Siam so far away...

So I think I am going to start calling the places I want to visit by the old names - Siam...Indja (which just might be Nicole Kidman's accent, but sounds awesome anyway)...these might be colonial and therefore not politically correct, but how cool is it to say 'I am going to Siam'. Makes me think of pith helmets, handlebar mustaches, steamer ships taking you to far away and exotic locales...and then attacking, colonizing and exploiting their natural resources....ok, we are going to just forget that last part. This trip we are going to think more The King and I (which is where it is actually set) and less Joseph Conrad and his awful Heart of Darkness. This is exotic and spicy Thailand, not horribly depressing Congo.

I fly out in roughly 7 hours and I think I am going to treat the family to cinnamon rolls as we are getting ready in the morning. Hmm, pillsbury.

Fingers crossed I can fit all of my stuff into my bags. My minimalist plan seems to have some holes and it would probably have been easier to consolidate my bulky bags into my one big suitcase. Oy vey.

I'm off to bed to get a few hours sleep, see you all in about 21 hrs and another hemisphere.

Correspondance

Final days of the semester and Monday will be the true test on how things go. For Stats I have to maintain at least a B- to remain in good standing with my program and sadly the first test did not begin the semester well. But I've rallied since then and 8 am Monday will be the make or break moment.

Have I mentioned before how much I love Netflix? Not just for the cheap movies coming within three days, but increasingly for the Watch Now feature which opens up all kinds of options. Almost all seasons of South Park are available (excellent for background noise when doing research) and tons of documentaries, which I have been kind of addicted to lately. Some of the most recent are Bigger, Stronger, Faster follows a brother's look into steroid use in America (and his family) and Jihad of Love, which follows the lives of several gay men and women in the Muslim world - interesting portrayals and perspectives all around.

One of my most recent viewings (though this was an actual DVD) was The Shop Around the Corner - what You've Got Mail was based on. It's a brilliant movie with Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullivan and takes place in Hungary--of all places. You would expect New York or Chicago, but Budapest seems so far away and exotic. And you wouldn't have known it was Hungary at all, there wasn't any incorporation of Hungarian culture - it could have been New York or the town Jimmy Stewart's George Bailey was from.

I love the premise, the idea that two people can meet and connect over letters. This doesn't necessarily have to be about love, but just mutual interests and curiosity. Which is, I suppose, exactly what the blogosphere is now. People posting their thoughts and musings ranging from being a military spouse to the trials and tribulations of internet dating, which is a hilarious experience, by the way. And you when your done writing you post it out into the ethos, like a giant yellow post-it on the cork board at work. And then people find your post-it as they are Googling or reading someone who read someone who read you once and put it on their blog role. I think we need a new incarnation of the story; first letters then e-mail now it should be a blog - So and so has posted on your blog - not catchy, but I'm putting the idea out there. : )

Traffic

Why is it so incredibly satisfying to honk your horn at someone? I don't do it very often and always hesitate to make sure that this really is the right moment. But once that moment has been determined and is a go - man, it's amazing. Honking seems to perfectly express that righteous sense of indignation, especially when you accompany it with the 'you're an idiot' headshake and/or the hand(s) in the air 'what the hell are you doing' gesture.

I used the standard honk and shake today. There I am at the light, getting ready to pull out and beat the car full of guys at the acceleration race (silly but legal and not dangerous). Green light - I'm accelerating! - and then some idiot at the corner pulls out as if to cut in front of me and then stops. In the intersection. W.T.F. On-coming traffic + red light = stay behind the line. I quickly decelerate and he sits there and stares at me for a good 5 - 10 seconds (like he's wondering what I'm doing pulling forward with a green light), he finally finishes his right hand turn and I respond with the car form of Cesar's (Dog Whisperer) training touch. Somebody needs to learn some boundaries, rules, and limitations.

Dig Prep Update

Slowly accumulating the things I need. I got my hiking backpack in today! So one more thing off my list.

International

So what does it take to get from North Carolina to Bangkok, Thailand? Apparently $1,079 and 9,000 miles. Holy crap. Count down to that adventure beings...now.

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.

Oh Hopewell

So much homework....tonight will be an all nighter...ugh. But part of what I am working on tonight is combing a massive database on the Hopewell Indian culture for information on aged remains. They were moundbuilders in the center of Ohio and their influence spread out from WV to the Dakotas. Pretty neat stuff, I grew up across the river from the mounds in Marietta, Ohio. Although, my professor says this particular mound wasn't Hopewellian, but an earlier group.

Interesting that burial mounds were so prolific throughout the Mid-west and South. Even more so because it was practices by several different cultures. Early anthropological theory would say this is probably because of diffusion, one group came up with it and others thought it was a neat idea. I am not a big diffusionist though, at least not without actual proof. I figure the mounds are a product of independent invention. Some cultures (Hopewell, Mississippians, etc) came up with the idea and, because their cultures were so extensive and far-reaching, mounds popped up around the better part of the Mid-west and South.

Conus Mound in Marietta, Ohio.
Built by the Adena Indians, later a revolutionary war and early settler cemetery was built around it.

Image grabbed from James Jacobs archaeoblog: http://www.jqjacobs.net/blog/marietta.html