101...

Well, the second hundred blog posts is off to a great start. I totally didn’t blog last night. I would just let it go, but I actually had stuff to say, so I can’t.
Last night there was a lecture, and if we attended, we got free ‘delicious’ dinner. The lecture was about dreams, and I was kind of looking forward to it. The only problem was, it was scheduled for eight o’clock at night, which is a bit late for dinner, for me at least. Still, I managed, and it turned out that the food was not just ‘delicious’ but actually delicious.
First I had to sit through the lecture though. It was mostly about the history of dream psychology, and the professor wasn’t as corny or annoying as I had been afraid he might be. It actually turned out pretty interesting. The most annoying part of the lecture was people asking really specific questions about their own dreams, kind of wanting the professor to interpret the dreams for them, which was a little bit awkward.
(Actually, if he had interpreted dreams, that would have been kind of cool. I had this really weird one a few nights ago about pushing a shopping cart up and down a spiral flight of stairs with orange handrails. Also it was happening at VidCon. Also two of my friends were sitting in the shopping cart. What does that mean, I ask? Other than the fact I clearly want to go back to VidCon, possibly with a shopping cart?)
After the lecture I stayed downstairs and hung out with friends for a lot longer than I should have, which meant that I had to do my Arabic homework really late, which I guess is why I didn’t blog. As you can see, I survived. And now I have to go to the library and finish the rough draft of my Art and Architecture essay so I can show it to Professor Ikram after class.
[And blogger is being stupid. Great. I hope this actually publishes and doesn't just vanish into the ether.]

i don't even know anymore

I didn't blog last night, and I didn't even think about it until now. I'm on the bus ride home from a long day on campus, ready to finish my essay and maybe write some more NaNo so it won't fade into oblivion like last year's book.
I was upset last night, from lots of stuff, and it was really hard not having anyone to talk to about it, just because of the time difference and the fact that no one carries a computer around with them to get skype calls like from a phone.
At school today, I actually stayed at work until 11:15, instead of leaving early for one reason or another. I guess that was good because I got a lot of stuff done, but at the same time it wasn't very satisfying because none of the stuff that I did actually matters to me personally. Mostly it was sorting papers that the person who worked on the collection before me left unsorted, papers that if it were up to me would just be chucked in the trash or recycled, because they're a waste of space. But it's not up to me.
Then I went to Professor Ikram's class, which was really nice, since we haven't had real class for a while. The lecture was really really fast, and I'm sure I missed some important stuff in my note taking. I'll make it up with my friends' notes though. It all works out.
After class, I followed the professor to her office to ask a few questions about my paper, along with about half the class. No wonder she calls us ducklings, the way we trailed after her!
In my next class, we watched a really interesting film called The Return of Navajo Boy, which I think you should watch. It's a documentary made in 2000, about a Navajo family living in Monument Valley and about the history of their family and tourists and filmmakers and other people, and I really liked it. Also, it made me cry.
In Arabic class, we just practiced making sentences, but it wasn't boring. Then my friend Vincent and I bought brownie sundaes at McDonald's, which were completely amazing, if also completely unhealthy.
And then I got on the bus. And now I will take a nap. I do have a question for whoever is reading this. Do you like me posting every day? Would you rather I didn't? Does it matter?

at least nano's going well

Today was a long day, and I'm glad it's over. Nothing was particularly bad about it (except for Sarah leaving - I miss you, Sarah!), but it was definitely long.
In the morning, I took the late bus so I could help Sarah get checked out of the dorms and reclaim her passport from the front desk. It didn't really work like I'd thought it would, but they didn't charge us any money for her stay, so that's something!
School was long and pretty boring, even my midterm in Egyptian Lit. I don't think I did badly on it, but I'm pretty sure I didn't ace it either, unless the professor grades really really lazily.
Arabic was kinda fun, we got to show the class pictures of our family and talk about them. It was nice seeing all my friends' families, because since we're all so isolated from home here, it's a little hard to think of each other as people with parents and siblings and cousins and such. The pictures made those kind of imaginary people a lot more real to me, and it's nice to know that those other families are out there, even if that sounds pretty weird.
On the bus ride home, I NaNo'd the whole time, and got more than my 1667 words done for the day. I'm a little afraid that this novel won't be finished by November 30th, because that will make it much more unlikely to ever be finished (like last year's novel), but I'll keep working at it and see where it takes me.
In awesome news, I have plans to go to Dahab for the Eid break (did I already mention this?). A few friends and I are going to be renting a villa for a week-ish and staying in the resort town near the Red Sea. Should be pretty fun. I'll have my computer with me for NaNo, but I don't know if I'll have internet or not. Hopefully yes, but if no, it might be nice to take a break from the net for a while and just enjoy being away from the city.
Tomorrow will be a longer, but hopefully better day. Fingers crossed.
NaNo word count: 12200

schooltimes with sarah

I dragged Sarah to school with me this morning at the ungodly hour of 7:40 am, since I wasn't feeling well enough for work and decided not to go. Plus, sneezing on archive papers? Probably not the best idea in the world, and definitely not how I wanted to spend my morning.
We hung out and got coffee, and chatted. Sarah met some of my friends from AUC (and UCSB), and then we headed to Dramatic Lit. Today we were talking about Nathan the Wise, a play originally in German, written by Gotthold Lessing. Basically the play is about Christians, Muslims, and Jews in 12th centruy Jerusalem figuring out that they can all get along as long as they judge others by the fact that they are human beings first and members of a religion second. Sounds like a pretty good idea to me. I really enjoyed the play, and it was interesting to talk about in class too. I hope Sarah wasn't too bored. It was interesting to have another American university student sitting in on that class with me, because I've gotten fairly used to the high school atmosphere, but it was new and weird to her.
Egyptian Lit was okay, but I hadn't done the reading for the first time (pretty much) all semester, and of course today was the day she decided to call us out on not reading. Oh well. The midterm is on Sunday, so we'll see how that goes.
Speaking of midterms, I had my Arabic midterm today, which I didn't really study for. It turned out to be not too difficult though, and I think I did okay. For the first time, I had a test in language class that I understood all the questions for. That almost never happened in Japanese class! Usually there would be one or two words that I would mess up and that would cause me to answer a completely different question than the one I was supposed to. That didn't happen today though, so that's good.
After I got out of the test, Sarah and I had to wait for about an hour to catch the bus, so we bought some carrot cake, which was unhealthy (duh) but delicious. The bus ride home was long, but I took the time to write some more for NaNo, which was a good choice. I'm a little bit ahead now, and I'm hoping to maintain that lead and increase it day by day. I was almost always a full day ahead last year, and I really liked that feeling, so I'm going to try and get there again.
We didn't have any adventures for dinner, just the cafeteria, but that was okay food, and it meant that I got to get all my laundry done (finally!) for the first time in much too long.
Tomorrow is just another school day, but hopefully with more adventures in the evening than today had. Keep your fingers crossed for reservations at Abu el-Sid and a felucca ride after
NaNo word count: 5611

tuesday at the pyramids, take 2

Sarah and I slept in this morning, and then lounged around a little bit, until we were awake. Then we took to the streets of Zamalek so I could do my grocery shopping. And so we could eat brunch. We ate at Munch and Bagel, where I (again!) had the delicious turkey bagel sandwich. Someday, I will try something new, but that day wasn't today. Then we went to Alfa for groceries, and I bought apples and peanut butter and 3x5 cards. (Probable TMI warning: apparently you can't buy tampons in Egypt? What the heck? Not cool.)

After eating and shopping, we headed back to the dorm to relax for a little bit longer before heading off to our adventure for the day, visiting the pyramids for the first time for Sarah, and third time for me. I didn't mind at all though, it's not like they get less awe-inspiring.

I had toyed with the idea of taking a bus to the pyramids from Tahrir Square downtown, but eventually gave up that idea in favor of taking a taxi. The ride itself wasn't bad, but when we finally got near the pyramids, right before the hill leading up to the parking lot, two men jumped out in front of the car, forcing the driver to stop. It turned out they were trying to get us to hire a horse carriage or camels from them. They did this by telling us that walking around the pyramids was impossibly tiring, and we really shouldn't attempt it. I wanted to snap at them that I'd already walked all over the Giza plateau with Salima Ikram, so surely I would be fine. Also they kept calling me sister, which was really annoying. Finally, we convinced them to leave us alone (after ignoring them didn't work), and our driver took us up to the ticket booth (getting stopped once more on the way). We bought our tickets, and were in.

sarah's first pyramid!

I waited outside while Sarah climbed into the depths of the first pyramid. I was cheap, so I didn't want to pay for a ticket, or risk hitting my head again. We had good weather, so I didn't mind waiting in the shade and the wind for her to come back out.

big pyramid, tiny sarah

After the first pyramid, we walked over to the second, but didn't go inside. The policemen were trying to get us to come closer to the pyramid beyond the keep-out ropes, so that they could get money from us, presumably. We didn't go, despite their persistence.
Next, we walked over to the solar boat museum, got our booties, and went in. I love that boat. When we finished the museum, we walked a bit around the great pyramid, to see if the mastaba tombs I visited with Professor Ikram were open to visitors, but they weren't, as far as I could tell.
When we were walking away from the pyramid, toward the Sphinx, we got semi-assaulted by a group of babbling middle-school age Egyptian girls. They surrounded us, and I couldn't tell what they wanted. Eventually, one girl in a bright pink hijab spoke up, and said she wanted to take a picture with me. This was very strange. Why, why, why on earth would anyone want to take a picture with me? Let alone go ahead and ask to take one? She asked my name, and I told her, and then I asked for hers in Arabic, after which we conversed between my very bad and her very fast Arabic. Her name was Maha. One of her friends took the picture, with me and Sarah surrounded by eight or ten Egyptian teenyboppers. It was kind of adorable, if very weird. After the picture was taken, I took out my camera and asked if they would take another one with it. I thought the girl did, but I guess she was just being sneaky, because when I checked, it wasn't there. Sad.
After the picture was taken, the rest of their group, and a man I presume was their teacher, came up. I don't remember exactly what was said, but the teacher did invite us to come on their tour with them, which we politely declined. So they left, and we left, to walk down the road to the Sphinx, where another odd thing happened: someone else asked to take a picture with me. I don't know what was going on. This time it was a teenage boy and his friends, though, so I said no, because it was a bit creepy. He was polite though, and not a jerk, so I talked to him for a bit in Arabic/English. He asked where I was from, and I said California, and that I lived in Cairo. Then he called me beautiful, which was out of the blue and a step further in our relationship than I was willing to take, so I excused myself, and we headed down to the Sphinx.
Talking about it later, Sarah and I were wondering what on earth made these people want to take pictures with me. The only thing we could settle on was maybe my hair, since it is pretty out of the ordinary in Egypt. I was dressed modestly, and honestly didn't expect to attract any attention today. Shows what I know.
The Sphinx was sphinx-like, although we didn't get to spend very much time with him, because the best viewing spot was being shut down for closing time, meaning we had to force our way through giant crowds of people going to the exit of the temple near the Sphinx, because the guards telling us to get out didn't think to stop the flow of people going in first.

hello mr sphinx

Then we crossed the street and had dinner at that famous Egyptian restaurant, Pizza Hut. It was worth it for the view:

sunset behind the pyramids. at pizza hut!

We left the restaurant, and caught a metered taxi home, which ended up being cheaper than the 40 pounds quoted to us by the nice man who spoke to us outside. I would have been okay with going with him if he hadn't been so pushy. I think I've taken the advice 'always choose your taxi, never let your taxi choose you' to heart. Traffic on the way back was terrible, but we made it home, where a miracle happened. We didn't have exact change for the taxi, so I over paid by five pounds, and asked for change, fully expecting the driver to just shrug and drive away. But no! He produced a five pound note and bid us farewell. What a gentleman.
We walked to get gelato before heading back to the dorm, and saw this street sign for our road. Mohamed Sakeb. Everything else I've seen calls it Mohamed Thakeb and that's what the Arabic on the sign reads. So, I don't really know what is going on, but I know what to tell the taxi company next time, at least!

this explains a lot

Tomorrow I have to go to school, and take my Arabic midterm, which kind of sucks. I think I'll do alright though. I also get to drag Sarah along to campus on the hour long bus ride. I'm such a great host.

I will have a vlog to post here tomorrow, but I'm not going to stay awake while it uploads, so you'll just have to wait. Be patient.
[Here's the video! Please enjoy.]

NaNo word count: 3592

let's do the time warp again

I woke up late this morning, but made the bus on time. Actually, I made the bus a little bit early. Still, the extra forty minutes of sleep I accidentally got did not improve my mood today. I don't really know what was wrong, I just didn't want to put up with anybody's crap, which can be hard in classes where I have to work in groups.
Talking about The Misanthrope in Dramatic Lit was interesting, though, even if we got a little more technical than my admiration for the play really called for.
My second class of the day, Egyptian Lit, turned out to be cancelled, as I found out after waiting around for the teacher for 10 minutes with another two students until my friend pointed out the very small, not at eye level sign on the door. Woops. So, since we had nothing better to do, we talked about hieroglyphs and played hangman for a while. I drew a picture of an owl wearing a cowboy hat on the board, but I didn't take a picture of him, because I forgot I had my camera.
In Arabic class, we witnessed a march/walk-out/strike by the campus janitors, protesting for higher wages and better food options on campus. As it is, they have to pay the same prices for food that students do, which is ridiculous, since they get paid so little and are completely isolated out in the middle of the desert all day with no other food options.
The protest was still going on when class was over, and I took a few pictures. This is what a protest in Egypt looks like:

lots of people standing around while a few people shout

guys, what's going on? guys? nobody knows.

The bus ride home was long today, but I got a fairly good nap. When I got home, responsible student that I am, I started my homework right away. I had Arabic, an essay for Art and Architecture, and transcription for anthro. Tomorrow I'm presenting to my group in my anthro class about my conversation analysis, so that should go well. I have stuff to talk about, but I don't think it will fill up the time I'm supposed to fill. That's okay, though, because no one else's stuff will take that long either. So, that was my evening, full of homework, with only a few short breaks to dance the time warp while my roommate was gone, but that's it, I swear.

Speaking of the time warp, I finally started to watch the Rocky Horror episode of Glee, which I've kind of been waiting for forever, but the stupid internet won't let me finish it. They're just about to cast Santana as Dr. Frank-n-Furter, and I'm not sure if I want to go on. Glee, I love you, but I'm not so sure about this.

in which i forget meidum (again)

Just wanted to say, pictures on blogger started working again, so there are now pictures up in my birthday blog about visiting Giza if you want to go check them out. Actually, they're there if you want to go check them out or not. But never mind, because it's time for a short and boring blog post! I know, I'm excited too.
Today I had my first quiz (midterm) for Art and Architecture, which as you know, I've been studying a lot for in the past few days. And you know what? It really wasn't that bad. I knew pretty much everything that was asked, and the only points I know for sure I'll miss are on the map section, because for the life of me, I can never remember where Meidum is. I know now that it's in the Fayyum, but earlier today, I said it was in Upper Egypt. Silly me. Maybe someday I'll learn. Aside from that, I think I did fairly well on the quiz. There was one minor glitch, in that it was only after we had finished the slide questions that the professor told us that by 'explain the significance' she meant she wanted us to describe the object on the slide thoroughly from top to bottom. That wasn't obvious to me, so that's not what I did. Hopefully I won't lose too many points because of it.
One thing I know for certain is that I didn't miss any of the identifications of the slides. I had a small panic after the test was over, talking to a classmate and realizing that she had put a different answer than me for one of the questions. Note to self: do not automatically assume that someone else is right and you are wrong. When I looked up the picture in question later, it turned out that I had definitely been right, and just gotten myself worried over something that 1) I couldn't do anything about and 2) didn't matter. Good for me. We'll see how the test as a whole pans out, though. I'll let you know.
That was pretty much the highlight of my day. Well, I say highlight. I mean 'only thing that mattered'. Speaking of which, I only have one midterm left! That means that all I have to do tomorrow on my day off is write an essay for my anthro class, sleep in a little and/or nap, read Moliere's The Misanthrope for Dramatic Lit, do my Arabic homework, and film a video blog explaining just how nerdy I am, really. When I list everything out like that, it just looks so relaxing, doesn't it? On second thought, maybe I'll erase that 'sleep in and/or nap' part.

midterms upon midterms

Sorry for the late (and uninteresting) blog post. I just spent four hours studying with friends for my Art and Architecture midterm tomorrow, so I'm a little bit brain dead on all things not ancient Egypt. Actually, scratch that, I'm pretty brain dead on everything.
School was fine today, although it was another day where I really could have used a hug. It probably would have made me cry, but not in a bad way. Sarah, be prepared for this possibility when I come get you at the airport next week, okay?
My Dramatic Lit midterm went really well, I though, especially since I didn't study as much as I might have. There were at least two sections where I know I didn't miss any points at all, and there wasn't anything on there that I wasn't capable of answering at least partly. I'll let you know how it turned out when I get my test back.
Egyptian Lit wasn't torturous today, mainly because the stories we talked about were actually interesting and class had to end early since the professor wasn't feeling well. I was glad it did, because it gave me some extra time to study for Art and Architecture before I had to go to Arabic class.
I've actually been enjoying Arabic class for the past few weeks, but today was the exception. We had to repeat the dialog from the book over and over again until the whole class could say it, which was just torture. I already knew most of it, so it wasn't that hard for me, but I felt a little bit like a show-off, even though that's not at all what I meant to do. I hope it didn't come across that way to any of my classmates.
I got home from campus at 6:30, and started studying for A&A at 7:00. We finished going through the slides about 15 minutes ago, which just goes to show how much information there is that we need to know. I'm feeling confident enough right now, although I still need to work on the map section before I can take the test.
Now it's definitely time for bed. Wish me luck on the quiz tomorrow!
P.s. If you are in the U.S. and don't have anything to do tonight (Sunday), watch Sherlock at 9:00 pm on PBS. It's a really really great show, and I don't think you'll be disappointed!

best modern adaptation of sherlock holmes ever. i promise.
also, not my picture. duh. thanks bbc.

general malaise

That's the only thing wrong with me. General malaise. Unfortunately, there's nothing I can do about it, except keep going forward. That usually (always) helps. It gets better.

I had an absolutely fascinating morning at work today, and if you think I'm being serious about that, it's only because sarcasm does not become me. I sorted through file folder after file folder filled with papers that had been paper-clipped and stapled and why-on-earth-would-anyone-do-this-taped together. Which I then had to sort out properly to make them 'archive appropriate'. Worse, the papers today weren't even interesting. To quote Tom Lehrer, they were 'full of words and meaning, and signifying nothing.' Mostly boring emails. Who prints out emails and then files them? That's what computers are for! They store things, things like emails. Sigh.

At least I didn't work in the freezing cold today. The office was empty, so I got to work in there with the warm sunlight coming through the window in front of me and the door to freeze-world shut securely behind me.

After my first class today, I had a library adventure with my friend Geoff, who needed to find books on diglossia for a linguistics paper. Actually, we didn't find any books on diglossia in the end, but we did find some on pidgins and creoles. Due to a mis-transcription of a call number, which may or may not have been my fault, we completely missed the first book we were looking for by just a few shelves, but we found it eventually. (We also took a moment to fangirl/fanboy over a really cool pidgin called Tok Pisin from Papua New Guinea. It's really cool. Tell your friends.) The other book we were looking for turned out to be on a different floor, a fact which I didn't realize until we had thoroughly explored Floor 2. So what if I can't remember that 'g' comes before 'h'? We found it eventually, didn't we?
[NB: There are currently insane freshman girls shrieking outside and running up and down the hall. If only a man-on-the-floor would appear and scare them all back to their rooms.]
I had my first real test in Arabic today, although my ustezza (professor) called it a quiz. I think I did pretty well, even if I couldn't remember how to spell 'seven' correctly. Yup, just checked google translate. Definitely got that one wrong. Arabic class actually kind of freaks me out sometimes. I don't know if it's just the fact that it's not my first 'second' language, or it's that I've taken a bunch of linguistics classes since I started learning Japanese, but Arabic seems to be coming to me a lot easier. It seems more like a puzzle that I can sort of figure out on my own without too much help. I kind of want to do a huge morphological analysis of everything I've learned so far, but I don't think I'll waste time I don't really have to waste on something like that. I'll waste it on Skype and Facebook and NaNoWriMo instead.
New song for you: Shut Your Eyes by Snow Patrol. They don't seem to have an official video for the song, so this is a fan-made one. I haven't actually watched it all the way through, so that's a disclaimer for you right there:

holding the fort

Wow. Another boring day, another boring blog. I almost don't even want to post tonight, because absolutely nothing happened today. Except for me talking to my mom on skype about how absolutely nothing happened today.
Most of my friends are gone for the long weekend, so it's just me and Maggie here to hold down the fort (sorry Hank, I meant hold the fort). After a long day of neither of us being productive, we met for studying and dinner, and then continued to be non-productive, but with company, which is infinitely preferable to being non-productive and alone.
We also met a gecko. He was a nice orangey color and had absolutely huge eyes. He was on the wall by our table, hunting bugs for his dinner. I didn't take a picture, sorry.
The only semi-worthwhile thing I did today was start my Dramatic Lit essay about the Oresteia and fate and destiny and stuff. I'm glad I started it, because that means I might have some little motivation to work on it tomorrow when I'm in the library after class.
I also did my Arabic homework, which was supposed to be me writing a paragraph about an imaginary girl, and then meeting two new people and asking them about themselves. On second thought, maybe everyone mentioned in the homework I turn in tomorrow will be imaginary...
In other news, I start my library archives job tomorrow morning. I've got a schedule and everything, now all I need to do is learn what exactly this job entails. I'm actually pretty excited about it, because I'll get to meet some new people and do interesting work that isn't for a grade and doesn't have a real deadline. I'm pretty sure I'll be cataloging papers that famous people have donated to the library, and possibly even figuring out how to catalog things that no one has even looked at yet. Pretty darn exciting, don't you think? Hopefully my internship in the Respository at UCSB will have prepared me at least a little bit for how to organize and catalog stuff for a museum/archive thing. At least this time I won't be organizing rock that some archaeologist in the 1970s decided were interesting, dropped off at UCSB, and then forgot all about. Please don't let there be any rocks.
Yup, that's about it. Except for one thing - does anyone know how to get PayPal to work when I'm outside the US? It won't let me use my account for some stupid reason, so I can't buy any music directly from the artist online while I'm here. I might have to resort to using iTunes, which makes me very sad.
I'll let you know how work goes tomorrow, and I'll try to get some interesting pictures! (Finally...)

my map is upside down

I slept in again today. It felt good, not to get up at 6:30 to catch a stupid bus. I got to campus around 10:50 instead, and had just enough time to buy breakfast and eat before my first class.
We didn't have a new play to discuss in Dramatic Lit, so instead we talked about the Elizabethan period, Shakespeare, and our essay assignments. It was really interesting, actually. I need to brush up on my history of England, because there were a lot of things the professor brought up that I didn't remember correctly, or even at all!
Then it was time for lunch, and then boring Egyptian Literature. I didn't fall asleep today, so that was a plus, because it meant I didn't feel nervous the entire time. I discussed my essay topic with the professor, and was really confused when she started suggesting sources for me that have nothing to do with the topic I proposed. I wanted to talk about the role of fate/destiny/gods over mankind in Greek drama and Egyptian literature, kind of a compare/contrast thing, and she seemed to think I just wanted to compare and contrast the gods themselves. Her idea would be way easier, I think, but I don't think I'd have to do as much interesting research for that idea, so I'll just stick to my first plan. Plus, that way, I can combine the research for my two papers and not double my workload. Aren't I clever...
In Arabic today, we learned how to complain. Well, not really, we just learned a bunch of negative adjectives that we can use when someone asks us how we are. Now instead of just saying we're fine or excellent, we can say we're too hot, too cold, tired, sick, exhausted, hungry, or thirsty. Those are going to come in handy. Imagine meeting someone for the first time on the street (in the unlikely event that you meet anyone who speaks modern standard Arabic, and in reply to 'How are you?' telling them 'I'm hungry.' That just doesn't seem plausible. I guess it'll be useful for in class, though.
The bus ride home today took forever. And by forever, I mean an hour and a half. Almost an hour and forty-five minutes, but who's counting?
I got on the same bus I always do, it left at the same time it always does, and yet Cairo traffic managed to snarl it up so badly that crossing one bridge took at least ten minutes. One bridge!
It was completely dark by the time we got back to the dorms and I could finally go upstairs to do my homework. Lovely. The work wasn't too bad, actually, and I was done early enough that I went out to dinner with two friends, back to that exotic Egyptian restaurant known as Hardee's. Mmm.
When I got back home, I studied with my friend Vince for a while, for our map quiz in Art and Architecture tomorrow. Did I say it got postponed?
Vince, lucky guy, actually owns the book we were supposed to use to find the places on our map. [I just heard the weirdest noise outside. I've never heard anything like that before. It was like a cross between the very beginning of a fire truck siren, a giant electric drill, and a stepped-on cat. Weird. Now it's gone.] I only had photocopies of the first 45 pages to work with instead. When we compared our maps, the differences were pathetic. I must have been falling asleep or something when I made mine, because I made all kinds of mistakes. Some cities were just an inch or so off, while others were in completely the wrong place. Take Serabit el-Khaddem for example. I put it on the wrong side of the Red Sea. Who does that? What was I thinking? Vince suggested my map must have been upside down. There were a few more mistakes, that being the worst of them, all of which are fixed now, just in time for me not to learn them for the quiz tomorrow. Wish me luck!

surprise!

Guess who didn't go to Sinai tonight? Apparently a huge sandstorm came up that made the highway unsafe, and we never even made it out of Cairo before turning around and returning to the dorms. All in all, it was an interesting two hour bus ride with my friends, even though we didn't get anywhere.
I won't bore you too much with what happened at school today, except to say that the map quiz I've been studying for never even got brought up. Of course, once Professor Ikram didn't say anything, none of us were going to! My Arabic quiz went well too, even though I did have to cram to learn all the vocab right before class started.

who drew that on the table?

Today was the first day I was asked for my bus pass, ever. It was a little weird, but it turns out my card wasn't activated to scan for the buses, so I had to turn it in to do that and pick it up later in the day. It was an unnecessary hassle just like so many other things are in Egypt.
When I got back from campus, it was about 6:00, and I was supposed to be in the lobby to leave on the trip by 7:00. I plugged everything in to charge, and finished packing, then headed downstairs to wait for 45 minutes until the bus got there. During that time, I helped Jen catch a cab to the airport for her flight home, and also saw a girl get her foot run over by a speeding car. She was okay, but it was really scary. At least the car stopped after, even if they didn't stick around for long, and at least they didn't actually hit her.
The weather had been windy all day, with lots and lots of dust in the air, so I guess the news of the sandstorm shouldn't have been a huge surprise, but it kind of was. It was pretty disappointing to know that our entire weekend was cancelled just because of a freak event that no one could have predicted. Oh well. The trip is going to be rescheduled, thankfully, although we're not sure when yet. Hopefully some people who paid but weren't able to go this weekend will be able to next time.
Since we were all a little bummed about having to spend the weekend at home instead of in Sinai, everyone on the bus (about 8 or 9 Zamalek students and 2 RAs) started making new plans for the night and the weekend as soon as we got the news that the trip had to be cancelled. Two of my friends actually decided to take a train to Alexandria instead, and last I heard, had already bought tickets to leave tomorrow morning. I'm not quite that desperate to get out of Cairo, myself. I'm looking at the trip being cancelled as a good opportunity to catch up on my sleep and reading, and take a breather from everything that's been going on.
My plans for the night, once the bus had turned around, morphed to include getting dinner with three other students at a restaurant called Crave. I'd actually walked to it before, although I didn't really know where I was then. I had spinach ravioli, and it was delicious. We also decided to splurge and order dessert, so I had sweet potato pie with caramel. I would have taken a picture for you, but I was too busy eating it.

here's the menu instead.
does the woman look like mrs. claus to anyone else?

On the walk home, I saw a very familiar face.

it's a hooch-dog! sorry it's so blurry...

It was very strange to see a dog that looks so much like mine, and know that it really wouldn't be a great idea to go up and pet it. He was very well behaved when we walked by, though, and didn't even move. I might walk back that way another day this weekend to see if he lives there, and maybe get a better picture or talk to his owner.
So, no catch-up blogs this weekend (yay!) but also no monastery of St. Catherine and no sunrise from Mt. Sinai (boo!). It's all working out, though. I just have to remember to go with the flow. This is Egypt.
Also, this is completely irrelevant to the rest of this post, but I just heard that Tony Curtis passed away. This makes me sad. But it reminds me of this movie, which I love, and which I have an excuse to watch again now, since Tony Curtis is one of the stars.

Poor Charlie Potatoes.

quick unfortunate arabic lessons with elise

I had another lazy day today. With naps. Unfortunately, I also got some work done. How dare I?
I read a morality play called Everyman for my dramatic literature class, which was actually kind of interesting, since I knew to look at it through a lens of medieval church propaganda. Of course, I also spotted this:

look at the last two characters. really? yeah.

I don't know this particular Doctor Who episode seems to be stalking me, but it definitely is. (For those readers who don't watch the Doctor, which, by the way, you should, the episode is Blink, the one Charlie sang about in my last blog.)

Basically, the day was wasted on homework and sleeping and lazing about. It was pretty nice to have another short break from school, though. I'm starting to like the weird schedule that AUC keeps. School on Sundays is still pretty odd, though.
My only other accomplishment for the day was making another vlog, this one teaching some common Arabic words and phrases.

If you have time, check out the other videos on the channel that my friends and I share. I think you'll enjoy them, and don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe!

desert bureacracy

Today I took the bus ride to AUC's new campus for the first time. It took about an hour to reach New Cairo, and on the way, we saw some amazing things. We crossed the Nile again, this time covered in smog that stretched across the entire city.
The tall buildings and crowded streets slowly faded into empty apartment blocks and housing tracts still under construction. The sand encroached on the sides, until all we could see on either side of the bus was desert. Finally, we reached New Cairo, and the AUC campus greeted us like an oasis. The greenery seemed like a deception though, because as soon as we set foot off the bus, we were greeted by the heat. At a guess, I would put the temperature at 9:00am in the low 100s fahrenheit. As we toured the campus, we felt like we were melting. Not even the cohesiveness and beauty of the architecture could distract us, and the instant the tour was over, my friend Emily and I hurried (sluggishly) to the Quick-24hr-Mart to buy some ice water and snacks to replenish ourselves.
Then we entered the wonderland that is AUC's amazing bureaucratic machine. We were handed a checklist of essential tasks, then told to make our way around the tables in a room that didn't allow us to complete any of them. For me, the most essential item of the day was to ensure my enrollment in the survival Arabic course, but for Emily, it was to rearrange her class schedule. We split up, and I was shuffled from building to building all the way across the campus and back, meeting people, filling out forms and finally arriving in my survival Arabic class 5 minutes late and 10 minutes before the teacher arrived.
Class was actually interesting, despite the fact that most of it was a review of what I'd learned in my colloquial Egyptian class last year. Best of all, I got to make some more new friends.
After class ended, 3 and a half hours after it started, we all trudged back to the bus, barely making it in time to get seats and ride back to Zamalek.
A few hours later, after cooling off in the AC for a while, Emily and I along with other some other Zamalek residents headed off to get dinner. We were in the mood for traditional Egyptian food, so of course we went to Hardee's. What could be better? We also completed our grocery shopping, and had an adventure waiting outside a phone store for it to open, an experience which lead us all to more fully understand the difference between Egyptian time ('the store will be open in 5 minutes') and real time ('dude, we've been here and hour and a half. when is the store going to open??'). Eventually, those who needed to succeeded in buying their phones, and we walked back home, swimming through the humid Cairo air that had been suffocating us for the past 4 hours, back home.