Spring Break!

Good morning! This week has been a pretty good one. I did some exciting and fun stuff and I got some work done. The best of all worlds. On Sunday our Easter dinner turned out really great. We made ham by boiling it in coca cola and then smothering it in molassas and baking it in the oven for a half hour. It was really good. Monday I didn't have any plans because it was a bank holiday. I'm never sure what will be open or what buses will be running on bank holidays so I try not to have anything to do. I did do some work on my dissertation prep and figured out what I needed to do to analyze my skeleton.

Then on Tuesday I went to the train station with Danielle in the morning to book our tickets to Edinburgh! We're going next Friday and coming back on the following Tuesday. It should be super fun! Then I had to take a bus to school so that I could look at the skeleton that I have to write up a report about. The university buses aren't running during break so I had to take a different one and had to pay the normal price for it, which sucks all the more because the university bus that goes into Bournemouth is running, just not the one to Poole. Boo! But I made it to school and got copies of the forms I needed and then got to work analyzing the skeleton. I have a pretty interesting box. One almost completely whole skeleton, some extra bones from another human, a rib from a cow and a piece of ceramic. Whoever did the sorting wasn't very good. I got through counts of all the bones and did a little bit of analysis of them.

Wednesday I went back to the lab again. This time I measured all the bones so that I could figure out the stature of the guy during life. I also tried to determine his age and racial background. Then I laid out all of the bones and took some photos of him. I'd show you, but we're suppose to use the pictures for "academic purposes only" so they might get mad if they found out. He is pretty awesome looking though.

Thursday I went shopping and got some new jeans. Nothing too exciting there. I also finally got back to the gym. I don't know how long it's been since I was there, but it was nice to get back. Then for dinner I made lasagna. I had to make half vegetarian because my flatmate doesn't eat beef, but it turned out pretty good. I added carrots, parsnips and broccoli and then only put beef in half of it. It was going really well until it started bubbling over the pan and making the over smoke. Then I thought I was going to set off the fire alarm, but I didn't.

Friday me and my flatmate, Baitalikee, went to Christchurch. That's a town about a half hour away by bus. They have a priory there that was Catholic until the reformation under Henry VIII when it changed to Anglican. And apparently Jesus helped to build this church. The story goes that when they were building there was one carpenter that worked but never showed up for pay or during meal times. Then one day they were going to move a big wooden beam into place and they realized that it had been cut too short. They were pretty upset because big pieces of wood were hard to get and had to be shipped in from far away. So at the end of the day they all went home very upset. The next morning they came back and the beam was in place in the roof and it was too long! They never saw the other carpenter again after that. So that meant it was Jesus (and that he isn't very good at measuring, apparently). You can see the beam sticking out of one of the walls in the church. I guess they never cut it down to size since it was a miracle beam, and all. Anyway, that's why the town is called Christchurch. We couldn't take pictures inside the church, but I have a lot of the outside. It was a pretty standard church though, nothing too exciting beyond a random beam sticking out of a wall.

After going around the church we walked along the river to the ruins of the castle that had been the town center. This is best seem through the pictures that I'll put up the link to at the end. It was pretty ruined, so there wasn't a whole lot left to see, but part of the moat that they had built around it was still there, so that was pretty cool. Then we had Thai food for lunch, shopped for awhile and headed home. Then, because it was so beautiful out, we wandered around Poole for awhile in the afternoon.

Saturday I had a haircut in the morning. Just a trim, nothing major. Then I came home and read a book for awhile. Then in the afternoon we walked around Poole again. It has been so nice the last few days we all just feel like we have to spend time outside. Then me and Baitalikee cooked a chicken for dinner. It turned out pretty good.

Today I have to work on my skeletal report. I have another lab session tomorrow morning and I need to know what I still have to do, so I have to write as much as I can today. I'm hoping to get outside for awhile though, because its beautiful and sunny out again. Well, I suppose that's pretty much all I've got. There will be no blog next Sunday because I will be in Edinburgh and won't be back until Tuesday night so I'll just do a two week one the next Sunday. So here are the pictures from this week. Enjoy and I'll talk to you soon. Have a great week!