Forensic Anthropology and Bioarchaeology: Day 1

First of all, let's be honest. I was not at all used to waking up at six in the morning. In fact, that was probably the hardest part of the day, besides all the other hard parts of the day. So actually it was just the first hard part. I hadn't slept overly well because y room wads quite cold. In fact, i slept with sweatpants and a long sleeve shirt and still could not get warm. Later I find out there is no heat control in the ooms. Or air conditioning. So, upon waking up, I took a shower, only to discover that the size of the shower in my bathroom is only a tiny bit larger than i myself am. Suffice to say, there was little movement, and accessing my shower caddy is a bit of a trick. There is also only one shower.

Anyway, I made my bagel and headed off to class. The first thing we did as a class was do introductions, which included us sharing one interesting thing about our own skeletons that could be used to identify us if only our skeleton remains were to be found. Secondly, we had to sign infinite waivers about death and lyme disease and such. The first lecture of the day basically included our teacher, Heidi, telling us that the show Bones isn't accurate. I expected this, but it still hurt a bit.

During the lunch break, which was four hours into the class, we were to get our ID's and take a campus tour. So, the lot of us marched halfway across campus to get our pictures taken. Upon geting there, though, the student workers tell us the cards are $30 and they only take cash. This resulted in at least seven of us walking another half mile in the rain to an ATM and walking back only to have our pictures be of wet, bedraggled us. It's not pretty. It got better as we went on a campus tour. The purpose of this was to show us were and how to print, since we are responsible for printing out our assignments every day. he sad part about this is that printing, too, costs money. As I attempted to put money on my Ucard for printing, it told me my account wasn't valid. everyone assured me it would be by the end of the school day. It wasn't. It tured out i had to fill out a request online and then had to wait a few days for that to be verified. At least a lot of people where in the same situation.

Anyway, we spent the next four hours in the lab, which is where i really found out how much i don't know. First, we took an ungraded quizz that had us identify bones and features. I did quite poorly. Then, we were tasked with laying out the skeleton. it sounds pretty straightforward until you realize you have to not only out all the bones in the right position, but you also have to side them correctly. It turs out that's hard. However, it's nothing compared to trying to figure out where the carpals in the hand go (there are eight for each hand) and the tarsals in the feet are positioned. Suffice to say, I felt pretty useless. Anyway, then we got assigned ou homework, which we have infinite of every night. This evening we had six different articles to read and a report to write about a bone we'd been assigned that needed to be presented to the class orally. I received the parietals and temporals, which are both on the skull. That would have been ok if Heidi had not just handed me a full skull. He became known as Richard. Richard ha to come to dinner with me at the dining hall. This wouldn't have been anything more than inconvenient had it not also been freshman orientation. I got judged. At least the food was good.

I did all the homework, some of it with Jackie, who lives in my suite. A new girl moved in who none of us have met but who is really loud.  I was exhausted and fell asleep immediately.