Updates & Pedestaling 101

Hey folks! Sorry for the posting hiatus. I've been SO busy. Which has been nice; the time's passing faster than I thought it would. Hope that keeps up. Today, Chad's been gone for one month and four days. This next Tuesday, he'll only have nine more weeks gone! We're getting through this! On May 24, we've been married for 11 whole months. Congrats to us! Not sure what we're going to do for our 1 year anniversary, seeing as how we won't even been in the same hemisphere, but it'll still be cause for celebration 

Chad update first. He's doing well! He really likes his classes, and he's seeing a definite progress in his proficiency with the language. Lately, he's been a little frustrated with his roommates. I can't imagine having to go back to roommates after being married. But the main problem (from what I understand) is that they're really messy. So really that means it's a good thing he hasn't been around our apartment while I'm in field school. My gosh, when I say I have no time for anything, I mean I have no time. Which translates to: my clothes have not seen drawers or hangers in a very long time. Oh well.

Chad's also been getting better at talking to Egyptians, and he really enjoys talking to one man in particular. Mahmoud, the man that owns the shoe shop next to Chad's apartment building, sounds like a really nice guy, and I'm glad that he and Chad are friends. [In Chad's own words: "he's a  really good guy, very emotionally balanced. I would trust him if I had to leave a few hundred bucks with him for a few days or something (not something I'd trust most people around here with). Anyway, he has his head on straight; he's not some hormone- and steroid-pumped young guy."] So, I'm glad for that. Chad's still tutoring a girl in their program with a few other people on different days during the week, and as far as I know, that's still going well. Their whole group went to Alexandria (!!!) a couple weekends ago, but I haven't gotten any pictures yet. They're going to Luxor soon, but I'm not sure when. All in all, he's had very few sick days (which is really a blessing considering that everyone else has been really sick a number of times--some the whole time--since they've been there) and he's doing really well. Here are a couple of pictures he sent me.


The koshary place Chad eats at everyday. I know... but it hasn't made him sick yet, so I guess it's alright.. :)


I think this is the street Chad lives on, but I'm not sure.


Chad and one of his two roommates with a mosque in the background. Such cool architecture! I love it!

Me update: archaeology ROCKS!!!!!!!! AHHHHH I love what I do! Very few things make me really giddy, but archaeology is definitely one of them. Which is weird considering that I come home absolutely covered in gnat bites, sunburned, and caked in dirt. But really, the gnats are the only thing from that list that I would trade (for almost anything else, in fact). I've got a nice farmers tan (ok, burn) going. Here are some pictures of what we've been doing.


My beams!! I got to take them out all on my own! That was so nerve-racking. Our field school director is big into dendrochronology (tree-ring dating; we can tell when the structure was built by finding out when the trees were cut down), and so wanted us to be really careful and take out as many of the beams as we could. He took out the biggest beam (which was also in the best shape of all of them), and it took him about an hour. These took me much longer, and together they aren't as big as the first beam. Anyways, we do this by pedestaling them, which means that we dig down around them, putting them on a pedestal of dirt. Then we dig under them in sections, sliding pieces of cotton batting under them, and tying them off. We do this in sections, until we can eventually lift the beam off the floor and take it back to the lab. From there, they'll go to the dendro lab at the University of Arizona (!!) to be dated. Cool, huh? The beam on the left broke into two pieces while I was removing it. D'oh :( we weren't expecting that one to do very well though. It was actually a couple of beams resting on top of each other, and they weren't in very good shape.


Lindsay trying to escape the gnats. They were horrible. We've all got plenty of bites, but I seem to be escaping the worst of it (whew).


Andrew sifting. He's about 6'4" or 5" so it's a lot easier for him to sit on a bucket instead of having to lean over the sifter. For the rest of us 5'5"ers, it's not such a big deal.


Sarah working on getting to floor of the structure in her square and being careful around her beams. Today she cleared the floor and started taking out one of the two beams in her square.


Kari doing the same in her square. She got her beam out today and did a beautiful job!


The floor of my square minus one very carefully removed beam!


The finished product. My first beam is in that bundle of batting and flag tape. Hooray! We cradle them like babies when we take them back to the lab :)

And of course, the obligatory picture of my farmer's burn:


I got a good stare from a girl on campus today when I was walking down the hall. I probably would have stared too; I was so dirty today! You can even see the nice dirt-sheen on my glasses:


We had a BYU film crew come out today and document what we're doing. One of the professors is making an online version of one of the intro level classes, and she shot of video of our field school for it. We're celebrities! Ha, actually, I wasn't too thrilled about being filmed, so I pretty much kept my back to the camera while I worked :) Lindsay and Sarah were the only ones to be interviewed from our crew, so I really got off without too much trouble (thank goodness; Kari and I celebrated together in the background).

Anyways, this post is entirely too long. I'll be better about updating regularly so that doesn't happen again :) Hope you're all doing well! Enjoy the beautiful summer weather that FINALLY came! This is what it looked like on Monday for all of those not in Utah:


And at the end of May for goodness sakes! Hopefully that'll be the last of it.

Anyways, later!