And I Thought College Was Busy…

HAPPY 2010!!!  First off, I need to apologize the lack of updates.  I am a horrible blogger!  But I will get better soon because now I have a LOT to talk about!!!  Since the last time I posted on this blog, a whole slew of awesome things happened.  I interned for 3 months at the National Museum of Health and Medicine, I got a lot of experience working with specimens while being a research assistant to a PhD student collecting data for his thesis, and I volunteered for 6 months in the Forensic Anthropology Lab at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, which [excitement] led to a part-time paying job!!!

So what I want to do is a few entries that reflect upon my time with each of these places and I want to write them separately so as not to overload my billions of readers (hahaha or 5).  Which reminds me- I am SO thrilled that a few people have been finding my site and contacting me!  I have a reader from Rutgers (yay, New Jersey pride!  The classy part, not the shore part) and one from California.  Thanks to you two who gave me some feedback!  Keep me updated on your endeavors- its a small field and I bet we can help each other struggle through it!

That also reminds me to thank my awesome brother, Greg, who made it so I can be found through Google really easily.  He’s great at what he does!  If anyone needs a PPC consultant in Atlanta…. Greg is your guy.

So my upcoming posts:

First I will write about my experience working with the public while volunteering at the Forensic Anthropology Lab.  I want to talk about all of the people who are crazy about bones, and all of the people who are just plain crazy- as well as my experiences handling all types of people- my people skills are honed and practically a weapon!

My next post may have to be split into multiple posts regarding my time at the National Museum or Health and Medicine.  I want to talk about my time in the “Wet Specimen” room and what I learned about preservation and specimen care.  I also want to discuss a little about the archiving experience I got as we in-processed some amazing files from ABFO, the American Board of Forensic Odontologists (oh yeah, be jealous!).  I also want to talk about my time learning from our weekly intern-article-prowl where the interns chose articles on topics each week and discusses them.  Lastly, I want to talk about perusing and re-organizing/cataloguing the Veterinary Collection [or Comparative Anatomy Collection].  I learned so so SO much at this internship that it is truly invaluable- hopefully I will have the chance to visit every once in a while AND maybe even help in the museum’s move from the AFIP [Walter Reed Facility] to the brand new building in Maryland.

My final catch-up post will cover some of my experiences at my new job, which involves teaching Forensic Anthropology to classes from 4th grade through 12th grade.  I will talk a little about the cases (as long as you don’t mind some spoilers about the answers to the case) and I’ll talk about some of the crazy theories I hear from the younger classes–including giant rats and pet monkeys roaming the West Virginian countryside. I am slowly developing a passion for teaching, which may make the inevitable path of academia, which is held in store for almost everyone with a PhD in the Social Sciences, more bearable.

I also want to talk about the developments in the advancement of my academic self.  I haven’t put as much thought and effort into grad school as I should be- but I think making a little money before I take out boatloads of student loans will be the more responsible thing to do anyway- plus I want to make absolute sure that what I am doing is my definite career path and that involves a lot more thinking (and GRE studying!)

Recently, I found a few papers I wrote while clearing out some jump-drives.  I thought it might be an interesting project to go through my anthropology-related papers for classes and re-research them and make some edits and post here about what I learned.  This way, I can keep myself [and readers] up to date and educated on some of the topics in anthropology, as well as learn a little more about my own writing skills and faults and how to improve so that I can write papers well on the first go.

So many exciting new things with this exciting new year!!  2010 was a good year, but 2011 is going to be even  better.  If you have any ideas on something I should write about that you think is relevant and would be educational, please post!  I would love to hear input! I can’t wait to update everyone further and talk about all of my amazing experiences!!!

Enjoy these next few post.  Because I definitely will.