Loving the Koshary since August 2005

27 October 2005

Options, Options

After speaking to my Arabic professor, it appears she has a more optimistic view than I do both about my language abilities and my potential grade in the class. Since the grading seems to be a bit arbitary, and she seems to think a lot of me, I may have more options than I originally thought.

In all reality, it'll probably come down to whether I want to do lots of work and barely pass Arabic, or if I want the time free. I spoke to several other students in the last few days, and some of them are at the end of their respective ropes in this class, as well. Good to know I'm not the only one.

26 October 2005

Adjusting, Tip #3

Know your limits.

Just because you can do it doesn't mean you should. If one statue starts to look the same as the last one, or one day look the same as the next; DO SOMETHING ELSE.

If your adventure isn't exciting and interesting, you're taking the wrong road.

24 October 2005

Setting Priorities

I'm seriously considering not going to Arabic class anymore.

Reasons:
1. I'll get a failing grade anyway.
2. I'm falling further behind.
3. I don't have time to do anything else.

Things to check on:
1. Must my credits transfer as is?
2. Can I transfer them as pass/fail?
3. Do I need to transfer credits at all?
4. If I fail 6 credits, and get (realistically) "A"s in my other 6 credits, will I be allowed to continue at AUC next semester?
5. How drastically would it affect my (decent) GPA at SDSU?

What I could do if I didn't attend my intensive Arabic class:
1. Write for publications. This includes Egypt Today, Cairo Magazine, and possibly something with the AP bureau here.
2. Network. Currently I'm not meeting any Egyptians, or getting involved in the local political and journalistic scene. At this rate, I won't have any contacts here when I leave.
3. Explore Cairo and the country. I'm not seeing any parts of the city that don't have to do with school. No Cairo exploration and no Egypt travel means I have little incentive to go to other countries, since I haven't even explored this one.
4. Have more time to practice Egpytian Arabic, the language used on the street.

Impact of not taking Modern Standard Arabic for the rest of this semester:
1. I'll have only a slight working grasp of MSA vocab and grammer. However, even if I completed this semester satisfactorily, I'd still only have the ability to read short articles and maybe pick up the meaning of newscasts.
2. See above for impact on GPA, academic standings, etc.
3. I'd feel like a washout and a failure.
4. I'd feel like I had let down those who had hoped for me to do well here.

Failing. It's a new experience for me, and I hate it.


I've had issues with math before, but I've always been able to escape out of that. With Arabic class, there is no escape. And that's a big part of the problem: I just hate feeling like an idiot four days a week. And in between I try to catch up on my homework, which means I feel stupid then too. I don't fail. Not like this - where I can work my butt off, actually learn a lot, and then look at the syllabus and know that I'll be lucky to get a D. Yes, a D. And the midterm is next week. You know how pleased I am to know I have the next half of the semester to feel progressively dumber?

I've talked to my teacher. She's said nice things about how everyone struggles and it gets easier. I've been in school long enough to know there is no such magic breakthrough. With the workload of this class, everything I don't learn solid becomes a trap for later down the line.

I'm not sure what bothers me worse. I'm sleep-deprived and depressed; I don't spend enough time on my other six credits of classwork; I'm not freelancing for magazines like I wanted; my grade point average will drop (an F for six credits will make a difference) which means depending on where I'd want to go, grad school may be out of the question; I'm not learning any street language; and I won't see anything of Egypt except during school vacations.

I have excuses, sure. I've been sick, had other school assignments desperately due. The teacher hasn't ever taught an intensive course like this before. The only people doing well in the class (I think) are the linguistics major and the Japanese French-major with perfect English.

In the end, this is hands-down my most counterproductive academic exercise. The sad thing is, I'll go home with an F, and I'll have actually learned some solid Arabic. But it will still feel like I wasted my time.

17 October 2005

Truth: See "Stranger Than"

You Know You've Lived in the Middle East Too Long When . . .

You're not surprised to see a goat in the passenger seat . . .
It wouldn't suprise me at all. Or chickens, or a side of lamb.

You think the uncut version of "Little House on the Prairie" is provocative . . .
It is. YOU CAN SEE WOMEN'S HAIR!

You expect the confirmation on your airline ticket to read "insha'allah" . . .
"God Willing." I'm still taken back when an otherwise secular Egyptian says this in normal conversation. It's just flat-out hilarious when foreigners says it.

You don't expect to eat dinner before 10:30 p.m . . .
I do sometimes, but then I always feel like I have to eat again after 10:30.

You know whether or not you are within missile range of Iraq . . .
I'm not.

You think Pepsi begins with a "B" . . .
The "p" is pronounced "b" in Arabic. Say "Bebsy." Interestingly enough, Bebsy is really taking it to Kooka-Koola here.

You think water only comes in bottles.
It does come out of the tap, but the de facto standard is a bottle. Did you know water in a bottle can get old?

You think that a box of kleenex belongs on every dinner table . . .
Kleenex, or its local equivalent "Flora," is the all purpose whipe, from foreheads to dashboards. I've seen ornate gold and red tissue box holders in the front of decrepit taxis.

**************************
Want to cry about traffic? Dry your eyes with a kleenex, drink your Bebsy and hang on to your rack of lamb. We'll get there soon, insha'allah.

**************************

Thanks L for the list.

Something Lost in the Translation

Jonathan, my roomie, got a "gift" in his box of cereal. It was made in China, where they also translated into English the standard warnings placed on any plastic bag of small items that might end up around children.

I laughed, but I hurt a bit too, knowing this translation is far better than anything I could do in Arabic.

16 October 2005

In, But Not Of


Journalism has transforming powers: One moment I'm a broken, miserable Arabic student, and the next I'm scheduling an interview with the president of AUC and the chairman of British Petroleum Egypt. It's not that I get a big head about it. More like I slip my game face over my fears and enjoy it. Especially if they offer me something to drink in a glass.

My Bookshelf, Now


Full of guilty-pleasure fiction and books on Christian fundamentalism for my political science paper.

Congrats Karim!

Good luck to Karim Elsahy, of the blog One Arab World, linked from this blog. He's inked a column deal with Egypt Today - a publication for which your humble blogger freelances. He worries that he won't get published due to his brashness. If I may be so bold, Egypt could use some brashness right now.

15 October 2005

In the Sahara with 11 People, or, How to Make Your Own Peace with the Sky

Last Thursday, with a long weekend courtesy of Egypt's "glorious victory" holiday, I journeyed into Egypt's western desert -- the northeastern hem of the Sahara. I was unabashedly a tourist, with white skin, a Boston Red Sox cap and a shiny digital camera. There were 12 of us: three men, nine women. Almost half of our crew hailed from Georgetown in D.C.


Split into three Land Rovers, we sped down the highway into the unknown. The early-afternoon sun was playing for keeps, but our open windows and excessive speed whipped the desert's breath in one window and out the other -- blow-drying our hair and parching our eyeballs.

Our first stop was the Black Desert -- sand flats with brooding pyramids of black and tan rock. We were dropped off at the base of one such monument to heat and geography, and encouraged to climb. You could almost hear the guides chuckle. We all made it, some better than others. At the peak were dozens of rock piles and a view that would've made Ansel Adams swing out his big camera. After some aimless staring. photographs and conversation, we slip-slided down the slope to the waiting guides.

Down the highway we continued. I nodded off, my lack of sleep the previous night catching up to me. Then, the highway was gone. At least that's what the seat of my pants told me. I looked up and we were sailing across rock and sand, no longer a smooth black asphalt track. We chortled with glee, but Mohammed, our driver, seemed more intent on correctly fishtailing behind the Rover in front of us.

We stopped at sand dunes and rock outcroppings, our overcrowded senses delighted with anything and everything. The dropped in the west, and at one overlook, our guides pointed where they would be, off in the distance. "That's where we make camp," they said. And they were off, our three mechanical camels slaloming through the sand, toward the horizon.


We wandered past hulking limestone, weathered by the sun and wind. By then my shoes were off, the soft and suprisingly cool sand filtering between my toes with each step. It turned out the horizon wasn't as close as the guides had implied. But distance, like Cairo, became something abstract and unimportant.


We huddled together on the rugs of the shelter, open to the sky - a friend, not an enemy. Within minutes, the soft walls of our world echoed with the sounds of foreigners talking about life. Movies, music, the school in Cairo. I zoned out, the sky darkened and I slept. Only to be awakened by a plate of steaming food in front of my face. I ate. It was amazing.

After the food, the crowd continued its communion. I needed to get away, into the world of sand and stars that lay somewhere away from their favorite actors and boring classes -- topics fittingly shared under the harsh pool of electric light.


I wandered, not sure how far I had gone. The light of the camp became but something to cover with a foot as I lay down on the sand. There was magic here; ageless wisdom the stars whisper only when you're alone. The wind laughs a bit, and sighs. The sand sifts and settles like a blanket below the window of night.

The twilight woke me, early the next morning. I quietly moved out of the mass of bodies in the shelter and sat against the hard rubber tire of my Land Rover, wrapped in my blanket, waiting for the sun. It took its time, but I had plenty to spare.


We cruised hard that day, stopping at an oasis filled with Europeans and and a large date palm that wasn't. The scenery became hauntingly repetitious -- like a fashion show full of chisel-featured models parading for our inspection.



Another night, another high mass with the stars.

********

And now I'm back in Cairo. The air is filthy, the night sky choked with halogen light and suffocating smog. No stars muttering truth or wind cracking a joke.

Somehow, in those few days, the desert gave me something. Magdy, an Egyptian and frequent desert traveler, stayed at our shelter that first night. We talked quietly of work and home. But quickly circled back to this land, the desert. He was given something too, I think, everytime he came back to this wasteland that had so much to give.

"When you're out here," he said. "There's . . . something."

He and I both stared out at the gathering night. I felt it.

"A quiet?"

"Yes," he said, looking back at me. His eyes full of stars, night, wind.

"a chance for your heart to be still."

12 October 2005

Blogger's Block

That's what I'm calling it. For some reason, I simply can't write about Dashur or Saqqara. And since I feel I must, but I can't, nothing else gets written. It simply has to stop.

So, here it stops. Dashur and Saqqara were lovely. It was hot. The pyramid was claustrophobic, especially for the one girl behind me that kept hyperventilating. It was funny. The place smelled like bleach and urine. I'm not sure which one came first.

The interior of the tombs were so well preserved as to be almost criminally enjoyable. Just as art, not as "artifact."

There. Blogger's Block be gone.

09 October 2005

New Feature! More Photos!

You heard it here first - more photos using online photo host Webshots -------------------->
I'll try to keep it updated, and I'll catch up from before now.

http://community.webshots.com/user/jjfugleberg

Adjusting, Tip #2

Do things that are uncomfortable. Even if it means stepping into an uncertain doorway or eating something that both the CDC and common sense says to avoid. Speak the language, even though you know you're mangling it. Go buy a random food and then figure out what it is and what to do with it. Maybe ask someone. Learn basic courtesy words and use them until that's what comes out naturally when you run into someone or the cab driver gets hopelessly lost.

You can't be a native, but don't let that stop you from faking it with relish.

05 October 2005

*Bump

I'm told my photo posted below could scare small children. So hopefully moving it down will help. I'll file on last Friday's trip tomorrow, which means much more aesthetically pleasing photos.

Preview: I'm leaving for the Western Desert thursday morning.

01 October 2005

For Tim: My Smiling Mug

M says I look like Jack Nicholson in The Shining. Thanks M, Jack is cool.

 
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