Weekend Update

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This weekend, I’m going scuba diving. Scuba diving! Me!

This is not something I ever envisioned myself doing. After 6 hours of classroom instruction (completed today), and confined water dives tomorrow, I’ll be going off to one of the most renowned dive locations in the world, the Red Sea.

Truth be told, I’m slightly nervous. I have an irrational fear of looking out into open water and seeing the drop of the continental shelf. Honest. I’ve had that fear as long as I’ve known what the continental shelf was.

School goes, as they say. I finally sat down and did a solid study session. It might not have been the most thorough, and I know I messed up one expression on my Arabic quiz today, but it was more studying than I’ve done since I’ve been here, and it made me feel a bit more like Allison.

Truth be told, I don’t study much. With language, I usually only need to hear the grammar explained once. As far as vocabulary goes, writing the words out once and then a quick read through has them preliminarily memorized. It’s the usage in class and in conversation that makes them stick. But due to my inability to input the information before, my usually efficient process started yesterday, the night before the test. Not the best call on my part, but I think that one error was my only mistake. If my Middlebury professor is reading this, she’s probably laughing at my perfectionism and calling me majnoona.

I start teaching next week in Nasr City. A few other people were doing it and I started to feel guilty about my lack of philanthropy. I flirted with the idea when I got here, but thought I might be too busy travelling or doing whatever it is foreigners do in Egypt. My conscience and genuine desired to help somebody while here gave be a swift kick in the behind. There’s so little I can actually do to help people in Egypt, and any notion of changing the system is out of the question. English skills would mean these refugees can leave Egypt or possibly procure better jobs within the system (see previous entry on my opinions of the modern Egyptian state.)

My other commitment, Folklore Dance Club, might have to go on the back-burner, which is unfortunate. We’ll see. I went to the first meeting, and I really liked the people there. I was the only foreigner, so I got tons of Colloquial practice between the other kids and the coach, a lecherous old man who is nothing like my exuberantly happy teacher from Middlebury.

Also, I think I had some lemonade made with tap water, so I’ve been feeling pretty shoddy. Stomach and head kind of deal. It seems to be getting better, but class was a real ordeal for the past two days. Maalesh.

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