Popol Vuh

In a few weeks I'm going to a memorial service. It's been put together by a bunch of ex-NeXTies, so I can only imagine how intensely nerdy this might be.

Speaking of nerdy, somehow I've ended up teaching a friggin' zooarchaeology unit. I only realized this yesterday, so now I have to scramble and get some sort of vaguely coherent reference material together. Like, basic stuff. Basic bone biology, basic animal taxonomy. Basic directional terminology.  I grew up in a biology household, and all the work I've done on this collection so far has been with a woman who is totally down with scientific classification and identification and bone formation and all that stuff. Turns out, THIS IS NOT STANDARD.

Me:"Have you ever used a field guide?"
Student:"I've seen some before. They were really big." *implication that they were too terrifying to use*
Me (inside my brain): "Oh...this is gonna be painful."

Bone cleaning is all well and good, but you really shouldn't be doing it without knowing what you're looking at. I will FORCE the learning on them. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!
Oh? You want access to this raccoon boiling session? 1. What the hell is wrong with you, weirdo? 2. You have to LEARN STUFF first!!!

....Now if only I knew what I should be teaching.  Did I mention that I've never taken a zooarchaeology class? Nor have I taken any kind of osteology class...EVER. I am so not qualified to be doing this.  I forget that I have actually taken shit tonnes of biology classes and have a fair amount of hands on experience and also, unlike these students, apparently, I know how to use a book. Or even *gasp* several books AT THE SAME TIME!!!!!

Sorry. I realize that these people are really young and almost certainly haven't had the same sort of access to information as I have always had. Gonna go out on a limb (ha!) and say that they probably don't have horse bones in the back yard....or a deer skull on the TV.

The best part is that right now we're working on (half of) a brown pelican. This is the first bird I've done, so it's all new and exciting!!! (read: I haven't the faintest idea what the fuck I'm doing)  Fortunately we live in the future and I have the interwebs at my disposal....though it's surprisingly difficult to find a good example of a pelican skeleton online.  What I have learned that birds skeletons are all WILDLY DIFFERENT so even the reference bird skeleton pictures I have are only sort-of useful since the pelican differs in many specifics. Thank you class Aves for making this not easy.  Have YOU ever Googled "brown pelican phalanges"?

Other winning moment today:
Student:"Oh! You're on Twitter?!"
Me: "Yes." *changes subject* No, you do not get my Twitter username. It's pretty fucking easy to track me down.

Did I mention that I got asked to write a letter of recommendation? I really tried to persuade her that I was not the best person to do that since, you know, I have ZERO QUALIFICATIONS. No dice. Apparently in her world I count as a legitimate "academic advisor" or some shit. We're doomed.

Be Seeing You.