Well, this week was pretty uneventful. I went to class on Monday and Tuesday like usual. This week we were learning about facial bones in human and tooth wear ageing in animals. And yes, ageing is spelled correctly. That's how they roll here. So Wednesday I spent a ton of time in the various bone labs learning things. Then I had choir practice. We're working on Little Shop of Horrors and Hail Holy Queen from Sister Act. I know its pop music, but the director doesn't always get the rhythms right and its driving me crazy. I guess I just need to get over it though. The songs do sound good when we all sing together. And they actually come together pretty quickly. But we have about 20 sopranos and 7 altos, so its a bit unbalanced.
After choir I went and saw another foreign film. This one was Swedish and was about vampires. It was pretty good. Creepy in more of a morally and ethically disturbing kind of way than blood and guts. Can't remember the name of it though.
Thursday I didn't go into Uni and went looking for some boots. I found a great pair at Asda, but they didn't have them in my size :( So I ended up at a couple of different stores and finally found a cute pair of gray ones for 8 pounds. They're from a pretty cheap store, so they may not last long, but for 8 I suppose I can live with that. (Sorry, I don't know how to type a pound sign on my American keyboard. If you know, you should tell me.) I also got a couple pairs of tights and a pretty scarf. Then after lunch I went and joined the gym across the street from my flat. Its really nice and has a gym, a pool and classes.
Friday I had to go into uni to pick up a book that I had put on reserve. (Which, as it turns out wasn't all that useful. I'm going to copy a few pages out of it, but I could have lived without them. Oh well....) It was just a quick trip, but I also picked up a few books on bone development and teeth in humans for a paper we have to write. I'm trying to decide which topic to write about as we have 4 options. I'm leaning toward teeth, but I want to read around the options a bit first. Anyway...when I got back I had orientation at the gym. I spent about a half hour learning how to use all the gym equipment. It was kind of useless since I'd been going to the gym back home, but some of the machines were a bit different so I guess it was good.
Later that night I went with my flatmate Baitalikee and a couple of people from another flat to get fish and chips for dinner. I don't generally like fish, but as its fried and breaded I am able to eat this. Its basically fishfry, for those who don't know. And chips here are french fries. Potato chips are called crisps. Weird. So we went to this little shop and got the fish and chips and then walked down and sat by the quay (pronounced "key") to eat them. On the way back home we stopped at the store and got tequila, triple sec and lime juice. We were going to a beer pong party, but I thought I should introduce everyone to upside down margaritas. No one drowned, but I did get alcohol all down my face and neck :( But it was a good time.
On Saturday I had to be up early to get to the class that I had signed up for at the gym. It was called BodyPump and entailed a short bar with weights. We then used it to do a ton of squats, bicep curls, arm extensions etc. My muscles were hurting while I was doing it despite not using very much weight. By the time I got home though I was fine. I read for a good portion of the day and actually got through quite a bit of material. Then I made potato salad for the pot luck that I was attending that night. It wasn't quite right because they don't have pickle relish here. So I had to just cut up pickles. But the pickles aren't quite right either, so it was a bit off, but it tasted okay. At the potluck we had lasagna, home made mac and cheese, macaroni salad, potato salad, bruschetta, garlic bread, quiche, spicy fried squid, and a ton of desserts. There was a bunch of food left at the end so we all got a take home plate.
Today I woke up and ate my leftover quiche with some coffee and orange juice. It was delicious. Then I read for awhile and contemplated a Halloween costume. I came up with Gypsy, but thought that might not be pc. I went out shopping with some other girls for costume stuff and was inspired to try to be Rainbow Bright. So because I was inspired right at the end of the shopping and wasn't sure exactly what I needed to be Rainbow, I came home and looked at some pics and will be going shopping again tomorrow after class. So after that I got a bit more reading done and then went out to dinner with some other archaeology people. We got burgers at the bar across the way. Then I got some profitaroles for dessert. They were filled with ice cream instead of the usual cream. Yummy! Then we came back here and watched Good Will Hunting. I had forgotten that it is actually a pretty good movie.
So let us now consider something British. Roundabouts. The reason that they need them here is that their roads don't meet up at a 90 degree angle. The roads are all curvy and random and may run into each other with two very close together and then far apart on the other side. So having a roundabout makes sense. In the States this isn't true, so we don't need them. But its really cool here because most of them are two lanes. If you are going further around it you stay in the inner lane and if you're just going to the next exit you stay in the outer lane. Its pretty impressive to see all the cars and buses going through and not crashing. Or driving on the roundabout itself as people in Manitowoc had managed to do within 1 day of the thing being open on 310.
I suppose that's about all I have and I'm pretty tired, so I'll wrap up. Oh, also, we changed our clocks back to GMT today. So Wisconsin is only 5 hours behind us for the week until you all change your clocks. So I guess I'll end there. Have a good one and I'll post again next Sunday after Halloween!
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Sunday, October 18, 2009
One Month
Soooo.....what to say about the last week. Now that I'm in school and have someone of a set routine life is much less exciting. These probably won't get shorter because I can go on and on about nothing, but they certainly won't be more entertaining. Sorry :(
Anyway, Monday I had human anatomy once again. We are doing the cranium, which is actually quite hard. There are a lot of bones in the human skull with a lot of little parts that we must know. I also came down with some sort of bug on Monday. I may have actually started to get sick on Sunday, but I wasn't sure until Monday. After class I went straight home to bed and slept for most of the day. Then Tuesday I repeated the strategy. I think I had a fever that broke over Monday night and Tuesday was rough. I wasn't feeling quite as bad, but I hadn't slept well so it was very hard to concentrate during the lecture. We were learning about taphonomy, which is the process by which bones are changed after they come out of the animal, basically. Luckily I have a little experience with that from my work in Bolivia. So I'm not behind, but I need to spend more time in the lab this week to make up for it.
Wednesday I slept most of the day again and then headed to campus for choir rehearsal. It was fun, but I'm not sure about this choir. Sometimes I wonder how well the director reads music... I may try out the Tuesday night choir this week and see how that goes... After choir I met up with a friend to see a foreign film that was playing on campus. They didn't have the film that was advertised and ended up showing a Spanish film about the right to die. I wasn't too much of a fan.
Thursday I went to campus to spend some time in the labs. When I go to the human bone lab I really don't feel like I accomplish a whole lot since we're just left to do whatever we want. The animal lab is a lot better. My prof leaves tasks for us to do to learn the topic. This week it was looking at bones and identifying how they had been modified. She left a bag of samples of the different modification processes that happen.
Friday I was going to go back to campus, but it was icky out and it was my friend's birthday, so I went to the Poole museum with her instead. It was a very nice little museum of local history. And I felt accomplished because I saw some bones in a display and identified them as sheep before I read the sign. So I'm learning :) Anyway, later that night a bunch of girls went out for a Diwali party. Diwali is the Indian festival of lights and my flatmate invited us all to a party that was happening at a club in Bournemouth. So we headed down to Bournemouth figuring we'd find an Indian restaurant to eat and then head to the club. We couldn't find an Indian restaurant near the club and the man we asked was unhelpful. He mostly just wanted us to eat at a Spanish or Portuguese resaurant. So we walked for a few minutes, but then decided just to head to the Italian restaurant that we had seen. It was called Pinnochio's and was ridiculous inside. Disney may sue if they find out about it ;) It was quite good though. I got lasagna, like always. It was really cheesy and delicious. Especially because I was starving. Everyone else enjoyed their food as well. When we were finished we headed to the club. There was hardly anyone there and the place never filled up. They were playing really repetitive house music and only played two Indian songs the entire night, despite being and Indian celebration. So I don't know what that was about, but it wasn't great. The night was fun overall, and waiting for the bus we met a lovely man who told us all kinds of touristy things that we have to do while we're here.
Saturday I spent the entire day reading. Then at night I went to the flat next door for curry and movie night. The curry was really good and the movies were okay. It was all girls so we watched rom-coms, of course. The Ugly Truth: not that good. Probably don't bother. It was fun overall though.
Today I meant to spend the whole day reading, but I got a call from a friend that there was an open house at the Lighthouse, which is the theater near my house. So I took a break from reading to go to that. We got a bunch of pamphlets about things going on there and then got to see a short concert of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. It was awesome. They perform every Wednesday night. So if I switch choirs I could go to their concerts. Its 50% off for students and they have 5 pound tickets if you do standby. After the concert we went and got coffee and then went to a shop for a couple people to look for water pitchers. While there though, I found my new pet. I've named him Theodore and he's a lovely, feathery, blue bird/pen. When we got back from shopping I got my reading done, found some more resources and feel very accomplished right now.
Other things from the week. On Saturday they sent us an email from our dorm telling us not to use the small light above our beds and desks. Then they sent a man around to take the lightbulbs. Apparently they are exploding and catching fire and they entire socket needs to be replaced. So in the meantime we have no lights in the living room and it is quite hard to read in the bedrooms as the overhead light is not very good. There is no timetable on when we will be getting new lights, but my assumption is 1-2 months if the trackrecord thus far stands. Not much incentive to get you to pay your rent.
On that note, I get to pick up my student loan refund check tomorrow!! The student loan checks came in dollars, so we had to turn them in and then the school had them switched to pounds and then they took tuition out of them. So I don't know how much I'm getting back, but I'll see tomorrow. Then I have to put it in the bank and then I can pay my rent here after the check clears. Which I hear takes 4 business days. So hopefully I'll have money by Friday. Then I can join the gym! Woo!
Well, I suppose that's all I've got. I'll keep you updated on my light situation because I know you'll be dying to know if I can study without getting eye strain or not. But hey, at least here if I get eye strain I can go to the doctor for free! Just gotta look on the bright side... Well then, until next week.
Anyway, Monday I had human anatomy once again. We are doing the cranium, which is actually quite hard. There are a lot of bones in the human skull with a lot of little parts that we must know. I also came down with some sort of bug on Monday. I may have actually started to get sick on Sunday, but I wasn't sure until Monday. After class I went straight home to bed and slept for most of the day. Then Tuesday I repeated the strategy. I think I had a fever that broke over Monday night and Tuesday was rough. I wasn't feeling quite as bad, but I hadn't slept well so it was very hard to concentrate during the lecture. We were learning about taphonomy, which is the process by which bones are changed after they come out of the animal, basically. Luckily I have a little experience with that from my work in Bolivia. So I'm not behind, but I need to spend more time in the lab this week to make up for it.
Wednesday I slept most of the day again and then headed to campus for choir rehearsal. It was fun, but I'm not sure about this choir. Sometimes I wonder how well the director reads music... I may try out the Tuesday night choir this week and see how that goes... After choir I met up with a friend to see a foreign film that was playing on campus. They didn't have the film that was advertised and ended up showing a Spanish film about the right to die. I wasn't too much of a fan.
Thursday I went to campus to spend some time in the labs. When I go to the human bone lab I really don't feel like I accomplish a whole lot since we're just left to do whatever we want. The animal lab is a lot better. My prof leaves tasks for us to do to learn the topic. This week it was looking at bones and identifying how they had been modified. She left a bag of samples of the different modification processes that happen.
Friday I was going to go back to campus, but it was icky out and it was my friend's birthday, so I went to the Poole museum with her instead. It was a very nice little museum of local history. And I felt accomplished because I saw some bones in a display and identified them as sheep before I read the sign. So I'm learning :) Anyway, later that night a bunch of girls went out for a Diwali party. Diwali is the Indian festival of lights and my flatmate invited us all to a party that was happening at a club in Bournemouth. So we headed down to Bournemouth figuring we'd find an Indian restaurant to eat and then head to the club. We couldn't find an Indian restaurant near the club and the man we asked was unhelpful. He mostly just wanted us to eat at a Spanish or Portuguese resaurant. So we walked for a few minutes, but then decided just to head to the Italian restaurant that we had seen. It was called Pinnochio's and was ridiculous inside. Disney may sue if they find out about it ;) It was quite good though. I got lasagna, like always. It was really cheesy and delicious. Especially because I was starving. Everyone else enjoyed their food as well. When we were finished we headed to the club. There was hardly anyone there and the place never filled up. They were playing really repetitive house music and only played two Indian songs the entire night, despite being and Indian celebration. So I don't know what that was about, but it wasn't great. The night was fun overall, and waiting for the bus we met a lovely man who told us all kinds of touristy things that we have to do while we're here.
Saturday I spent the entire day reading. Then at night I went to the flat next door for curry and movie night. The curry was really good and the movies were okay. It was all girls so we watched rom-coms, of course. The Ugly Truth: not that good. Probably don't bother. It was fun overall though.
Today I meant to spend the whole day reading, but I got a call from a friend that there was an open house at the Lighthouse, which is the theater near my house. So I took a break from reading to go to that. We got a bunch of pamphlets about things going on there and then got to see a short concert of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. It was awesome. They perform every Wednesday night. So if I switch choirs I could go to their concerts. Its 50% off for students and they have 5 pound tickets if you do standby. After the concert we went and got coffee and then went to a shop for a couple people to look for water pitchers. While there though, I found my new pet. I've named him Theodore and he's a lovely, feathery, blue bird/pen. When we got back from shopping I got my reading done, found some more resources and feel very accomplished right now.
Other things from the week. On Saturday they sent us an email from our dorm telling us not to use the small light above our beds and desks. Then they sent a man around to take the lightbulbs. Apparently they are exploding and catching fire and they entire socket needs to be replaced. So in the meantime we have no lights in the living room and it is quite hard to read in the bedrooms as the overhead light is not very good. There is no timetable on when we will be getting new lights, but my assumption is 1-2 months if the trackrecord thus far stands. Not much incentive to get you to pay your rent.
On that note, I get to pick up my student loan refund check tomorrow!! The student loan checks came in dollars, so we had to turn them in and then the school had them switched to pounds and then they took tuition out of them. So I don't know how much I'm getting back, but I'll see tomorrow. Then I have to put it in the bank and then I can pay my rent here after the check clears. Which I hear takes 4 business days. So hopefully I'll have money by Friday. Then I can join the gym! Woo!
Well, I suppose that's all I've got. I'll keep you updated on my light situation because I know you'll be dying to know if I can study without getting eye strain or not. But hey, at least here if I get eye strain I can go to the doctor for free! Just gotta look on the bright side... Well then, until next week.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Week 4
Wow, I can't believe that I'm starting my 4th week in England already. Dang! Time has gone by really fast. Not a whole lot to tell about this week, but I'll summarize it anyway.
I already did Monday in last week's entry, so Tuesday. I had my animal anatomy class on Tuesday morning. It was run a lot better than the human class. (In defense there are only 16 of us in animal anatomy and 56 in human) We got into groups and put together some animal skeletons. My group got a dog. Other groups had a cat, a sheep and a deer. We then compared and contrasted the skeletons of the different animals. Mostly carnivore versus herbivore, but also some differences within the categories. We have pretty much free range in this lab as we are the only class using it. We have the door code so we can go in whenever we want to work with the bones. The human lab is much more restricted because there are a lot of forensics classes here that need to work with those skeletons.
So on Wednesday I didn't have any classes, but I planned to join the choir, which meets at 5pm. I went to campus early and went to the animal bone lab for awhile to do some of the work that our prof had left for us. It was actually pretty easy and I felt good about it, but sheep are a lot like llamas, which I spent weeks working with in Bolivia a few summers ago, so we'll see how other species go when we get there. Then I headed off to choir rehearsal. They didn't have enough copies of the music because they didn't expect so many people to show up and then they gave us just the words to one song and no music. So that was odd, but it was fun overall and I'm planning to go back this week.
Then on Thursday I went with some other girls to the human bone lab to work on that for awhile. We used a plaster skeleton so that we could see how all of the parts are suppose to look when they are whole. It was good to get an overview, but I'm pretty sure we're starting with the skull this week, which will be really hard. There are so many bones that compose the skull its ridiculous. Ah well, I'm sure I'll learn it. After being in the lab for about 2 hours I went to the library to get some more books to read over the weekend. I have checked out my limit of 12 books. I feel so student-like. I haven't even opened most of them yet, but I have them and that's what counts I think ;)
On Friday I didn't go in to campus at all. It was raining again, as it had been every day this week, and I didn't have anything that I needed to do there, so I stayed home and read some of my books and colored some pictures of human bones so that they are easier to reference.
On Saturday we had "Canadian Thanksgiving" Apparently Canada has Thanksgiving this Monday and there are two Canadians that live down the hall so they invited everyone over for a feast. I brought green bean casserole and an apple pie. We also had stuffing, two turkeys, home made gravy, sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes, salad and mixed veg. It was really good. After dinner we went to Bournemouth to go dancing. As most of you know, usually I wouldn't dance, but I figured I needed to get out of the house and I'm sure work is going to start coming in this week so there will be far less fun to be had after this weekend.
Today I slept late and then had to run and get a birthday present for my friend whose birthday is today. We're having a party for her at 1. Then tonight I'm cooking dinner for my flatmates. One has the flu, so she won't be able to eat, but the others should be around. If not, I'll just eat it myself :) I'm making stuffed chicken breasts, salad and ice cream sundaes since Two Rivers, WI is the home of the ice cream sundae.
On a funny note: My flatmate was going to visit his girlfriend this weekend. So he left on Friday night, but when he went to put gas in his car he put diesel instead of petrol. So he didn't get to leave on Friday. He ended up leaving Saturday, but I really didn't get an explanation of how that happened. Its not like he just got the car.
Well, I guess that's all I have for this week. Shoot me a comment on here or an email. I'd love to hear from you. Until then...
I already did Monday in last week's entry, so Tuesday. I had my animal anatomy class on Tuesday morning. It was run a lot better than the human class. (In defense there are only 16 of us in animal anatomy and 56 in human) We got into groups and put together some animal skeletons. My group got a dog. Other groups had a cat, a sheep and a deer. We then compared and contrasted the skeletons of the different animals. Mostly carnivore versus herbivore, but also some differences within the categories. We have pretty much free range in this lab as we are the only class using it. We have the door code so we can go in whenever we want to work with the bones. The human lab is much more restricted because there are a lot of forensics classes here that need to work with those skeletons.
So on Wednesday I didn't have any classes, but I planned to join the choir, which meets at 5pm. I went to campus early and went to the animal bone lab for awhile to do some of the work that our prof had left for us. It was actually pretty easy and I felt good about it, but sheep are a lot like llamas, which I spent weeks working with in Bolivia a few summers ago, so we'll see how other species go when we get there. Then I headed off to choir rehearsal. They didn't have enough copies of the music because they didn't expect so many people to show up and then they gave us just the words to one song and no music. So that was odd, but it was fun overall and I'm planning to go back this week.
Then on Thursday I went with some other girls to the human bone lab to work on that for awhile. We used a plaster skeleton so that we could see how all of the parts are suppose to look when they are whole. It was good to get an overview, but I'm pretty sure we're starting with the skull this week, which will be really hard. There are so many bones that compose the skull its ridiculous. Ah well, I'm sure I'll learn it. After being in the lab for about 2 hours I went to the library to get some more books to read over the weekend. I have checked out my limit of 12 books. I feel so student-like. I haven't even opened most of them yet, but I have them and that's what counts I think ;)
On Friday I didn't go in to campus at all. It was raining again, as it had been every day this week, and I didn't have anything that I needed to do there, so I stayed home and read some of my books and colored some pictures of human bones so that they are easier to reference.
On Saturday we had "Canadian Thanksgiving" Apparently Canada has Thanksgiving this Monday and there are two Canadians that live down the hall so they invited everyone over for a feast. I brought green bean casserole and an apple pie. We also had stuffing, two turkeys, home made gravy, sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes, salad and mixed veg. It was really good. After dinner we went to Bournemouth to go dancing. As most of you know, usually I wouldn't dance, but I figured I needed to get out of the house and I'm sure work is going to start coming in this week so there will be far less fun to be had after this weekend.
Today I slept late and then had to run and get a birthday present for my friend whose birthday is today. We're having a party for her at 1. Then tonight I'm cooking dinner for my flatmates. One has the flu, so she won't be able to eat, but the others should be around. If not, I'll just eat it myself :) I'm making stuffed chicken breasts, salad and ice cream sundaes since Two Rivers, WI is the home of the ice cream sundae.
On a funny note: My flatmate was going to visit his girlfriend this weekend. So he left on Friday night, but when he went to put gas in his car he put diesel instead of petrol. So he didn't get to leave on Friday. He ended up leaving Saturday, but I really didn't get an explanation of how that happened. Its not like he just got the car.
Well, I guess that's all I have for this week. Shoot me a comment on here or an email. I'd love to hear from you. Until then...
Monday, October 5, 2009
New Week
So I'm going to try to update this on Sundays from here on out. Obviously today is not Sunday, but its close enough. Last update was Thursday....what has happened since then....well, I had a bunch of lectures on Friday about not plagiarizing and no using websites as source in our dissertations. It was pretty lame. Then we learned about this really cool thing called digimap, where you can make maps of your site with multiple layers of information that can be added and subtracted just like those really nice ones in real research papers. We did actually learn how to use it though, so it was a bit of a bust really. If I end up needing to use it I'll have to go in and get some tutoring on it. I've already decided that I'm going to a class to learn excel. I'm going to be a master at excel by the time I'm through here. Friday night a few of us stayed in a watched bad dance movies and drank boxed wine...
Saturday I didn't do a whole lot of anything. That night another American brought beer pong to the Brits and we played in someone's flat. Then I met another group of girls and we went out for awhile. Then we ended up meeting up with the other group at the pub that's near our dorm. Its weird how small Poole is despite how many people live here.
Sunday we had a delicious Indian meal prepared by my flatmate Baitilikee. I helped with the prep and had to grate ginger and onions. Grating onions is just about the worst experience that you can imagine. Don't ever do it if you can help it. The food was great though. I can't tell you what we ate because I don't know how to spell one and I don't know what the other dish was called.
Today was my first day of real class. I had a human anatomy lecture followed by a human anatomy lab. Today was pretty much intro stuff, so we got a skeleton and had to put it together. I was pretty unequipped to do that, but luckily my groupmates were pretty good. After that I found a book that someone else recommended in the library and have marked all of the pages with pictures that I need to make photocopies of. I want to just purchase the book, but its super expensive, so its copies for me. Oh well. A few of us are going back to the lab on Thursday to work on bone identification, so I'll have to get my copies made for then so that I can use them. I think I'm going to be spending a lot of time in that lab. But it will be worth it. I think the human bone stuff will be a good selling point on my resume even if I'm mostly focused on animal bones in my thesis. And really compared to the animal anatomy that I start tomorrow, the human stuff should be a breeze. You already know that its human when you start. With an animal it could be a lot of things.
Some random observations of England: The elevator in our dorm talks to us. It has a lovely girly voice that tells us "Doors opening" "Doors closing" "5th floor" and so on and so forth. Then there are the traffic lights. These are great. They have green for go, yellow for slow down and red for stop, but then just before the light turns green again, the yellow light comes on along with the red one so that people can prepare to go. I think its brilliant. We can also use a variety of coins in the wash and dry machines. Pound coins, 50p, 20p, and 10p. Much better than having to collect a million of one type of coin like we do in America.
Some other things: I eat pretty much the same things that I ate at home. Cereal or toast for breakfast, sandwich for lunch, fruit, veggies. I found real dressing, so that's cool. I haven't had fish and chips yet since being here, so that's crazy since we're right on the sea, but I have plenty of time for that. If you have any other things you want to know I'll be happy to answer. But I suppose that's all for now. I'll try to update again next Sunday. Until then...
Saturday I didn't do a whole lot of anything. That night another American brought beer pong to the Brits and we played in someone's flat. Then I met another group of girls and we went out for awhile. Then we ended up meeting up with the other group at the pub that's near our dorm. Its weird how small Poole is despite how many people live here.
Sunday we had a delicious Indian meal prepared by my flatmate Baitilikee. I helped with the prep and had to grate ginger and onions. Grating onions is just about the worst experience that you can imagine. Don't ever do it if you can help it. The food was great though. I can't tell you what we ate because I don't know how to spell one and I don't know what the other dish was called.
Today was my first day of real class. I had a human anatomy lecture followed by a human anatomy lab. Today was pretty much intro stuff, so we got a skeleton and had to put it together. I was pretty unequipped to do that, but luckily my groupmates were pretty good. After that I found a book that someone else recommended in the library and have marked all of the pages with pictures that I need to make photocopies of. I want to just purchase the book, but its super expensive, so its copies for me. Oh well. A few of us are going back to the lab on Thursday to work on bone identification, so I'll have to get my copies made for then so that I can use them. I think I'm going to be spending a lot of time in that lab. But it will be worth it. I think the human bone stuff will be a good selling point on my resume even if I'm mostly focused on animal bones in my thesis. And really compared to the animal anatomy that I start tomorrow, the human stuff should be a breeze. You already know that its human when you start. With an animal it could be a lot of things.
Some random observations of England: The elevator in our dorm talks to us. It has a lovely girly voice that tells us "Doors opening" "Doors closing" "5th floor" and so on and so forth. Then there are the traffic lights. These are great. They have green for go, yellow for slow down and red for stop, but then just before the light turns green again, the yellow light comes on along with the red one so that people can prepare to go. I think its brilliant. We can also use a variety of coins in the wash and dry machines. Pound coins, 50p, 20p, and 10p. Much better than having to collect a million of one type of coin like we do in America.
Some other things: I eat pretty much the same things that I ate at home. Cereal or toast for breakfast, sandwich for lunch, fruit, veggies. I found real dressing, so that's cool. I haven't had fish and chips yet since being here, so that's crazy since we're right on the sea, but I have plenty of time for that. If you have any other things you want to know I'll be happy to answer. But I suppose that's all for now. I'll try to update again next Sunday. Until then...
Thursday, October 1, 2009
School...
So I've officially been enrolled in school. There is no escaping. I have cashed the loan checks and gotten my student ID card. Monday we had to go in at 9am and listen to a bunch of induction lectures. Most were quite useless, but at least a whole bunch of us were in it together. That afternoon we actually enrolled. That entailed standing in endless lines, getting a photo taken, having to show all of my qualifications again and showing my passport and visa. Then they gave me my counsel tax exemption form (which I'm not sure what I have to do with) and my student ID. Very exciting. Then we met with our program leaders. My leader is Ellie Hambleton, who is a zooarchaeologist. She is very nice and I've been communicating with her since January or so when I was first accepted. We were also introduced to Mark Maltby, another zooarchaeologist and Martin Smith, a forensic archaeologist/human osteoarchaeologist. They told us a bit about the program and what to expect from classes and the codes to some of the bone rooms so that we could go in on our own time to work. We then were assigned our personal tutors. Mine was Mark and I was a bit trepidatious because he seemed a bit gruff. But then I had a one on one meeting with him on Tuesday afternoon and he actually turned out to be quite nice. Although I think he's a bit worried about my lack of experience writing research papers since undergrads here have to write a big paper to graduate. Ah well, I'll show him that I can do it :)
Tuesday I had more lectures in the morning and then hung around in the library and computer lab waiting for my meeting with Mark. I ended up reading an article in Latin American Antiquity. Woo! The library is crazy because, while they have an elevator, it says its reserved for handicapped people. So since archaeology is on the 4th floor, I have a lot of walking to do. Especially because floors here go: ground, 1st, 2nd, etc. Crazy Europeans!
Then Wednesday was our osteoarchaeology trip to Stonehenge. I'd been there before, but it was cool to get to see it again and hear about it from people who really know the archaeology of the area and aren't going to spread crazy conspiracy theories about it. We also walked out to the area beyond the henge and looked at the barrows where people were being buried about concurrently with Stonehenge. Some of them are earlier though. There is also a huge mound back there that is 100 meters across and I think about 1.5 km long. It was built before stonehenge and no one knows what it would have been used for. Very odd, but very cool. Then we went to Woodhenge, which is a lesser known henge a few km from stonehenge. There is also a huge earthen ring there which must have been about .5 miles in diameter in which they are finding neolithic house structures. Which apparently is unheard of in Britain, so its pretty cool. They are also finding a ton of pig bone, which is again odd because cows were the main animal in Britain at the time. This is all being done by the Stonehenge Riverside Project, so they are also excavating by the river Avon (?) and have found evidence of people being down there as well. They hypothesize that people where living within the circle near woodhenge (wood representing the living) and then going to stonehenge for ceremonies and to bury the dead (stone representing death). They would have been making this trek via the river and a pathway that connects stonehenge to the river. I've seen a show on discovery or history about it, so you may have seen it as well. Woodhenge itself is very odd. After excavating and finding where the postholes that would have held the wooden pole were, they put in short cement posts to represent them. It makes for quite the odd spectacle. There was also a burial of a child found in the center of the circles, but not directly in the center. It is undetermined if the child was buried before or after the rings were built. After all that we went to the museum in Salisbury where many Stonehenge artifacts are kept. We got to see some of the human skeletons that have been excavated over the years from the area and talked to another guys who has worked in the area, but also works for commercial companies doing archaeology. So that was quite cool. Then we finally went home and everyone was exhausted. It was a long, but very informative and exciting day.
Today I had the entire day off, so I slept in a bit and then got my laundry done. Thank god, because I've been wearing semi dirty clothes for days. Then I went out with my Canadian friend Danielle to get her a cell phone. When we got down to the high street there was an entire farmer's market going on all up and down the street it was amazing. So after we got her a phone we bought sausages with cheese and then moved on to jacket potatoes. The sausages were basically just hotdogs with a slice of cheese in the bun. Pretty good, but nothing spectacular. The jacket potatoes were backed potatoes broken open and covered with chili. The I added coleslaw to mine and Danielle had cheese on hers. They were really good, but I couldn't eat the whole thing having already eaten the sausage. Apparently this fair is every Thursday and Saturday, so we'll definitely be back. They also had things besides food, but since we're both waiting for loan money we didn't shop much.
After we got home I decided to try to track down the package that I had mailed to myself before I left. The tracking number said that it had arrived in Poole, but I never got a slip telling me where to pick it up. So I asked at the front desk and they told me to try the post office or the sorting office. I went to the sorting office first, but it was closed already, so I tried the post office. The lady there told me that I had to contact the USPS and find out where the package was. She also gave me the name of another company that does shipping in the UK. So I checked that website and found my package. I thought it was at a location about 2 miles away, so I scheduled a redelivery. But then a woman from that company called and said that the package was at the post office just down the street. So I had to go back there again. The first woman apologized for making me do all that, but she didn't know. So thankfully I now have all my office supplies, shoes and running clothes. Its about time.
And that has been my week thus far. Tomorrow I have more lectures and Monday starts actual class. Although I only have 2 classes and they only meet on Monday and Tuesday, so it won't exactly be hardcore, but I think I will be spending a lot of time in the library and bone labs, so I'll be on campus much more often than that. I'll let you know how it goes. Later!
Tuesday I had more lectures in the morning and then hung around in the library and computer lab waiting for my meeting with Mark. I ended up reading an article in Latin American Antiquity. Woo! The library is crazy because, while they have an elevator, it says its reserved for handicapped people. So since archaeology is on the 4th floor, I have a lot of walking to do. Especially because floors here go: ground, 1st, 2nd, etc. Crazy Europeans!
Then Wednesday was our osteoarchaeology trip to Stonehenge. I'd been there before, but it was cool to get to see it again and hear about it from people who really know the archaeology of the area and aren't going to spread crazy conspiracy theories about it. We also walked out to the area beyond the henge and looked at the barrows where people were being buried about concurrently with Stonehenge. Some of them are earlier though. There is also a huge mound back there that is 100 meters across and I think about 1.5 km long. It was built before stonehenge and no one knows what it would have been used for. Very odd, but very cool. Then we went to Woodhenge, which is a lesser known henge a few km from stonehenge. There is also a huge earthen ring there which must have been about .5 miles in diameter in which they are finding neolithic house structures. Which apparently is unheard of in Britain, so its pretty cool. They are also finding a ton of pig bone, which is again odd because cows were the main animal in Britain at the time. This is all being done by the Stonehenge Riverside Project, so they are also excavating by the river Avon (?) and have found evidence of people being down there as well. They hypothesize that people where living within the circle near woodhenge (wood representing the living) and then going to stonehenge for ceremonies and to bury the dead (stone representing death). They would have been making this trek via the river and a pathway that connects stonehenge to the river. I've seen a show on discovery or history about it, so you may have seen it as well. Woodhenge itself is very odd. After excavating and finding where the postholes that would have held the wooden pole were, they put in short cement posts to represent them. It makes for quite the odd spectacle. There was also a burial of a child found in the center of the circles, but not directly in the center. It is undetermined if the child was buried before or after the rings were built. After all that we went to the museum in Salisbury where many Stonehenge artifacts are kept. We got to see some of the human skeletons that have been excavated over the years from the area and talked to another guys who has worked in the area, but also works for commercial companies doing archaeology. So that was quite cool. Then we finally went home and everyone was exhausted. It was a long, but very informative and exciting day.
Today I had the entire day off, so I slept in a bit and then got my laundry done. Thank god, because I've been wearing semi dirty clothes for days. Then I went out with my Canadian friend Danielle to get her a cell phone. When we got down to the high street there was an entire farmer's market going on all up and down the street it was amazing. So after we got her a phone we bought sausages with cheese and then moved on to jacket potatoes. The sausages were basically just hotdogs with a slice of cheese in the bun. Pretty good, but nothing spectacular. The jacket potatoes were backed potatoes broken open and covered with chili. The I added coleslaw to mine and Danielle had cheese on hers. They were really good, but I couldn't eat the whole thing having already eaten the sausage. Apparently this fair is every Thursday and Saturday, so we'll definitely be back. They also had things besides food, but since we're both waiting for loan money we didn't shop much.
After we got home I decided to try to track down the package that I had mailed to myself before I left. The tracking number said that it had arrived in Poole, but I never got a slip telling me where to pick it up. So I asked at the front desk and they told me to try the post office or the sorting office. I went to the sorting office first, but it was closed already, so I tried the post office. The lady there told me that I had to contact the USPS and find out where the package was. She also gave me the name of another company that does shipping in the UK. So I checked that website and found my package. I thought it was at a location about 2 miles away, so I scheduled a redelivery. But then a woman from that company called and said that the package was at the post office just down the street. So I had to go back there again. The first woman apologized for making me do all that, but she didn't know. So thankfully I now have all my office supplies, shoes and running clothes. Its about time.
And that has been my week thus far. Tomorrow I have more lectures and Monday starts actual class. Although I only have 2 classes and they only meet on Monday and Tuesday, so it won't exactly be hardcore, but I think I will be spending a lot of time in the library and bone labs, so I'll be on campus much more often than that. I'll let you know how it goes. Later!
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