I got in safely last night. I'll post more about the trip later when I'm feeling up to it and have decided what is and is not for public consumption. Suffice to say I had a wonderful time and we had a very successful season and I can't wait to go back. Happy holidays to everyone!

This is probably my last post until late December, but it's possible I'll wander into an Internet cafe on a day off and post something. For anyone who gives a damn, Tom will probaby post occasional updates.
I have all my crap packed and ready to go - one frame pack, a small roller bag and my regular backpack - I think that's the lightest I've ever packed in my life. Unfortunately, I'm not taking just my stuff - I also have approximately 50 pounds of excavation gear for the expedition to take as well. So that's another huge suitcase that is probably going to give the TSA guys fits - it's full of odd looking papers, software, an autolevel in an otterbox... And I get to take two of the tripods for the surveying gear which I cleverly (I hope) mummified together in lots of bubblewrap and duct tape in a possibly vain hope that BA will accept them as a single over-size, over-weight piece of luggage and only charge me an indecent amount of money once.
At least once they're checked in I don't have to carry them myself again.
So, when we get to Cairo, we hang around a couple of days and then head down to Abydos by train. Specifically, by the Night Train. So, despite my declarations that I would never, ever ride the Night Train I am apparently going to do so. Hopefully I won't wind up with a hangover.

So, anyone who wants to see where I'm actually excavating, etc. can check out the article about Abydos on Tour Egypt's site - it's a handy overview. We'll be working at South Abydos on the Ahmose complex. As the article shows, the site has a long history, both in the ancient world and for archaeological research since the late 19th/early 20th century, including work by one of my favorite characters in the history of archaeology Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie.
I'm not really comfortable providing specifics here - anyone who is curious can email me.

I got my absentee ballot today. And pretty much I have to say that my fingers hurt from punching out the necessary chads with what I will call "the little pokey thingie" and that the styrofoam backing they provided for such purpose was squeaky and therefore annoying. Yay. Civic duty. And they didn't even have the decency to provide return postage. At least I didn't have to stand in line in the freezing-ass cold for hours.
I was hoping that my flight schedule (I leave the evening of 1 Nov) would allow me the excuse to find a payphone at Heathrow and call Tom at 4 in the morning his time after the election screaming "who won?! who won dammit?!" I don't know why I find this scenario so amusing, but I do - looking for a newspaper would be way too easy. Alas, that probably won't be necessary. I guess if I'm really bored in Cairo in between the bouts of Tut's Revenge that will inevitably strike me approximately 30 minutes after arrival I could call the embassy and do the same thing, but I'm thinking that may not be wise.
Yippee, just a few weeks to go! (Ferret dance)

I have finally done what I've wanted to do since I was 8 years old - booked my ticket for Egypt!
For any who are interested, I can send and receive mail - drop me an email with your address if you'd like a postcard or something (I'll try to accomodate you, but no promises) or if you'd like to send me a letter with some smart-ass comment so I won't feel the lack of the forums or blogs. I will have very intermittent access to a computer with internet access, especially if I go to Luxor on one of our days off, so hopefully I'll get to post something at least once. This trip is going to be absolutely amazing! The only sad part is that Tom and Oreo can't come. And that they'll be alone in the apartment while I'm gone...

Well, I haven't posted in a while, primarily because there hasn't been much to post about and I've been busy with work and wondering what the hell was going on with my field work this fall. I think I've established the following: we leave 1 November and return 20 December - not a long season, unfortunately, and this also removes the possibility of traveling after the season as everyone wants to come back to the States to be with their families for the holidays. At least I don't have to pay for anything. I do have to make arrangements to vote early, but no big deal.
I have also been provided with a guide to colloquial Egyptian Arabic for archaeologists. I'd have preferred to have had all summer to have it lying around so I could pretend to be studying it and procrastinating about doing so - instead I only have about a month to pretend to study it and procrastinate doing so. Actually, as I work through it, I may post some of the more entertaining phrases. I've already found one in the "Dining Room Comments" section: the very first phrase in the section is "this is not clean" - this does not bode well. There are also phrases for "do you smoke?" but unfortunately not one for "can I bum a cigarette?" And while I will probably get relatively proficient in speaking while I'm in the field it will be the Upper Egyptian dialectic, which most people in Cairo consider to be the country-bumpkin dialect. At least I'll be consistent, y'all.

As is also posted on the forums I have a new cell phone number. Email for details. The old one will no longer work and neither will Tom's.

Occassionally, people post something on the UC marketplace that is moderately entertaining in a train-wreck kind of way:
interesting way to get a date...

Dammit boy! I was reminded that I hadn't looked recently, so I did my own google for "dancing ferret." I already knew about the goth band or whatever the hell it is associated with the name, and expected some ferret-care pages but this was by far the most frightening thing I found. And no, I didn't read any of the "Fiction."

I officially received my MA last month. Our degrees are really sort of ugly - considering all the money I payed, I really would have liked a prettier piece of paper.
I also just finished (as of an hour ago) the German reading exam. As per usual, it sucked. Two passages. One on "German Naturalist Prose" and the other one titled "German Fairy Tales" that was really about gender roles. Whatever. Hopefully this will have been the last time and now I can actually being to enjoy my summer break.

I have finally finished all my work and taken my last exam for the quarter. I am never, ever taking four classes for credit again. This quarter it was especially bad because I had the big paper due the second week of the quarter, the French Reading Exam (which I "High Passed" by the way) and I had to turn in all my course papers and take exams early because I applied to receive my MA. The good news is I've been accepted to continue in the program, so now I have comprehensive exams and my dissertation to look forward to. :) But, this summer I plan to relax and in the fall, with luck, I will be excavating in Egypt. Yay! Oreo will be happy - I'll have time to pay attention to him. And Tom will be happy - I'll have time to pay attention to him too. :) And speaking of Tom, I must say here that I could not have survived the last quarter without him - he was awesome! He cooked, he cleaned (sometimes), he handled the shopping, he drove me to class, he came with me to the library and made copies of things I needed while I was busy doing other work, he listened to me brainstorm and whine and carry on and gave me lots of hugs. If I ever doubted how lucky I am to have married him (and I haven't) I sure don't now. TOM RULES!!!!!!! And now he's gainfully employed, so he rules even more!

THE PAPER IS FINISHED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Let the Ferret-dancing commence!)
Ninety-two pages of sweet, sweet Predynastic goodness. 49 pages of actual text, 2 appendices, 204 footnotes, 13 figures (not counting the ones in the first appendix), 5 revisions, and a partridge in a pear tree. Due tomorrow, er, today by 5 PM. There will be much drinking this evening. All done while managing a full course load and working 10-15 hours a week and trying to learn to read French. It would have been done sooner, but I didn't get the final suggestions from my advisor until 9:30 Wednesday evening and, well, I had stuff I had to do besides that. Anyway, it's over, it's done and now I just have to wait and see if they let me hang around here.

Well, I just got back from my meeting. It was brief, but it went well, sort of. He loved the theroy part of my paper (which happened to be the part that I also liked the best). In fact, he was very complimentary. I feel good now. Especially since I have a massive amount of respect for this man and he's regarded as one of the major archaeological theorists currently working in the Near East. He really wants me to develop it further, but he thought my points were excellent and well stated and very insightful. I was tempted to offer to kiss him with tongue - but I'm married and the door to his office was open. :)

The problem with this being that my advisor thought that the theory part in my very first draft was stupid and pointless and told me to get rid of it. (I, um, accidentally included it in the draft I gave to my second reader.) Of course, three weeks ago, my advisor told me to put the theory back in - after I had left it alone for several months because he told me to and claimed that he had never told me to do that. I have a feeling that I'm going to to wind up writing three final drafts, taking them to my advisor and telling him to pick one.

This is very bizarre - as are most experiences related to graduate school and/or writing something that more than one person needs to approve. On the one hand I have a young advisor who wants to micromanage my paper to the point on insanity and who essentially makes me feel like a rather naive twit when I try to incorporate what I (and other people) consider to be important into a discussion. He also thinks I'm lazy. And one of my fellow graduate students and I have figured out that he confuses the two of us. We look nothing alike. She's interested in metallurgy and ancient technology and primarily the New Kingdom. I'm interested in the Predynastic and Old Kingdom and in injecting some more anthropological viewpoints into archaeology in Egypt. Yeah.
On the other hand I have an older professor who happens to be the director of the Institute and an extremely well-respected and established scholar who apparently thinks I'm great and makes an effort when possible (granted, I have to harrass him) to fit me into his extremely hectic schedule. He also would probably have no trouble picking me out of a police line-up after I bludgeon my advisor with the three anticipated drafts of my paper.

In any case, I thought I would share my bittersweet day with you all. Now I need to go work on translating medical texts for class tomorrow.

Learning and entertainment, all in one...
I gotta say, I appreciate professors with a sense of humor and they're somewhat rare around here, but damn the last few lectures in our Egyptian history class have been funny. Here's a few fun quotes, some of which are funny only if you know the history of the period, but screw it, y'all don't have to read this:

"Yeah, so at least one scholar has described Akhetaten/Tell el-Amarna as the world's first insane asylum."

"The military was busy running the country while the Jim Jones wannabe (Akhenaten) hung out in his anti-capital utopia."

And the crowning glory to all of this: A slide of a Ramses condom followed by the comment: "I don't think this is such a good idea - the man had close to 100 children."

We also got into a very interesting discussion of personal bias in the reconstruction of history. The Amarna age is often painted as the result of a backlash or rebellion on the part of the king, Akhenaten/Amenhotep IV against the priesthood of the god Amen, who rose to great prominence in the 18th Dynasty. So, the basic picture is evil, excessively powerful priests getting the rug pulled from under them by Akhenaten as a reformer, only then they get pissed and kill him. Oddly enough, it seems like most Protestant scholars paint the "evil priesthood" picture to the extreme, especially British scholars, while Catholic scholars might lean toward that explanation, they tend to downplay it. We didn't talk about any other religious background as an influence, but it was really interesting to see such a clear-cut example of fairly recent history and the biases associated with it being projected on a phenomenon that occurred several thousand years in the past in an entirely different cultural context.
While I'll admit (hell, I'll scream it from the rooftops) that we all bring a certain amount of baggage and bias to our work, this is kind of extreme. I'd like to think that acknowledging and embracing our own context before trying to interpret an different context helps the problem, but who knows? (Obviously, I'd like to think that, otherwise my work is really really pointless...)
Anyway, I have no idea where I was going with that as I got interrupted by a phone call from someone wondering if they'd be shot and murdered or something if they came to visit the museum. Maybe I should have found a better answer than: "Well, no one's ever bothered me, and I wander around here looking weak and vulnerable."

create your own visited country map
or write about it on the open travel guide




create your own visited states map
or write about it on the open travel guide


Yeah, so I didn't count places where I had only been in an airport. But I did count the states I've driven through, even if I spent all of my time there wishing I wasn't in that state (i.e. Arkansas, Missouri, Texas...)

Fun quotes:
While doing my required reading (I do manage to do that on occasion) I found the following quotes that my immature little brain must share:

"Come quickly now and take these cities in order that your troops may get booty!"

and further down on the same page in Redford Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times:

"The motivation and the situation from are alike optimal for postulating such an event: a strong Amorite state in the Levant, a weakened Egypt, the prospect of easy conquest and much booty."

I'll still giggle like a schoolgirl at that shit when I'm 80. Then again, there's a good chance I'll still be a schoolgirl when I'm 80.

The State of the Union
Oh, how many many ways this pissed me off. Anyway, because I'm bored and feel like procrastinating on the real work I have to do, I thought I would post excerpts from the State of the Union address with my own personal translations. The full transcript is available here

Excerpt 1:
Inside the United States, where the war began, we must continue to give our homeland security and law enforcement personnel every tool they need to defend us. And one of those essential tools is the Patriot Act, which allows federal law enforcement to better share information, to track terrorists, to disrupt their cells, and to seize their assets. For years, we have used similar provisions to catch embezzlers and drug traffickers. If these methods are good for hunting criminals, they are even more important for hunting terrorists. (Applause.)
Translation: Ripping away your civil liberties turns out to be fun as well as personally rewarding. Since these methods are good for hunting criminals, they must be equally good for getting rid of damn commie liberals.

Excerpt 2:
Key provisions of the Patriot Act are set to expire next year. (Applause.) The terrorist threat will not expire on that schedule. (Applause.) Our law enforcement needs this vital legislation to protect our citizens. You need to renew the Patriot Act. (Applause.)
Translation: Please, please don't realize what a mockery of the Constitution you made by passing it in the first place. And please, please, please, don't take away my really big stick.

Excerpt 3:
Colonel Qadhafi correctly judged that his country would be better off and far more secure without weapons of mass murder.
Translation: We scared the piss out of Colonel Qadhafi.

Excerpt 4:
I've had the honor of meeting our servicemen and women at many posts, from the deck of a carrier in the Pacific to a mess hall in Baghdad.
Translation: Damn I'm cool.

Excerpt 5:
Some in this chamber, and in our country, did not support the liberation of Iraq. Objections to war often come from principled motives. But let us be candid about the consequences of leaving Saddam Hussein in power. We're seeking all the facts. Already, the Kay Report identified dozens of weapons of mass destruction-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations. Had we failed to act, the dictatator's weapons of mass destruction programs would continue to this day. Had we failed to act, Security Council resolutions on Iraq would have been revealed as empty threats, weakening the United Nations and encouraging defiance by dictators around the world. Iraq's torture chambers would still be filled with victims, terrified and innocent. The killing fields of Iraq -- where hundreds of thousands of men and women and children vanished into the sands -- would still be known only to the killers. For all who love freedom and peace, the world without Saddam Hussein's regime is a better and safer place. (Applause.)
Translation: Watch me attempt to gracefully dance around the fact that we still haven't actually found the weapons of mass destruction that we swore were there.

Excerpt 6:
From the beginning, America has sought international support for our operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, and we have gained much support. There is a difference, however, between leading a coalition of many nations, and submitting to the objections of a few. America will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of our country.
Translation: Fuck the UN, fuck them right up their asses. Especially the French. We have the biggest stick on the playground and we're not afraid to wave it around to compensate for our incredibly small penises.

Excerpt 7:
To cut through the barriers of hateful propaganda, the Voice of America and other broadcast services are expanding their programming in Arabic and Persian -- and soon, a new television service will begin providing reliable news and information across the region. I will send you a proposal to double the budget of the National Endowment for Democracy, and to focus its new work on the development of free elections, and free markets, free press, and free labor unions in the Middle East.
Translation: To counteract hateful propaganda, we will introduce "nice" propaganda. And we'll even be nice enough to use the native languages of the regions we're innundating with American culture.

Excerpt 8:
America is a nation with a mission, and that mission comes from our most basic beliefs. We have no desire to dominate, no ambitions of empire. Our aim is a democratic peace -- a peace founded upon the dignity and rights of every man and woman. America acts in this cause with friends and allies at our side, yet we understand our special calling: This great republic will lead the cause of freedom.
Translation: Empires are a pain to manage. Puppets are better. And you still get to blow stuff up.

Excerpt 9:
We will double federal funding for abstinence programs, so schools can teach this fact of life: Abstinence for young people is the only certain way to avoid sexually-transmitted diseases.
Translation: If you try hard enough, you can deny that teenagers have sex and will continue to have sex regardless of what you tell them about abstinence.

Excerpt 10:
A strong America must also value the institution of marriage. I believe we should respect individuals as we take a principled stand for one of the most fundamental, enduring institutions of our civilization. Congress has already taken a stand on this issue by passing the Defense of Marriage Act, signed in 1996 by President Clinton. That statute protects marriage under federal law as a union of a man and a woman, and declares that one state may not redefine marriage for other states.

Activist judges, however, have begun redefining marriage by court order, without regard for the will of the people and their elected representatives. On an issue of such great consequence, the people's voice must be heard. If judges insist on forcing their arbitrary will upon the people, the only alternative left to the people would be the constitutional process. Our nation must defend the sanctity of marriage. (Applause.)

The outcome of this debate is important -- and so is the way we conduct it. The same moral tradition that defines marriage also teaches that each individual has dignity and value in God's sight. (Applause.)

Translation: This administration hates gay people, but in the nicest possible way.

Well, I have now added comments to my blog. Given how totally inept I am regarding html, etc, this is quite an accomplishment. Praise the lord for cut and paste code.
Those of you who haven't taken a look at it recently should give Fenway's blog a gander - his most recent entry regarding gender roles is, in my admittedly biased opinion, impressive.
Oh, I believe I figured out what the "prehistoric gold" is - at least one of the pieces. Slag. So, maybe he can go bother a geologist or mining engineer or something for a while.
I made it through the second review of my thesis in the Seminar class - this is harder than you might think, as the professors present to offer up their opinions were not archaeologists and on occasion this has led to some "issues." But, I now have lots of experience tactfully explaining to people that they haven't the faintest clue what they're talking about and should really shut up.

I've changed the title of my blog in an attempt to discourage the massive number of hits I seem to be getting from people googling "signs of the apocalypse"

Well, I've gotten through my first week of classes. My advisor's trip has been delayed until mid-February so I will not be left totally hanging for my thesis.
This quarter's classes are Intro to Hieratic taught by a man who many older students equate with Satan. Hieratic, for those of you who don't know is allegedly the cursive form of the hieroglyphic script. In reality, it's an exercise in insanity - as it is a cursive script written on papyrus or ostraca it is far more fluid than hieroglyphs and each scribe has his own handwriting. Rock! Those of you who find what I term "cheerleader script" annoying (i.e. very loopy writing with circles or hearts and crap to dot "i's", etc) will find it interesting to learn that people have been doing that shit since the dawn of time.
Up next we have the second part of our history sequence, this time covering Ancient Egypt. No paper this time around, much to my relief.
And I have a class in the art and archaeology of Syria-Palestine. Our first actual lecture consisted of some basic geography, etc. followed by an introduction to the professor's theory regarding archaeological inquiry based heavily in hermeneutic philosophy, especially that of Ricoer (sp?). You philosophers with pithy comments, please email them to me. Or if you're interested in his adaptation, let me know and I'll send you a copy of the first chapters of his book which outline his ideas.
I am still working in the Museum Office coping with the incoming email from crazy people, among other things. Some of you may be familiar with the letter allegedly from the Smithsonian regarding some guy's "contributions" to science. That letter is an excellent demonstration of what my job is like.
Some of you may remember the guy with the "prehistoric gold" or whatever-the-fuck who emails me about once a month. Well, his pictures have improved. And he's moved on from email. He called the office Monday wanting to speak to a "Paleolithic Archaeologist" as his theory regarding his "electrum" has changed. He now thinks it has something to do with Paleolithic cave art. Methinks I should check the program listing for the Discovery channel to see what they were showing last week... Anyway, I didn't realize who it was until after I had assured him that I would see if someone in the OI could help him. So, anyone up for doing a bad French accent and pretending to be an expert on cave paintings?