I feel almost human again =), went out to Pta yesterday to say hi to a couple of people. Driving into Pta itself was on another level, not much has changed since I've been gone. Started off with a coffee date with Lee at Brooklyn. So good to see the face behind all the texts. A small catch-up session started and not all that much has changed it seems. Drove over to campus, first stop was to see Prof. Kriel, she was so supper happy to see me =). Had an awesome little chat and kept going on about how proud she was of me and so many little hugs. Awesomeness!!! Then came the Archaeology Department, Lynnette still the same as I left her. Also made an appearance at Prof. Pikirayi's office. Seems the Dept is slowly getting onto a roll, so much money coming into the research pool and all.
Oh, while having coffee with Lee, I was asked if I was above the age of 18 because my drink had rum in it =). I'll take that as a compliment =P. Got to see Danny, Ruthie, Helen and Bianca for a bit too. Went out for a drink at Oom G with Ruthie and scored a free drink in the process. My first Hunters Dry, back in SA =) =) TA RUTHIE!! All of this followed by a long ass drive to Mooikloof to check out Mange and Lettie's new flat. Very nice yes, but holy krap is it far!!! There is no way I could survive out there...no way. Final stop for the night was at Tobie and Neels. Missed that flat over the months, nothing has changed except that there are bikes in the living room as well. Our catch-up moments couldn't last long, I was simply exhausted and so out of it. Oh, and I had an early curfew because I'm sick =(. Plan is to have a braai over the weekend =) I will be all fired up and giggly for that and a proper session can begin.
Wednesday, 30 March 2011
Tuesday, 22 March 2011
SA visit
After having traveled for just over 12 hours, I'm finally home. =) =) Left my house at 22:30 for the train station only to find out that the ticket I had was for the day before, and going to Leeds only!!! There was no way I was going to be stranded in Leeds, so like a crazy person I jumped off the train with all my bags & bought a new ticket to Manchester. That meant though that I was at the station for another 2 hours before the bus arrived. I swear I have never been that cold before in my life, the longest 2 hours of my life. The strange people and fashion that you see this late in the night from York to Manchester is shocking! All the crazies come out and play. LMGA!!!!
Well, I made all my flights and again the longest 12 hours ever! First stop was Amsterdam =). The most amazing airport I have ever seen in my travel history. Lots of art everywhere, museum pieces, all so amazing. If I had more time on my hands and not look like a freak with a camera in my hand, I would have taken a whole lot more pics. Maybe next time when I might one day holiday there. The longest flight was the one to JHB, I was so knackered during the flight, slept through most of it. I sat next to this really sweet deaf guy and it was such an experience. =) Another experience was flying slightly happy courtesy of red wine from Chile. It was all good and when we landed I did something I never thought I would. Brikz-Sweeti My Baby, was playing through the terminal when we landed in JHB. I just had to break out into dance!!! I don't dance very well, but I didn't give a shit! I also cried a bit and heard the SA accent...I was in heaven =).
Got an awesome reception from my family, was really cool. Loved it!! Felt so famous...like a ROCKSTAR!!
Well, I made all my flights and again the longest 12 hours ever! First stop was Amsterdam =). The most amazing airport I have ever seen in my travel history. Lots of art everywhere, museum pieces, all so amazing. If I had more time on my hands and not look like a freak with a camera in my hand, I would have taken a whole lot more pics. Maybe next time when I might one day holiday there. The longest flight was the one to JHB, I was so knackered during the flight, slept through most of it. I sat next to this really sweet deaf guy and it was such an experience. =) Another experience was flying slightly happy courtesy of red wine from Chile. It was all good and when we landed I did something I never thought I would. Brikz-Sweeti My Baby, was playing through the terminal when we landed in JHB. I just had to break out into dance!!! I don't dance very well, but I didn't give a shit! I also cried a bit and heard the SA accent...I was in heaven =).
Got an awesome reception from my family, was really cool. Loved it!! Felt so famous...like a ROCKSTAR!!
Sunday, 20 February 2011
Back in the land of the living
wow! That was a bit of a long ass break wasn't it? For some of you, who keep up with my facebook know that the last month has been extremely rough on me. You're often unaware of your limits until you've been pushed beyond them. It's in this dark, cold, God forsaken place that you realize who your friends are, who truly loves you, & how much you really want something. I've been told off a number of times, had my ideas shot down and trashed, spent many nights crying myself to sleep...yet I still want that career so bad I can taste it. It's a matter of me being patient with myself and realizing that I'm only 23! I should absorb every experience I get, my time to break free from the archaeological mould will come..don't rush it. It will come...
As for love...it's just not for me I guess. I think I left love back in SA, because I sure as hell not finding it here. Thought I found someone I could be with while living here, but turns out that he was/is a prick that I wish I had never met. He used to intrigue me, was so much older & I could just never figure him out. He on the other hand could see right through me, my fault entirely. Probed at aspects and secrets about me and my personality that I had buried away within myself with no hope of resurfacing...least to say I didn't like it, so I gave him the boot...literally! I've given up on finding "the one", whenever he/she is ready, I hope to be ready too. As for now I'll be starring across the table at my latest eyecandy & sleeping alone in my bed, focusing on building up that 'Jeffersonian' career. It's the one thing I know for sure that I'm good at, no doubt.
The next topic I should really focus on is : PhD now or later? Do I volunteer with the EAAF in NY or go home for a bit and do odd jobs here and there? Do I stay in the ICE AGE with no idea what to do next??
As for love...it's just not for me I guess. I think I left love back in SA, because I sure as hell not finding it here. Thought I found someone I could be with while living here, but turns out that he was/is a prick that I wish I had never met. He used to intrigue me, was so much older & I could just never figure him out. He on the other hand could see right through me, my fault entirely. Probed at aspects and secrets about me and my personality that I had buried away within myself with no hope of resurfacing...least to say I didn't like it, so I gave him the boot...literally! I've given up on finding "the one", whenever he/she is ready, I hope to be ready too. As for now I'll be starring across the table at my latest eyecandy & sleeping alone in my bed, focusing on building up that 'Jeffersonian' career. It's the one thing I know for sure that I'm good at, no doubt.
The next topic I should really focus on is : PhD now or later? Do I volunteer with the EAAF in NY or go home for a bit and do odd jobs here and there? Do I stay in the ICE AGE with no idea what to do next??
Monday, 17 January 2011
New Year
New year and i’ve already made some fucked up choices. Well, they didn’t seem so bad at the time, actually the one was really fun. Somehow i know its going to come back and bite me in the ass...just got to wait for it to happen. Maybe its through these decisions i make that i will truely discover what happiness is or isn’t, get to know what really makes me tick, etc. A bit excited about what else in going to mess up.
Apart from my social life, i got my academic life to worry about. The dissertation isn’t going to write itself yet alone create its own research question. That’s the one thing i find myself faced with at the moment, but somehow these things always just seem to work out in the end. I need to make an appointment to see Paul Lane & Jo, then again with Malin who may have something up her sleeve. Oliver did say he had a few ideas that i could take a look at. I guess if i have to start somewhere it would be in bed, with my laptop, stolen internet, coffee and loads of food. Just a day to put a few ideas onto paper.
This is what i live for! This is to the best year...
Christmas Holidays
Christmas Holidays
I’ve never been a fan of this time of the year, but this time I have a little something to look forward to. So, I’ve been away from home in a foreign country for at least 3 months now and the only contact I’ve had with South Africa has been through facebook & skype...until my brothers arrived. Yep, my brothers came over for the Christmas Holidays & I had a ball of a time.
When they arrived on the 17th Dec I had been awake for the past 24 hours, partially John’s fault... Walked over to the train station really early and it was bloody cold, I swear the temperatures were not normal. I don’t think my face could light up anymore then it did when I saw them walk down from the platform =) basically jumped the both of them. All they wanted to do was get out of the cold. We took it easy the 1st couple of days and they went on a major shopping spree with their holiday money while i took care of the food and survival goods needed. Also felt a bit domestic over Christmas & cooked up a full-on lunch. A first for me i must say & did all this in a dress, growing up so fast. Oh well, that will never happen again...
Met Panos as well, really cool guy! We also pulled a London trip with a whole lot of sights covered in a space of a day and a half. British Museum and Chelsea stadium included. Vasia and Panos joined us on the last day, Panos flew back to Greece the next day and the rest of us made the sad trip back to York. Well we were only there for like a day before having to pack everything up for Manchester the next day. Only spent one day in Manchester and we did the Old Trafford tour =). It was the last night my brothers were with me before having to catch their plane early the next morning. We ate like Kings that night, we went all out with starters, main and dessert =) =). Getting to the airport was the hardest thing to do, or at least i thought so, little did i know that the hardest was yet to come. The goodbye...i physically couldn’t walk as soon as they got through passport control. I was stuck in the same spot for what seems like hours in physical pain as my heart was breaking all over again. Eventually got over to it & made the slow trek back to the train station to catch the train back to York. Passed through a couple of snow blizzards and rain on this journey back to my normal life, when i got to York i just decided walk back to the house in the rain rather then getting a cab.
...got to go home soon...
Friday, 17 December 2010
My 1st forensic investigation @ York Uni
Bring me the head of Anne Boleyn
Anne Boleyn was originally buried in an elm arrow chest within the Chapel of St. Peter-ad-Vincula, a chapel within the confines of the Tower of London at the north-end of Tower Green. In the same chapel were buried (amongst other her brother George Boleyn, Katherine Howard and Jane Grey).
I In the middle of the 19th century, the entire Tower was "restored," including the chapel of St. Peter's ad Vincula, Many of the bones buried beneath the chapel floor, including those of Anne and Geore Boleyn, Catherine Howard , and Jane Grey, were exhumed and moved.
A medical examiner Dr. Mouat. described the one skeleton (recovered on 19th May 1876), which was recovered from an old elm-chest containing as having a "delicate frame with a small neck". Doyne C Bell’s “Notices of the Historic Persons Buried in the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula in the Tower of London”, 1876. It is worth pointing out that many of the supposed identifications carried out in the mid 19th century were based on only the most rudimentary of forensic techniques and many have since been disproven. False identifications include a set of bones once thought to be one of the Princes in the Tower (Edward V or his brother Richard) but later shown to be ape bones from the royal menagerie that was once housed in the Tower.
So much alteration has been done over the centuries that the bones of the various persons buried in the chapel are now scattered and unidentifiable. Anne Boleyn's bones are certainly among them, but there is no way to identify which are hers and where exactly they lie. (source )
The Chapel is a royal peculiar, like (Westminster Abbey, St George's Chapel at Windsor). None of the bones buried there can be disinterred without the express permission of the monarch. However, reclamation work following the failure of the Thames barrier in 2012 (which led to cancellation of the Olympic games) and the flooding of Tower Green resulted in a decision by Cameron's tory government to move the Royal burials to a safer place. The descendants of the Boleyn family have requested that the remains of Anne and George be returned to be buried with her father (Thomas Boleyn) at the family home, Hever Castle . King William III has agreed to this request.
I In the middle of the 19th century, the entire Tower was "restored," including the chapel of St. Peter's ad Vincula, Many of the bones buried beneath the chapel floor, including those of Anne and Geore Boleyn, Catherine Howard , and Jane Grey, were exhumed and moved.
A medical examiner Dr. Mouat. described the one skeleton (recovered on 19th May 1876), which was recovered from an old elm-chest containing as having a "delicate frame with a small neck". Doyne C Bell’s “Notices of the Historic Persons Buried in the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula in the Tower of London”, 1876. It is worth pointing out that many of the supposed identifications carried out in the mid 19th century were based on only the most rudimentary of forensic techniques and many have since been disproven. False identifications include a set of bones once thought to be one of the Princes in the Tower (Edward V or his brother Richard) but later shown to be ape bones from the royal menagerie that was once housed in the Tower.
So much alteration has been done over the centuries that the bones of the various persons buried in the chapel are now scattered and unidentifiable. Anne Boleyn's bones are certainly among them, but there is no way to identify which are hers and where exactly they lie. (source )
The Chapel is a royal peculiar, like (Westminster Abbey, St George's Chapel at Windsor). None of the bones buried there can be disinterred without the express permission of the monarch. However, reclamation work following the failure of the Thames barrier in 2012 (which led to cancellation of the Olympic games) and the flooding of Tower Green resulted in a decision by Cameron's tory government to move the Royal burials to a safer place. The descendants of the Boleyn family have requested that the remains of Anne and George be returned to be buried with her father (Thomas Boleyn) at the family home, Hever Castle . King William III has agreed to this request.
Your assignment
Working in three teams it is your task to correctly identify the remains of George and Anne, who are believed to have been recovered from the flood damage chapel floor.
Your team has been sent four skulls including mandibles, and a range of bone fragments associated with this material. King William V and Queen Kate has agreed to fund the analysis but due to recent austerity measures, following the collapse of the pound, the is limited to a total €6,000for the Scientific Analysis.
You can use a range of scientific approaches to identify them, and you can ask three English Heritage Science Advisors their opinion on the value of each method to your research question.
You will have a total of 15 minutes with each advisor and then will decide amongst you how to spend your €6,000.
Your team has been sent four skulls including mandibles, and a range of bone fragments associated with this material. King William V and Queen Kate has agreed to fund the analysis but due to recent austerity measures, following the collapse of the pound, the is limited to a total €6,000for the Scientific Analysis.
You can use a range of scientific approaches to identify them, and you can ask three English Heritage Science Advisors their opinion on the value of each method to your research question.
You will have a total of 15 minutes with each advisor and then will decide amongst you how to spend your €6,000.
The science advisors:
Dr Oliver Craig
Specializes in radiogenic and stable isotope analysis of collagen and bone mineral. See useful information on isotope resources
Costs of analyses
ō13C bone collagen (requires 0.1 mg of bone) - €50
ō 15N bone collagen (requires 0.1 mg of bone) - €50
ō 13C dentine / bone / enamel carbonate (requires 0.1 mg of bone) - €70
ō 18O dentine / bone / enamel carbonate (requires 0.1 mg of bone) - €100
ō 18O dentine / bone / enamel phosphate (requires 0.1 mg of bone) - €150
87/86Sr dentine / bone / enamel strontium (requires 0.5 mg of bone) - €300
14C bone mineral carbon (requires 0.02 mg of bone) - €400
14C bone collagen carbon (requires 0.1 mg of bone) - €400
ō 15N bone collagen (requires 0.1 mg of bone) - €50
ō 13C dentine / bone / enamel carbonate (requires 0.1 mg of bone) - €70
ō 18O dentine / bone / enamel carbonate (requires 0.1 mg of bone) - €100
ō 18O dentine / bone / enamel phosphate (requires 0.1 mg of bone) - €150
87/86Sr dentine / bone / enamel strontium (requires 0.5 mg of bone) - €300
14C bone mineral carbon (requires 0.02 mg of bone) - €400
14C bone collagen carbon (requires 0.1 mg of bone) - €400
Prof. Matthew Collins
Specialises in ancient DNA and ancient protein analysis
Costs of analyses
Costs of analyses
ZooMS identification of bone chip (peptide mass fingerprinting) (requires 1mg of bone / dentine) - €5
collagen sequencing (requires 10 mg of bone) - €500
DNA sexing (requires 100 mg of bone) - €200
mtDNA D-loop (requires 100 mg of bone) - €300
nDNA Y chromosome (requires 1g of bone) - €300
racemization based age at death analysis (requires tooth enamel soaking, - €300) new unproven method
collagen sequencing (requires 10 mg of bone) - €500
DNA sexing (requires 100 mg of bone) - €200
mtDNA D-loop (requires 100 mg of bone) - €300
nDNA Y chromosome (requires 1g of bone) - €300
racemization based age at death analysis (requires tooth enamel soaking, - €300) new unproven method
Dr Malin Holst
Specialises in osteological identification of bone
Costs of analyses
Osteological sexing (half a day @ €600 per day)
Osteological age at death estimate (half a day @ €600 per day)
Analyses of trauma (half day @ €600 per day)
Pathological examination (half day @ €600 per day)
Osteological age at death estimate (half a day @ €600 per day)
Analyses of trauma (half day @ €600 per day)
Pathological examination (half day @ €600 per day)
Sunday, 5 December 2010
Snow
Christmas month & the snow isn't taking it easy! Yeah!!! I get to not only see snow,but I get to live in it as well =). I remember the first day of snow...woke up in the morning & went about my usual regime, only caught on that it was snowing out while making my coffee. Almost dropped the damn cup at the sight of this white fluffy stuff lightly covering everything. For some "unknown" reason that day tuned out to be a very good day for me. However, at this point in the winter I'm over the snow. It's such a mission to leave the house & face the deadly temperatures outside, not to mention how tricky it is to walk through it.
Snow...beautiful, yet deadly...I've seen at least 2 birds go down right in front of me & they were wearing wellies. I walk around in my AllStars since my boots haven't arrived & not once have I bailed. I don't want to jinx myself here...
Holiday plans...do I have any?? Nope, not really, my brothers are coming over, so that should be fun =)! The only thing I'm trying to get through at this point is the spring term. Once that is out of the way I can explore the medieval city that is York, depending on how rich I am, I can move on to another town.
Snow...beautiful, yet deadly...I've seen at least 2 birds go down right in front of me & they were wearing wellies. I walk around in my AllStars since my boots haven't arrived & not once have I bailed. I don't want to jinx myself here...
Holiday plans...do I have any?? Nope, not really, my brothers are coming over, so that should be fun =)! The only thing I'm trying to get through at this point is the spring term. Once that is out of the way I can explore the medieval city that is York, depending on how rich I am, I can move on to another town.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)