Crisis of Competence

Big stats test coming up on Wednesday, got to do well.....actually, after I failed my first stats test (seriously, like the first time I have failed anything since Honors Intro. to Oceanography sophomore year of college - apparently I hate the ocean and how it works) I have to get an A on everything to get my passing B. Awesome, I love adding the stress of trying no to get kicked out of my program to the regular stresses of class. The good news is that I understand what we are doing...ANOVAs can be kind of fun.

On the thesis front, things have actually started. Spent two hours at Chapel Hill analyzing my first skeleton. For the first 20 minutes I had a crisis of competence when I realized that enthusiasm and love for what I'm learning doesn't make up for actually needing to be able to apply that information. This is the BIG project and my methods and general analysis need to be accurate - my future as a bio-anthropologist literally depends on it. And of course the first bone I look at (radius) I mis-side. Ah!...crap. This is why Bass' bone manual is now my constant companion. And I am more OCD than usual, re-checking the bone over and over to make sure I didn't miss anything. It'll work out, just got to repeat what my thesis mentor said to me...it's just a master's thesis, it's just a masters thesis. As if shrug no big deal.

Here's something fun for the kids at home...we've been learning about non-metric traits...little weird things on the bones that occur because of occupation or genetics. People are trying to use them as indicators of family association, which I find interesting. Anyway, stand beside a table and place your hands flat on the surface, keeping your arms straight. If the inside of your elbow pushes forward beyond the normal 180 degree straight line of your arm, then congratulations! you probably have a septal aperture. Which is basically just an extra foramen (hole) in the bottom of your humerus where your ulna attaches (olecranon process). *See picture*


(from Septal Aperture of the Humerus in a Mediaeval Human Skeletal Population by Simon Mays)

This has been associated primarily with females, but newer research has shown that it is in both sexes. One of my profs. has done work in the Balkans (helping with identification after the genocide in the late 90's) and found this trait in the male population there. Interesting stuff.