I'm here to set something straight. Slaves did not build the Pyramids, and I really wish that people would stop saying that they did. Yes, the Egyptians, like all civilizations at that time, had slaves. I'm not denying that. What I am saying is that the slaves weren't the ones who build the Pyramids.

This myth started in 5th century BC when Herodotus described the pyramid construction as "slave labor". Diodorus Siculus then takes this text and reiterates that it was slaves who built the pyramids and that they were forced to work until the pyramids were complete. However Diodorus Siculus routinely "borrowed" from Herodotus, and both of their stories about Egypt in general are known to contain gross errors of fact. For example, we now know that their description of the shipment of the stone from Arabia was simply untrue.

No modern respectable archaeologist continues to entertain the hypothesis that slaves built the pyramids. It's simply not true.

Mark Lehner, an archeologist who discovered cities where the pyramid builders lived, states: "This notion of a vast slave class in Egypt originated in Judeo-Christian tradition and has been popularized by Hollywood productions like Cecil B. De Mille's The Ten Commandments, in which a captive people labor in the scorching sun beneath the whips of Pharaoh's overseers. But graffiti from inside the Giza monuments themselves have long suggested something very different.

We now know that pyramid labor was organized into a hierarchy, consisting of two gangs of 100,000 men, divided into five zaa or phyle of 20,000 men each and then further subdivided by trade. These men (and there's evidence that some women participated too) were almost always Egyptians themselves. They worked for a salary or as an alternative to paying taxes during idle time after the harvest was brought in.

What's more, the pharoahs would have been horrified to think that we believed that slaves built their pyramids. Slaves were a class so far beneath them that their hands would have soiled the pyramids which were both a monument to them and their final resting place.

So there you go. Slaves did not build the pyramid. Ordinary nationals did. End of story. Please stop using this myth as an analogy. Thank you.

If a doctor came up to me and was like, "You're gonna need a lumbar puncture", I'd be like, "No." "Uh, ma'am, you really ---" "No." I've seen House! I know what a lumbar puncture is! You wouldn't be able to fool me with your medical terms!

Same thing if I was in a Hospital and they were like, "We need an ANA test." I'd be like, "I do not have lupus. It's never lupus." And they'd be like, "Why do you people keep watching these shows?! Stop making my life more difficult!"

It's like that I think that I'm now a doctor just because I've watched someone play one on TV.

"Uh, it can't be environmental, no one else is getting sick."
"Well, I was sitting on the shuttle for a long time. It could be deep vein thrombosis. That can be caused by prolonged sitting."
"Flu-like symptoms? Have you checked for cadmium poisoning?"

Also, I think I can totally intubate someone. Pffft, easy. I dunno why wikipedia is saying it's one of the hardest procedures. I got that DOWN. If you need intubating, call me up.

The lovely Mota (pictured here) had to go to the animal hospital this afternoon. She somehow got her own claw stuck into her paw. It looked extremely painful and she was leaving bloody footprints with every step. After a battle best described as "epic", I finally managed to get her into her cat carrier -- it involved two full-grown humans, wrapping her in a towel to incapacitate her limbs, using gravity to force her downwards into the carrier (the enemy's gate is down) and then accepting that your arms are going to be so scratched up that you're going to get weird looks at work for weeks. But, in the end, she was placed into the carrier, angry and resentful and loud.

We arrived at the vet and were told that she's going to take her into the back room to extract the claw from her paw. The back room is vet-speak for: "I'm about to do something to your beloved pet that you really, really don't want to witness." I winced.

She picks Mota up by the scruff and they leave through a door into the back room. Silence. There's a picture of a happy puppy on the wall, a cat scale, and some pet-sized bandages. The sterile room is not very distracting.

Suddenly there's a yowl. A human yowl. Followed by a kitty yowl. Followed by a crash. Followed by another kitty yowl. Followed by someone yelling, "OMG, are you okay?" More kitty noises. More "are you okays?" Then there's the "we need backup here!" buzzer, and a few shadows head in the direction of The Back Room. After a minute or two, there's silence.

A vet -- a different vet -- opens the door. "Uh, so, you may have heard the commotion. She got Gabe." Gabe must have been the name of the first vet. She explains that they'd like to gas Mota before continuing. I give consent, and she leaves.

There are many feelings that one goes through when one's injured cat has just mauled the veterinary staff. My first thought was Poor kitty, must have been so scared if she attacked everyone like that. But then, almost as quickly, I thought, Good for her!. That's my cat. She don't take shit from nobody. You gonna rip a claw out of her bleeding paw? You and what army?! It's on!

"She got Gabe." Ha.

Gabe eventually returned with my kitty -- and Mota was just as angry, resentful and loud as when she left, apparently entirely unaffected by the sedative. The vet's arms had been bitten repeatedly. Mota was wearing one of those lampshade protective devices, but somehow I doubt that it was for protecting her. I apologized for my cat's behaviour, trying not to let the tiny ounce of pride show, and left, cat carrier in hand.

Kitteh: 1. Hoomenz: 0.

I used to fantasize about weekends doing nothing. I'd be hard at work halfway through an essay, with a project due soon thereafter, and two problem sets to work on as soon as those were finished; there was no end of work in sight. And I'd wonder to myself what it would be like to have weekends where you had nothing to do. It seemed like such an unattainable concept that to even dwell on such absurd thoughts was a waste of precious working time.

I'm now there. I've reached a point in my life where weekends are pure, unadulterated free time. If you look up "free time" in the OED, you'll see a photo of me lying on my couch on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Really. Go check.

Which is not to say that my weekends are empty! Pftaw! Such ridiculousness! No, no, the days are just packed. But packed with things of my liking.

There's brunch to attend, newspapers to read, projects to embark upon, dinner parties to host (the last one involved roasting two whole red snappers, and making French seafood soup from scratch -- you do keep fish heads in your freezer in order to make homemade fish stock, don't you?!) and books to read (while sitting in the windowsill in the sunlight, of course).

Weekends doing nothing are absolutely everything that I dreamed that they would be. I even spent 2-3 hours cleaning today -- everything from scrubbing out the inside of my microwave, to emptying the last box from when I moved here over two years ago -- and yet with great music playing, accompanied by the knowledge that I was cleaning because I wanted to and not because I had to, I must admit that I enjoyed the process.

A few hours later, eating whole wheat pita wedges with fresh mozzarella balls wrapped in basil, lying on my couch with a cat on my lap, listening to The Album Leaf and playing with the shadows of my feet against the wall, I stretched luxuriously and thought to myself, "This is what I've been waiting for. This moment right here." And it made all the years of hard working weekends worthwhile.

I noticed that I've gone silent on here in terms of sharing all the interesting links I find. That's because I'm sharing them elsewhere.

If you're interested, you can find them here.