is it time to blog again?

Apparently, yes.
So since I blogged earlier, I was going to skip tonight, but I decided not to. For no real reason at all, actually. I mean, there's nothing left to say.
I worked on my paper a bit, read some sources. Didn't do as much as I was planning to do. Tomorrow is another day?
Basically, I don't want to go to bed yet because I haven't talked to my family on skype in two or three days (except for my aunt who is amazing and called me!) and I miss them. I'm debating right now whether to keep working on my paper (because late night sentences are still sentences) and stay up to see if they get on the computer, or just say screw it and go to bed. Decisions, decisions.
While I'm pondering that, go look at this.

This album, Erase This, from DFTBA records (that's Don't Forget To Be Awesome for all you non-nfs out there) is amazing, and I'm almost ashamed that I didn't buy it before its creators offered it up for a free download.

Erase This is one of those albums that tells a story, although what it says to each person who listens is almost certainly different. I just know that the story I hear when I listen to it seems to come from my heart, not just Alan Lastufka's mind or Luke Conard's voice.

If you have $12, I suggest you follow the link above and buy the album. If you don't have $12, at least listen to Boxcar Blood for free a few times and see how you like it. (Or go here to the iTunes store for previews of all the songs. Try 'Forgiven' and 'Erase This' at the very least.)

Although right now Erase This is my bus ride music, I'm very much looking forward to the time when I can play it in my car, driving anywhere I want, home home home.

p.s. My mom just called. So yay.

*cough cough* almost forgot

Gosh darn it, this forgetting to blog is getting to be a habit, and I don't like it. I was almost asleep before I remembered this time.
It's not even like anything particularly interesting happened today that I just had to tell you about. I went to class, the janitor's are still on strike, I came home, the bus ride took forever.
In new news, I think I'm getting sick. For the first time since I've been in Egypt, I actually feel fairly unwell. I hope whatever it is goes away soon, but I'm not going to get my hopes up, because it probably won't. All I ask is that I don't have bronchitis. Or strep throat. Or the flu. Just a cold, please. That's all I am prepared to handle.
Well, today is Halloween, and what a spectacularly uninteresting Halloween it was, too. I didn't dress up, I didn't get or give any candy, and I haven't heard a single trick-or-treat. I don't know if I like it or not, but it certainly is strange.
And because today is Halloween, it's a very important day for two reasons. One, it's my grandfather's birthday, and I got to talk to him on Skype today for the first time ever, since I haven't seen him since August (duh). The internet connection on my cousin's iPhone wasn't very good, and neither is Grandpa's hearing, but I think he heard my say happy birthday at least one of the times I shouted it at my computer. The other reason today being Halloween is important, is because that means that tomorrow is November. I've been dreading/looking forward to November for a very long time. November means NaNoWriMo, which I am planning to drive myself insane with again this year. And it starts tomorrow. I'll be writing at least 1,667 words a day to meet the goal of a 50,000 word novel by the end of the month. I hope my blogging won't suffer too much, but that seems like a definite possibility. Either blogging or homework might have to get tossed out the window to make room for NaNo. Which to choose, which to choose?
Also, have I mentioned the trip to Jordan that I was planning to make over the Eid break in the middle of November? Yes, no? Well, it doesn't matter now, because not enough people signed up, and the trip has been cancelled. Yay, now I have more time for homework. And blogging. And NaNo.

a sketchy situation

Woke up today at 7:30 to shower and start studying, which actually kind of worked. I got stuff done, at least until I took my first break, which lasted a lot longer than it should have. I got to skype with my friend Maggie from home, though, so that was really nice.
Then I went downstairs to the courtyard to study more, and managed to get through my notes almost two times before we had to catch a cab to the Egyptian Museum. It was an interesting experience, because the driver was the first I'd met who willingly admitted that he didn't speak a lick of English, not in so many words of course. I was pretty proud of myself for making it work, and getting him to drop us off in the right place, although we did have to cross about six lanes of traffic to actually get to the museum. We also were there freakishly early, because Kim and I were a bit paranoid about being late again, after last time. It wasn't too long before the entire group showed up though, and we headed inside. The trip this time was much less frenetic, and much less boiling hot, because it wasn't nearly as crowded and we didn't have to run up and down any giant staircases. We looked at and learned about a ton of new and interesting Old Kingdom statues, including the only for-sure identified statue of Khufu (Cheops), the builder of the great pyramid at Giza. The statue is less than four inches tall. And it's adorable. The only remaining image of a pharaoh who is painted in history as an egotistical maniac is a teeny tiny ivory statue. If he'd really been as bad as Herodotus says he was, don't you think we'd have found more evidence?
Part of our assignment at the museum today, other than to follow Professor Ikram around like little ducklings* (or 'chickadees' as she sometimes calls us), was to describe a work of art in detail, as practice for our class paper. I chose a statue of King Raneferef from the 5th dynasty, which sadly is all broken up and the paint is almost all gone. That in itself isn't very interesting, but what happened to me when I was sketching the statue was. Perhaps the fact that what I was drawing was called a 'sketch' lends a certain tone to my encounter. An Egyptian man, who I hadn't noticed standing beside me, all of a sudden commented on my art. "Very beautiful," he said, "you are very good." I pretty much ignored him, and continued to draw. "You have chosen a wonderful piece," he said, "it is beautiful." At this point, I was wondering if he would just go away, but sadly, this was not the case. "You are from America," he stated, "you are touring?" I really shouldn't have responded, but I couldn't seem to help myself. "No," I said, "I live here. I live in Cairo." He was bit surprised, but quickly smoothed it over with, "Me too! I also live in Cairo. I am an accountant. What do you study?" "Egyptology." "What?" "Egyptology." "What?" "I study Egypt," I finally said, really kind of wanting him to go away. "Oh, oh, Egypt. Of course. I am an accountant," he repeated, as if I had thrown him off his script. "I play judo, and also swimming." "Hmmm," I said, trying to be noncommittal and also dismissive, if at all possible. Maybe I should have left then, but I was still trying to draw the stupid statue. He was silent for a while, then said, "Okay, okay. I must say. I am not married. I have not been married."
Around then, my friends showed up, ready to leave, I finished my sketch, and I said to him, "Very nice to meet you, goodbye." And to his credit, he left. Major props to him for that, at the very least. So, that was it. My very first 'marriage proposal' in Egypt. I'm so excited. I could tell he didn't really care about me though, I knew the relationship couldn't last. Relationships based on lies never do, and he started out with one, complimenting my drawing. I know the truth. This was my sketch, after all... (As you can see, that man was a big fat liar. Also, you can stop laughing now. Anytime.)
When I got home from the museum, I studied some more, then made the mistake of taking another break. It didn't really turn out to be a mistake, though. Quite the opposite. Instead of spending another five hours studying, I spent five hours hanging out with friends talking about whatever crossed our minds. And apparently, we are all huge nerds. I mean, I know I'm a huge nerd, but it's always nice to have company. We talked about Doctor Who, Harry Potter, Buffy&Angel, Lord of the Rings, Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, Anne McCaffrey, George RR Martin, Sherlock, The Room, fanfiction, Lost, Dr. Horrible, internet memes including drunk Jeff Goldblum and sad Keanu, and in short, it was the most epic conversation I've had in a long time. There were, of course, interludes of pizza and cupcakes (not for anyone but Peter, though), but pretty much, it was an amazing conversation that continued solidly for five hours.
One of the best quotes to come out of this monster conversation was this, as Peter attempted to explain why everything bad that happens to Harry Potter and his friends is Harry's own fault: "Harry Potter is the reason Cedric Diggory is a vampire." And I have to say, it was a pretty persuasive argument. Also, the description of the Twilight movies as "comedies with really good soundtracks" was wonderfully apt.
So, that was my day. Egyptian Museum (with marriage proposal), studying, and ultra-nerdiness. It was a pretty great day. Hopefully celebrating my birthday tomorrow on the Giza plateau running around after Professor Ikram again* will be just as fantastic.

*Do not in anyway misunderstand me: I love having the chance to follow Salima Ikram around like a baby duckling.

general malaise

That's the only thing wrong with me. General malaise. Unfortunately, there's nothing I can do about it, except keep going forward. That usually (always) helps. It gets better.

I had an absolutely fascinating morning at work today, and if you think I'm being serious about that, it's only because sarcasm does not become me. I sorted through file folder after file folder filled with papers that had been paper-clipped and stapled and why-on-earth-would-anyone-do-this-taped together. Which I then had to sort out properly to make them 'archive appropriate'. Worse, the papers today weren't even interesting. To quote Tom Lehrer, they were 'full of words and meaning, and signifying nothing.' Mostly boring emails. Who prints out emails and then files them? That's what computers are for! They store things, things like emails. Sigh.

At least I didn't work in the freezing cold today. The office was empty, so I got to work in there with the warm sunlight coming through the window in front of me and the door to freeze-world shut securely behind me.

After my first class today, I had a library adventure with my friend Geoff, who needed to find books on diglossia for a linguistics paper. Actually, we didn't find any books on diglossia in the end, but we did find some on pidgins and creoles. Due to a mis-transcription of a call number, which may or may not have been my fault, we completely missed the first book we were looking for by just a few shelves, but we found it eventually. (We also took a moment to fangirl/fanboy over a really cool pidgin called Tok Pisin from Papua New Guinea. It's really cool. Tell your friends.) The other book we were looking for turned out to be on a different floor, a fact which I didn't realize until we had thoroughly explored Floor 2. So what if I can't remember that 'g' comes before 'h'? We found it eventually, didn't we?
[NB: There are currently insane freshman girls shrieking outside and running up and down the hall. If only a man-on-the-floor would appear and scare them all back to their rooms.]
I had my first real test in Arabic today, although my ustezza (professor) called it a quiz. I think I did pretty well, even if I couldn't remember how to spell 'seven' correctly. Yup, just checked google translate. Definitely got that one wrong. Arabic class actually kind of freaks me out sometimes. I don't know if it's just the fact that it's not my first 'second' language, or it's that I've taken a bunch of linguistics classes since I started learning Japanese, but Arabic seems to be coming to me a lot easier. It seems more like a puzzle that I can sort of figure out on my own without too much help. I kind of want to do a huge morphological analysis of everything I've learned so far, but I don't think I'll waste time I don't really have to waste on something like that. I'll waste it on Skype and Facebook and NaNoWriMo instead.
New song for you: Shut Your Eyes by Snow Patrol. They don't seem to have an official video for the song, so this is a fan-made one. I haven't actually watched it all the way through, so that's a disclaimer for you right there:

'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.