You Can't Make Mistakes.

Here we come…

I just got word from the American University in Cairo that I was admitted to their graduate school today. So, it’s back to Cairo in a few months to do an MA in Arabic with a specialization in Islamic Studies.

Now I am just trying to revel in congratulating myself before beginning to panic about how much this is about to cost.

Then again, money isn’t everything. Not to mention the logistics of completely uprooting myself. This will be a little different than last time: I still had a sort-of home-base in the States last year. Now my home base will be my backpack.

Exploring the world, one taxi-ride at a time, I guess. Wish me luck.

Back in the Saddle

Sorry for the recent hiatus in posting. I have been a bit lazy and let-lagged this week. 10 in the evening in Kalamazoo feels like what I have been calling 5 in the morning for the past year. It has been as rough transition, but getting better every day. The best part about this, as I sit and write at 7:50am on a Saturday, is that my increasingly late wake up time in Cairo is nice and early here. I have reclaimed the best part of the day, and I usually have it all to myself.

It’s good to be back… at least for a while.

I suppose that this is why I left in the first place, after all. I could have stayed here in the States and written my thesis. I would have had access to a great many more resources—the university library, easy access to the internet, face time with professors, and much more—but I would have likely been bored stiff, trudged on, written, worked some shitty part-time job: you get the picture.

Had I stayed here for the last year, I would not be writing now about how much I enjoy the air, the trees, the cool 10°C mornings, Taco Bell, Miller Lite, American Chinese food, walking barefoot in the grass: so many things. It’s not that I didn’t appreciate these things before, it is just that I didn’t appreciate them that much. I won’t gush or wax poetic about the joy of mundane things, but I will say that living in a place where everything is difficult makes me appreciate living in a place where everything is easy.

It also makes cake out of those things which before seemed difficult: as in “piece of.”

Regardless of all of that, I am having a blast. It is also stunning to take note of the things that I have learned in the past year. For instance: I went to seen Iron Man last weekend. It was great. I love comic-book movies, I love movie theaters. I didn’t go to the cinema nearly enough while in Cairo. Something to think about for the future. The best part of the film, though, was not the popcorn and bucket of soda that I was endowed with upon stepping into the joint, but that the film had loads of Arabic in it: and I understood every word. Obviously, it wasn’t very sophisticated dialog—certainly no more than the dialog in the primary language of the film—but I got it. I didn’t even notice at first: then I realized that I wasn’t looking at the subtitles when I laughed at some little quip or joke. Suffice it to say that I was very pleased with myself.

Same thing when I noticed what an easy time I was having understanding Ayad—dear friend and former roommate—when he showed up late one night before leaving for Saudi Arabia for the summer. We could always talk before, but it is certainly easier now.

I continue to reflect thus as I sit here and wait for the installer to finish on my new low-energy, headless Linux server. A year ago, I didn’t know what a headless server was. In the past year in learning how to use Linux on my laptop for data analysis, I accidentally learned loads about how it works and how to use it. So, now, rather than just having a slab running Windows crap factory, I have a laptop running a scalable set of software which is tailored to my needs. I was particularly pleased when Jeff asked me to put Ubuntu on his laptop to replace the Windows Vista that it shipped with. It went from being a relatively slow, unresponsive, one-year-old system to being a blindingly fast, extensible, little mobile monster. He was/is very pleased by the improvement. He is still gushing about it, in fact.

But, to think, a year ago I attempted an install of Ubuntu on my old laptop—I have since upgraded in a very serious way—and ended up with a command-line laptop for a month. That was cool and all, but it must be noted that it is very difficult to browse the internet using the command-line terminal. Kind of fun though.

Incidentally, I just converted that laptop back into a command-line laptop, just for kicks.

All in all, though, this year was a complete success: I learned a great deal. Had I stayed home, I might not have. Or, I wouldn’t have enjoyed myself nearly as much while doing it.

Anyone else learn anything this year?

We ask all the wrong questions

I read these two articles this week:

The Future of Space Games

The Physics of Zero-G Whipped Cream

I realize that when presented in this manner, the two articles seem a little bit more tawdry than they were probably intended.

Or are they?

My question after reading these, and following up with a bit more research, is this:

“Has anyone—or, more appropriately, “Have any two (or more)—ever had sex in space?

If you tell me that you haven’t wondered this, or even at least thought about it for a second, then you are lying to me. You can’t tell me that you can think about what it would be like to float through 0-gravity attached to a makeshift medicine ball of your own design without thinking: I wonder if it would be difficult to stay engaged while copulating at 0-G’s.

Or maybe that is just what I think about when people start talking about “games” aboard the International Space Station and “whipped cream in space.”

Come on people. Lighten up. We went through the whole “space toilet: everybody poops” scenario about 15 years ago. I think that it is high time that we discuss the realities of performing “the deed” while floating, unencumbered through the void.

And, if none of the ISS crew nor any Soyuz or space shuttle crew from the USA was ever done it, I will eat my words. But, if this is the case, then we have a whole new—and really fascinating—set of experiments to carry out, don’t we?

“Please stow all lethal weapons in the overhead compartments before take-off…”

Recently, I went to the Cairo International Airport to pick up my roommate upon her return from the States. The affair was run-of-the-mill in most ways. I caught a cab, asked him to wait for us, and so on. While waiting for her in the corrals meant to keep predatory cabbies and others away from the actual exit doors of passport control in the arrivals hall, I noticed a young man pick his little brother up and perch him on one of the rungs of the corral railing. When he did this, the kid lost his balance a little and, in an attempt to correct, put his arms out wide. In his right hand was a convincing toy pistol.

My jaw must have dropped off my head, because the older brother snatched the gun and jammed it into his jacket, giving me a sheepish smile and shrugging laugh. I laughed out loud. I actually had to walk away so as not to raw attention to the situation any further.

This is just a symptom of something that I have noticed with increasing frequency here. People seem to have no fear of guns—even when they are inappropriately located, or being used inappropriately.

When living in Alexandria, I noticed this phenomenon not a few times. There was one afternoon where I hit the dirt on the sidewalk of the busiest street in the city because I saw a youngish kid in the back seat of a car taking aim out of the window with his toy Glock. Where I come from, you duck when something like that happens. Not in Alexandria though! Everyone else on the street looked at me as though I was having a seizure—unconcerned, but mystified by my sudden change in vertical/horizontal orientation—and continued on their path, unfazed. One woman actually stepped on my jacket and called me humar.

This was very disturbing, to say the least.

Another afternoon in Alexandria, I saw a group of three teenagers near my apartment holding up passing cabs with their toy—I assume—rifle. The cabbies would look momentarily startled, and then laugh riotously along with the kids. In the States, you would be arrested and held as an enemy combatant for five years without charges in an unnamed, secret detention facility: or at least you would be snatched up and roughed up a bit by the local cops. No such response here.

As I continued to wait, now on the other side of the corral, for my roommate’s tardy plane, the kid waved at me with his free hand, revolver dangling in the other. No airport authorities swarmed around, no police. Not even a second glance from anyone. Nada.

Meanwhile, poor bastards all over American airports are being cavity searched for tubes of toothpaste and fingernail clippers, as they not only pose a threat to individual airplanes, but to national security as well. I suppose that this is yet another indicator that though globalization is changing everything everywhere, differences are still glaring.

Welcome to the new world. Please check your nail-clippers at the door and be sure to keep your guns concealed from view.

Is that “inshallah for real,” or “inshallah, it’s never going to happen?”

I recently stumbled upon this article about the possible induction of “inshallah” into the English as a side effect of the occupation of Iraq by the United States military. It seems that soldiers and evern high-level diplomats are now using this phrase—which is often misconstrued as a single word—as a part of their everyday speech.

Not an isolated incident after all

I heard from Amanda and Sarah in Alexandria the other day after they had read my last entry. They too had gone in search of an ibra which too them on a wild goose chase.

They ended up finding one at a tailor’s shop. In the mean time, however, they would find at the Fathallah only thread, sewing scissors, and sewing kits WITHOUT NEEDLES IN THEM. This is very confusing. At least their goose only led them around their neighborhood in Alexandria.

The End

Alhamdulillah, I had the last of my exams today and I am now free of TAFL in Alexandria. In a few weeks I will move to Cairo, inshallah. I am very excited about the change as I have been quite frustrated here. Things simply did not go as I expected, in any way. However, that is all behind us now. I am on to better things.

For the next few weeks I will be in Alexandria still, writing and working on my thesis. The break will be nice. There are very few students here who are staying through the break. A couple of of my Egyptian friends will be in town visiting family. Fun fun.

Stay Tuned

I have something exciting in store for you tomorrow. Be sure to check back. Then again, it may not be as exciting as all that. Only you can be the judge.

It’s nice when things work out the way that they should.

The fact that you are all reading this right now means that I was able to successfully upgrade my WordPress—which, if I haven’t made clear, is the software that runs this blog and many others. You may look into it at WordPress.org.

With that accomplished, I am now free to do other things, such as: go for a short walk, write a bit, do my laundry, attend a party, and many, many more. I did all of those things this morning/afternoon and last night. It is nice to get out of the house after having been cooped up for days with eye-strain and cramped hands from typing and staring at progress bars, praying that nothing goes wrong.

Ahhh.

So much to write about.

We may have found an apartment in Cairo. It is about the size of the place that I have now and cheaper. It is in a really baladi part of the city, which will be good for our Arabic, since no one will speak English to us. It is a 5 minute walk from Tahrir Square—where the AUC (American University in Cairo) is located—and there is a souq about a minute in the other direction. Very nice. I will likely move down there at the end of the month as my time here is up the first week in January.

I’m very excited about the move. It threatens to be a very good time, not to mention productive. This is good, as I have a pretty good-sized bunch of work ahead of me right now.

———

It just dawned on me that sometimes I throw words like baladi and souq into blog posts without really thinking about it, which leaves some folks in the dark. I will make a greater effort to define these words and perhaps even build a glossary page. Everyone can learn Arabic while I am here.

I think that you will be able to find this page here.

———

Anyway, things are looking up. I’m still not happy with the situation here in Alexandria, but all I can do is wait it out. There are better things on the horizon. Knock on wood, the transition will go off without a hitch. Wish me luck.

At least there will be a lot of cockroaches to rebuild the place.

Well, some sort of new scandal has erupted at the TAFL Center here at Alexandria University and I seem to be somewhere near the center of it.

As if it weren’t bad enough that my classes here are a waste of time and quite a lot of money, now I have been dragged into some sort of political war between Universities and academics. This is not a particularly pleasant place to be. I am attempting right now to get my exam moved up so that I can be done with this place and move to Cairo.

There is also, it seems, a problem with the “contract” that I have for my apartment. I decided that it would be best to just leave and sort out the details later. Ask for forgiveness, not permission. You will be more likely to receive it.

Alas, this was not the way that it went down.

My roommate decided that we should do things in the proper way, and attempt to negotiate canceling the contract. This was a mistake. At first, I was going to attempt to find someone to replace me in the apartment. This didn’t work out as expected. Another snag was that the landlords agreed to get the internet working for us, since it has been three months and I am still without an in-home internet connection.

So, now we are being told that we cannot cancel the contract. Of course. I am not worried about this. It will all work out in the end. I am going to have a lawyer look at the contract and then we will see what we can do.

Meanwhile, back at the TAFL center. I have been ditching class a bit because I can’t justify sitting there and staring at the walls while I could be in the library researching or writing. I am sure that this is not good, but at this point, I am learning more from the novels that I am reading while not in class than I am from the pedantic, rudimentary grammar lessons and the recitation of lists of vocabulary. So, at the end of the say, I can’t say that I care very much. I will do what I have to do at this point to get my work done and get something out of this experience, even if that means completely disregarding the structure of the institution that I have stepped into. This will come as no surprise to those of you who know me well, as you should well expect such behavior on my part.

Suffice it to say, I am extremely and increasingly unhappy and I am not sure how to sort it out except to wait it out, take my exam, and leave. I have been nearly convinced, at some points, however, that coming here, to this particular school was such a grave mistake that I will be unable to correct it. Maybe I will though. Time will tell.

In the mean time, I will attempt to be more positive about the positive aspects of my situation. Above all, I am learning a great deal, just not in a very structured way. This is my preferred mode, of course, but it is harder. I rest assured that I will look back at this fondly, when we are all much older, and frustrations are long lost to the depths of my memory.

I have given up on ever using the internet in my home again.

Well, I know that this has been a recurring theme, but I still don’t have an internet connection in my apartment. After two months of waiting with one company I had to cancel the contract, as you may remember. Now, I have waited for another month with the second company because there was a hold-up involving a cancellation code from the first company not working.

Finally, I had the cancellation codes, everything was in order, I physically went to their offices to check on the status. They told me that they would be calling me early last week.

No call.

I called this Wednesday and was told that, “Oh yes. There is problem in the exchange in Sidi Geber.” This was the same thing that the first internet company told me two months ago. I went from zero to wild-eyed-lunatic in 4 seconds and began berating the human on the other end of the phone. He, of course, told me that the problem was not something that they could have forseen. I told him that I had had the same problem months before and he replied that he didn’t know anything about that because that is a different company, blah, blah.

I hung up totally demoralized. I have never been so frustrated in all my life. Then—perfect timing—my roommate got home and wanted to talk about the internet problem. I explained it to him, and also told him that we couldn’t talk about it anymore or I would have a stroke. This did nothing to deter him. We had to talk about it. He suggested that we move. I couldn’t deal with it and had to meet some folks for coffee, so I readied myself for the outside world and left.

I was going to a coffee joint right around the corner from my apartment. I began the short walk across the district and as I was walking past one of the many little gardens in Mustafa Kemal, a dog burst out of a hedge and started running toward me. I ran across the street because I fear dogs here. There is no telling if they have rabies or whatever. This did not deter the dog, it followed. I continued running, it followed, and was closing. I knew that I couldn’t outrun it, so I stopped and grabbed the first things that I saw, a half of a brick and a piece of 2×4 and chucked them at him. The 2×4 missed a bit. The brick hit him and he went down with yelp and then skulked off.

I felt terrible, even though he was chasing me and was probably all diseased. I hated that I hurt him. He wasn’t debilitated or anything, but clearly hurt.

I got to the coffee shop, visibly shaken, and explained what had happened to my friends. One of them is an NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) coach, and he suggested that I let him fiddle around with my brain later that evening and he would try to remove the anxiety that I have about dealing with the internet problems.

I was desperate at that point and on the verge of developing a terrible Xanax problem because I have been taking it to stave off my burgeoning general anxiety disorder, so I agreed. We went back to his house and I let him open up my skull and poke around with my cognitive associations.

In about two hours he managed to rid me of the internet anxiety completely. After the first round, he asked me how I felt about having to deal with them and I just laughed my ass off. Whenever anyone says the word “internet” to me now I can’t control myself from smiling or even laughing out loud. It’s brilliant. Worked like a charm.

Also, since being here, I have developed a bad habit of watching terrible crime drama shows like CSI and Law and Order. So, I asked Mamoon to turn my desire to watch shit TV into a desire to get work, writing, and studying done.

This also worked like a charm. I can’t even look at a television now. If I even turn the TV on now, I can look at it for about five minutes before I get too antsy and have to turn it off and begin typing or reading or doing my homework. It is brilliant. However, the other night it turned on me.

We went to dinner and then coffee and afterward grabbed a cab. Some of the cabbies here have installed DVD players in their cabs to entertain their fares. This was one such cab, and the DVD screen was installed where the sun visor for the passenger side would have been. This was ridiculously uncomfortable for me. It was like having someone shove a television directly into my brain. Horrible. It made me very nervous, and I was pretty fitful for the next few hours while I studied furiously when I got home.

So, in the end, everything has worked out. I feel great, and am terribly motivated, even though I had to undergo the equivalent of psychological brain surgery. It works. I recommend it most highly.

In the meant time, Egypt hasn’t changed. It’s still the same. This is another lesson. I can’t change Egypt and Egypt can’t change me, but I can certainly change myself and become more adaptable. By hook or by crook, I suppose.

We’re shaking things up a bit, Egypt-style.

After nearly a semester here in Alexandria, I feel as though I haven’t accomplished nearly as much as I might have liked to. This is not for lack of trying. I have been met at every turn by roadblocks, bureaucracy, and—frankly—bullshit. I have had endless trouble getting an internet connection, upon which I depend for doing research, communicating, and more.

The library here, though a great resource, takes me a half-hour to get into every time I go, because I must check my bag, carry only what I predict that I will need, register my laptop with security, wait for lines of tourists through three stages of security, reserve a study room, and so on. Once inside, the books are there, and I can find the articles that I need from the JSTOR and Wilson archives online or in the stacks, but I can’t download them, or print them unless I use my laptop, which sometimes has trouble with the internet in the Library.

On top of that, the collection is still not fully processed, so they do not allow circulation yet, so the books stay in-house. You can copy anything you want, which the staff will do for you. This is very convenient, but you have to get your requests in early or you are SOL at the end of the day without the copies that you need.

My classes at the University in Arabic have been an utter joke. I learn more Arabic in the street than I do in class—of course, which is why I am here. The teachers are quite good and there is the odd session in which I learn something new. However, for the most part, the classes are mostly a rehashing of things that I learned years ago, none of which actually help you to read or speak any better. Rather than reading novels or newspapers in most of the classes, we sit for hours and go over lists of new vocabulary or undertake silly, fill-in-the-blank exercises on prepositions, adverbs, and verb conjugation.

Initially I thought that we were just doing a quick review session to get us ready to get to work. The quick review has drawn out over months, and this “intensive” course lacks any measure of intensity. I have one instructor who does make us do the things that I am looking for. For Dina’s media Arabic class, every week, we look at media pieces and then bring them to class and go over them as a group so that she can explain things that we may not have understood. We can listen to the news on the radio or television, read magazines and newspapers, or whatever we like.

This is the method by which I would prefer to be studying at this point. You can only learn so much grammar before it will simply not be of any use to you. You can know all of the grammar in the world and still not be able to read. This is a problem.

Again, the problem here has not been with the instructors, it is that they are not operating using any pedagogical model whatsoever, and the control over what they do teach us is coming from some sort of central authority, the pedagogical understanding of whom is entirely outdated.

So I decided to take matters into my own hands. I am going to finish out this semester in Alex and then move to Cairo and take classes at a little language school. I will not get credit for this, but will likely learn more. At the same time, I will be more able to get books that I need and be able to use the AUC (American University in Cairo) library for research. I think that it will all work out in the end, allowing me to take what is actually an intensive course in Arabic and thus giving me more time to work on other very important things like, say, my thesis. I have several chapters partially written right now, which I will finish over the coming holiday when I no longer have to spend 4+ hours a day wasting time sitting in useless classes.

It also will work to my advantage because I have a few good friends who live in Cairo who can show me the ropes that I don’t already know. It will also put me in closer proximity to tourist-type things that my friends want to see when the come to visit.

This move will likely occur in the first week in January. Wish me luck.