Identification & Reconstruction

Reconstructed my first tooth today! It's a molar belonging to a pig that was originally in 5 pieces.

I did this as part of my bone identification volunteer job in the school archaeology lab. 

It's Down to Three

At the beginning of last year I pretty much knew that I equally liked Physical Anthropology and Archaeology, with an interest in Museums. So I made sure to get an Internship in Italy with a museum and when I got back to the States I secured an Internship here as well at the Museum of the White Mountains. Both have involved a lot of cataloging work, which my other museum in Manchester is letting me do now. My American Museums use a program called PastPerfect to catalog their artifacts and it's pretty in depth for the knowledge side of it but also rather easy to use. I've made sure to focus most of my outside class time on museums since PSU doesn't offer any classes to my knowledge on them, and in school I'll be focusing on Archaeology and Anatomy classes.

It's a pretty close tie as to what interests me most at this point since they are all so interesting all at the same time. Good thing I still have time to figure this all out!

Picture Day

Today the Professor who runs the Archaeology Lab came in to take pictures of us working. After he left I took a picture of my own comparing Octavian's scapula to my own!

Narrowing the Field

When I entered college I came in declared with an Anthropology Major and eventually picked up a History Minor. In Anthropology there are four main subfields: Cultural, Biological, Archaeology, and Lingustic. Now my school didn't have Lingustic and language has never been my strong suit so getting an eventual career in that was obviously never going to happen. 

My first class for my major was a Cultural Anthropology class, in which I realized I could never be a Cultural Anthropologist. Why? I'm picky, alway have been, and although in recent years my food selection has expanded it still hasn't expected the idea of really exotic foods. I would be so insulting to people I met if they offered me food and I said no, plus in my opinion there are some more interesting parts of the field to discover. 

Octavian

Octavian is the name of this young Cow (Ox really since its a boy), that my friend and I put together (with all the parts we had) in our Archaeology Lab. He's from around Lake George in New York and has the first animal Skeleton that I've ever worked with. We have a bunch of other boxes and animals to work through but he was a fun start. It was interesting figuring out the differences between humans and cows and finding a home for all of his bones in their proper place.

When it all Began

So one day in 7th grade I was "doing homework" (aka not), and then I started watching Bones. Now I only watched a little of this show and I was hooked, I asked my mom if I could watch it next time it was on and the rest is history. 

Now Bones is a show about a Forensic Anthropologist who works with the Jerffersonian and solves crimes with the FBI at times. This profession just clicked with me for some reason and I knew I had to pursue it somehow. 

Well to be honest after that I didn't take many high school classes and didn't really know anything about the field aside from what I watched. Pretty stupid when you think about but it worked out a little because now I know stuff. Not everything but a decent amount and enough to kinda know what I want to do. Well the next post will focus on my outside school work in figuring out what career path  to take.

Why am I doing this?

Why have I decided to blog about probably a very general topic that quite frankly everyone gets asked by all the relatives all the time? 

Well the first time I blogged was this past Fall when I studied abroad and I found myself enjoying it so I wanted to do more blogging. Only thing is that I don't have much going on right now besides figuring out what the bojangles am I going to do after I graduate next May. That's not a bad thing to blog about though and that's because I kind of know what I'm doing but I really don't. I have no idea how long this blog will go, maybe until I get my first job or maybe my dream job, which is something I think I have. However I think that I've got an exciting journey ahead and I feel like sharing it. So I hope you all enjoy it and through my bucket loads of reading homework, I'll catch you all up to speed on where I am now, and how I got here.