to finding this page. The information I found was from textbooks and other scholarly articles. I have a problem with some of the things the author states, as there is nothing to back up what they have written. So, for this category, I would give the page a 10/15.

The overall layout to the page reads well, and the different categories are well defined at the very top of the page with hyperlinks to the different sections. Categories are clearly marked on the page through the use of special headers (larger, different colour, etc.), and key words and terms are in bold font. The author does attempt the use of images in the article, but only uses one photo. I feel like they could have probably used a few more photos and/or maps to enhance the article. The type of site that it is, it tends to look extremely cluttered near the top part of the page, and near the bottom where all of the comments are listed. As a total, I would give this category a 10/15.

The only photo used on the website; a photo of a Pictish symbol stone.

Remaining categories, research/bibliography, citations and spelling, grammar I feel I should stick together. There were some sources on the page, but only listed at the very bottom, and not in any particular format that I could easily recognized. The citations had no dates, or other distinguishing factors apart from author name and title of article, or links, when appropriate. There was definitely an attempt at research in order get the information correct, but only three sources were listed. Of these sources, I could not see any citations within the text telling where the authors ideas and facts came from. I did not notice any errors in spelling and grammar, although, I've never been super at finding silly grammatical errors. I make them a lot. In total, I would give the research category a 7/15, citations a 1/5 (only because sources were listed), and spelling & grammar a 5/5.

That gives us a grand total of 46/75 or 61.3%.

After doing this little test, I think that our rubric might still need a wee bit of tinkering, just to get the categories more clear and concise. Now, it is time for me to go read some more about lovely Picts (60 page paper! Joy??), have some tea, and relax!