Back to Reality...Well, Egyptian Reality At Least

Classes began again at AUC on October 4^th not surprisingly amid much, much confusion. The online homework system is not quite up to par and each class faced the first few classes back with questions about what had been assigned, what was due, and what needed to be done. This actually wasn’t a problem for most of us studying abroad because we had largely decided to simply do next to nothing while we were traveling. This ended up working out somewhat in our favor because the confusion caused most assignments to have to be reassigned anyway. Though that didn’t mean that we didn’t have a lot of catching up to do. As I am writing this, on October 14^th, I still am not completely caught up!

There has also been a lot of question about how the lost class time will be made up. The university made a schedule to make up classes on all Tuesdays (when we usually did not have any classes) until November, but each class is sort of deciding for itself how, when, and how much it will make up.

My Arabic class is lengthening the time of class on Mondays and Thursdays to make up the hours. My colloquial Arabic class is meeting several times during the hour lunch break. My Comparative Politics class is proceeding with the syllabus and will determine if we need to have make-up classes as we get further along in the semester. My Development Studies class cannot meet on Tuesdays because of a conflict the professor has (he teaches at another university), so we were supposed to think about a solution, but nothing further has been mentioned. I’m fine with this because the only mentioned solution involved classes on Saturday, which some classes are doing and which I definitely do not want to do. My Intro to Development class met this Tuesday for two hours to catch up and we will have our midterm next Tuesday. So as of now I will only have two Tuesday classes total, which is perfectly fine with me. I was getting used to having Tuesdays off, and it is very, very nice.

Getting back into school-mode has been an adjustment. I don’t know if I was ever in it to begin with. As I said, I am catching up on my work. I have also written several papers and taken two tests, which has forced me into school mode. Just today, at my make-up class did I feel like I was finally back into the routine of school and I liked it. I have also started some other scheduled activities, which I will write about in my next post that have helped me to develop into a routine. I am becoming very busy, but I like it that way. One thing is for sure, my time here is definitely flying by!