If I get home before daylight, I just might get some sleep tonight

Nothing better to do? Take a quiz:

I'm a Rainbow!
Take Which High School Stereotype Are You? today!
Created with Rum and Monkey's Personality Test Generator.

You're someone special. There is no one else quite like you. You are your own rainbow. And you're damn proud of the fact. Your socks may or may not match. You may or may not be aware of whether they do or not. You pretty much do your own thing. Occasionally you may like to behave in a totally outrageous way just because you can. You probably have all sorts of bizarre information stored in your head and will impart it at random just for the fun of people's reactions. Pressed to explain you, your peers would say "they're . . . . . . different." You take this as the highest compliment. Friends invite you to their parties because you are never dull, but they rarely call you, invite you over, or just "hang out." A true original.

Somewhat surprised I didn't get "Library Geek," but who am I to argue with the almighty Rum and Monkey?

Meanwhile, life continues apace. My classes have begun and devoured me: Jonah in the belly of the university. The good news is, I like all of them. The bad news is, I can't imagine when I'm going to sleep between now and May.

But I get to to sight-read the Descent of Ishtar in Akkadian this afternoon. And that's a pleasant thing to look forward to.

Ištar and the Zombies

atû mê pita bābka
pita bābkama lūruba anāku
šumma lā tapatta bābu lā erruba anāku
amahhas daltum sikkūru ašabbir
amahhas sippuma ušabalakkat dalāti
ušella mītūti ikkalū baltuti
eli baltuti ima'idū mītūti

Gatekeeper, hey! Open your gate,
open your gate, I would come in.
If you do not open your gate and I do not come in,
I will strike the door, I will break the bolt,
I will strike the doorjamb, I will overthrow the doors.
I will raise up the dead, they will eat the living,
the dead will outnumber the living.

(Lines 14—20 of Ištar's Descent to the Underworld, Akkadian version; manuscript from the library of Aššurbanipal in Nineveh.)

You have no idea how happy I am right now.

Ištar and the Punctuation (A Footnote)

No, I have no idea why the macrons make the text look weird. I stole them from the relevant Wikipedia entry (which I suppose might be part of the problem), but clearly I need something better. Anybody know how to do proper diacritical markings on Livejournal? Lawrence, help me out here . . .

[edited 2005-01-12 20:37]

It has come to my attention that the text doesn't look weird on all computers, or all browsers. Maybe it's just Safari. Maybe it's my eyesight. If you—she appealed randomly to the blogosphere in general—get a chance to look at the Ištar's Descent excerpt below, would you mind telling me what you see? Thanks.