So as always the first class was Communications and we were informed that our first test will be sometime next week - not Monday because he does not believe in Monday tests but it will be next week. We talked about self concept and empathy and that scientist who have done research on twins separated at birth claim that empathy is not only learned by your environment but that it is also hereditary. Who would have thought?
As always accounting was a joke. He (I still do not know what this professors name is) decided to finally go over our 21 pages of homework - it didnt help much because he put the answers up on a transparency and we just corrected our pages. He didnt explain why things were the way they are - just gave us the answers. Again, he said this is simple, why are you guys having problems? He also kept telling us not to worry because the test is open book. All of the tests are until I am a Senior...great, so what happens when I can't use the book? However, I am happy to say that I had the majority of the ledgers right. There were a few things that I had wrong like I did not know what a drawing was but thanks to Eddie the guy who sits beside me I do. A Drawing is money that the owner pays themselves.
Next class was Law....did I say Law? Well it was supposed to be but Professor whats his name decided to skip law and continue giving us answers to the accounting. Is Law going to be open book too? I dont think so.
Then on to one of my favorite classes: Restorative Arts. We learned the difference between emaciation, dehydration, and desiccation of tissues. An emaciated body will have a long leanness and waster condition of tissues. Dehydrated: the tissue has experienced a reduction in normal moisture content and desiccation is where the tissues are void of moisture content. Bodies that are in a desiccated state will not absorb filling when trying to get the face to a normal appearance. We also learned what constitutes major restorations which includes restoration of dismembered body parts such as decapitation and severed limbs and treatment of 3rd degree burn victims.
Embalming class was next - another one of my favorites. We will have our first test on Tuesday at 1130. Wish me luck. Im sure most of you think that the primary purpose of embalming is to preserve the body but it is not. The Primary purpose is to disinfect and kill the microbial (disease causing) pathogens. 99% of these pathogens will be reduced if proper embalming is done. Even I didnt think about the risk that embalmers take when embalming a body, there are studies to see how many funeral directors have communicable diseases such as Hep B etc.... In olden days they used arsenic to embalm the body but some families with a lot of children who couldnt afford all of them started killing their children slowly with arsenic and when an investigation was conducted they would not find anything out of the ordinary because the embalming used arsenic so eventually they switched to formaldehyde. Formaldehyde is a dual purpose chemical as it preserves and disinfects. what it does is coagulates the bodies protein. It helps the body be resistant to putrefaction and decay. By the way you definitely want to decay rather than putrefy!
Last class was Funeral History. We learned about Egyption Mythology and their Gods today. The below info is not the exact info from class but it is pretty much what we learned. Enjoy!
The Cult of Isis- Background
The cult of Isis originated in Egypt and went through two major stages. In its older Egyptian version, which was not a mystery religion, Isis was regarded as the goddess of heaven, earth, the sea, and the unseen world below. In this earlier stage, Isis had a husband named Osiris. The cult of Isis became a mystery religion only after Ptolemy the First introduced major changes, sometime after 300 B.C. In the later stage, a new god named Serapis became Isis’s consort. Ptolemy introduced these changes in order to synthesize Egyptian and Greek concerns in his kingdom, thus hastening the Hellenization of Egypt.
From Egypt, the cult of Isis gradually made its way to Rome. While Rome was at first repelled by the cult, the religion finally entered the city during the reign of Caligula (A.D. 37-41). Its influence spread gradually during the next two centuries, and in some locales it became a major rival of Christianity. The cult’s success in the Roman Empire seems to have resulted from its impressive ritual and the hope of immortality offered to its followers.
The Cult of Isis- The Basic Myth
The basic myth of the Isis cult concerned Osiris, her husband during the earlier Egyptian and nonmystery stage of the religion. According to the most common version of the myth, Osiris was murdered by his brother who then sank the coffin containing Osiris’s body into the Nile river. Isis discovered the body and returned it to Egypt. But her brother-in-law once again gained access to the body, this time dismembering it into fourteen pieces which he scattered widely. Following a long search, Isis recovered each part of the body. It is at this point that the language used to describe what followed is crucial. Sometimes those telling the story are satisfied to say that Osiris came back to life, even though such language claims far more than the myth allows. Some writers go even further and refer to the alleged “resurrection” of Osiris. One liberal scholar illustrates how biased some writers are when they describe the pagan myth in Christian language: “The dead body of Osiris floated in the Nile and he returned to life, this being accomplished by a baptism in the waters of the Nile.”3
The Cult of Isis- Influencing the New Testament?
This biased and sloppy use of language suggests three misleading analogies between Osiris and Christ: (1) a savior god dies and (2) then experiences a resurrection accompanied by (3) water baptism. But the alleged similarities, as well as the language used to describe them, turn out to be fabrications of the modern scholar and are not part of the original myth. Comparisons between the resurrection of Jesus and the resuscitation of Osiris are greatly exaggerated.4 Not every version of the myth has Osiris returning to life; in some he simply becomes king of the underworld. Equally far-fetched are attempts to find an analogue of Christian baptism in the Osins myth.5 The fate of Osiris’s coffin in the Nile is as relevant to baptism as the sinking of Atlantis.
As previously noted, during its later mystery stage, the male deity of the Isis cult is no longer the dying Osiris but Serapis. Serapis is often portrayed as a sun god, and it is clear that he was not a dying god. Obviously then, neither could he be a rising god. Thus, it is worth remembering that the post-Ptolemaic mystery version of the Isis cult that was in circulation from about 300 B.C. through the early centuries of the Christian era had absolutely nothing that could resemble a dying and rising savior-god.
Interesting right? Well one more day this week and then I get to go see the family. I think we are going to celebrate Noahs birthday at Chuck E Cheese this weekend! That will be a nice break!!
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