Sir, no disrespect, but your cranium is full of brick
Well, it's really been some three weeks again now, and no wonder, because the word "busy" is starting to seem like an understatement on this side. Between translating Akkadian literary epics, reading course literature on the historical and theoretical background of the museum as an institution, early-morning bouts with cheap mapmaking programs, jedi-mindtricking soulless museum ministry officials, planning and running university events that involve girls in evolving states of undress, not to mention occasionally sleeping, is it any wonder I've hardly had the time to even think about making an update!
But of course, when it comes down to it, the thing that's really taking all my time is, in fact, bones.
By bones I mean skeletons and by skeletons I mean human skeletons, of course. I need to take several weeks of practical training for part of a course, and to that end, I managed to score a short internship at processing the excavated material of a 19th century graveyard where a rescue excavation was held last year when the spot was being built on. As a direct result, some sixteen hours a week now I hang out with roughly a dozen moderately well preserved skeletons.
It is a touch morbid, perhaps, but nothing to worry about! What I do involves, by and large, cleaning and identifying bone fragments from mixed finds that couldn't be connected to any one skeleton. It's oddly interesting work; you really learn to tell the difference by your fingers as much as your eyes; the kind of small differences in the thickness of some bones, the texture of the bone in the places where it's broken, the little curves and wedges here and there that are specific to some bones. While my typology is still pretty rudimentary (it also made the osteologist running the show giggle incoherently for like twenty minutes as I was expositing it to another trainee), I suppose this kind of puzzle activity appeals to me a great deal.
Most of all, it makes you appreciate what a wondrous being a human is, when you see all these little subtle details in the skeleton; veins and little nudges in the back of the skull, the way the bones of the hand fit together, all that. The scapula, for instance, is really an interesting, oddly fragile-looking bone, and me and the other interns have spent much time trying to figure out exactly where some thin, oddly curved fragment was from! And hey, if the novelty wears thin, I get to clean (one could say "empty" might be the apt word) skulls and dig little stones out of their nasal cavities. This one poor bastard's head was full of mud so thick that one guy had to hold it while the other chiseled the mud off - no wonder, because as it turned out, there were pieces of brick in the skull. Many intriguing coffee table moments were spent wondering exactly how that happened.
I don't know if the talents I gain here will actually be of any particular use in anything I do later on, but I hear our benefactress will be running an osteology study group sometime in the future, and if so, I might very well be there.
In other news, I went to see Gedo Senki in the theatres now. Having recently reread the actual Earthsea novels, my earlier verdict on the movie stands; it's not nearly as bad a film as pretty much everybody has said it to be. It's not only a remarkably good fantasy movie, but also a good adaption. Its most serious lack is the sense of wonder that one has come to expect from a Ghibli production; but then the subdued atmosphere is probably because Earthsea is actually pretty much the saddest, most downcast fantasy universe ever written. So really, Gedo Senki adapts the material and alters the story, but I would argue that it's essentially truthful to what the Earthsea books are about, and it's still far more coherent and frankly, a much better book adaption than, you know, Howl's Moving Castle.
On the gaming front, I keep on playing Suikoden III, but progress is and remains slow. One might argue that this is not only because I haven't been able to spend that much time gaming lately, but also because the game has a way of making you spend a lot of time in it without it actually feeling much. This tells something about how good a game it is: there are barely any games these days that I wouldn't start grumbling about after twenty hours, but the slowness of the plot in Suikoden III doesn't bother me at all - Thomas may not be a legendary hero, but I'd recruit as many Stars of Destiny as there are with him! Here, for once, the actual game and the gameworld are quite enthralling enough to carry the, hm, game, which oddly enough can't really be taken for granted in an RPG nowadays.
Before I carry on with that, though, I have another full day of bone-brushing to look forward to! Hm, I suppose that may be a whole new reason for why I get so little gaming done these days; my need for repetive, compulsive activity with peculiar puzzle objects is being so well fulfilled by everything else now!
But of course, when it comes down to it, the thing that's really taking all my time is, in fact, bones.
By bones I mean skeletons and by skeletons I mean human skeletons, of course. I need to take several weeks of practical training for part of a course, and to that end, I managed to score a short internship at processing the excavated material of a 19th century graveyard where a rescue excavation was held last year when the spot was being built on. As a direct result, some sixteen hours a week now I hang out with roughly a dozen moderately well preserved skeletons.
It is a touch morbid, perhaps, but nothing to worry about! What I do involves, by and large, cleaning and identifying bone fragments from mixed finds that couldn't be connected to any one skeleton. It's oddly interesting work; you really learn to tell the difference by your fingers as much as your eyes; the kind of small differences in the thickness of some bones, the texture of the bone in the places where it's broken, the little curves and wedges here and there that are specific to some bones. While my typology is still pretty rudimentary (it also made the osteologist running the show giggle incoherently for like twenty minutes as I was expositing it to another trainee), I suppose this kind of puzzle activity appeals to me a great deal.
Most of all, it makes you appreciate what a wondrous being a human is, when you see all these little subtle details in the skeleton; veins and little nudges in the back of the skull, the way the bones of the hand fit together, all that. The scapula, for instance, is really an interesting, oddly fragile-looking bone, and me and the other interns have spent much time trying to figure out exactly where some thin, oddly curved fragment was from! And hey, if the novelty wears thin, I get to clean (one could say "empty" might be the apt word) skulls and dig little stones out of their nasal cavities. This one poor bastard's head was full of mud so thick that one guy had to hold it while the other chiseled the mud off - no wonder, because as it turned out, there were pieces of brick in the skull. Many intriguing coffee table moments were spent wondering exactly how that happened.
I don't know if the talents I gain here will actually be of any particular use in anything I do later on, but I hear our benefactress will be running an osteology study group sometime in the future, and if so, I might very well be there.
In other news, I went to see Gedo Senki in the theatres now. Having recently reread the actual Earthsea novels, my earlier verdict on the movie stands; it's not nearly as bad a film as pretty much everybody has said it to be. It's not only a remarkably good fantasy movie, but also a good adaption. Its most serious lack is the sense of wonder that one has come to expect from a Ghibli production; but then the subdued atmosphere is probably because Earthsea is actually pretty much the saddest, most downcast fantasy universe ever written. So really, Gedo Senki adapts the material and alters the story, but I would argue that it's essentially truthful to what the Earthsea books are about, and it's still far more coherent and frankly, a much better book adaption than, you know, Howl's Moving Castle.
On the gaming front, I keep on playing Suikoden III, but progress is and remains slow. One might argue that this is not only because I haven't been able to spend that much time gaming lately, but also because the game has a way of making you spend a lot of time in it without it actually feeling much. This tells something about how good a game it is: there are barely any games these days that I wouldn't start grumbling about after twenty hours, but the slowness of the plot in Suikoden III doesn't bother me at all - Thomas may not be a legendary hero, but I'd recruit as many Stars of Destiny as there are with him! Here, for once, the actual game and the gameworld are quite enthralling enough to carry the, hm, game, which oddly enough can't really be taken for granted in an RPG nowadays.
Before I carry on with that, though, I have another full day of bone-brushing to look forward to! Hm, I suppose that may be a whole new reason for why I get so little gaming done these days; my need for repetive, compulsive activity with peculiar puzzle objects is being so well fulfilled by everything else now!