It’s been a long day — I’ve decided we can survey 8 sites per day, so we did, in the heat and the dirt, with constant drizzly rain, and by golly, we’ll do it again tomorrow. I look forward to the big pile of data I’ll have at the end of the week, and a nap.
Also, I think I’ve downed a couple of liters of iced tea since I got home.
Do not overdo it. If you are not used to fieldwork, it is all too easy to underestimate the effort and stress that goes into it.
Eight sites a day sounds a bit much. You might want to knock it down to six or so.
Not a research rule but you can stress out the troops with too ambitious a schedule.
After a few holidays I developed the rule of “Two things a day.” One in the morning, one in the afternoon, punctuated by a long lazy lunch ( very easy in France or Italy). We did the same in Egypt[1].
Few things so pleasant as sitting on the deck of the tour boat, freshly showered, having tea as the hoards of sweaty tourists climbed back on the buses. If you are doing a Nile tour, do it by boat.
A Noiseless Patient Spider
A noiseless patient spider,
I mark’d where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
Mark’d how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.
And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be form’d, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.
—Walt Whitman
Hang in there, Spider Man
I’m taking it as easy as I can. I knew this was going to be a difficult change of pace ahead of time, which is why I scheduled short windows of time and set a very narrow scope.
We take a nice lunch break every day.