One Week!

It's been one week since I landed in Hawaii and I've just finished my first week of work!

As much as I was apprehensive about moving here (and by "was apprehensive" I mean "sobbed like an infant pretty regularly"), I have to say that I'm generally happy.  There are still things in my brain/heart that are still a little off/weird/sad, but I'm a lot more okay about this transition than I thought I would be.  I like Hawaii and I think that I'll only like it more as time goes on.

Enough about Hawaii though--I really, really, really love my new job.  Granted, I haven't started any projects yet, it's a lot of training and administrative stuff right now, but it's awesome.  At the CIL there's a library, and the first time I went through it was something akin to the scene in Beauty and the Beast where the Beast shows Belle the library and she's all like, "OMG...LOOK AT ALL THE BOOKS!!!!!"  Seriously, every book that a forensic anthropologist could ever wish for is in that room, and it's amazing.

I know this isn't the scene I'm talking about, but the size is more comparable to the CIL library.

Also, I love putting on my "CIL Scientific Staff" lab coat and going into the lab to study the specimens.  That's right, study.  Not only will I be doing casework for this fellowship, but I'll be studying and learning so much!  It's basically like I'm getting paid to become the best forensic anthropologist I can be.  I am so glad that I'm here.  I love that I get to be a forensic anthropologist, to be part of the (relatively) small group of people who can look at a skeleton and see more than just a pile of bones.  Who can reconstruct someone's life out of bits and pieces of minerals and proteins.  

It's really, really, really awesome.