Communication Awards

I feel like I should give my professor an award for Most Confusing Answer Ever.

I'm writing an ethnography on my own food consumption for my Cultural Anthro class & the prompt has provided a sample chart with the columns "time," "description of food," "who purchases the food," "who eats with you," and "disposal of food items and serving items."  I don't feel like properly addressing all of these because that'd end up with me having to write a 20+ page paper and that shit is just not going to happen. Thus, I e-mailed my teacher last night:

On Sat, Feb 26, 2011 at 9:20 PM, Hannah wrote:

It's a little late to ask this, but does the food ethnography HAVE to address every column on that chart, or is it okay if we focus on a few?

-Hannah

Sam sent this EXTREMELY helpful reply today:

 "yes"




THAT DOESN'T ANSWER MY QUESTION. YES TO WHAT?!! I gave two options! Which are you saying yes to?! 


Take home point:
My professor will be getting a paper. It will be an interesting paper. It will nominally address all those things, but really I'm just going to write about what I want to write about because, um, if he has an issue with it, HE SHOULD HAVE BEEN CLEARER.
I feel I should point out that he's actually an excellent teacher.  This was just such a prime moment of *facedesk* that I needed to share it with you, my imaginary readers.

Be Seeing You.

Where do I hang the penguin painting?

1)My Tassajara training has served me well.
2) I finally realized my wrists are chronically weak because of CLEANING THE FLESH OFF BONES.
3) That is not a euphemism.

4) I shouldn't have done an ethnography on myself. 

Be Seeing You.

I kept forgetting to name this post. Now that's it's name.

I have absolutely no clue what the crap I was all worked up about in that previous post. Okay, maybe I kind of have an idea, but pretty much, I needed to srsly ctfo. It's late. I should have printed out my paper a while ago, but I didn't. Really I'm going to actually go to sleep after I write this, but I felt I should share some gems from the 3-5 pg. paper I'm writing for Magic, Science, and Religion that ended up being eight or so pages. In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have selected the question on DEATH.  Actually, before I even started I made sure my teacher was okay with me using a lot of the same resources I cited in my previous paper for Medical Anthropology. She was like, "you should cite your own paper!" So I did. Several times. In this paper I cite me, Wil Wheaton, Christopher Lee, George Romero, and a dude from 1881. 
Anyway, here are a few bits that I am deeply amused by.


(No, this is not the actual title. )

Paper 2: BRAIAIAIIIIIIINNNNNNNSSSSSSSS

(I got this quote from my new osteology field guide by Bill Bass. I'm very excited to own a textbook by him. Very excited. Who is Bill Bass, you ask? GO LOOK HIM UP. HE IS ONE MY HEROS.)

“…At either end of the line bereavement by death tears the heart and mortuary customs are symbols of mourning. The mystery which broods over the abbey where lie bones of king and bishop, gathers over the ossuary where lie the bones of chief and shaman; for the same longing to solve the mysteries of life and death, the same yearning for a future life, the same awe of powers more than human, exist alike in the mind of the savage and the sage.” (Powell, 1881)


"Nowadays elaborately padded “comfortable” coffins are the norm, and one can buy crypts “with a view” (Harris 2007), as if purchasing condos for a relative. "

I included a chunk of my previous paper which I may have shared before because it contains the best footnotes EVER. Here are the footnotes:

"[1] He was actually kicked out of New York University’s medical school but occasionally practiced medicine and went by “Doctor” for the rest of his life. Iserson (2001) cites the reason for his expulsion as “his cavalier way of leaving corpses in inappropriate places,” while Mitford (1998) notes that “he was forever carelessly leaving [cadavers] around in inappropriate places.” The repeated use of the word “inappropriate” begs the question of what constitutes an “appropriate” place to mislay a spare corpse.

2Lincoln actually began to decompose during the trip, and required extensive makeup for public display."

Bad Pun #1)
"Ghosts serve as a medium between the terrifying reality of death and our desire to ignore it."


This is a poorly written sentence. I am not going to change it though.
"The classic desired food is brains, which is interesting when viewed in the context of the Haitian zombi whose soul/will (what we might call “the brain” of a human) has been stolen and may only return to normal life if that soul is retrieved. "


"In “The Day After,” (Wheaton 2010), Wheaton eloquently parses this trope into a few simple lines of dialogue..."


Bad Pun #2)
Though this mental separation makes sense within fictional worlds as a matter of survival (it’s easier to kill a “zombie” than a “human”), it can also be viewed as a reflection of creator and consumer’s uneasiness when confronted with this potent symbol of death “in the flesh”.  


The real meat of the paper, so to speak. BAHAHAHAHAHA! These questions came to me one night and I shared them with the twitters. ....Then I used them in my paper for class.

When a zombie is fully killed (past the point of resurrection), does it go back to being a dead human? Given infinite time and security (i.e. no danger of infection/ravening hordes descending/etc.) would characters bury the bodies of zombies the same way they would bury the bodies of slain human companions? How does one distinguish the bodies of dead humans from those of dead zombies?  Philosophical questions about zombies may seem silly, but they highlight the inconsistencies inherent in our insistence on separating ourselves from the walking dead. 

Last one:

"Instead forcing us to confront that the mystical realm of death and the terrifying reality of putrescence are one and the same, vampires allow us to imagine that we might acknowledge the inescapable reality of death whilst remaining perpetually sexy."


Be Seeing You. 

Because when I get tired, I get irritable

Do you ever have that thing where exhaustion overwhelms your being? When every step seems like an opportunity to collapse on the ground, every moment of movement just to the side of nausea.  I collapse in the corner weeping and shatter every two minutes, but only in my brain. My body lurches on, clawing its way through life because it must, because this is the path to what I love.
I realize it sounds like I'm having a complete mental breakdown, and maybe I am, but don't get too worked up about it. It seems like half my life has been lived on willpower alone. Maybe less than half. That sounds really depressing, and my life is anything but. Sometimes my body decides enough is enough and refuses to go on.
I'm tired right now, but I've hit a point where things may be starting to happen. I've decided to go on an archaeological dig and somehow wound up partially curating an excavation collection. I'm also working with people who do not yet realize my level of competence and intelligence. Or my passion. That bit they obviously haven't copped to. I do not know how to network. I do not know how to talk to people, but my buffers are wearing thin and my core is about to start making an appearance.
This should be amusing.

The Canal of Schlemm (Scleral venous sinus)

Should I be studying for my anatomy lab test tomorrow? YES. Am I kind of freaking out about it even though I should be fine and even if I bomb it, I'll still be able to salvage my grade? YES. Does this maybe have to do with insane hormones and also the headache/general exhaustion that sometimes rules my body? Probably. Will this entire post be semi-rhetorical questions that I opt to answer? Maybe. What are you going to do about it? Huh? Yeah. That's what I thought. 

I'm going to Ecuador for a month this summer to work on an archaeological project and work on community projects with the people of a small town about 20 min outside of Quito. This means I will be attempting to learn some Spanish, which I really should have done by now since I live in frikin' California. I mean, I know some super basic stuff, but not really anything useful. So that will be hilarious. Also I'm beginning to actually work with bones and death a lot more these days. That combined with all my anthro classes is leading to some interesting stuffs fomenting in my brain. 

Got two things in the mail this week: a Star Trek uniform (yes I have already worn it out in public. it is amazing) and a field guide to human osteology by Bill Bass. I asked Dan what books I should get to start learning about that stuff (osteology, not star trek) and he was like, "well this is essentially the Bible. I assume you're familiar with Bass?" My brain: "DUHHHHHHHH!!!!" My mouth said something less blunt, but only upon reflection do I realize that that reaction indicates how deeply I've absorbed forensic anthropology culture, for someone who's not even in the field yet. I have to wonder how many of the other students there (who were actually working on human osteology, even more so than me, though I feel like I'm beginning to edge my way into taking possession of the research into the stuff from CA-SCI-354...we'll see about that, since the thought only just occurred to me), but I have to wonder how many of them know the name so instantly. People are so fascinated by human bones and osteology, but how many of them feel that connection, that love and reverence and respect and fascination? If I'm going to be working on bones from the salvage excavation, I need to learn more about how I should be treating them. Ohlone funerary practices HERE I COME.

Daffy and Me

The reason I don't keep a real decent blog is that I'm sorry, but I'm NOT A WRITER. Forcing my thoughts into cohesion is just not worth the energy I could be using to finish my friggin' painting. I hope you realize that it's only a matter of time before I start using "Frakking". I get Season 1 of Battlestar Galactica from the library tomorrow. I can feel the tendrils of obsession twining through my brain like the Guinea worm through a hosts' viscera.
Speaking of parasites, I do have the option to go somewhere where I could get a botfly, but I think I'm going to go with the one that lets me meet llamas & alpacas. I've long wanted to visit the Andes, and though it's pretty high (10,000 feet, I think) and that'll likely trigger some altitude headachage, alt. sickness will pass, and then I'm in the fucking Andes.