Will there be a test?

I got the briefing for my monkey chasing Earthwatch trip last week (still fund-raising, by the way... www.earthwatch.org/FAF/MyPage/LucieGarnett), so I could read up on the details of my trip. When I received the 45 page document, naturally the first thing I did was to look at all the pictures. There was a nice full-page picture of a VERY cute lead-scientist for our trip. Oooo, bonus! When I actually read the briefing though, I found he wouldn't be on my trip. Bummer. Guess I'll have to pay attention to the monkeys now. It's probably better without him, though, as he is German, and I would have tried to impress him with my "I majored in German" skills, and attempted to say, "Wow, these monkeys are really cool," but, knowing my Lucie-Deutsch as I do, it would have come out roughly translated to "Which way to the nearest chocolate shop?"

I haven't read the whole briefing yet (although I did get a lot read as I sat in the travel clinic for an hour, waiting to get my myriad shots and pills), but I read a fair bit. Enough to get excited and confused. Excited by the fact that I will be going to Arab ruins in a Kenyan forest right next to the Indian Ocean. Confused by the fact that I am voluntarily going to a place where the temperature will be 72-90 degrees F, and the humidity 80-100%. Don't I make a big noisy fuss about ESCAPING that every summer??!

Back to the pictures in the book (which is what my co-teacher tells the kids "good readers" do when they first encounter non-fiction pieces--look at the pictures. I didn't know that was a strategy... I thought that was just delaying the inevitable of having to read the assignment.) At the end of the briefing, there were FLASHCARDS on how to identify the individual female monkeys that I will be studying (Angle, Susa, Pong-pong...). Along with descriptions of the salient features, there was a picture of their face, their tail, and their nipples. Yes, apparently one way to identify monkeys is by their nipples. Angle, for instance, has a right nipple which is longer than the left, and they are pale pink (no dark splotches).

I wonder if we could do that with humans...