Procrastination produces blog posts (and alliterations!)

So Monday was pretty much an easy day. I got up as per usual on Mondays and Thursdays at 7:30 and caught the 8:30 bus to campus, arriving at around 9:30-9:45. I bought an iced tea, something I had been craving since I've gotten here and hung out underneath an umbrella outside the Humanities building, and then we went to Hieroglyphs I at 11:30. Now, this class I took as one of my "for fun" classes, but the more we get into the grammatical structures and what not, I begin to realize her teaching style is very difficult and preparation for quizzes that she gives is next to none. Memorizing 80 biliteral symbols (signs that have two letters/sounds attached to them - like the chisel sign has the value of mr pronounced as mer) is next to impossible! A week after the quiz and I'm still not feeling comfortable with all of them!

But Monday in class we got to experiment with creating genetival phrases (The Lord's house, the eye of the King, etc.) and write them in the glyphs themselves as well as the transcription and the English translation. We came up with some pretty silly stuff, as well as poetic things, and I found this method of doing things better than just sitting in a lecture trying to decipher what she's telling me about noun/gender agreement and what not. It's much more helpful to write things out and then see where you're wrong or what things need changed.

Then we had lunch, as per usual, at 12:45. (I apologize for this being boring. It's my way of procrastinating from doing homework). From there, Ross and I went to Peoples and Cultures of the Middle East and North Africa. We were supposed to have a quiz on our reading, but for the second time, he decided not to have a reading quiz. Fine by me... That class is... not my favorite. It is a little dull and boring, but at least today we were talking about something I already knew about because of my Zionism and Modern Judaism class: The Ben Ezra Synagogue here in Cairo.

The Ben Ezra Synagogue has a fantastic thing called a Geniza, which was the home of the largest deposit of medieval manuscripts in the whole world, and also the largest repository of Jewish history. Now, the Ben Ezra Synagogue is basically a tourist attraction now, but in the past it was the repository of any and all literature that wasn't going to be used anymore, but text could not be thrown out! So thus any bit or scrap of paper or literature or book that wasn't going to be used was placed in the repository and years later in the 1800's when they took down the Synagogue, they found all of the documents.

The Synagogue was rebuilt in 1890 and that is now the Synagogue people go to today in Coptic Cairo.

Today, so far, I have picked up my care package from home (Thanks!) which had lots of goodies in it (including Ice Tea packets! HUZZAH!), looked at pictures from the Picture People Facebook, which mildly makes me miss working there (in the studio though, not as mobile lead), gotten distracted from doing homework, and took a picture of my desk (this was kind of staged...).

I think at some point, when I have the time and am not procrastinating on something, I am going to write a blog about the differences between here and the United States. Until then, however, I expect the next update will be after I get back from my overnight stay in Alexandria and Anafora this Thursday and Friday! Also, my trip to Greece has been booked! Hello, Athens!