Well, this was a rather interesting week. I don't have any photos as there was nothing particularly spectacular that happened, but a lot of things were going on. Monday was assignment hand-in. My paper got finished and I think it was pretty good despite not having many tables and figures. I didn't feel like it needed them, but it sounds like everyone else had a lot of them, so hopefully it's okay. Then we had classes as usual. We had a guest lecturer who talked about mass burials that she has excavated in the Andes. She was talking about how to go about this since people are strew on top of each other and you want to keep the bones of individuals together. Many of the burials in that cemetery were also inserted into the tomb as mummy bundles so as they decomposed the bones fell in different directions so you had to be careful about whose bones were whose. It was very cool. Then when we showed up to lab at 1, our prof announced that the forensic people had a lecture at 2 that had been rescheduled. Now, I can understand having to reschedule a lecture, but the forensic people are in my lab and the various lab times run from 1-4. The program leader scheduling a lecture in the middle of another teacher's class seems pretty bad form. And then making that person announce it. Wow.
Tuesday we didn't have class in the morning but had to go in at 11 to prepare for our day of teaching the first years on Wed. The first years were going to have a day where they went around to different little teaching stations and learned how to do archaeology stuff. They spent a half hour at each session and there were nine groups. So it was an all day thing and there are only 2 zooarch profs and there were 4 sessions for zooarch so a few of my classmates and I volunteered to help out. Later on Tuesday we did have class and then headed to Bournemouth to hang out until the International Bazaar started later. We were meant to be studying for our test on Monday, but mostly just watched cricket and chatted. We finally headed to the bazaar and it wasn't anything good. A few booths of random stuff and they were having music, but there was no where to sit. So we left pretty quickly. From there we headed to The Goat and Tricycle, a little pub that my classmate knew about. It was very nice and they had a selection of random beers from small breweries. So that was a fun but unproductive night.
Wednesday we did the teaching. Me and Stine were teaching metrics, which is measuring different parts of the bone and then doing some simple calculations to find out things about the animals the bones came from. I was teaching withers heights of sheep. So we were measuring the length of various sheep bones and then converting those measurements to shoulder heights of sheep. Stine was teaching cattle size. You have to measure the cattle metacarpal and then look at an index to see if it is cow, steer or bull. We were pretty nervous, but it actually went really well. Half the first years didn't show up, but the ones that did were generally pretty good.
Thursday I had a scholar's reception to go to in the evening, but I needed to go to lab for awhile to study for my exam. So I ended up deciding to go to lab dressed up so I didn't have to come back home before going to the reception (which I felt that I had to attend because they gave me a scholarship to come to school here). So I felt like a bit of a tool. Oh well. On the bus into Bournemouth for the reception I met one of my friends from Corfe who was also going so I was very relieved to know someone. When we got there they gave us a certificate and a medal. So that was weird. But it turned out they were for the photo session that they did later. So mostly it was a publicity thing for them to put up pics on the website, but they had drinks and small foods, so it was okay.
Friday I had class in the morning and then a meeting with my adviser about my dissertation. Then I spent a few hours in lab looking at bones and not really making much progress in knowing what diseases they had. They have boxes of diseased bone to look at, but all of the bones are mislabeled, so it is really frustrating to try to learn stuff. Then Friday night we went to the Slug and Lettuce to drink red wine and study. We did get some studying done, but spent a lot of the time talking, so it was nice.
Yesterday I went to the lab again for a couple of hours. Then I came home, got fish and chips and hung out in my room alternately studying and watching tv. Later my friend came over with a birthday present which was a chocolate covered scorpion and a vodka sucker with a scorpion in it. I haven't eaten either yet, but I kind of want to. I'm debating it.
Today I don't have much going on. More studying and that's probably all. Perhaps a trip to the grocery store, but I'm leaving for London on Thursday and won't be back until Saturday so I don't need all that much food for the week. Well, I suppose that's all I have. Have a good week and talk to you later.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Stress and More Stress
Well, I was really late last week, so this week I'm going to be really early. It's technically Sunday here already, despite what the time-stamp on this is going to tell you. So Monday was officially my birthday. We didn't start class until late because we were having a guest lecturer come in. So I got to sleep in and have a leisurely morning of eating breakfast and opening presents. I got some new ranch dressing from mom and a really pretty bracelet and I got a book from my godmother. Then as I was sitting at my desk my phone rang and it was the front desk ringing me to tell me that the mailman was there with a package for me. This was a miracle in itself because they never call us to tell us when we have a package. They always just tell the mail person to leave a card and then we have to go to the post office to pick it up. So anyway, I got a package from Grandma on my actual birthday, which was really exciting. And she got me a really pretty pair of silver earrings. Eventually I headed off to class and we had our guest lecture on infectious disease. Pretty interesting. But after that I had to start working on the assignment that was due on Friday. Luckily a good portion of it was done as we had been working on it in class, but since I hadn't done anything the week before I was a bit stressed about it. So I worked for most of the afternoon and evening and then my flatmates made me a chicken dinner and got me a cake, so all in all I had a really nice birthday. So thanks everybody :)
Tuesday we had class as usual. Nothing particularly interesting there. Wednesday I went to school and spent a few hours working on my assignment again. Then I had it pretty much finished by Wednesday evening I think. I just had to go back to school and edit and burn a CD on Thursday to be able to turn it in.
But that didn't end the stress because we have another assignment due on Monday that none of us had really started as of Friday. So at least we were all in the same boat, but that didn't make any less shitty of a boat. To be fair, we had given a presentation a couple weeks ago and this is just a paper based on that, so a lot of the research was already done, but there was more to do and a lot of collating to do. So after class on Friday I spent the rest of the day on campus and then worked for a little while when I got home.
Saturday was very cool. I went to a conference in Weymouth, which is a town about an hour to the west. They are putting in a road for use during the 2012 Olympics and while they were digging it they found a burial pit of 55 bodies that had been beheaded and 51 heads. They also excavated some sites from other time periods before the road went through, but their main draw was the burial pit. I actually thought that the Iron Age site they talked about was more interesting, as they had structures there as well as burials, but everyone else mostly just wanted to hear about the pit. So they just got the isotope and dating info back and it turns out that the people in the pit were probably viking raiders during the Saxon period. They also seem to have been thrown into the pit naked after having their heads chopped off with a sword. Some heads are missing so they speculate that they were probably taken away as trophies or put up on spikes or something. It was funny how everyone in the audience was suddenly an expert archaeologist when the question/answer session started. All kinds of suggestions about who they were and how/why they were killed. One man was also quite insistent that they try to perform DNA analysis on them despite that fact that the researchers told him that it would serve no real purpose at this point because the isotope analysis has already told us that they are from all over Scandinavia and therefore, unlikely to be related to each other.
We walked around Weymouth a bit during our lunch break. It's a really cute seaside town, but it was kind of rainy today, so it wasn't at its best. I'll be going back sometime when it's nice to see it in a better light. We got home about 6 and I worked on my paper all night. It is in a very rough draft right now, but it's technically finished. So I'm off to bed now. No new pictures this week, but here's the link to the ones that I got up late last week. Hope to hear from you all soon!
Tuesday we had class as usual. Nothing particularly interesting there. Wednesday I went to school and spent a few hours working on my assignment again. Then I had it pretty much finished by Wednesday evening I think. I just had to go back to school and edit and burn a CD on Thursday to be able to turn it in.
But that didn't end the stress because we have another assignment due on Monday that none of us had really started as of Friday. So at least we were all in the same boat, but that didn't make any less shitty of a boat. To be fair, we had given a presentation a couple weeks ago and this is just a paper based on that, so a lot of the research was already done, but there was more to do and a lot of collating to do. So after class on Friday I spent the rest of the day on campus and then worked for a little while when I got home.
Saturday was very cool. I went to a conference in Weymouth, which is a town about an hour to the west. They are putting in a road for use during the 2012 Olympics and while they were digging it they found a burial pit of 55 bodies that had been beheaded and 51 heads. They also excavated some sites from other time periods before the road went through, but their main draw was the burial pit. I actually thought that the Iron Age site they talked about was more interesting, as they had structures there as well as burials, but everyone else mostly just wanted to hear about the pit. So they just got the isotope and dating info back and it turns out that the people in the pit were probably viking raiders during the Saxon period. They also seem to have been thrown into the pit naked after having their heads chopped off with a sword. Some heads are missing so they speculate that they were probably taken away as trophies or put up on spikes or something. It was funny how everyone in the audience was suddenly an expert archaeologist when the question/answer session started. All kinds of suggestions about who they were and how/why they were killed. One man was also quite insistent that they try to perform DNA analysis on them despite that fact that the researchers told him that it would serve no real purpose at this point because the isotope analysis has already told us that they are from all over Scandinavia and therefore, unlikely to be related to each other.
We walked around Weymouth a bit during our lunch break. It's a really cute seaside town, but it was kind of rainy today, so it wasn't at its best. I'll be going back sometime when it's nice to see it in a better light. We got home about 6 and I worked on my paper all night. It is in a very rough draft right now, but it's technically finished. So I'm off to bed now. No new pictures this week, but here's the link to the ones that I got up late last week. Hope to hear from you all soon!
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Birthday Weekend
Sorry this is so late this week. I've been very tired today. I also don't have any of the pictures from the week up yet so you'll have to wait until next week for those. So let's get to it. Monday we classes as usual. More bone diseases to look at. Then on Tuesday we moved our afternoon class to the morning because our professors had to go to a meeting in the evening and had to leave early to be able to get there. In my second class we looked at animal teeth and discussed how we could use loose teeth to think about animal ageing even though we usually try to work with teeth that are still in the jaw. So that was interesting to think about and gave another source of at least partial information when trying to find out something about the assemblage you are looking at. Having class in the morning left the whole afternoon free, so I managed to to almost nothing as we don't have another assignment due until the 19th. I did go to the grocery store and get the last of the ingredients for my BBQ night though. Wednesday morning I went to see Alice in Wonderland with a couple of my friends. It was pretty good. Not the best movie I've ever seen, but entertaining. What was even more entertaining was that while we were on the bus, we stopped to let someone off. Then as she was going out the door, a man from the back of the bus got up and went speed walking up the length of the bus, got off and continued speed walking up the sidewalk. It was just so abrupt. Everyone still on the bus was staring at him through the windows. It was very strange and very hilarious. After the movie I came home and started cooking the meat for BBQ night. I cooked a pork roast and a chicken. I also made coleslaw, baked beans, brussel sprouts and crescent rolls. It turned out pretty great. I had southern bbq sauce and some regular bbq sauce and I converted the British baked beans (which are in a tomatoey sauce that isn't sweet) into American style ones by adding brown sugar and mustard. The pork didn't pull as nicely as I had hoped, but the chicken turned out wonderfully. I cooked it in one of those oven bags and it was just falling apart. Amazing. I made way too much food though and still have some of it in my fridge.
Thursday I went shopping for a dress to wear out on my birthday. I found a really nice one for that and I also found 2 others that I really liked so I ended up with 3, but 2 of them were on sale, so that worked out well. Plus I have some things that I have to go to in the next couple of weeks that require dresses, so I'll get to use them. After shopping I tried to get some work done, but I have just been really unmotivated all week.
Friday I had class in the morning and we had a guest lecturer who is a PhD student at the university. She helps out in our human lab and really knows her stuff. She lectured on the use of DNA and isotopes in archaeology and how they are starting to help us look at things from a different perspective than was possible in the past. It's funny to think that we can do these kinds of tests now and people in the past could never have even dreamed of such things. Makes you wonder what kind of stuff will be thought up in the future and how much of that info we will have destroyed with our current excavation and curation methods. I stayed after lecture and got some reading and writing done for some assignments. Then I came home and my Indian flatmate Baitalikee was watching cricket because the big Indian cricket tournament was starting. So I watched that with her and learned a bit about how it works. I wouldn't say I'm an expert, but at least I have a basic idea now. It was actually pretty cool. Her team started off really badly, but ended up winning the game. Then they won again today. For dinner on Friday Stine and Sytske made taco pie. It was pretty tastey. Then I went to the weekly beer pong tournament for awhile. There was hardly anyone there this week so I didn't stay super long, but it was fun.
Saturday was my birthday celebration day so I did pretty much nothing once again. I did have to go to the store to buy alcohol though. I had tried to go on Friday, but when I showed my license at the store they told me it wasn't a form of ID that they recognized and wouldn't sell to me. So I was really pissed and walked out of the store without buying anything. So Saturday I went to a different store and bought the same alcohol. They also IDed me but didn't say anything about my license. On my way home a lady stopped me and asked if I wanted to taste-test yogurt. I said sure and ended up trying chocolate flavored yogurts. It was pretty interesting. And I got a pen for participating.
That night we had a party in my flat with cake and presents and then went out to Bournemouth. We went to a club called V that is in a church. They sold the church at some point and rather than knocking it down and building something new, they just took out the pews and put in a bar. So it was kind of weird because it still looks like a church and you're in there drinking and dancing. We got there really early, so it wasn't that fun at first, but it got better as more people showed up. But then there were a couple of huge fights and the bouncers had to drag people out of the club. So, while it was an interesting experience it is not one that I will be repeating. The music wasn't that good and some of the people were kind of creepy. After we left we walked up to another club to meet someone and while we were waiting I got a kebab, which is meat sliced up in a pita with some veggies on top. And you usually eat it with a fork because it's too messy to pick up. British people usually only eat them when drunk, but I think they're really good and would eat one anytime, even though that is uncool :) Then we caught the night bus home and made it in by about 3:30 or so.
Today I've been doing nothing mostly. I have worked on my database a bit, but haven't made the progress that I thought I would. I keep doing things and then realizing that I want to change them so I have to start again. It's getting a bit annoying, but it will be worth it when I actually have to use the database if I take the time now to make it really easy to input data. So that was my week. I was too lazy to put up pics today so I'll have them for you next week. Have a good one! Actually, here they are if you are just reading this :)
Thursday I went shopping for a dress to wear out on my birthday. I found a really nice one for that and I also found 2 others that I really liked so I ended up with 3, but 2 of them were on sale, so that worked out well. Plus I have some things that I have to go to in the next couple of weeks that require dresses, so I'll get to use them. After shopping I tried to get some work done, but I have just been really unmotivated all week.
Friday I had class in the morning and we had a guest lecturer who is a PhD student at the university. She helps out in our human lab and really knows her stuff. She lectured on the use of DNA and isotopes in archaeology and how they are starting to help us look at things from a different perspective than was possible in the past. It's funny to think that we can do these kinds of tests now and people in the past could never have even dreamed of such things. Makes you wonder what kind of stuff will be thought up in the future and how much of that info we will have destroyed with our current excavation and curation methods. I stayed after lecture and got some reading and writing done for some assignments. Then I came home and my Indian flatmate Baitalikee was watching cricket because the big Indian cricket tournament was starting. So I watched that with her and learned a bit about how it works. I wouldn't say I'm an expert, but at least I have a basic idea now. It was actually pretty cool. Her team started off really badly, but ended up winning the game. Then they won again today. For dinner on Friday Stine and Sytske made taco pie. It was pretty tastey. Then I went to the weekly beer pong tournament for awhile. There was hardly anyone there this week so I didn't stay super long, but it was fun.
Saturday was my birthday celebration day so I did pretty much nothing once again. I did have to go to the store to buy alcohol though. I had tried to go on Friday, but when I showed my license at the store they told me it wasn't a form of ID that they recognized and wouldn't sell to me. So I was really pissed and walked out of the store without buying anything. So Saturday I went to a different store and bought the same alcohol. They also IDed me but didn't say anything about my license. On my way home a lady stopped me and asked if I wanted to taste-test yogurt. I said sure and ended up trying chocolate flavored yogurts. It was pretty interesting. And I got a pen for participating.
That night we had a party in my flat with cake and presents and then went out to Bournemouth. We went to a club called V that is in a church. They sold the church at some point and rather than knocking it down and building something new, they just took out the pews and put in a bar. So it was kind of weird because it still looks like a church and you're in there drinking and dancing. We got there really early, so it wasn't that fun at first, but it got better as more people showed up. But then there were a couple of huge fights and the bouncers had to drag people out of the club. So, while it was an interesting experience it is not one that I will be repeating. The music wasn't that good and some of the people were kind of creepy. After we left we walked up to another club to meet someone and while we were waiting I got a kebab, which is meat sliced up in a pita with some veggies on top. And you usually eat it with a fork because it's too messy to pick up. British people usually only eat them when drunk, but I think they're really good and would eat one anytime, even though that is uncool :) Then we caught the night bus home and made it in by about 3:30 or so.
Today I've been doing nothing mostly. I have worked on my database a bit, but haven't made the progress that I thought I would. I keep doing things and then realizing that I want to change them so I have to start again. It's getting a bit annoying, but it will be worth it when I actually have to use the database if I take the time now to make it really easy to input data. So that was my week. I was too lazy to put up pics today so I'll have them for you next week. Have a good one! Actually, here they are if you are just reading this :)
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Sun!!
Well, yet another week has passed and it's finally getting nice out! It has been sunny almost every day this week and in the upper 40s. Everyone has been in pretty good spirits due to this :)
So on Monday I turned in my research proposal. It wasn't my best work, but I did what I could with the information that I could find and get ahold of about the topic. Hopefully I do okay and the idea at least is good. We also had class on Monday. We were continuing with diseases that leave marks on bone. There was one disease that makes extra bone form in the marrow cavities of your long bones so the bones get really heavy. I wondered if this caused you to become anemic, but my teacher said no, in adults red blood cells are mostly produced in flat bones like the pelvis and skull. So if you get really severely anemic as an adult your body may expand the bone in your forehead really high in order to be able to produce more cells. We also looked at bone scars from severe sinus infections. And the lab assistant told us that your sinuses can't drain until they are completely filled because the hole is at the top. So if you have a cold you should stand on your head to drain your sinuses.
Tuesday we had a troubleshooting session for the database that we are making to record our bone assemblage. We are using Microsoft Access, which I had never even heard of before coming here, but is actually really awesome. I was asking one of my archaeologist friends from home if she uses it and she said no and she doesn't think it's in common use in the US. So my life's work will be to spread the use of this program ;) After classes were finished I went for a walk around Poole because the weather was so nice. I took a few photos and I'll post the link at the end.
Wednesday I worked on my presentation for Friday. We each had to present about a topic in funerary archaeology. More specifically animal bones in human burial contexts. Mine was sheep. It was really hard to find info on any of the topics so most presentations weren't too in depth. Which was good because I'd been feeling like mine was exceptionally bad, but it wasn't.
Thursday I again worked on the presentation. I had to go to school for a short time to return some books and get another one. I also had to print off the notes for the presentation.
Friday was the presentation and I got to go 5th. So it was good to get it over with soon, but I'd drank a bunch of coffee so I was pretty jittery through the whole thing. Oh well, it wasn't graded. We're going to get notes about it and then have to write a paper based on the presentation. But that isn't due for 2 weeks. Then Friday afternoon me, Stine and Mieke went for a walk around the Poole area. We started going through the park and ended up just wandering semi-lost through a neighborhood. We eventually made it to Ashley Cross and then wandered up a street we hadn't been up before. At the top we found a church with a really cool churchyard. We also found a nice looking coffee and juice shop whose owner was really nice even though we didn't buy anything. I think we will definitely be going back there.
Saturday Melissa, Stine and I went to a talk about the Poole logboat at the Poole museum. The logboat is an Iron Age (~295BC) boat made out of a single log that was found in the Poole Quay. It's 10 meters long. So that was very interesting. It was about how it was found (during dredging of the quay) and how it was preserved (in sugar water). Then me and Melissa went and saw It's Complicated that evening. It was really funny.
Today I'm doing lunch and dinner with friends and rounding up my flatmates to clean the kitchen because it's disgusting. No one ever cleans up after themselves so it gets gross really fast. I'm hoping if we clean it really well today and have a talk about being adults and cleaning our messes maybe we can solve the problem at least a little. But it's sunny again today, so that's awesome!
Here's the link to the pics from the week. And next weekend I'm going out for my birthday on Saturday night, so my post on Sunday may be late. I apologize in advance for any inconvenience this may cause :p
So on Monday I turned in my research proposal. It wasn't my best work, but I did what I could with the information that I could find and get ahold of about the topic. Hopefully I do okay and the idea at least is good. We also had class on Monday. We were continuing with diseases that leave marks on bone. There was one disease that makes extra bone form in the marrow cavities of your long bones so the bones get really heavy. I wondered if this caused you to become anemic, but my teacher said no, in adults red blood cells are mostly produced in flat bones like the pelvis and skull. So if you get really severely anemic as an adult your body may expand the bone in your forehead really high in order to be able to produce more cells. We also looked at bone scars from severe sinus infections. And the lab assistant told us that your sinuses can't drain until they are completely filled because the hole is at the top. So if you have a cold you should stand on your head to drain your sinuses.
Tuesday we had a troubleshooting session for the database that we are making to record our bone assemblage. We are using Microsoft Access, which I had never even heard of before coming here, but is actually really awesome. I was asking one of my archaeologist friends from home if she uses it and she said no and she doesn't think it's in common use in the US. So my life's work will be to spread the use of this program ;) After classes were finished I went for a walk around Poole because the weather was so nice. I took a few photos and I'll post the link at the end.
Wednesday I worked on my presentation for Friday. We each had to present about a topic in funerary archaeology. More specifically animal bones in human burial contexts. Mine was sheep. It was really hard to find info on any of the topics so most presentations weren't too in depth. Which was good because I'd been feeling like mine was exceptionally bad, but it wasn't.
Thursday I again worked on the presentation. I had to go to school for a short time to return some books and get another one. I also had to print off the notes for the presentation.
Friday was the presentation and I got to go 5th. So it was good to get it over with soon, but I'd drank a bunch of coffee so I was pretty jittery through the whole thing. Oh well, it wasn't graded. We're going to get notes about it and then have to write a paper based on the presentation. But that isn't due for 2 weeks. Then Friday afternoon me, Stine and Mieke went for a walk around the Poole area. We started going through the park and ended up just wandering semi-lost through a neighborhood. We eventually made it to Ashley Cross and then wandered up a street we hadn't been up before. At the top we found a church with a really cool churchyard. We also found a nice looking coffee and juice shop whose owner was really nice even though we didn't buy anything. I think we will definitely be going back there.
Saturday Melissa, Stine and I went to a talk about the Poole logboat at the Poole museum. The logboat is an Iron Age (~295BC) boat made out of a single log that was found in the Poole Quay. It's 10 meters long. So that was very interesting. It was about how it was found (during dredging of the quay) and how it was preserved (in sugar water). Then me and Melissa went and saw It's Complicated that evening. It was really funny.
Today I'm doing lunch and dinner with friends and rounding up my flatmates to clean the kitchen because it's disgusting. No one ever cleans up after themselves so it gets gross really fast. I'm hoping if we clean it really well today and have a talk about being adults and cleaning our messes maybe we can solve the problem at least a little. But it's sunny again today, so that's awesome!
Here's the link to the pics from the week. And next weekend I'm going out for my birthday on Saturday night, so my post on Sunday may be late. I apologize in advance for any inconvenience this may cause :p
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