As my alarm sounded at 5:15 this morning, I rolled over and in that moment really considered the strangeness of my lifestyle. I rolled out of bed after having gone to sleep at 9:00 p.m. the night before. I put on the same dirty work clothes that I've been sporting since Saturday and wrapped a bandana around the hair I haven't washed since Thursday night (and oddly enough it's the best my hair has looked in a good while). I gather my gear, and stroll to the Villa for breakfast at 6 am. I have breakfast with about 35 people, though i make sure to get there early so that I'm not waiting in line to boil my water for coffee. At 6:45 we have morning meeting and announcements and then everyone splits up and heads to their respective places of work, the site, the lab, or the office within the villa. For the site we cram more people than can safely fit inside, along with bags full of all the necessary equipment. We make the same 8 minute drive to the site that we make every morning...some mornings the crew is silent, other mornings we are opening windows for air as some of the boys crudely burp up the breakfast mystery meat...a stench which sometimes does make me vomit in my mouth a little. The van that takes us to site has some sort of musical wiring so that whenever the driver hits the breaks the car starts playing "It's a small world after all." And this isn't when he is at a full stop...it is whenever he touches the breaks. The music plays until his foot releases the brake. It is just about the most unnecessary thing I can possibly think of...actually I'm sure I could think of something more useless hypothetically speaking, but that this actually exists is perplexing.

Today it was really really hot outside, with zero breeze. Somehow though, this did not slow me down from being probably the most physically active that i have been on site. The high was about 100, however with only a few days left, the mudbrick wall within the Vestibule of Menkenre's Valley Temple had to come down. The wall was about 2 meters high. We only had to remove the bricks up to a marl plaster facing, so we were removing a portion of the wall that was probably about a meter thick. The condition of the mudbrick leaves it pretty clay-ey and damp. It's not like tearing down stone or anything but it's pretty challenging. And you can't just demolish the thing either, hacking away randomly. Everything in archaeology has to be done in sequence...you remove things in the reverse order in which they were built or created. So starting at the top of the wall you remove each course, or each layer or row/line of brick one by one. The brick specialist wanted some whole bricks to analyze so we also had to excavate a few of those. In the vestibule I work with Mike and Amelia. As we removed the courses looking for good complete bricks to take out, they would accidently chop too far and cut into the next course, meaning the bricks couldn't be used. They complimented me on having not done that on my side so that I had the good bricks to take out. Naturally I felt really good about the fact that I never over dug my courses and could provide some solid bricks for analysis, but really it was probably more of a result of me working a little slower than them and by the time they realized they busted through a course, i was already aware of it and could stop :) By the afternoon we reached the bottom course which was still a good half meter above the floor but by then we really could just hack away until we hit floor. So there I was, 100 degrees, uner the sun beating away at the wall with a hatchet. My hands are covered in blisters, my body was drenched in sweat, and my arms will probably ache with immeasurable pain tomorrow. But for whatever reason I was a complete destructive mode. I've taken down some other features before and gotten pretty bored and unmotivated within a few minutes...but I think it actually the heat and kind of this hard work, suffering mentality that just drove me to keep hammering at it. I just wanted to see that wall gone if it meant that I was going to be sweating my ass off in the desert heat.

Today I also had to do a little video for the project explaining the wall and its relationship to the other features within the vestibule. I thought that I was going to get really nervous and stumble over my explanation and sound really inarticulate, but it actually came out really well. I didn't stammer or stutter once. I think it was because I was wearing sunglasses...yes wearing sun glasses makes all the difference when you're nervous :) The only thing that was super lame about it was that the footage is also going to go for this U of M promotional commercial that they do. Since the University did provide me with a lot of funding for this trip and last year's, I'm pretty much obligated to do it...the deal is they advertise the types of research projects they sponsor for their students...as if they send students to work in Egypt all the time (they don't really). But either way, to really drive home the Michigan-ness, I had to wear the only Michigan apparel that I brought out here which is a long sleeve, navy blue shirt my Uncle Mike got me 2 years ago for Christmas....I tell you what, the last thing I wanted to wear on 100 degree day after I had already been working throughout the morning was that shirt. I put it on, filmed my stuffed, and then had to peel the long sleeve shirt off of my moist skin. My shirt underneath had stripes of liquid Kelly glow. I tell you what, I am one sexy woman.

I've started taking naps during second breakfast. I scarf down a big delicious best-tasting-orange-ever, a bottle of water, and then curl up in the fetal position on the sandy limestone hilltop, right outside of the tent. Mark walked by yesterday and took a picture of it. Archaeologists hard at work! It really makes it seem like we are slaves driven to exhaustion in the most terrible of working conditions. I just find it relaxing.

Tomorrow I plan on bringing my camera and taking pictures from site. In shallah.

Oh yeah, they have okra for dinner tonight. Aunt Marcia I have to agree with you...it is gross.