Christina VarvisWhat are you riding and wearing?
This happens to be Snailsbert. It’s the mascot for the Field School for Ethnographic Sensibility that the U of A is running from the Anthropology department. We were in Belgrade, Serbia last year — that’s where the field school happens — and one of the girls picked up a snail and it became a part of the team, a part of the family. It taught us a little bit about Belgrade, it was sort of one of our leaders in Anthropology Ethnography.
What made you want to join the field school?
I’m an Anthropology major, so it seemed like the right fit. I’ve also done a bunch of study abroad stuff. It was an awesome program, an awesome prof — one of my favourites, Marko Zivkovic. We had a wide range of students too, from Fine Arts to History to Anthro to MLCS. The program’s geared towards everybody.
Did you start out wanting to do Anthro?
Well, no. I was a Kinesiology major before in Phys Ed. Two years of that, and I decided that wasn’t for me, and I had sort of an idea of archaeology. I wanted to be an Indiana Jones, if you will. And then so I did some archaeology, did some field school. So it was kind of by accident that we got into Cultural Anthro and made it sort of my niche. And now I’m wearing a snail. It’s funny how the world works.
What’s the biggest thing you learned from going to Belgrade?
Don’t freak out. That was sort of the course motto from the very beginning. And I think that helps a lot because over here we have a tendency to get so stressed out about school and taking risks and worry about all the little things. Really, if you can put that aside and just focus on yourself and your own interests in a lot of ways, where you’ll end up is so much more special.
