Long time no see

Yes, again, I was a horrible blog writer person. I apologize. But the good news is that my hard work and ignoring my blog paid off and I get to graduate. Huzzah! One week from today I will be officially a master's person...or a person with a masters. Sadly, it doesn't have the same ring as being officially a doctor or officially a bartender or welder. And also seems a little unhelpful at times, at least with those programs you end up qualified to go do something, make money, get a real job. With the masters, happy though I am that I survived, I am qualified only to go get my doctorate, oh well.

Lots of things have happened since the last time I posted. Graduation coming up being one. Moving to NY soon being another. There is a spot at a doctorate program with my name on it and I get to move to a brand new place far from the dear and familiar South to do it. I'm pretty excited.

But while that's exciting for me, it's probably boring for you all. So I do have a fun story to relate, complete with pictures.

I have been collecting data for a project my professor and I have been working on. This has involved me tramping through a field for the better part of a year as pigs we laid out decomposed. It sounds gross, but the NC fall was pretty hot and the decomp part of the study didn't take very long. Our primary objective was the bones - how do they change over time.

I'd initially been worried about snakes, but after months of not having any issues, I got brave and stopped carrying the machete that I had originally used to cut down foliage. This was my first mistake. The snakes seemed to sense my lack of fear and started hunting me down.

By snakes I mean one snake, but the important thing to remember is that I did the requisite stomping of the ground as I moved along, a 'snake scare away' tactic I learned as a child. Unfortunately, I found out later from a rattlesnake expert in Albuquerque, NM that snakes are deaf so won't hear you coming (which I knew) and even as you tramped along sending out specific 'here i come' vibrations, they will just curl up and stay where they are (which I didn't know). So much for my snake preparednes.

But the problem with my snake encounter wasn't that I scared it or snuck up on it. It was that it snuck up on me. Something the so called rattlesnake expert had no answer for. There I was checking on my pig (who was nicely weathering in the sun and vegetation) and when I turned around, there he was, a 5 ft snake waiting for me like some sort of ninja. The bastard. But don't worry I handled the situation like any seasoned anthropological researcher would. And by handled it, I mean I did the running-jumping-screaming thing which is key when evading snakes.

These are the lengths that you must go, dear readers, when you take on anthropological work, so be fore-warned. Our field is not for the feint of heart!

Need further proof? Fast forward a few weeks and my field has suddenly exploded with late spring vegetation. And the machete is back in action to find some of my pigs that have gone missing in the growth.

There is one important thing you need to know for future reference about this particular procedure: machetes are sharp.



Unfortunately, I know this because I mistook my thumb for a clump of grass. Whoops. Luckily my handy-dandy masters education has also qualified me as a green beret level anthropologist! So I was able to stop the bleeding by using a long blade of grass as a makeshift band-aid.



So, kids, join the ranks of anthropologists and you, too, can go on exciting and dangerous data collection expeditions and employ creative field first aid!