Another Quick Update

This morning I had planned to wake up at 7 am and attempt my reading for class. For the first time since I've been here, I completely ignored my alarm. It's probably not a great sign for my academics that I'm already choosing sleep over class reading, but the professors don't seem to care. Luckily, I have a caring roomie, who shook me a few minutes later to make sure I wasn't accidentally hitting a snooze button. So, only another half-hour of rest, all told, but I felt better for it. I still got to skim the reading for my morning class and finish the chapter for my afternoon class.

After lunch, I walked through Plaka for a little while with M and her visiting friend. I bought a small silver tourist ring the other day, but I'm still browsing in all the jewelry shop windows for a necklace or ring with one of the lovely deep blue stones that make me think of the evening sky here. I'm still looking to see if prices go down or if I find a better deal (or nicer jewelry) on the Islands or the Peloponnese. I would have liked to go back to the Acropolis with them, but I needed to race to class.

I really do like my Myth and Religion class, but it's moving VERY slowly. For a class full of Classics, Anthropology, English and History majors, people seem to know shockingly little about archaeology and myth. I can't blame people for not knowing the opening of Socrates' Republic or a specific ritual in classical Athens, but not knowing Posiedon carries a trident? Or a classicist having never heard of Linear B? I'm not sure what's going on there. The teacher is quite wonderful when she gets on a roll in more advanced material, though, and she's terrifically funny! I want to talk with her one-on-one about her ideas on the integration of ancient myth and religion, because it's a specialty of hers, and something that I've been intrigued by since my Ancient Religion class fall of Freshman year, when myth was hardly mentioned. She brings it up occasionally in class, but I want to talk more. :)

We had a group meeting about the Crete trip next week, in which we had a full history lesson on Crete from 3000 bc to modern day, complete with Powerpoint presentation (which the speaker was blocking from my angle), and then didn't really discuss Crete again at all. Every group meeting this program holds just proves once again that 138 is more students than this set up can handle. They want us to discuss our favorite restaurants and problems in our apartments in an auditorium setting. It's never going to happen, guys. Also, still no itinerary yet, and we can't room with our apartment mates unless we happen to be on the same bus. Fortunately SE and I are on a bus together, as are G and SS, but K and M are each alone. It's pretty upsetting, especially as we can't quite figure out how they divided us. It's only for a few days, I guess. Also, we will not have stable internet in Crete and are encouraged NOT to bring laptops given the general state of movement and hotel quality. So I'll take a journal, make notes while I'm there, take hundreds of pictures, and have one huge update Saturday the 25th for the whole trip. I'll post all that again just before we leave. :)

At this point I am strictly avoiding my homework, and I really shouldn't be as I have another 50 lines to translate before tomorrow afternoon. I suppose I'll get on that. So another short update tonight. There will be more pictures/interesting updates again soon, though probably not until Friday or so. I'm attending a lecture Thursday night and WILL be seeing a Greek dancing show sometime this weekend. Excitement for what's to come!

Kαληνύχτα!