If Classes Weren't Periodically Cancelled, I'd Never Get Anything Done

I am writing this post in the library at AUC because the class that I am supposed to be in currently, was cancelled for today. Classes are cancelled more often here than at home. It's sometimes annoying, but mostly I am embracing the time to finish things on my seemingly never-ending to do list!

So when I last posted, I think I had just finished watching the ND v. USC game. The two weeks since then have been generally uneventful (with the exception of Halloween, which is shockingly more of a big deal here than I thought it would be. I wore a crazy Egyptian dress (gypsy dress maybe?) that I bought from a crazy Egyptian store. It was red with gold beads. I worse red lipstick, tied a gold feather necklace around my head with a red headband, made a smoking stick with a straw and a black sharpie, borrowed a cigarette from someone, threw it all together and called myself a flapper. It worked and it was fun, though explaining "flapper" to the Egyptians we interesting. I just said ended up saying "American dancer." I thought that was sufficient). I've been in Cairo the whole time attending classes, working at CEDO (my internship, which I am writing about on another blog that I think I already linked to this one, if not there should be an "other blogs by this author" link in this blog that will take you there), and teaching English.

As far as classes go, I am starting to receive my grades from some of the midterms and tests I've had. They've been fine; some really good, others just OK, but I am fine with that. I am definitely less grade conscious here than I am at home. I'm not really sure why that is because these grades do transfer to ND (that's kind of annoying, most study abroad programs let students take classes Pass/Fail). I think it's for one of two reasons of a combination of both. First, I realize that there are other more important things than school here, such as learning the culture or simply getting by day to day in a country that is less than modern in many respects. Second, with having more Arabic class, I've had more Arabic work, and to learn Arabic and become better at it, it's something that you need to spend time with. I've been doing this, both by trying to and just by wanting to. I rush through my other work sometimes because I want to spend time on my Arabic work and know that not only to get it done but to understand what we are doing, I need to spend the time on it. I figure if there's any prime time to neglect the rest of my work to devote time to Arabic it's now when I'm in Egypt.

Even though midterms just ended, we are aleady talking about term papers in most of my Political Science classes. I have one due in two weeks! I was a bit afronted when one of my professors denied me the right to write on a certain topic because what I was saying (or what my paper would probably end up saying, as of right now I was very clear to him that I was not taking a side until I had done the research) was not convergent with his opinion. I tried to explain to him that my paper would evaluate both my opinion and his reagrding the topic, but he still seemed skeptical. Whereas at home, I'd probably still write the paper, here I am changing my topic. This may seem like a prejudice, but in the US I feel that most professors grade the content of what you write and whether the theory that describe and the position that you take are clear and sensible. Here I think there may be more of an opinion bias, and although I am less grade conscious here, I do not want to risk sabatoging my grade when I could just as easily write on another topic. I may be able to use my original topic for another term paper, which is good considering it was really something I was interested in and hoping to research and write about.

My internship is progressing nicely. I'll be getting more directly involved in the coming weeks. I speak about this in more detail in the other blog.

I can't believe we are half way through our English course. What we have been doing has not been easy. I'll admit that I have to check the meanings of things like adjective clauses and adverb clauses, and that I still get some of the example exercises wrong! (Thank goodness for the teacher's manuel). It's a challenging thing to explain, but I think we have been doing OK, especially considering that we've had 8 and 11 students respectively the last few times. There's three of us and because of the difficulty of the material, we try to explain it to the class and then go around and give individual help with the exercises. This works best, but we worry that people are left out. This week two of us went around helping and one of us did one sentence from the exercises with each student on the board to make sure that everyone was understanding. After this we do a few sentences as a class on the board. Both weeks, it seems like everyone is getting it at the end, and I give them a lot of credit. As I said it's not easy!

It's also interesting to see them help each other. Sometimes what I am saying in English is just not getting through so one student will explain it to another in Arabic. I like when this happens for two reasons. First, if I explain something in English to someone and then they understand it well enough to explain it in Arabic, I know that they are definitely understanding. Also, I want to make sure that they are explaining it correctly in Arabic so I really pay attention to what they are saying and need to translate it quickly in my head to make sure they have the right idea. This is one of the first times I've felt forced (and not in a bad way at all) to translate quickly on the spot and (even though it was just in my head), I think I did OK. It was exciting and re-affirming that I am actually becoming better at at least understanding Arabic. With all the Arabic we are studying, it sometime seems like we are getting nowhere and never will!

We've also decided to change the structure of the class a little. Some students expressed a desire to us to learn how to do practical things like write e-mails. They see this as important to procuring jobs. So we've started giving homework assignments in the form of writing prompts. Our first prompt was write about something that you like, write about your favorite food, or write about a person you know. Our plan was to correct the writing and also reformulate some of the sentences they wrote so they include some of the grammer structures we've been learning in class, such as the adverb clause. We think that it might be hard for them because by just doing exercises from the book, the adverb clause has no meaning to them. When they see that they can write using it, and write about things familiar to them using it, they will hopefully understand it better and utilize it more. The first writing prompt was a success on many levels. Their writing is actually very good. It was also interesting how many of them wrote about loving their country. One man wrote about Sudan. I was almost in tears reading it. He wrote about the beauty of the country and the beauty of the name Sudan, which means "black people."He wrote about the villiage where he was born. He's been back to the villiage three times when there has been peace in the villiage. He was disappointed he could not stay in the villiage longer the last time he visited becasue the situation there was escalating and dangerous. His piece finished with a discussion on how the government was formulating and promoting the crisis in Sudan and what a shame this was. This was unbelievable to read. This man is just learning English, but he is learning it because he has important things to say. He's not trying to be political. He's simply describing what has happened to him, his family, and his country; saying why this has happened; and expressing his sorrow about the situation. My heart goes out to him. I want now so much more to help him in any way I can. I want to make him confident to write and speak in English about the things he wants to say about the Sudan crisis because he and people like him are the people that need to be heard if there is any hope for a resolution and a renewed and prolonged peace in the area.

Next week, we have decided to ditch the grammer book altogether (just for next week though) and have a class where we focus on just things the students want to learn. They want to write e-mails. They want to tell time. They want to practice general conversation. This is just as important to learning a language as the grammer rules. We'll have some say in what the students are tested on in their final exam (which determines whether they advance to the next level), so when we plan the exam with the program coordinators, we'll definitely need to make a point of explaining what we did with the class and why we did it. I think what we have decided to do with the class will be ultimately beneficial. At least I hope it will be.

Other than that regarding teaching, I had a harrowing experience taking the Metro. I won't go into detail, but I ended up stuck on the train for an extra stop by myself. It was more terrifying as it was actually happening. It was actually fairly easy to sort out and all the Egyptians, who definitely took pity on me, the sole American girl freaking out on the Metro, were very, very helpful. Everyone had a good laugh about it in the end, especially my family who I related the story to in detail. They love that stuff! That was two weeks ago. This week thankfully everything went smoothly.

I guess I'll wrap up by saying I've found ways of dealing with the fact that I am sports deprived. I watched the ND v. BC game on Gametracker and checked the ND v. Washington St. score and summary in the morning. Both wins, both good things! I've also been watching more baseball than I had anticipated (and by baseball I mean computer animated baseball on Gametracker). The World Series games are still going on when I wake up at 6AM. (With daylight savings time in the US, we're now seven hours ahead here). I've seen, or seen parts of Yankee wins in Games 3 and 4 and a Yankee loss in Game 5. Sometimes I have to leave for the bus at critical moments in the game though so that is stressful and makes me annoying to anyone with internet access on their phone on the bus. I'm hoping tomorrow to wake up to the Yankees winning and winning decidedly. (I didn't need to wake up quite so early on Tuesday, but I did because I knew it was a possible series winning game and then not only did I see that they were down 8-5, but I saw the top of the 9th which was not pretty and which prevented me from being able to go back to sleep. So I'm more tired than I need to be, and I want to Yankees to make up for that tonight. Waking up to a win would definitely make losing a little sleep this past week worth it.) So, GO YANKEES!

I have to go to my next three classes now. One is a make-up and the other two are scheduled. I guess with having one class cancelled and one make up class today I'm breaking even so I really can't complain. I need to make it through these three classes and three classes tomorrow and then it will be the weekend, which I am very excited about because we are going to Alexandria! We've heard from people who have gone that it is a great trip. I will definitely take lots of pictures and write about it when I get back!