Monday, November 24, 2008

Religious Life In Ancient Egypt.

So, despite my freaking out last weak about my inability to recognize anything remotely Egyptian (in particular my failure to remember that cows ears are associated with Hathor when put on the spot with an object depicting a woman's head with cows ears ... I thought she was just a cow.) , and despite my being completely unable to face the world at 9 this morning (I couldn't sleep until after 6 AM for some reason, woke up at 7:45 feeling awful, and it was hailing outside. I grumbled and went back to sleep.), I really enoy my Religious Life in Ancient Egypt class. In particular, I really like the professor, Penny Wilson. She's so obviously in love with the entire Egyptian mentality, it's marvelous.

Next week we have a 'tutorial', which this time means reading an article and presenting it debate-style. The sides:

Group 1: Akhenaten was a heretic and despot
Group 2: Akhenaten was an enlightened (and misunderstood) religious reformer

Hah! I don't know why I find this amusing, but I do.
(I was put in the enlightened misunderstood religious reformer group)

I'll write a real update soon, I will. But now I need to go read an make up for my lazy day of feeling grumpy.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

How I Know I'm in England

Some days are full of an extra-awareness that yes, I am in England.
One of those days was last Friday, when I decided to wander around Durham on the only sunny day of the week, instead of doing work.


Take the road directly outside my door to the Cathedral and "Palace Green"















Then, to explore the path around behind the cathedral, vaguely searching for the archaeological museum.










Only to find the museum distinctly inaccessible from this route (although the roof was very nice).



I still haven't seen the inside of the museum, but it was a wonderfully refreshing day which turned into a pretty relaxed weekend.

Now it's Tuesday, and I've been remarkably productive. I'm going to go carry on doing that.