Bedtime

I use 7Notes to convert handwritten notes on my iPad to text for later use in lectures or whatever. It's usually quite good, but every now and then it generates hilarity. I've taken this most recent example as a sign it's time go to bed.
I promise I didn't teach it that word

Snarking: The Next Generation

Star Trek: The Next Generation (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So we've started watching Star Trek: The Next Generation. Tonight, we saw interstellar meth heads  (also seen in Wrath of Khan) and we got to see an awesome new instrument which I have dubbed the "Dildophone."
Like a xylophone, only with peens.

Tom said I should learn to play the Dildophone and I said "hang on, let me find my mallets" and then Tom snarfed his dinner.

On a related note, I may have told my class that the Egyptian creator god masturbated the universe into being because he was bored and that Isis invented the dildo. And something about the personification of PMS.

If I had remembered how much I was going to have to talk about penises and incest, I probably wouldn't have decided on religion and magic this term...  Seriously, Egyptian religion is like those dreadful VC Andrews novels no one admits they read back in the day.

This week I've been battling a wicked cold or something. I cannot brain good. Fortunately class didn't meet today so I didn't subject them to even more random blathering. Well, actually I did, but it was electronic.

What What

In my butt!
UTI didn't go away, probably hit my kidneys. Sunday and Monday were super fun days of fever, horrible shuddering chills, horrific back pain, and nausea and vomiting. Bad enough I cancelled class.
So, Tom took me to Urgent Care Monday evening and I got a shot of antibiotics in the ass, some Cipro, which is what I should have gotten in the first place (and which I will bitchily insist on in the future) and some anti-nausea meds that I've been taking cautiously because they might interact in scary ways with other meds I cannot skip.

And I swear every time I get Cipro they've added new and frightening warnings to the patient information. Which sucks, but it works so whatever.

Also, in the middle of that I agreed to teach Cultural Anthropology this summer. I have no idea. Should be entertaining for someone.

Feeling much improved today but still very very tired.

Also, LOLARCHAEOLOGY

I believe I will go nap now.

Still Alive. Mostly.

Image via Wikipedia

My class is tiny. Tiny enough to be sort of weird. But at least it didn't get cancelled.

I've been freaking out the last 2 weeks pulling lectures together for topics I didn't cover that much with the old textbooks. This week is a little easier aside from the complication that is a UTI. It feels like someone is stabbing me in the left  kidney. Super fun. Trying to get a doctor to give me better antibiotics.

This week I'm just refining existing lecture and presentation. I had to firmly resist putting "OM NOM NOM" on this photo.

But that is totally what the lion is saying. It's in the missing piece of the palette. I swear it is. Just like the reconstructed stuff on this thing.

The Sentimentality of Teaching

Image by shoveling_ferret via Flickr

The past few days and coming week are a time of introspection and memory for me. Tom has gone on a 10-day trip to Sudan leaving me with decidedly mixed feelings. I of course hope he has fun and is safe, but there are emotions connected with some less than pleasant memories of that last season and, I must admit, a tiny bit of jealousy that he can go and I no longer can. Adulthood is a bitch.

I'm also preparing to teach again and have been updating my syllabus and reviewing my old lecturing notes and presentations. I hadn't realized how many memories would be triggered doing this. I have found myself remembering the days in class I learned about certain topics. How difficult translating particular texts was. And in reviewing introductions to formal translations, very amused reading between the lines in discussions of why particular approaches were taken in translation.
I am happy that most of those memories are pleasant and leave me a bit wistful, but not depressed or even particularly regretful.
I am looking forward to teaching again and hoping desperately that my brain fog and fatigue and occasional aphasia won't be too much to deal with. I am optimistic in that regard.

Oreo, on the other hand, is a bit grumpy that I have several books and papers out, which means that I am not available to pay full attention to him at any moment. Poor doggy.

Course Prep

Identity Crisis

Image via Wikipedia
How did they do aerobics in those robes?
And what exactly is dude measuring with his hands?
And is Jesus pearl-clutching?

So I finally got around to checking the academic schedule to see when I'm teaching next term. I thought I'd have to be ready to go on the 2nd of January as long, painful, sometimes hung-over experience at the University of Chicago had taught me, but it turns out I have until near the end of January to procrastinate updating my lectures and junk. My textbook samples arrived last week (I had requested them in September) and after a grand total of 5 minutes examining them, I adopted two of them for this term in the hopes they'll be slightly less confusing than the textbooks I used last time.

Cool.

It occurs to me though that I am not quite sure what to say when people ask me what I do. I already had a preview of this after my Nana's funeral. Someone asked what I did and my uncle told them I was a teacher. So the guy asked what grade I taught. And I said "college." And there was sort of awkward silence.

Ahem.

Then the guy asked what class I taught and I said "ancient Egyptian history" because that's the easiest answer. And every few minutes for the rest of the afternoon he kindly (and loudly) warned me to watch out for mummies. Why, yes, there was drinking involved, why do you ask?

I decided that was probably not the best time to bring up excavating cemeteries and storing skeletons under my bed for safety (of the skeletons).  Seriously, though, that got really damn annoying.

Anyway, thus my identity crisis.

I'm not a professor. Technically I'm an instructor. But I can already see the hilarity possible in that conversation.

Random person: So, what do you do?
Me: I'm an instructor.
Random person: Of what?
Me: (Gripping cane tightly) Aerobics.¹

Also, the campus where I teach is in a mall. As in next to JC Penny's. Because surreality is my reality.

---

1 Other potential responses include: "Karate" and "Your Mom"

Moving on Up

So, the move is complete. In that all our junk is in the new apartment.

Also, we have an ice maker:

Two Roman tubs:

And this is the view from the patio and the bedroom windows:

Tom's parents bought us a new mattress in addition to helping us move in and his sister and brother-in-law and niece helping with the move and passing on a queen bed frame for the guest bedroom.

New mattresses are huge. Our bed was already high. It hits just under my boobs now and I'm 5'6 or 5'7 depending on how scolio'd my spine is on a given day.

Oreo on the mattresses before we put them on the bed frame

We got new driver's licenses. I think all the weight Tom lost from the last time he had a MS license I gained since the last time I had one.

Friday while I was in the bathroom I got another call about teaching. Apparently they needed to know right that minute if I could teach in the spring. So I said "um, yeah." I have a job with virtually no effort on my part to acquire it. This is still blowing my mind.

Yesterday we bought a washer and dryer to be delivered on Wednesday. o.O Single largest expenditure we've ever made. There will be photos. Possibly video.

Today I drove Tom to work and drove home all by myself for the first time since 2008. It went very smoothly. Then I spent the rest of the day waiting for the gas company tech to show up, which still hasn't happened. 

And I unpacked exactly nothing. My excuse is that we need bookcases before we can unpack most of the boxes which are full of books.

Current view of the living room.

Today is weird

Image via WikipediaToday has been weird even for me.

I decided to browse Craigslist for possible jobs. Wow, scary.
Apparently there are some locally made "adult" films.
And there was one job posting that just said "Pregnant Lady."

Someone said something about "penny wise" and I made a crack about Pennywise from It. Then a few minutes later, the Bad Astronomer tweeted this scary ass t-shirt. Serendipity is disturbing. I'm avoiding drains for the rest of the day.

Fast forward a bit and Oreo and Brownie were sharing the couch peacefully.

Then I decided I needed a nap.

My phone rang and it was someone who had heard we moved down here wanting to know if I'd be interested in teaching in the spring.
o.O

I managed to babble something comprehensible that was not "Hells yes, woman!" but conveyed that general sentiment. After we move into the apartment I'll go actually chat about it.

Then I got up to see Tom had tweeted about D'Iberville telling the early French colonists to breed buffalo, only I thought it said "breed with the buffalo" and I was truly impressed by the ignorance of basic biology back then.

So, now I have things to figure out:
- How do I teach sitting down (this will be weird for me)?
- Better management of dry mouth while lecturing because, seriously, the croaking is not cool
- Can I wear my Vibram Five-Fingers with business casual clothing because I really, really love them.
- Which eccentric professor do I emulate?

• Doc Brown
• Professor Trelawney
• Dumbledore
• Professor Farnsworth

I imagine that at some point I should figure out what I'm teaching...

This also nixes the idea I had floating in my head of dyeing the white parts of my hair purple...

And as I get ready to post this, Oreo and Brownie are sharing the couch again and sound asleep.

Squee! Pottery

Image via WikipediaIn between colds, UTIs, CFS-flare ups, revenge of the grumpy-ass thyroid, and migraines I've been trying to pull things together for the archaeology day-camp for adults course I'm team teaching this summer.

I found the last time I taught that working out a general outline for lectures and then going to look for pictures for PowerPoint (or whatever presentation software) is often really helpful in getting my own brain in gear for teaching.  So, I tend to go type a few phrases in to Google Image Search and see what turns up. This is also immensely helpful in shutting up the little voice in my head screaming "how on Earth are you going to illustrate *that*?" which sends me into fetal-position procrastination.  Because if I don't work on it at all, somehow that will make it less scary.

Seriously, brains are stupid sometimes.

Anywho, as is often the case with the wonder that is the internets, I inevitably find things that are interesting but not of immediate use.  Like this link:

Project Grant Report | Byzantine Studies | Research | Dumbarton Oaks

Kiln furniture!!!  And fabulous incised sherds.  And those are the wasters - stuff that got chucked after the first firing because it didn't come out quite right.