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.
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