study study

Too much to do. Lots of work. Really sleepy.
Got a B+ on my Egyptian Lit paper. Yay.
Can now tell Senusert III and Amenemhat III apart.
Arabic final tomorrow will be scary bad.
Longest bus ride home yet: 2 hours, 10 minutes.
Got delicious cupcakes, finally. Pumpkin and carrot.
Anthro presentation postponed due to kindness of classmate.
Much ado about everything today. More tomorrow.

hit the books

Lots of studying today. Maybe not enough to make me feel amazingly confident about my finals, but definitely enough to make my eyeballs hurt.
I also read Waiting for Godot, by Samuel Beckett, today. It was a good play, but I think it didn't come across very well just through reading. The two main characters are too much alike for me to be able to tell them apart just from their words, I needed to see their actions to really understand. Also, the entire play is ridiculous. But I liked it.
I spent a lot of time reading through my Art and Architecture notes, then downloading and going through the slide shows from after the last quiz until this week. I'm pretty sure it will turn out fine, but it's a bit frustrating when slides still say "look up which Amenemhat" or are unlabeled or completely blank. Except for the white pyramid slide. That's forgivable.
Tomorrow I've got my Egyptian Lit final, and I'll get my term paper back, sadly. I don't really want it back, just like I don't really want to take this test. We're allowed to use the textbook, but since I have a different textbook than the professor, I'm not sure how useful it will be. At least that's my only final of the day, so hopefully I can finish it early and get a start on my anthropology presentation/essay, which I have to present on Thursday. Maybe I left that one a little late. We'll see how it goes.

100 posts?

It honestly snuck up on me. This is the 100th time I've posted on this blog, starting the night before I left home to come to Cairo. Wow.
Today was a good Tuesday, again. I went to Coffee Bean and worked on my essay, and made a good amount of progress. Then I went to lunch with friends and then came home to essay a bit more, a goal which I completely failed to accomplish. That was okay, though.
I made my vlog for today, and had a really good time doing it.
If you watch the video, which is at the bottom of this post, I suggest clicking through to the video page and watching the linked video in the doobly-doo. Well, I suggest that if you're a huge nerd, or a nerdfighter. Otherwise, I guess it might be slightly confusing or off-putting.
Tomorrow I've got to get to school early and read The Caucasian Chalk Circle for Dramatic Lit, because I totally forgot to get a copy from the copy shop on campus, so I couldn't read it today like I meant to. I hope I can finish it before class and still have time to work on my Art and Architecture paper or the Dramatic Lit paper. If that doesn't work out, though, I'll settle for just finishing the play on time. I hate it when I totally blank on reading assignments like that, especially when they're for a class that is completely made up of discussion of the reading.
And that was a really boring 100th post! What can I say? It was a Tuesday.

falafel-rofl

A title which has absolutely nothing to do with the subject of this post. Moving on.
Today I took a slightly later bus, and got to campus just in time for the rare books library to open. Then I spent a few hours doing really really fun research. I'm not even kidding. I found this German book that has an amazing catalog of tons and tons of statues in the Egyptian Museum. The only problem is, it's in German. But that is really just an extra obstacle. I can read enough German to figure out whether something is a limestone statue of a husband and wife or not. I think.
Then it was time for class to start, and I went to Dramatic Lit, where the professor cunningly steered all discussion away from the more controversial topics of Streetcar, and we mostly talked about the boring character of Mitch.
After lunch I tried to go to my Egyptian Lit class, but the professor just didn't show up. So that was a complete and total waste of my time. When it was finally apparent that the professor just wasn't going to show up, I went with a friend to the campus book fair, where I bought two books that I didn't need, and have no idea what I will do with when I need to move. Oh well. They should be entertaining for a while, at least.
The bus ride home seemed longer than usual, but I met a nice girl from Kenya who is studying at AUC who I sat next to.
The rest of the night was fairly uneventful, except for a brief half hour period where I looked up and memorized a Japanese tongue twister to upload onto youtube for a project Hank Green is doing. I hardly ever participate in stuff like that, so I'm really glad I did today.

a streetcar named desire

Have you seen it? Read it? Watched the movie? If you haven't, this blog post might not make much sense. I'm sorry.

I'll try not to get too spoiler-y, but it's a pretty well known story, I think, so I'm warning you now, just don't read this if you really really care.

So, Streetcar (by Tennessee Williams) is about a woman named Blanche, a woman who is so caught up in the lies she's wrapped herself in that she's drowning. She can't leave her past behind, no matter where she goes, her family's problems and the spectre of her dead husband haunt her.

She goes to New Orleans to stay with her sister Stella and Stella's husband Stanley. In her mind, Blanche imagined that the Elysian Fields, the sector of the city where Stella lives, is just as much of a paradise as it's name indicates, but she was wrong. It's a dump, maybe a charming dump, but still, not paradise.

She lives there for a while, stuff happens, et cetera et cetera et cetera, until one night a confrontation with Stanley comes to a head in a bad way. Here is exactly what happens in the play:

Stanley corners Blanche. She tells him to get away and leave her alone, but he won't. She breaks a bottle and threatens him with the sharp edge. He still won't leave, and she slashes at him with the bottle. He grabs her wrist, yells "Tiger! Tiger!" and doesn't let go. Blanche cannot fight him, moans and falls to her knees. Stanley picks up her limp body and puts her on the bed and the lights go down.

The next time we see Blanche, she's out of her mind, creating fantasies and not able to connect with the real world, and Stella and Stanley put her in a mental hospital.

What do you think happened in between? I agree with the consensus of my Dramatic Lit class: it's pretty clear that she was raped.

What I don't agree with my class about is the circumstances of that rape. Some of the arguments I heard today:

'She gave in. She let him.'

'She was asking for it from the beginning.'

'Look how she acted around him.'

'She stopped fighting.'

'She wanted it to happen.'

I couldn't believe I was hearing this, and moreover, that I was hearing it from the other girls in my class. Only one girl was on my side, completely bewildered that anyone could even try to make these arguments rationally. It was honestly upsetting to listen to. I wanted to sit with them and talk outside of class. Maybe yell a bit.

No one ever asks to be raped. No one wants it to happen.

No matter what you wear, no matter how you act, it does not give anyone the permission to violate you.

If you can't fight, you can't fight. That doesn't make what happens your fault.

It is never your fault.

And that's what happened today. I'm really looking forward to Dramatic Lit again on Sunday.

nanowrimo winner!

Well, I won NaNoWriMo. I actually wrote more today than any other day so far this month, and finished my 50,000 words just a half hour ago. The only problem with finishing early is that I don't have a decent excuse to not work on my term paper anymore. Dang.

I'm planning to keep this novel going for a while, to see where it ends up, because I've had a really great time writing it over the last month. It feels a little bit anti-climactic to have won early, but I'm glad I did it. Except for all that term paper stuff.

As you can guess, a lot of my day was spent writing, in my room, in the courtyard, and at Coffee Bean again. The employees definitely recognize me now, I'm sure of it.

For Dramatic Lit class tomorrow, I'm meant to have read A Streetcar Named Desire, which I totally didn't do this weekend, because of doing other stuff. That's pretty much the best excuse ever. I guess I'll read it tonight and finish it on the bus tomorrow morning. Then I'll do my Egyptian Lit reading at lunch, I suppose. At least I had the foresight to do my Arabic homework early.

NaNo word count: 50674

un-pumpkin pie

Who in their right minds would ever boil a sweet potato? Well-meaning Egyptians would, that's who. I attended the Thanksgiving lunch for American students today, with a few hundred of my closest American friends. It was a really nice effort that they made, and I had a great time. There were some interesting choices made with the food, though. Although I didn't try it, my friends reported that the sour cream was probably in fact whipped cream with salt. Most interesting of all, the much awaited for pumpkin pie very definitely contained no pumpkin whatsoever, which all of us found very confusing. Pumpkin pie spice alone does not a pumpkin pie make.
The rest of the day was fairly average. I got my new term paper topic approved by my professor, which was good, but which also means that I really do need to start actually writing it tomorrow.
Since tomorrow is Thanksgiving for reals, some friends and I are planning to accept a very generous offer that was made to us by an American club called the Maadi House. Their membership is limited to U.S. State Department employees working in Cairo, and other American diplomat types, but for Thanksgiving, they're hosting American AUC students for dinner as well, which is very exciting. I hope everything goes as planned, and it will be time for Thanksgiving number two tomorrow!
NaNo word count: 43108

coffee bean tuesday

I woke up early this morning, got ready for the day, and headed to Coffee Bean, a few blocks away, where I proceeded to sit for the next seven hours.
I probably had more coffee than was strictly speaking good for me, but I also finished my essay that I need to turn in tomorrow, so it was well worth it.
It was an odd feeling being in the Coffee Bean, because everything was in English, and I could almost have forgotten that I was in Egypt if it hadn't been for the not-free wifi (which was a helpful motivator for me to write my essay) and the clouds of cigarette smoke that made my lungs hurt by the time I left. Next time I won't stay for so long, so hopefully the latter won't be a problem again.
When I got home in mid-afternoon, I filmed my vlog, which you can watch below, then I read my play for tomorrow, The Wild Duck, by Henrik Ibsen, which is interesting, but not one of my favorites. It's fairly predictable (at least so far) and a bit too soap opera for my tastes.
I also got a lot of school and vacation related business done today, including trip planning for winter break, finally.
Also, I wrote over 2,000 words for NaNo today! I don't know what came over me, but it was definitely a good thing. My story is still going where I want it to go, but it's turning out differently in the middle than I thought it would. Not in a bad way, just in a kind of father-son Lion King way, and that's really the best I can describe it. Doesn't sound so good like that, huh?

NaNo word count: 16087

at least nano's going well

Today was a long day, and I'm glad it's over. Nothing was particularly bad about it (except for Sarah leaving - I miss you, Sarah!), but it was definitely long.
In the morning, I took the late bus so I could help Sarah get checked out of the dorms and reclaim her passport from the front desk. It didn't really work like I'd thought it would, but they didn't charge us any money for her stay, so that's something!
School was long and pretty boring, even my midterm in Egyptian Lit. I don't think I did badly on it, but I'm pretty sure I didn't ace it either, unless the professor grades really really lazily.
Arabic was kinda fun, we got to show the class pictures of our family and talk about them. It was nice seeing all my friends' families, because since we're all so isolated from home here, it's a little hard to think of each other as people with parents and siblings and cousins and such. The pictures made those kind of imaginary people a lot more real to me, and it's nice to know that those other families are out there, even if that sounds pretty weird.
On the bus ride home, I NaNo'd the whole time, and got more than my 1667 words done for the day. I'm a little afraid that this novel won't be finished by November 30th, because that will make it much more unlikely to ever be finished (like last year's novel), but I'll keep working at it and see where it takes me.
In awesome news, I have plans to go to Dahab for the Eid break (did I already mention this?). A few friends and I are going to be renting a villa for a week-ish and staying in the resort town near the Red Sea. Should be pretty fun. I'll have my computer with me for NaNo, but I don't know if I'll have internet or not. Hopefully yes, but if no, it might be nice to take a break from the net for a while and just enjoy being away from the city.
Tomorrow will be a longer, but hopefully better day. Fingers crossed.
NaNo word count: 12200

schooltimes with sarah

I dragged Sarah to school with me this morning at the ungodly hour of 7:40 am, since I wasn't feeling well enough for work and decided not to go. Plus, sneezing on archive papers? Probably not the best idea in the world, and definitely not how I wanted to spend my morning.
We hung out and got coffee, and chatted. Sarah met some of my friends from AUC (and UCSB), and then we headed to Dramatic Lit. Today we were talking about Nathan the Wise, a play originally in German, written by Gotthold Lessing. Basically the play is about Christians, Muslims, and Jews in 12th centruy Jerusalem figuring out that they can all get along as long as they judge others by the fact that they are human beings first and members of a religion second. Sounds like a pretty good idea to me. I really enjoyed the play, and it was interesting to talk about in class too. I hope Sarah wasn't too bored. It was interesting to have another American university student sitting in on that class with me, because I've gotten fairly used to the high school atmosphere, but it was new and weird to her.
Egyptian Lit was okay, but I hadn't done the reading for the first time (pretty much) all semester, and of course today was the day she decided to call us out on not reading. Oh well. The midterm is on Sunday, so we'll see how that goes.
Speaking of midterms, I had my Arabic midterm today, which I didn't really study for. It turned out to be not too difficult though, and I think I did okay. For the first time, I had a test in language class that I understood all the questions for. That almost never happened in Japanese class! Usually there would be one or two words that I would mess up and that would cause me to answer a completely different question than the one I was supposed to. That didn't happen today though, so that's good.
After I got out of the test, Sarah and I had to wait for about an hour to catch the bus, so we bought some carrot cake, which was unhealthy (duh) but delicious. The bus ride home was long, but I took the time to write some more for NaNo, which was a good choice. I'm a little bit ahead now, and I'm hoping to maintain that lead and increase it day by day. I was almost always a full day ahead last year, and I really liked that feeling, so I'm going to try and get there again.
We didn't have any adventures for dinner, just the cafeteria, but that was okay food, and it meant that I got to get all my laundry done (finally!) for the first time in much too long.
Tomorrow is just another school day, but hopefully with more adventures in the evening than today had. Keep your fingers crossed for reservations at Abu el-Sid and a felucca ride after
NaNo word count: 5611

pomegranate hunt

This morning, I slept in, which was really nice. Well, I say slept in. What I mean is 'got up an hour after my 7:30 alarm went off' which is practically the same thing.
I was actually productive first thing in the morning, and wrote about half of my anthro paper before stopping to go on an adventure.
Geoff had mentioned to me that he'd had really good pomegranate juice from a fruit juice stand downtown, or somewhere, and I decided that that sounded really delicious. So, we set out from the dorms to walk to 26th of July street for some pomegranate juice and lunch. The juice stand we ended up at was pretty nice, although, like all the other juice stands I've visited or walked past, it smelled a little bit like rotting fruit. The man behind the counter served us our juice in small glass tumblers, and we stood by the counter to drink it. I'm pretty sure it had had some (probably a lot) of sugar added to it, because it was way sweeter than any pomegranate I've ever tasted. Definitely delicious, though. I even managed not to spill any on my shirt, so yay for that. After we'd overpaid for our juice (because we're Americans, most likely, we went next door to get lunch from a falafel stand. Geoff had a chips sandwich (potato chips in pita) and kofta, and I just had kofta. The man who made our lunches was really nice, and smiled the whole time. He spoke a little bit of English, which was apparent as soon as we'd walked up. I said "What are you going to get?" and Geoff replied "I dunno," and the falafel man laughed and said something along the lines of "Ana mish arif kemen!" which means "I don't know either!" in Arabic. He was very nice, and while my kofta was cooking, we chatted about where we were from (America/USA), and whether we lived here (yes). His reply to us saying we lived in Cairo was to laugh and say "Enta talib!" ("You're a student!") God knows there's no other reason we'd be living in Cairo. We finally got our food and paid (less than a dollar for lunch, which was about the same price as the pomegranate juice), and he said goodbye to us when we left, "maa salaama!" So that was awesome.
On our way back to the dorm, we stopped and bought whole pomegranates from a fruit store for 5.5 pounds a kilo (so much cheaper than at home!), and although I don't know exactly how I'm going to manage to eat mine yet, it looks delicious.

happy halloween!

The kofta was delicious too when we finally got back and got to eat. I'm pretty sure it was lamb. I think.

The rest of the day wasn't very exciting at all, except for my discovery when doing my Arabic homework that I have managed to memorize Maha's second dialog from Al-Kitaab, along with her first. Good for me. I'm sure my newfound skill at being able to inform people that my father works at the UN and my mother works at a university and I am truly lonely will come in quite handy one day.

Geoff and I met up again for dinner, planning to order onion rings from Cook Door but being stymied by the fact that nothing else on their menu looked remotely good. We ended up getting onion rings and burgers from Hardee's, and while the food was good, I expected the family size onion rings box to be less disappointing. Shame on you, Hardee's, shame.

Tomorrow, I may or may not have a midterm in Egyptian Lit. If I am lucky, the professor will still be sick, but I hope she's not, because she is an old lady, and that's just mean. Still, I hope the midterm is another day.

let's do the time warp again

I woke up late this morning, but made the bus on time. Actually, I made the bus a little bit early. Still, the extra forty minutes of sleep I accidentally got did not improve my mood today. I don't really know what was wrong, I just didn't want to put up with anybody's crap, which can be hard in classes where I have to work in groups.
Talking about The Misanthrope in Dramatic Lit was interesting, though, even if we got a little more technical than my admiration for the play really called for.
My second class of the day, Egyptian Lit, turned out to be cancelled, as I found out after waiting around for the teacher for 10 minutes with another two students until my friend pointed out the very small, not at eye level sign on the door. Woops. So, since we had nothing better to do, we talked about hieroglyphs and played hangman for a while. I drew a picture of an owl wearing a cowboy hat on the board, but I didn't take a picture of him, because I forgot I had my camera.
In Arabic class, we witnessed a march/walk-out/strike by the campus janitors, protesting for higher wages and better food options on campus. As it is, they have to pay the same prices for food that students do, which is ridiculous, since they get paid so little and are completely isolated out in the middle of the desert all day with no other food options.
The protest was still going on when class was over, and I took a few pictures. This is what a protest in Egypt looks like:

lots of people standing around while a few people shout

guys, what's going on? guys? nobody knows.

The bus ride home was long today, but I got a fairly good nap. When I got home, responsible student that I am, I started my homework right away. I had Arabic, an essay for Art and Architecture, and transcription for anthro. Tomorrow I'm presenting to my group in my anthro class about my conversation analysis, so that should go well. I have stuff to talk about, but I don't think it will fill up the time I'm supposed to fill. That's okay, though, because no one else's stuff will take that long either. So, that was my evening, full of homework, with only a few short breaks to dance the time warp while my roommate was gone, but that's it, I swear.

Speaking of the time warp, I finally started to watch the Rocky Horror episode of Glee, which I've kind of been waiting for forever, but the stupid internet won't let me finish it. They're just about to cast Santana as Dr. Frank-n-Furter, and I'm not sure if I want to go on. Glee, I love you, but I'm not so sure about this.

misanthrope and munch 'n' bagel

Another remarkably productive Tuesday for me. I woke up early, did some homework, watched some tv, made a video, skyped with some friends, did some more homework, and read a play for Dramatic Lit. The play, in all honesty, may have been the highlight of my day. It's called The Misanthrope, and it's by Moliere, a French playwright and actor of the 17th century. Obviously, the play was originally in French, but I read an English translation that was just amazing. The original rhyme scheme was preserved, and so was the meter, and it was wonderful. How could it not be, when it contained lines like "She holds that naked statues are immoral / But with a naked man she'd have no quarrel" and "Lovers are no trouble to collect / If one prefers them to one's self-respect." So awesome! </Moliere geek-out>
I also went to the grocery store this morning, and bought apples and shampoo. It was odd being out on the streets by myself, but I knew exactly where I was going, and wasn't wearing any clothing that could have attracted any unwanted attention. I couldn't really help being a tall pale girl with short reddish hair, though, so I still got a few stares. No one harassed me, though, so it was a good trip. What made it an especially good trip was that I took a different route back to the dorms than normal, and stumbled upon a building that I didn't even know was there, just about five blocks from my dorm. The Supreme Council of Antiquities Building. In other words, the building where Zahi Hawass works. If you don't know Zahi Hawass, please google him or something. If you think you've heard of him but aren't sure, he's the guy who's on the Discovery channel when they talk about Egyptology and aren't interviewing Salima Ikram instead.
The other highlight of my day was dinner. Instead of going out or relying on the cafeteria, some friends and I ordered in from Munch 'n' Bagel. I got a turkey sandwich bagel with fresh lettuce and tomato and turkey that actually tasted normal and not disgusting, for twenty pounds, or four dollars. Including the delivery charge. Yeah, I'll be eating there again.
We did have a fairly awkward time actually paying for our order when it arrived, though. We saw our package on the table, and paid the delivery man standing next to it 60 pounds for our order. He then went down to his bike and got out a package of sushi and tried to give it to us. That's not what we ordered... It all got sorted eventually and we got our money back, paid the right delivery man and got our food, but the dorm security guards were definitely laughing at us. It was pretty funny.
And because I have absolutely nothing else to talk about, here's my new vlog, a really really nerdy one that won't make much sense taken out of its youtube context and put here on my blog. Whatever:

in which i forget meidum (again)

Just wanted to say, pictures on blogger started working again, so there are now pictures up in my birthday blog about visiting Giza if you want to go check them out. Actually, they're there if you want to go check them out or not. But never mind, because it's time for a short and boring blog post! I know, I'm excited too.
Today I had my first quiz (midterm) for Art and Architecture, which as you know, I've been studying a lot for in the past few days. And you know what? It really wasn't that bad. I knew pretty much everything that was asked, and the only points I know for sure I'll miss are on the map section, because for the life of me, I can never remember where Meidum is. I know now that it's in the Fayyum, but earlier today, I said it was in Upper Egypt. Silly me. Maybe someday I'll learn. Aside from that, I think I did fairly well on the quiz. There was one minor glitch, in that it was only after we had finished the slide questions that the professor told us that by 'explain the significance' she meant she wanted us to describe the object on the slide thoroughly from top to bottom. That wasn't obvious to me, so that's not what I did. Hopefully I won't lose too many points because of it.
One thing I know for certain is that I didn't miss any of the identifications of the slides. I had a small panic after the test was over, talking to a classmate and realizing that she had put a different answer than me for one of the questions. Note to self: do not automatically assume that someone else is right and you are wrong. When I looked up the picture in question later, it turned out that I had definitely been right, and just gotten myself worried over something that 1) I couldn't do anything about and 2) didn't matter. Good for me. We'll see how the test as a whole pans out, though. I'll let you know.
That was pretty much the highlight of my day. Well, I say highlight. I mean 'only thing that mattered'. Speaking of which, I only have one midterm left! That means that all I have to do tomorrow on my day off is write an essay for my anthro class, sleep in a little and/or nap, read Moliere's The Misanthrope for Dramatic Lit, do my Arabic homework, and film a video blog explaining just how nerdy I am, really. When I list everything out like that, it just looks so relaxing, doesn't it? On second thought, maybe I'll erase that 'sleep in and/or nap' part.

midterms upon midterms

Sorry for the late (and uninteresting) blog post. I just spent four hours studying with friends for my Art and Architecture midterm tomorrow, so I'm a little bit brain dead on all things not ancient Egypt. Actually, scratch that, I'm pretty brain dead on everything.
School was fine today, although it was another day where I really could have used a hug. It probably would have made me cry, but not in a bad way. Sarah, be prepared for this possibility when I come get you at the airport next week, okay?
My Dramatic Lit midterm went really well, I though, especially since I didn't study as much as I might have. There were at least two sections where I know I didn't miss any points at all, and there wasn't anything on there that I wasn't capable of answering at least partly. I'll let you know how it turned out when I get my test back.
Egyptian Lit wasn't torturous today, mainly because the stories we talked about were actually interesting and class had to end early since the professor wasn't feeling well. I was glad it did, because it gave me some extra time to study for Art and Architecture before I had to go to Arabic class.
I've actually been enjoying Arabic class for the past few weeks, but today was the exception. We had to repeat the dialog from the book over and over again until the whole class could say it, which was just torture. I already knew most of it, so it wasn't that hard for me, but I felt a little bit like a show-off, even though that's not at all what I meant to do. I hope it didn't come across that way to any of my classmates.
I got home from campus at 6:30, and started studying for A&A at 7:00. We finished going through the slides about 15 minutes ago, which just goes to show how much information there is that we need to know. I'm feeling confident enough right now, although I still need to work on the map section before I can take the test.
Now it's definitely time for bed. Wish me luck on the quiz tomorrow!
P.s. If you are in the U.S. and don't have anything to do tonight (Sunday), watch Sherlock at 9:00 pm on PBS. It's a really really great show, and I don't think you'll be disappointed!

best modern adaptation of sherlock holmes ever. i promise.
also, not my picture. duh. thanks bbc.

birthday at the pyramids

Happy birthday to me! I'm not a teenager anymore, how sad. But so far, being twenty has been pretty good.
I was a little bit afraid that having my birthday without any of my old friends or my family around would totally suck, but instead, I had an amazing day, since I've met so many wonderful people here in Egypt.
The day started early, with a taxi ride to AUC's old campus in downtown Cairo, where we got on the bus that would take us to Giza. Professor Ikram wished me a happy birthday and gave me a brownie, which was very nice of her. The drive to Giza was relatively painless, although commiserating with the other students in my class about how totally lost we are for our midterm on Monday was a little worrisome. Still, I've been studying, and I'll do my best. Hopefully that's good enough.
We started our tour of the Giza plateau by meeting up with an archaeologist who is currently excavating the one of the workers' villages near the pyramids. Her work was really interesting, even if we had to climb ridiculous sand dunes and a giant rocky hill to see it. Here's some pictures of that:

view across smoggy cairo from the hill

the second pyramid

foreground: the pyramid builder's village

on the left is the top of the hill we climbed, it's a lot higher on the other side.

Then, we walked to the valley temple of Khafre (the builder of the second pyramid), which is right next to the Sphinx. The temple was beautiful, at least what remained was (all the decoration and statues have been taken to various Egyptian and European museums), but I didn't get any pictures inside. Here's the Sphinx, though:

okay, not the sphinx. a camel leg bone prof ikram
 found on the ground and took home with her.

sphinx! 

After the professors were done talking, they somehow disappeared, or we just didn't keep up. We got a little lost, and were chastised when we found our way back to the group eventually. I won't be doing that again any time soon! (Or ever. Never ever.)
Next, we visited the funerary boat of King Khufu (the builder of the first pyramid). The boat museum was wonderfully designed, and we got to wear awesome shoes inside to protect the boat:

boat booties!

the boat pit where the boat was found

so pretty. i want to sail in it.

what do you mean, i can't sail in it? why not?

At this point, lots of people in our group were very very thirsty, because we'd been promised a return to the bus, which hadn't happened yet, and actually never happened until the trip was over. Professor Ikram bought water for the people who needed it, but once you're dehydrated, one bottle of water isn't going to make you better, especially when you're still out in the hot sun.
Luckily, I'd brought my entire bag with me, two huge water bottles, four granola bars and all. I got a little dehydrated, just because I was usually too busy scrambling along with the group like good little ducklings to have time to take a drink, but by the end of the trip, both bottles were completely empty.
After seeing the boat, we entered two mastaba tombs of the 5th dynasty (I think). They were both really interesting, with carvings and paintings just like we'd talked about in class. Did I take pictures, despite the sign saying no cameras? Well, yes. Because the professor told me I could:

the tomb owner and his special kilt

Then it was time to visit the great pyramid. You might remember, last time I visited Giza, I only went into the second pyramids, because the first was too expensive. However, when you're with Professor Ikram, nothing costs any money beyond the field trip fee! It's just like magic.
The first pyramid was amazing, with the corbelled ceiling in the grand gallery and the sheer size of the tunnels through the rock. The pathways up to the burial chamber were steep, but not impossible. It felt like there wasn't any air inside, and it was amazingly hot and humid, but as you can see (read?), I survived. It was a close thing, though, especially when I hit my head on the ceiling of one of the tunnels, giving myself an instant headache. Ouch. Getting back out into the fresh air was a huge relief, except then we walked straight over to the next pyramid to go inside that one as well.
I almost didn't go, just because I'd already seen it, but then I thought, why miss out on the chance to visit it again, with a famous Egyptologist as a tour guide? It was a great choice, and I had a good time, even though I almost suffocated again.
(The best part of being inside the great pyramid, by the way, was when a man inside with a flashlight offered to take a group picture of us by the king's sarcophagus, even though photos are strictly not allowed. Professor Ikram said it was okay, though, so I jumped at the chance. I'll post that picture whenever I find it on someone's facebook, I promise. Even if I look horrible in it. [Here it is!])

i'm waaay in the back, just about in the middle. behind the freaking sarcophagus.

After getting out of the second pyramid, we headed back for the bus (Professor Ikram made everyone sing Happy Birthday to me and the other birthday student, which went something like, "happy birthday dear mumble-mumble") and went home. I caught a cab back to the dorms with some friends, and then headed straight upstairs for a birthday nap. When I woke up, I showered to get the dust of Giza off of myself, and then studied some more. In between readings, I made plans with friends to go out for a birthday dinner. We ended up at Dido's, an Italian restaurant not very far away. I had pesto fettuccine, which was completely delicious, so I'll definitely be going back there again! After dinner, we walked to a bakery/gelato place for dessert, which was amazing. I ordered tiramisu and coffee gelato, which was the best choice ever.
When we got back to the dorms, sigh, I came upstairs and studied some more. Aren't I dedicated? I hope that I do okay on my Dramatic Lit midterm tomorrow, because I'm afraid I kind of neglected it in favor of studying for Art and Architecture. Oh well.
In conclusion, I had an amazing twentieth birthday, and I can only hope that bodes well for the coming year.

song of the harper

Today was pretty normal, so I don't have anything particularly interesting to share, except for a conversation I had in my linguistics class today.
We were discussing folk lore and tall tales and things of that ilk, and somehow Anansi stories got brought up, then that got connected to B'rer Rabbit, and before long we were talking about animal stories, and how in the European/Western tradition, we don't really have any that don't have a few human characters too. The only exception we found was Aesop's Fables. Apparently, even these aren't actually European, due to some weird pseudo-linguistic maneuvering:
Aesop -> Aethop -> Ethop -> Ethiop -> Ethiopia
Which is apparently where the stories come from in the first place. Then the conversation got really interesting, when research was mentioned that basically said that all Native American folk lore (the animal stories at least) came from Africa via contact with slaves.
That didn't make sense to me at all. Like, at all. How could an entire tradition of stories and legends across two continents be manufactured/borrowed in just a few decades between two populations that didn't even have regular contact in all areas? Take California, for example. I know the Chumash have/had animal legends, and there certainly wasn't widespread slavery in California, especially of the kind that would have allowed direct transmission of folk lore straight from Ethiopia to the native population of the area. Anyway, I never really understood the point he was trying to get at. Not everything originated in Africa, unless one takes a really wide view, in which case everything did originate in Africa, and I mean everything. Those are really the only two general options that I can see. I'm going to do a little looking into the idea, though, just because I found it really interesting.
I also got coffee today, from the only halfway decent coffee shop on campus, which is really not that decent at all. Plus who names a coffee shop after a leafy green?

my 'coffee american small with milk'. mmm.

And if this blog post weren't boring enough, I'm going to share a really interesting Ancient Egyptian poem I read in class. It's actually probably one of the best things I've read this school year, because I love the point of view that it takes, one that's pretty contrary to the popular thoughts in Egypt around the time it was written, thoughts that generally lauded the afterlife and all it promised.

The Harper's Song:

One generation passes away and the next remains,

Ever since the time of those of old.

The gods who existed before me rest in their tombs,

And the blessed nobles also are buried in their tombs.

But as for those builders of tombs,

Their places are no more.

What has become of them?

I have heard the words of Imhotep and Hardedef,

Whose maxims are repeated intact as proverbs.

But what of their places?

Their walls are in ruins, 

And their places are no more,

As if they had never existed.

There is no one who returns from beyond

That he may tell of their state,

That he may tell of their lot,

That he may set our hearts at ease

Until we make our journey

To the place where they have gone.

So rejoice your heart!

Absence of care is good for you;

Follow your heart as long as you live.

Put myrrh on your head,

Dress yourself in fine linen,

Anoint yourself with exquisite oils

Which are only for the gods.

Let your pleasures increase,

And let not your heart grow weary.

Follow your heart and your happiness,

Conduct your affairs on earth as your heart dictates,

For that day of mourning will surely come to you.

The Weary-Hearted does not hear their lamentations,

And their weeping does not rescue a man's heart from the grave.

Enjoy pleasant times,

And do not worry thereof.

Behold, it is not given to any man to take his belongings with him,

Behold, there is no one departed who will return again.

post-sinai snooze-fest

Sorry, there won't be a catch-up blog from Sinai posted to tonight. I am uploading pictures to yesterday's blog, but my computer is being epically slow, and I don't want to fight with it any more.
I did pretty well at school today, despite being sore and tired. Climbing the three flights of stairs to get to work hurt like nobody's business. Tomorrow should be better, unless of course, it's worse. I find it works that way. It will get better eventually, though.
For the first time, I actually didn't wake up when the bus got to campus this morning. It wasn't until the doors opened that I had any idea we were there. I like to think that someone would have woken me up, but I'm not really sure about that. Sadly, nothing else really interesting happened today, except for discussing The Duchess of Malfi in Dramatic Lit, and turning in a pretty fail outline to my Egyptian Lit professor.
When I got home, I started work on my midterm for my linguistics class right away, and got half of it done pretty quickly. Of course, then I took a break, which led to me not finishing the second half of the midterm until 11:00. Oops.
In the meantime, though, I did get all my laundry done. I went down to the first floor to use the machines there. That turned out to be good in someways (both machines worked, I got to take the elevator upstairs without seeming like a total wimp, since I was carrying laundry) and bad in others. Well, other. I got shut into the bathroom twice by a security lady, thanks to a 'man on the floor'. Wonderful, right? Gotta protect me from the trauma of having electricians see my laundry.
On the positive side, no one stole my laundry detergent when I forgot it on the washer. Twice.
Okay, the slowness of my computer is driving me insane. That's it for tonight. Catch-up blogs tomorrow, and don't forget to check yesterday's post for the new pictures!
Oh, and read my friend Geoff's new blog about Cairo, he sums the entire experience up pretty well. You can find it here.
Something to listen to: Ben Folds singing Losing Lisa.

And something else to listen to: Self singing Paint by Numbers.


p.s. I talked to my cuz-niece on Skype last night. We took pictures of each other:

awww

it's like this, cat

Congratulations to me, I woke up on time today! I ate my breakfast, caught my bus, and even had time to get coffee and print out my essay in the library before heading up to the third floor for work. I was right on time, but my boss was running a little late, so I hung out in the reading room in the archives and learned about papyri. It was pretty cool. Then I finally got to work for the first time, editing the catalogue list of documents owned by Hasan Fathy but not written by him. He was a famous Egyptian architect, you can read more about him here. The catalogue was legible, but inconsistently formatted and with a lot of mistakes made by the person who wrote it out, who definitely wasn't a native speaker of English and had probably never heard of MLA format. I basically have to work through the whole thing (twelve boxes of documents) and double check all the information between the catalogue, the folder labels, and the documents themselves, then fix all the mistakes in some consistent way. Should be fun. And for two dollars an hour, the Rare Books and Archives department is certainly getting their money's worth.

On my way to the bus this morning, I ran into a car and hurt my hand, scraping a bunch of skin off. Ouch. It'll probably be an impressive blue or purple tomorrow. I hope so, at least. Bruises aren't any fun if no one else knows they're there.

poor hand

My worst class (Egyptian Lit) was actually moderately interesting today. I don't know what made it that way, other than the fact that we were discussing the most hilariously negative pieces of literature I've ever read. Apparently, when things went wrong in ancient Egypt, they went really wrong. The lamentations we read included mentions of crocodiles eating women and children, all the stored grain being stolen from the tax collectors, and the Asiatics from the east invading and killing all the good Egyptians. Tough luck, huh? A lot of what we read was allegorical, but it was still really interesting to see what the Egyptians viewed as the world turned upside down.
Maggie and I ate dinner in the cafeteria tonight, and met a new friend. Yay.

courtyard cat decided to join us (no, i didn't give him that food)

The cat from the courtyard (at least I think it's the same one) somehow managed to get inside the cafeteria and was stalking its way between all the tables meowing incessantly and stretching out its claws. It was really freaky, and I didn't want it anywhere near me.* Unfortunately, the cat seemed convinced that I would give it food, and it stayed pretty close.

going to stalk someone else for scraps

Eventually, he lost interest in me, and moved on to other tables to beg. At one of those tables, he actually got food, and the girl sitting there even started petting him. Ew, ew, ew, ew. I can't really imagine anything more gross to do in Egypt than petting a street cat, except for maybe gargling with Nile water or licking the street. Did she want to get fleas or rabies or goodness knows what else? Did she have a death wish? I'll never know. Eeeeeewww.

That was pretty much my whole day. Fun fun fun all around. On the other hand, after tomorrow, I get a whole day off, with no essay to work on or anything! As long as I never see that damn cat again.

*You know that kid's book It's Like This, Cat? My version goes It's Like This, Cat: Get Away From Me And I Won't Call Security to Kick Your Kitty Butt Out of the Dorms For Good. Pretty catchy, huh?

essay writing with breaks to fangirl

Okay, the first essay of the school year is officially complete. Finally. Hopefully I'll be able to get my act together a little better for the next ones. Maybe. I doubt it, but I can always hope, right?
Sadly, I spent all of today in my dorm room. All day. Writing my paper or avoiding writing my paper. Or snacking on pita bread and bananas and peanut butter. Peanut butter tastes like home.
I also did the rest of my homework, I guess. I'm really glad that I bothered to read Midsummer Night's Dream earlier this week, because I would definitely be in trouble if I still had it left to read. I could probably sneak through class based on what I remembered, but I definitely wouldn't pass the quiz!
For Arabic, I got to do fill in the blank sentences like 'My dad works for the oil company' and 'I live in Zamalek', the last of which I'm not entirely sure I spelled correctly. I see the word so often in English that I've never bothered to look up how it's actually spelled in Arabic before.
The highlight of my day occurred when during one of my mini-breaks, I visited Neil's Magnificent Oracular Journal for some encouragement. If you go visit it, please read the instructions before testing its magic. They're important. Anyway, I asked the oracle whether I really could finish my essay well in a timely fashion. The reply of the oracle? 'Sure.'
Knowing that the words of wisdom the oracle produces are drawn directly from Neil Gaiman's very own blog, I immediately felt better about my essay, and went back to writing. A little while later, I tweeted at him, expressing my thanks for the oracle.
@neilhimself just wanted to say thanks for your magnificent oracular journal. Q: 'can i really do this?' A: 'sure'. made my day. :]
A little while later, I checked twitter again, only to find this waiting for me:
@bellmaison it is magical and oracular.
He replied! I was fangirling all over the place, it was awesome. So I tweeted back:
@neilhimself it certainly is. even when i ask 'how is my hair today' and it tells me 'And there are sheep' i remain awed by its magic.
And then, just a few minutes later, from Neil:
@bellmaison at that point it is being Deep.
Honestly? Day. Made. I couldn't have been happier. Then my friend Nicole tweeted me, and said:
@bellmaison you and your cute conversation with neil. i can hear you fangirling halfway across the world.
Which was also awesome. And completely true, she probably could hear me. Nicole knows how much I love Neil, since she's the one who stood in line with me until three am to meet him and have our books signed when he visited UCSB.
So, yeah. Writing an essay and having a twitter conversation with Neil Gaiman were the highlights of my day. Nothing, not even waking up early tomorrow to catch the seven o'clock bus, is going to make me forget how awesome today was. Nothing.