glogging along

The first 45 minutes of my day today were prototypically Egyptian. And I use "Egyptian" to specifically refer to "Tiffany's harebrained life in Egypt."

I woke up exhausted from a lecturing double-header on Monday: a one-hour lecture on Newton for the assembled Scientific Thinking students, and a 2.5-hour whopper in the evening for my Bioinformatics class. I admit I was sneaky for the last one - I only lectured 1.5 hours, and made the students do the work for the last hour. Hah! Take that, privileged youth! This isn't really the place for a prolonged pedagogical discussion, but I suppose that's really what's supposed to be happening in class anyway, apart from my inherent laziness. I have to give the Newton lecture again tomorrow for the rest of the students.

I plunged through the streets of Cairo as quickly as I could, since I only had an hour to prepare for class. I walked into my office, flipped on the lights, and tried to turn on my computer. Nothing happened. I glanced at my phone. Dead console.

Once again I looked at the overhead lights. Yup, still on, so not a general power outage.

I'd figured out that something was wrong with the outlet. I used the last 45 seconds of power in my laptop to test the other outlets, but they were powerless as well - along with the printer and the photocopier. And myself, incidentally, because without either computer, I couldn't get to any of my course materials.

I called my boss from my cell, and he sent someone over. I never saw this someone, but about 20 minutes later I suddenly noticed the glowing red switch on the surge protector. I imagine that a circuit breaker somewhere deep in the underbelly of the building had gotten tripped.

I was just reveling in my return to power-operated devices when my boss' assistant called back and told me the internet was out. Campus-wide. Hilarious. So I texted KC an update on some good news I'd gotten over the weekend.

Remember this picture from a few weeks ago?


Over the weekend, the AUC naturalist who'd given me the mantis identification was with me on a hike in Wadi Degla, a nature preserve that's literally a stone's throw from Cairo's urban madness. While we were dodging the garbage that litters this beautiful site, Richard told me that he'd written his most recent Egypt Today column on the mantis - and used that picture in the article. But not to worry, he assured me, he's acknowledged me on the photograph.

I had an instantaneous mental image of KC having an aneurysm when his photograph gets published under my name in full glossy color. I figured, though, that he'd be as excited as I was at the prospect at finally getting one of our bazillions of digital pics into real print. And I was right, he was enthusiastic when I told him on the phone.

This morning during my charge to work, I stopped and picked up the magazine. I flipped to page 62, Richard's Nature Notes column, as I dodged traffic and police and wound my way further toward work. And suddenly, there it was ....

What "it" was, of course, requires more explanation. I hope that Egypt Today will update their website soon with their March edition so you can see for yourself.

Right away I saw that the magazine had published a sketch that Richard had made of the photograph, not KC's photograph itself. Ok, I thought, a bit odd, but sketching is Richard's thing - they're just sticking with his MO. Then I looked for the acknowledgement.

"The Desert Mantis, sketched from a photo by Dr. Tiffany Vorg."

"Tiffany VORG???" I shrieked to the passers-by. "Who the hell is Tiffany Vorg???"

It gets even worse. Inside the body of the article, Richard wrote, "... while I was researching this piece I was contacted by a friend with an excellent photograph of what she thought was a spider amongst the nummulites of Wadi Rayan's shoreline. No spider, it was a mantis."

Tiffany Vorg is a "biologist" who apparently doesn't know the difference between a spider and an insect. KC had given the file a name including the word "spider," so I can see where Richard got the association. But dear God! A biologist who doesn't know that spiders have 8 legs and insects have 6? I mean, I could see a theoretical biologist (ahem) not knowing - but me?? I'll be laughed out of the biological department here!

At least, Tiffany Vorg will.

And yes, resistance is futile. Trust me. Welcome in Egypt.