Week 6: The End is Near

I went home over President's Day weekend to watch my boys wrestle at Regionals. Jared placed 3rd and will wrestle at State this weekend. Caden did great, but did not place.

There was no internet at my house over the weekend despite repeated calls to our internet provider. It's up and running now, but I sorta needed it over the weekend for grading and homework. I am all caught up on grading and my writing papers now, but just wait, there'll be more.

We are working on writing up grant proposals in my Research Mentorship class. I am making a list of what I might need for my thesis research experiment. My list has things like environmental chamber (to rear maggots in), tweezers (because I am not touching insects), insect collection kits, liver (to feed my maggots) and lots of other stuff.

We are talking about stress and inequality and how it affects our health in MedAnth. I have one more weekly commentary, a mini ethnography and a final paper to write for that class.

In Research Methods, we are working on literature review for our thesis. I did one on background material last week and this week's is on methods. I am still working out how I will do my experiment, so I am reading lots of abstracts on things like bait traps, freezing pigs, rearing maggots and how forensic entomology (like a lot of other sciences) doesn't have standardization in method yet. Great.

I need to find an entomology class that I can take over the summer somewhere-preferably Forensic entomology. It's on my list of things to do. (It's a looooong list.)

In BioAnth, the students are working on Forensics this week. There are six stations: aging (pelvis, clavicular ends, rib ends), pathology, sex estimation, stature and juveniles. Dr. Stevenson and I are putting together the bone practicum which will be next week. We run it in each lab section-so four times, with each one a little different than the others so they can't cheat.

We are on lab 7 this week with lab 6 due this Friday. After this weekend, I will have graded about 480 lab write ups!!!

The only photos I have this week:

A sandwich from the store downstairs from my office. Yeah, I don't eat gluten. I am following the same diet as my oldest boy because I am pretty sure that I have the same allergies/disorder that he has. You would think at this price that it would be the most wonderful sandwich in the world, but it's not. It's the second worst bread ever. (I usually make my lunch and bring it.)

Here's a few of my books on insects...