Well, no posts recently because I've been slammed - still am really, but I have a few spare moments at work so...
I've been spending at least 20 hours a week translating Middle Egyptian texts (specifically private inscriptions from or set up in front of tombs) which is a lot of fun, but leaves me little time for other work. Doing a massive quantity of reading for my other courses. Had to teach a course on the Badarian culture in Predynastic Egypt - ooh, that was fun, talking for an hour and half after having spent several days plowing through site reports from between around 1910 and 1940 that were written sometimes well but usually really badly. My favorite quote from the chief excavator: "Obviously, the Badarians were sufficiently civilised to have carried hankerchiefs." Gotta love that British colonial style. Also, I'm formulating a theory (granted,it's based on anecdotal evidence) that all the really cool sites in north Africa and the Middle East are in or near villages with really nasty dogs. And I was reduced to utter speechlessness at the, um, shall we say obtuseness of a certain person who should know better regarding modern archaeological excavation techniques in stratified locales (or rather, who should really consider the whole "pot calling the kettle black" thing... or the whole "don't talk about stuff you obviously do not understand thing"). But I digress. I've started doing translations with one of the 1st years who has a background in Middle Egyptian and so is in the advanced course and we've decided that we need to have a "gutter vernacular" translation day: i.e. "Yo, I shall build your wicked cool temple..." and "I put the god's bling-bling on him"
I continue to work 15 hours a week in the Museum Office, dealing quite often with people who a) don't understand why we don't know by heart all of the thousands of images that are on our website and/or in our publications and/or just in the archives and cannot identify them via descriptions such as "you know, that Egyptian guy, the one with the spear" b) keep asking when the "Iraq exhibit" - (i.e. the newly reinstalled Mesopotamian gallery) closes, thinking it's a temporary exhibit - after 3 days of constant phone calls regarding this, it almost would have been worth getting fired to be way too literal and tell them that it closed at 4 that afternoon, i.e. when the Museum closes for the day ("What! Oh shit! It's 3:45!") c) want me to do their research papers for them by sending cleverly worded emails such as "Please tell me everything you know about Mesopotamian texts." or "What do you know about the pyramids?" and; d) are just plain stupid. Fortunately, I get paid quite well.
Now I have found out that my advisor and the primary reader for my 2-Year paper which is due at the end of March is going to dig in Egypt from the beginning of January until the end of March. Ummm, shit. This is a problem. No email, no fax, no FedEx... My other reader, cool though he is, does not know Predynastic Egypt, and so will be able only to tell me things like "Gee, it looks good to me, but what the hell do I know?" And the prevailing view among the Egyptologists (to be distinguished, at least around here, from us archaeologists) is that anything before writing - namely, most of the Predynastic, is not really worth their time. I'm waiting for my advisor to inform me that I need to go ahead and write the entire paper before January 1 - I've been practicing flipping him off with both hands in preparation for this announcement. If he catches me on a really good day, I may provide some seriously entertaining dialogue for anyone on the second floor who isn't deaf or unconscious. (And possible the 3rd and 1st floors as well, if I'm pissed enough.)