Not The Day I Had Planned
06.27.05 (10:50 am) [edit]
Today did not go so well! I woke up relatively early to go to campus and try to sign up for the A.L.I. trip to Sharm and Mount Sinai for this weekend since our own trip (that us yuppies were going to take so we could fly instead of drive seven hours and so we wouldn’t have to miss class on Sunday) fell through, but before I got to campus I had a few obstacles!
Again, I woke up totally sick, then I went to pick up my laundry and it wasn’t done yet so I had to use a tshirt when I got out of my shower because my towels were all in the wash! And speaking of shower, it took trying out three different showers to get one that both the hot and cold water worked, and as I finally got settled into the fourth one I remembered it was the one that the pressure changed from power sprayer to a drip and taking that shower is like playing a musical instrument to keep the water flow right. Mind you, the dorms at AUC are like the nicest place in Egypt and are beautiful and clean, but even here you can’t stop the bad plumbing system of Egypt from affecting you!
Finally I made it to the 10am bus as it was pulling away! Luckily, Rebecca and I planned to meet to run to sign up for the Sharm trip so she made them stop. The Sharm trip had enough room and was quite cheap for a Thursday-Sunday trip and my excitement made my day better. But first a stop at the bank on campus to exchange traveler’s checks to pay for the weekend. After filling out over six forms (every hotel I’ve been to just makes you show an i.d. and sign the checks) and showing them my passport and receipt I finally got my money! I ran up to pay for the trip and finally had downtime to study in a shady corner of the courtyard for two hours before class!
Arabic class was just one of those days that never ended. We had to memorize and reenact a conversation—for some reason that doesn’t teach me the words I’m suppose to know because I spend the whole time thinking about what is next—then we had a listening activity—the funny thing is that at UMich listening activites are hell but here anything is better than reenacting scenerios and memorizing them!
After class I grabbed a salad at Beanos with some peopel—an American coffee place—and I have totally given up on the no fruit or salad thing because I’m sick anyways and I can’t go any longer on fried tameyya! Then we scurried to our political science class.
After being so excited about how balanced my teacher was on the Iraq unit, he no longer was balanced on the Israeli-Palestinian unit. Honestly he presented everything on the defensive—as if we were disputing facts from the 1900s. None of us disagreed with the facts he was talking about during the creation of Israel, but then the downfall began when he started talking about colonialism, the disregard for Arabs like the apartheid, and ancient Jewish history. Again I could go on for hours and probably will when I get home describing all the horros of this class, but there were two most upsetting aspects of the class that many with different political views than me (oh yah that’s everyone!) agreed upon. 1) As an American we didn’t feel like we were able to contribute to this discussion because it was more like a pep rally for Palestine with the teacher and the students than a real discussion (esp. since we were only talking about Zionist beginnings and the establishment of Israel up to 1950ish so we couldn’t debate current things) and 2) Our teacher actually said that the amount of Jews ever in Jerusalem is debated because there was so much archeological evidence of Greeks, Romans, and Arabs but no drop has ever been found of Jewish history—maybe because people burned down the temples and sent the Jews into exile? Geez I wonder if that makes sense. Many of us were upset—even very non-Zionists, but we felt we couldn’t really interrupt the “pep rally”.
Enough about that class for now. However, class got out late to continue my awful day and I missed seeing the Doctor who is in the dorms a few times a week until 7 (and I have class til 6:30) and it was too late to pick up my laundry. On my way upstairs before going to grab food with people I realized I lost my roomkey. So right now I’m eating Fruit Loops at my desk, taking a break to write about the horrors of my day, then searching through everything I own to find my room key (a guard let me in) before I grab yogurt or s/thing (since I missed dinner with people) before settling in to study Arabic for the night for my quiz tomorrow!
Not a good day! But. . . .only THREE DAYS until Sharm, the beaches, and climbing Mount Sinai!
Again, I woke up totally sick, then I went to pick up my laundry and it wasn’t done yet so I had to use a tshirt when I got out of my shower because my towels were all in the wash! And speaking of shower, it took trying out three different showers to get one that both the hot and cold water worked, and as I finally got settled into the fourth one I remembered it was the one that the pressure changed from power sprayer to a drip and taking that shower is like playing a musical instrument to keep the water flow right. Mind you, the dorms at AUC are like the nicest place in Egypt and are beautiful and clean, but even here you can’t stop the bad plumbing system of Egypt from affecting you!
Finally I made it to the 10am bus as it was pulling away! Luckily, Rebecca and I planned to meet to run to sign up for the Sharm trip so she made them stop. The Sharm trip had enough room and was quite cheap for a Thursday-Sunday trip and my excitement made my day better. But first a stop at the bank on campus to exchange traveler’s checks to pay for the weekend. After filling out over six forms (every hotel I’ve been to just makes you show an i.d. and sign the checks) and showing them my passport and receipt I finally got my money! I ran up to pay for the trip and finally had downtime to study in a shady corner of the courtyard for two hours before class!
Arabic class was just one of those days that never ended. We had to memorize and reenact a conversation—for some reason that doesn’t teach me the words I’m suppose to know because I spend the whole time thinking about what is next—then we had a listening activity—the funny thing is that at UMich listening activites are hell but here anything is better than reenacting scenerios and memorizing them!
After class I grabbed a salad at Beanos with some peopel—an American coffee place—and I have totally given up on the no fruit or salad thing because I’m sick anyways and I can’t go any longer on fried tameyya! Then we scurried to our political science class.
After being so excited about how balanced my teacher was on the Iraq unit, he no longer was balanced on the Israeli-Palestinian unit. Honestly he presented everything on the defensive—as if we were disputing facts from the 1900s. None of us disagreed with the facts he was talking about during the creation of Israel, but then the downfall began when he started talking about colonialism, the disregard for Arabs like the apartheid, and ancient Jewish history. Again I could go on for hours and probably will when I get home describing all the horros of this class, but there were two most upsetting aspects of the class that many with different political views than me (oh yah that’s everyone!) agreed upon. 1) As an American we didn’t feel like we were able to contribute to this discussion because it was more like a pep rally for Palestine with the teacher and the students than a real discussion (esp. since we were only talking about Zionist beginnings and the establishment of Israel up to 1950ish so we couldn’t debate current things) and 2) Our teacher actually said that the amount of Jews ever in Jerusalem is debated because there was so much archeological evidence of Greeks, Romans, and Arabs but no drop has ever been found of Jewish history—maybe because people burned down the temples and sent the Jews into exile? Geez I wonder if that makes sense. Many of us were upset—even very non-Zionists, but we felt we couldn’t really interrupt the “pep rally”.
Enough about that class for now. However, class got out late to continue my awful day and I missed seeing the Doctor who is in the dorms a few times a week until 7 (and I have class til 6:30) and it was too late to pick up my laundry. On my way upstairs before going to grab food with people I realized I lost my roomkey. So right now I’m eating Fruit Loops at my desk, taking a break to write about the horrors of my day, then searching through everything I own to find my room key (a guard let me in) before I grab yogurt or s/thing (since I missed dinner with people) before settling in to study Arabic for the night for my quiz tomorrow!
Not a good day! But. . . .only THREE DAYS until Sharm, the beaches, and climbing Mount Sinai!