A summary of the last three months:

January: Epic internet issues! Frantic application to Oxford! Join new morris side and fret at them (they are sympathetic, and also silly. I love morris dancers).
February: Fret. Internet issues continue. Carry on with publication. Discover Deep Space Nine. Rapidly become obsessed interested to a not insignificant degree.
March: Invited to interview at very short notice. Struggle to find cover, with no help from boss. Finally make it, having pissed Oxford off. Interview. Unofficial advice on my publication given and gratefully received. Joy at OULES friends! Panicky realisation that publication due in really really soon! Write faster.

And since I'm so rubbish at updating, here's the forecast for the next three months:

April (tbc): PANIC! Fret over Oxford application (when will they let me know?!)
May (tbc): Submit publication. Start frantically applying for scholarship. See above.
June (tbc): Submit scholarship application. RELAX.


I've been very busy. I've seen mr_coomber for all of 7 hours in the last month. The morris side is joyous - I've joined Chinewrde, a fabulous local North West side, most of whom knew me from the Gogs. Publication is turning up interesting facts. The interview was...well, it was an interview. I express no opinion on these things. Thanks everso to half_of_monty for letting me sit in her office beforehand, and I cannot express my joy at seeing her, Duncan and ktroo85 afterwards. I have missed likeminded people. When I am less busy, I'll start visiting people again. In the meantime, come and see me! I have a perfectly good floor...

Last year at Hallowe'en I was dressed up as Inana getting merrily drunk with a load of other assyriologists.

This year I'm hiding in my room with the lights off, trying to keep out of sight of the little fuckers brats vicious terrors children trick-or-treating down my road.





I think I preferred last year.

I've just been brought a cup of tea! How lovely.

I rather liked Dr Who tonight, especially counting the cunningly-inserted-book-titles.

I was, however, slightly disappointed that it was early Agatha Christie and thus was set before she met and married the great Max Mallowan, the celebrated Assyriologist and excavator of Nimrud and other exciting Assyrian sites.


Not that I'm partisan or anything.



In deference to Max Mallowan, I'm using my Neo-Babylonian icon, which is not quite Assyrian but close enough in time. Sort of.

Two posts in one day! Good lord!

But YESSSS I have found justification for an argument! Oppenheim, as well! Just HAD to celebrate...

I'm reading a book about dream interpretation in the Ancient Near East, and someone has written a note in the margin. In Hebrew.

Things like this make me so happy. Not so much the writing notes in other languages as the confident expectation that everyone working in this area will understand. Or at least know someone else who does.


Very boring post, I know, but then I am maniacally writing up my dissertation, rammed full of new work and exciting things that only me and Eleanor (Robson) know about! And may parents, but they don't quite understand the significance and just smile encouragingly when I rabbit on about it all.

All done by Monday, though, then I shall post a rant about my pet peeve in the world of Assyriology. Bet you can't wait...

Words fail me

I've got an email address for the big cheese at Tesco and even a draft of what could be written, if anyone else feels sufficiently moved to protest about this. Honestly, there are many things that get my blood up but this is just...

Off for a calming cup of tea.

Please repost this on your own blogs (if you like...)


Address: terry dot leahy @ tesco dot com

Suggested text:

I am deeply concerned that your store is currently selling a 'padded bra' for 7year olds.

This seems to be a wholly misguided and completely irresponsible attempt to encourage girls who will still be a few years away from puberty to imitate the appearance of mature women. Girls of this age are not equipped to deal with the responses of older boys and men who may have inappropriate sexual feelings towards them, nor are they mature enough to cope with feelings of inadequacy that such an emphasis on their physical appearance may generate.

Such an early sexualisation of young children is entirely inappropriate. I think it is highly irresponsible of your store to sell such a product, and request that you withdraw it from sale.

I shall not be making any purchase from your stores until you assure me that you have done so,

Yours,
name

Spotted on this jewellery website:

"This type of jewelry reached a zenith when Queen Victoria's husband, Prince Phillip, died."




Thassorl.

Saturday night (12th), London Barndance, C# House in Camden.

Any takers?

It's not often that I use this page as my own personal soapbox, but I feel that this is important enough.

In May this year we have the chance to ban cluster bombs. Forever. Details here

Please take a moment and sign the petition, write to your MP, or just repost the link on your own blog.


Cheers,
scribeofnisaba

Which Discworld Character are you like (with pics) created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Death You are death! Reaper of souls! Riding your horse, Binky, with a scythe at hand. Always working, always busy… You sometimes try to socialize with the living, and ALWAYS SPEAK IN CAPITAL LETTERS. Death 69% Carrot Ironfounderson 63% Commander Samuel Vimes 56% The Librarian 56% Gytha (Nanny) Ogg 50% Greebo 44% Lord Havelock Vetinari 38% Cohen The Barbarian 38% Esmerelda (Granny) Weatherwax 38% Rincewind 19%

Tea with sugar tastes vile.


Energy, come on, where are you? I have fed you with sugar and caffeine! At this rate I'm going to need a nap...pah!

(Incidentally, a nappah is a smith. In the construct form. A nappah parzilli is a blacksmith. Isn't that interesting?)

It seems that I may be (depending on funding and applications) shimmying my way to Oxford in a couple of years. My current supervisor has offered to supervise me for an Mst - and she doesn't even teach at Oxford any more, so I'm a "special case" (shut it).
I'm quite excited. It would involve a lot of early scripts, possibly even some Proto-Elamite (only place in the country one can study it!) and best of all, not a taught masters, so I can do what the hell I like :D well, within reason, but...

So, I just need to go about finding funding.

How can I convince someone that they want to pay for me to study an even more obscure language than I'm already studying??

:D

Cheerful dub-sar!

Today I bumped into Graham Cunningham (eminent Sumerologist) by the photocopier and we had a chat about how annoying machines are.
I have a lot of twinging in my lumbar region, my ruptured shoulder is playing up and my neck won't straighten without a fair amount of pain.

Ahh academia...


In better news, my friend CB bought me a present - the old OLD myths about Lugalbanda (father of the more famous Gilgamesh) written up into a children's book - such a beautiful story AND they got the iconography right!!! Lions and turtles in the right places, proper horned hats and huge eyes on all the figures, and the Anzud bird is superb! It's utterly and entirely fabulous.

So this morning I waited 40 minutes for a bus and was forced in the end to go home, change, get my bike and cycle through the strong wind and a bit of rain to get to the faculty, which incurred cursing and general ill-will sent in the direction of Stagecoach. Cussed bastards.
Then, as I hopped off my bike to purchase a consolatory doughnut, I realised that in my mad rush of fetching my bike, I'd left my keys on the armchair.
More cursings.
It did, however, give me the chance to buy the long chain bikelock I've been wanting to get for ages. But still. It's all Stagecoach's fault - if I hadn't been in a hurry I wouldn't have forgotten!

On arrival in the faculty, I remember that today is the day that we Assyriologists are to shift books belonging to the BSAI into the basement. So I join in, have a bit of a laugh with the other chaps, meet Graham Cunningham(!) which made me very pleased :D and then - get this - we get paid! In books! Five of them! Two unpublished, two books of texts and a copy of Nimrud which is beautiful! I've got a pile of new books! About £100 worth, maybe more! Wahey! Books!

Bit of a down and up day today! Although I'm never going to get all these books home on the bike...

I've found out what a mid-range context is.

Project update: 1175/4000 words. Not bad.

This, btw, is what I'm writing about. The lapis lazuli cylinder seal of "Pu-Abi nin", or "Lady(?) Pu-Abi". If you want to know about lapis lazuli, the mining thereof, the trade thereof, trade routes into Mesopotamia from the East, the carving of seals, the designs on seals, the designs specifically on Early Dynastic cylinder seals, the contents of Royal Grave 800 at the Royal Cemetery in Ur, the use in its modern context and, indeed, its mid-range context, then you can bugger off and read Collon's "First Impressions", because I can't be bothered to go over it again.

I've been loaned a book called "Bawdy British Folk Songs".
Alarmingly, I already know half of them.

In kind with the rest of LJ, I too have been putting up my decorations. No middle class yuppie or colour-coordinated schemes for me - oh no! :-P Although I DID invest in some fairy lights.
But no, my budget this year stretches to some paper chains which keep falling down and I've got my scissors out and made loads of paper snowflakes. I started to make a cardboard angel but realised that it would be a bit too religious for my tastes, so I gave it a headband of stars and a girdle of "lapis lazuli" (blue beads) and presently I shall manufacture a measuring rod and rope (and a head, since all she has at the moment is her divine symbol sellotaped to her neck) and it shall be Holy Inana, one of my favourite goddesses. (Photos if you want them)

Ooh, I could perform the mis pî ritual on it and have my own mini-Inana...or maybe not. She's rather touchy, after all.

Oh, there goes another paper chain...