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So as predicted this post will have a bit of bitching and whining about my essay that I mentioned last post.

The essay I am writing is about the evolution of case studies in anthropology.  In short, as anthropology was being developed in the late 1800s and early 1900s, scholars were primarily concerned with the study of taxonomy, the classification of organisms within a structure.  Originally, race was seen as a subdivision of the human species and, as such, required its own taxonomic classification.  Eventually, with the rise of the Nazis and WWII these ideas came under fire.  The idea of race as a subcategory of the human species was virtually abandoned with the civil rights movement.  By the 1980s, the concept of race was more or less removed from anthropological discourse.  However, one branch seemed to keep it alive, Forensic Anthropology.  So that's what my paper is about.  I hate it and cannot seem to get involved in the paper at all which makes writing it so much harder.

In other news, I have been hanging out with my flatmate from Spain and his friends a lot.  We are all getting along really well.  It is funny when I take a step back and look at my time here in Ireland.  I am living in Ireland, working on a mummy from Egypt, and most of my friends are Spanish.  Would never have guessed that would have been the case.  But I am enjoying myself.

As for the mummy research, that is at a stand still.  I am waiting for note back from my advisor about my official research proposal.  Once I have the notes, I will adjust my proposal and then we will submit it to the college curator.  In the mean time, I am doing a lot of reading on the religious and mortuary practices of ancient Egypt.  I am also trying, and somewhat failing, at teaching myself to read hieroglyphics.  I am getting the basics down, but I need a lot more practice before I can hope to start transcribing and translating the texts written on the coffin.  Hopefully I will have an update for you all next week. I also have something in the works, and if it comes through will be really cool.  But it is way too early on to even begin discussing that possibility.

Well, I think that is it for me for this post.  I wanted to let you all know that this blog has passed the 800 views mark.  Thank you all for reading.  I think I am going to start posting more meaningful post to supplement the weekly narrative of my life.  If you have questions or things you want to hear about in respects to Irish culture, history, etc. please let me know via a comment or an email.