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