a hermione moment, a liveshow, and the absence of hugs

Wow, I actually have lots of stuff to talk about today. What's up with that?
This morning, I woke up early, because for some reason I was waking up all night, and 10 minutes before my alarm went off happened to be one of those times.
I took the 7:00 bus to campus, and got my coffee like usual (except instead of just American coffee with milk, I got a mocha cafe thing, which was totally worth the three extra pounds I paid for it. And my friend Maggie dropped a pound coin in her coffee. I don't really know how it happened, just that it did. And then they remade her coffee for her while the cashier cracked up about it. It could happen to anyone.
In Art and Architecture today, we discussed the upcoming midterm quiz, which covers everything we've done so far and will feature a map section, a short answer section, and possibly a drawing section. Oh, and also, if I do well on it, I might get to work either in the Egyptian museum or on a dig on the Giza plateau. If that's not good enough motivation to get an A, I don't know what is.
In my anthropology class we arranged the desks in a circle for some reason, although we didn't really have anything different about the class. Maybe the professor just wanted to sit down. Anyway, near the end of class, he was discussing 'native' ethnographers and how women study women, etc. and something about that statement just struck me the wrong way. My hand flew into the air like I was Hermione Granger preparing to defend house elf rights or something. It was a little pathetic.
I just wanted to know why 'women studying women' was classified that way when decades upon decades of men studying men was just 'anthropology'. I didn't really get a satisfactory answer from the professor, but he didn't say anything terribly (or even moderately) offensive either, so that was okay.
The rest of the day went well, although I didn't get my Arabic quiz back like I'd hoped. We did get to practice our new vocabulary though, and say things like 'Do you spend all your time in the library?' Very useful, this class, I'm telling you.
When I got home, I did some homework, studied a bit, not nearly as much as I should have, and then headed downstairs to the study room to actually do some work. When I got there, I transcribed some of my conversation project for anthropology, then made the (awesome) mistake of checking facebook, where I saw that John Green had just announced a liveshow not 10 minutes previously.
Being the giant nerd that I am, I immediately went to watch, throwing my studies to the wayside. This turned out to be a good choice, or at least, that's how I feel about it now. I got to talk to tons of other people in the show's chatroom, even though I wasn't in the main room in the beginning. I don't know if anyone reading this has ever watched a liveshow on blogtv, but basically there's the mainroom, where the person hosting the show can see everything the viewers in that room chat, and then there's the waiting rooms, where the host can't see anything you chat, unless they specifically go to that waiting room. It's a little frustrating but still fun because you get the chance to talk to tons of awesome people.
Also, in chat situations like this, there are usually a few people in the room (of a about 100 or so) who type frequently and whose name everyone recognizes, and who get real conversations going. Usually I'm not one of them, but tonight I was, and it was really fun. I got bumped up to the mainroom eventually too, and John even answered one of my questions, which was nice. This whole liveshow thing may have ruined my night for studying, but it also sorta made my day.
[For those who don't know, by the way, John Green is a YA author and vlogger extraordinaire. His books are Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines, Paper Towns, and Will Grayson Will Grayson. You should read them. They're pretty jokes.]
After the liveshow, I hung out with my friend Maggie in the study room for a while, and we both freaked out a little bit about the sudden and frightening appearance of courtyard cat. I got some footage of it, finally:

And now it's time for quick unfortunate story time. I haven't been feeling that great lately, like not sick, but not well. I didn't really know why until I realized that I haven't had a real hug in almost two months. That's weird to even think about. I don't know why, but I don't hug people here. I think it probably has something to do with the weird PDA rules the dorm, and unofficially the campus, have. Hugging between members of the opposite sex is a big no-no, and not too much hugging goes on even between members of the same sex. Double cheek kisses yes, between two guys or two girls, but not hugging. And cheek kisses just aren't the same, in my opinion. (Not that I know any Egyptians well enough to merit a cheek kiss.) So, basically what I'm saying is, Sarah, you are getting a big hug from me when I pick you up at the airport next weekend.

'hint, hint,' says my subconscious

I woke up super early this morning to have some skype time with my friend Teresa from home, which was really nice. We were both sleepy, her because it was bedtime, and me because I'd just woken up. We also had some problems with weird noises coming through skype, and the sound randomly cutting out for one or both of us. Still, what are you gonna do? We are halfway around the world from each other!
After talking to Teresa, I talked to other friends, namely Audrey and Caira. This conversation ranged all across the internet, from facebook chat to skype to gmail chat/video. Everything we tried was frustrating, because we couldn't make three-way calling work at all. We still got to talk and catch up a little bit though, and I really had a good time.
I spent about an hour today watching cooking videos from SortedFood. I highly recommend them to anyone looking for something to make for any meal, ever. Of course, I say this as a person who hasn't had, and won't have, access to a real kitchen for two months. While I watched the guys at Sorted making strawberry shortcake, chicken quesadillas, jambalaya, rocky road, and tons of other delicious foods, I apparently got a little bit drawn in. At one point, I looked up from a video to notice that I was leaning all the way over the desk, and had my nose about six inches away from the computer screen. It's like my subconscious was trying to tell me something.
So I went downstairs and had rice and some cucumbers for lunch. Yay for imaginative Egyptian cooking.
Aside from that little adventure, and studying for my Arabic quiz tomorrow, today was a pretty empty day. It was definitely the good kind of empty, though, because that's how I wanted it to be, and I didn't have anything I had to fill it up with.
I did film another video blog today, the theme for this week being the google verb meme. I didn't really explain it in the video, but the gist of it is, you google "[your name] [verb]s" and see what google throws up for you. The entire list is -needs, -looks, -says, -wants, -does, -hates, -asks, -likes, -eats, -wears, -was arrested for, -loves. It's actually pretty fun just to do for kicks. My favorite result was definitely 'elise needs to learn how to live in the world' which was actually a result from a website telling a made-up story about a little girl named Elise with a peanut allergy who needed to learn how to not be so sheltered. Or something. Whatever. Here's my video:

P.s. about the video, it took me forever to make the damned thing, because I wanted to include a clip of courtyard cat for everyone to see. iMovie was being ridiculous though, so I couldn't make it work. Sadface.
So that's it. Except for this: 'Things I Don't Have to Think About Today', written by John Scalzi for his website, which I just wanted to share. I think it's something that people ought to read. And think about.