July already

July 1st.

Crate room

How did it get to be July already??? Time just slips by when everyday looks exactly the same. I wear the same clothes, I eat the same food, I do the same things and I see the same people (who are also wearing the same clothes) sitting in the same places, as if they have never moved. When new people arrive, they open their boxes, put on the same clothes from the previous years and within 24 hours seamlessly blend in with the background. The only thing that changes are the visitors. Today we had Richard Leventhal from the Univ. Penn museum who was traveling with some old guy who, as rumor has it, has deep pockets and a fancy for archaeology. He even took a liking to my work, which always makes me wonder if he is truly delusional or just one of those ultra-keen people who'll get excited by anything archaeological.

Mr. Skele Ton

In the evenings, we've been watching the HBO show: ROME. One woman in the group is a Romanist and the rest of us just watch and say "ooooh". If it was on Egypt, I probably wouldn't be able to watch it without annoying everyone else in the room but I heard this show had a good team of researchers and it shows. The program LOOKS really good, is mildly historically accurate and has interesting characters to boot.

Nothing else really changes around here. The students have settled in well and so far everyone is really happy with them. Trust me, if they do anything off kilter, I'll get it in the neck from at least 4 different people so when all I hear is praise, I am extremely pleased. I have settled into my old routines. I'm up at 5:30 am for yoga and occasionally one or two other people join me. After dinner, which is predictably dire, Dan and I take our evening stroll. We've seen one stork this year, spotted the new owl nest, seen a few hoopoo's in flight, the turtle/tortoise debate continues daily and we always comment on an exposed section that is very quickly eroding. "Yeah, we need to do something about that" and promptly forget until the next night when we pass by it again. The other morning, I saw a sheep walk past the experimental house immediately followed by Shahina, our director, shooing it out the front gate. Apparently, the sheep had been separated from the herd and made its way into our dining room. That was mildly entertaining.

Top Crate

I wanted to write to say "hello" but in fact I have nothing to say. My work is about done so I am going to start writing a dissertation chapter now but where to start? I had a long chat with Ian today and it looks like I'll be VERY busy next year. I'm organizing two conferences, presenting at both of them and now I've had a paper accepted at a Getty-sponsored conference in Mali, of all places. So I'll be in England-Mali-Canada this year- just when I thought I was going to have a year without any travel. I now have 3 months to find funding for all this travel. Wish me luck. I'm also running the fieldschool again next year which means teaching again in the Spring and somewhere in between all mayhem, I'm supposed to be doing all the analysis for my thesis. Oh, the fun never ends! It's a good thing I like what I do, eh?