Idle Expectations

sekhemkare replied to your post: Hi—I love your blog, and reading about your…

This is a really great list! Though I’d add Hornung, “The One and the Many” s essential reading on religion, myself. :)

There you go, anon!

I haven’t read that one myself yet, going to pick it up when I’ve money to spend again. :3

Darling fellow Egyptologists, which texts from the Urkunden I should I read to adequately prepare myself for my end term Old Egyptian?

I’ve done Weni, Harkhuf, Neferseshemre, Rewer’s accident, Djau (Abydos), Nyankhsekhmet and Snofru (Dahshur). 

Question: do I have any right to complain about the following situation?

Because my professor had a mental breakdown, Old Egyptian classes were taken over by another prof. As it was halfway through the semester, it was difficult to find an empty spot in my roster, so Old Egyptian got moved to the same time as a minor subject of mine (note: Old Egyptian is a second year’s subject, and I’m a third years, hence the roster trouble). I made an agreement with my professor that I would attend classes every other week. So one week OEg, the other week minor, etc. 

The new prof changed the course somewhat, and told us that the midterm we had been given would not count for the final grade. Now, I was sick two weeks ago, so I missed my bi-weekly OEg class. Today, during class, I heard that we were going to get a midterm next week, because the system is such that a final grade needs to be a compound of a midterm and an endterm.

Apparently, this information had been known to the others (i.e. the second years with whom I’m following the course, so not actually my classmates) for at least one week - perhaps two, and maybe even three, since I hadn’t been present for three weeks. No one has told me, so now I have a very short time to prepare for the midterm. 

So my question is, could I have known that this would happen, having been told that the initial midterm would not count, but keeping in mind the university expecting a great amount of independency and responsibility? Do I have any just cause to complain?

Cannibal Hymn, fuck yeah.

Darkening stars and skies pouring water and shit.

thatlittleegyptologist replied to your post: I’m not sure whether honesty hour wants me to be…

You should look up a two part series by Joann Fletcher. It’s called Ancient Egypt: Life and Death in the Valley of the Kings. That one is supposed to be semi serious. I rage quit both of them. We just get “bad” docs all the time and it’s not cool :/
Also: F-YEAH CAT PICS!!

That…does not sound promising. I’ve been in the mood for torturing myself lately though, so I’ll check it out, if only to have something to tear into hehehe.

Look a cat pic!

But yeah, I don’t see how documentary makers still get away with it. It appeals to the lowest common denominator, I guess? I mean *we* know where to find the proper stuff, and we don’t watch History or Discovery channel, so those docs aren’t made for us. They’re made for the laymen who want something exciting other than a doc that gives the bare essentials. 

Even then, I’ve seen some really good BBC4 docs and it just makes me weep because why can’t they all be like that? ;-;

Mike is having a lot of fun reading through my Old Egyptian grammar. He’ll giggle and go ‘oh it looks like these birds jumped on those cakes!’

I take back every bad thing I ever said about Harkhuf. I love you and your trips to Yam.

So my Old Egyptian exam was an excerpt from Harkhuf’s bio which I almost know by heart. So. Fucking. Lucky. My grammar has improved, too (or rather my ability to parse Classical Egyptian, while I can translate parsing is always a bit of a weak spot as I translate on instinct or something?). Pfew.

Suddenly feeling a lot more positive! Film & lit went well enough too. Bring it, second block of the semester. I can have you.