Man

The worst part about getting hooked into a series of books is when you finish the last one.

It sucks! Seriously!

Someday

Our internot will be internet. Someday.

I think Mr. MM was on the phone last night with his brother talking about getting a new router, and before anyone starts to praise my mad Arabic skillz I’d just like to mention that between Arabic words he kept saying things like “router” and wireless router.”

I’d like to think that I would have understood anyways.

I’m procrastinating going to the grocery store and the souq because I’m lazy and oddly dizzy today. The only problem is that the longer I procrastinate the hotter it gets outside. Now is when I wish we had a baweb (see glossary for definition) so I could give him money and send him to get the stuff I need.

*sigh*

Well… off I go.

If the internet is still working later I will try to blog about whats new because there is a lot and yet its all the same.

Oh, and I can’t entirely blame our internot for my lack of blogging. My delightful new friend has gleefully handed me the book-crack that is the Twilight series. I henceforth consider her my ’supplier.’ Those of you who have read the books know what I mean.

And no, I haven’t watched the movie and I’m actually still debating about whether I ever will. Maybe when New Moon comes out I’ll watch Twilight first and then go to New Moon.

Choices choices.

Too Cool For School

Seriously I am enjoying this teaching way too much. Yea they still really don’t have their ish together, but at least the manager had the good grace to look ashamed when he came up empty-handed today and one of my students took pity on me and brought in a whiteboard eraser. I guess he felt bad that I had to wipe down the board with kleenex. It was better than an apple, yo.

I do really enjoy it and I hope it stays that way; I’m almost afraid something is going to happen and I will hate it.

I need some pessimist-B-gone spray or something.

You Call That English?

Everything here is held together with scotch tape, donkey spit, and sheer determination.

This isn’t an ‘I hate Egypt’ post either because I’ve actually gotten used to it and am no longer phased by the completely illogical methods through which things are run here.

Now I just laugh and figure out how to still do what I need to do with nothing but a rubber band, a screw driver, and a couple of pieces of extra bubble gum.

Monday evening was my first day of work and would it surprise anyone that I taught two classes on my first night? No? One of the teachers told me he arrived in Cairo Monday morning and they had him teaching classes Monday night. Welcome to Egypt, now get to work. For training I spent twenty of the sixty minutes they gave us asking him questions about the book and the methods the program requires (none.) The rest of the forty we sat around talking about books, philosophy, and world travel.

Then- just to illustrate how small an 18 million person city actually can be- as I stood waiting for the taxi to take me from the headquarter branch (and by branch I mean the original flat the company made into an office) to the branch where I will be teaching a man came up to me and asked me, in Arabic, if I was the wife of Mr. MM. Uhm, why yes, yes I am. He looked vaguely like one of Mr. MM’s many cousins which is what he turned out to be but having only seen me two times and me having no recollection of ever having met him he recognized me. Weird. He is taking English classes at the main branch. And then, while sitting in the evening after my classes were finished the office boy of the branch I teach at mentioned seeing me in Hurghada in January and after some short sleuthing it turns out that he worked the safari that Mom, Maria, Mr. MM, and I went on. Seriously. Two in one day.

Back to English. I got to the office to begin teaching- as I was sure I would be doing- and for my first class I actually had a book to use but no CD for the listening sections. Nice. For my second class I had NO book and NO CD so I basically partnered up with my youngest student and worked with him from his book. Way to plan ahead O’ bosses mine.

Like I said, barely phased me. In FACT- had they actually had their shiz together I probably would have been surprised.

If they have their shiz together for tomorrow’s classes I will be surprised.

All in all I had a good time, its pretty much exactly what I did for two years in the Language Lab way back when. I taught small groups for French and Spanish- we did the book activities, listened to tapes, and talked about language. Thats what I do now in a nutshell. Armed with a white board and some markers (and possibly a book and hopefully one day a tape) I’m leading my students forward into a brighter, English-filled future.

[cue theme music]

It felt natural to be up in front of students again, I really think that teaching is where I should be. Any fear of public speaking that I had pre-Language Lab was gone by the end of my teaching days there. I had never really thought about where I lost my inhibitions but I know that I aced my Speech class even while being the only student wearing a hijab (and actually being one of only two other women on campus who wore one.) Acing public speaking while looking weird: pwned.

Now of course all of my students are curious as to how I came to Egypt, how I met my husband, and how I became Muslim. But they’re fun, and inquisitive, and ready to learn and that makes classes fun. I’m hoping I will enjoy this job, the one foreseeable problem will be that they have you work straight through without breaks. I work three days a week 4-10 and I have a class from 4-6 (I think I will at least), another class from 6-8, and the last class from 8-10. I’m so glad I am not working that schedule full-time.

And yes they’re bringing teachers over from the States and using them for slave-labour. A turn of the tables don’t you think?

Semi-funemployed

So, yeah, I got another job. Ha! Its cool though, I’ll only be working three evenings a week teaching English to adults. I think its gonna be a blast and I’m looking forward to it. I felt a little bad though because the other American girl who is starting the same time as me took some courses in Alex to get a certification to teach English.

Yeah. I definitely did not. Look, anyone who really wants to get the whole expat experience can come here without the expensive certification and still get a job teaching English. FYI. Don’t waste your time or money.

Zuzu got into the kitchen while we were out (ahem someone left the door open- and it wasn’t me) and she found the bag of catnip. We came home to catnip spread all over the floor and a  stoned feline; apparently we haven’t had the ‘just say no’ talk with her yet. God only knows what she did with the dirty dishes.

Part of what I wrote last night- that was so helpfully deleted by wordpress- was how she is back to her royal pain in the tuckus-ness and alhamdulillah for that. She has starting stealth ninja attacking my heels again as I walk past her favorite ambush spot, she has remembered how much fun it is to throw and chase bottle caps again so now we fall asleep to the symphonic sounds of ‘clackity-clack thud thud piffle clack’ all night long. The only thing missing is the chirping but each day she is becoming more vocal so I’m hoping its just a matter of time. She was at her height of chirpy whilst in heat so I’m worried that she may not chirp now that she has been de-sexed. Seriously though, she is the cutest damn thing with her bottle caps. She carries them in her mouth and the bottle cap is bigger around than her snout is so it’s extra cute and then she’ll throw it into the air for herself and take off running to catch it. We’ll gather up like five of them together and throw them down the hall and she’ll never know which one to go after.  She stalks them, pounces, rolls over on her back and holds them up with her paws. So cute.

I missed her antics.She’s 3abita awy*.

So, I will most likely start work tomorrow- quick turnover considering I just interviewed today- but I’m hoping it will help me keep my days structured. Plus I get to teach again which I haven’t really done since French and Spanish small groups five years ago. I’m excited.

While observing a class today I was reading the multi-lingual writing on a dry-board marker and it was in English, German, and French… or was it? The french line said this:

peut rester jusqu’a 2 semanas sin secarse.

A million brownie points to anyone who can tell me whats weird about that sentence.

*3abita awy= very silly.

Busier When Not Working

I must be tired, for some reason it looks like I misspelled the word ‘Busier.’

I have found that I actually am busier now while not working than I was while employed. Of course with cramming in all that studying and a maid who hasn’t shown up for three weeks running means I have alot on my not-so-clean plate. (I so hate doing dishes.)

Now today I have bought a beginner’s Egyptian colloquial dialect book ‘Kullu Tamam’ and will probably dive headfirst into figuring out where all those Arabic phrases I’ve learned and bantied about fit into the overall scheme of speaking Egyptian.

Yes I’m learning the colloquial. Yes I intend to learn the formal Arabic someday.

I mean, simply from trying to keep up with the Arabic translation of all my TV shows I have learned such useful utterings as “hasnan” and “agl.” Whoops, I mean “ajl,” silly Egyptian pronounciation.

I do, however, prefer to learn Egyptian now so when I chat up my in-laws I won’t sound like the Arabic equivalent of Shakespeare.

Compounding my lack of time for adequate blogging would be the craptastic internet (or interNOT as my husband referred to it this morning) we seem to be having a spate of. Unfortunately I can’t blame it on Egypt, its probably our second-hand router. God only knows.

But I can say that my life is in a creative chaos of paperwork, studies, rudimentary cleaning, daily cooking conundrums, and a recently-developed desire to wander the local main street.

#@*%&%*@# wordpress just deleted half my post by logging me out.

[insert cuss words]

I’m going to bed.

spontaneous and probably not thought out randoms

1.) Thank God for being an American citizen. I am not banging on anyone else’s country either, I’m sure its great to be a British citizen or an Australian citizen or a French citizen or [insert your country here] citizen. I am just so thankful for being an American. I love checking the little “I am an American citizen” boxes on the applications. It gives me a thrill. Also it makes everything SUPER easy. Alhumdulillah.

2.) I love being able to use words like alhumdulillah and inshAllah with my mom. I love it even more that SHE sometimes uses them too. My mom ROCKS. She’s the best mom ever. Alhumdulillah.

3.) I love Alexandria. Me and the Mister spent yesterday on the coast and it was A-mazing. I want to move there for REAL. If I’m here this summer I just might. I spent the afternoon studying for my GRE in the Alexandria Library. So here’s how it breaks down:
-bought my Kaplan from a Fulbright Scholar
-studied in one of the most historical and oldest established libraries in the world.

The omens are good right? …right?! Alhumdulillah. I’ll probably.. maybe… well we’re hoping I will… blog about the Alex trip a little more cuz it was a really cool overnight getaway.

Uhm… yeah… not thought out. Did I have a number four?

….

ok.. I’ll post that one IF I remember it and IF I actually had a number four.

I need to do my taxes now.

!!!!

edit: I sound cracked out. I’m not. My apologies.

Also, I hate that gmail doesn’t have folders. If you can hear me google, please make folders! it would be so much easier for searching that way.

Funemployment!

I am, currently, enjoying not working. We’ll see how long that lasts.

My last day was so sweet, they had a small party for me, bought a very yummy icecream cake and what I can only assume was an expensive silver and turqouise necklace. Yikes! The cake was obvious but I was not expecting such an expensive parting gift. I will miss my coworkers but I’ll still be in touch with some of them. I will also miss being in the office and playing on the nice computer, and being generally useful- to a certain extent. I still have my key, they wanted me to keep it so I could come any time, and I’m on call for them if they need me. Its not a total break but I’m certainly not working anymore.

Zuzu is doing fabulously. She’s almost back to herself… almost. She seems pretty much completely healthy again but she is still not playing like she used to and she’s not chirping with me or talking to me like she used to. I hope these are things that return with time because I really miss her chirping with me.

The untold story is that after my last post on the subject Zuzu got sicker again. She spent a whole day doing the seizure-like movements before I finally decided to take her to a DIFFERENT vet as Vet #1 obviously was not giving her what she needed. I won’t refer to them by name because I know that both of them google themselves and I am not going to say nice things about either of them. Vet #1 is the vet I named in all of the other posts and while I think he is competent he obviously couldn’t cure Zuzu and I don’t know why. I don’t think I will ever bring a sick pet to him again, unfortunately, not now that I don’t trust his ability. Vet #2 did like a miracle cure on my kitten but I didn’t really like her as a person.

I brought Zuzu to her on a Friday (someone who works on a Friday!) and she was very concerned; she told me that the seizure-like movements were not neural seizures but something brought on by the fever and by low liver function caused by the infection. She gave Zuzu two injections; a weaker antibiotic because she thought the fever was from antibiotics changing too much and a neuron vitamin and steroid injection. She then did like a miracle clean on Zuzu’s opened incision- which was still gaping and refused to scab over. By the next day it had healed 60%, it was amazing. When we got Zuzu home that first friday she wander over to her food dish and dove head-first. She had gotten so skinny over the course of her illness that from arial-view she was shaped like a turkey drumstick with legs and a tail. Over the week she gained pretty much a full kilo and was sucking down the cat food like a black hole. She is now, alhumdulillah, cat shaped again.

I had to take Zuzu to her five days in a row which kind of sucked, but it was worth it, my coworkers got to know her well since I had to bring her to work with me for three of those days. We had to go out and get a big heavy rock to put on that drain as she kept pulling everything else we put on there off and drinking from it. She has to have been drinking from that drain for a long time; I had always assumed she didn’t drink much water because I rarely had to fill her water bowl but once we blocked that drain I’ve had to fill it everyday. It makes me nauseous to think about her drinking that. Weird cat.  But now the rock is heavier than she is so its staying shut.

Vet #2 really did help Zuzu and I’m thankful, but she is new to having her own practice, and young, and she hasn’t really gotten the concept of not saying things that will piss the client off yet. And its not just a cultural thing even Mr. MM, on the first day we brought Zuzu, said to me ’she’s a little weird isn’t she?’ But she has a lot of baraka (blessing from God) in what she does and she healed my poor kitty and for that I’m indebted to her. If you want to know her name, email me and I will tell you. (Email can be found on my ‘about’ page.)

Moving on, I did not find a dictionary yesterday… so sad. I still really need one. *pout*

Here is the link to the Veridical Paradox post I said I would write.

And I think I will write about helping DU’s daughter with English another time. Its mostly a rant on how craptastic the schools are in Egypt- even expensive ones.

Signing off for now because my eyes are becoming blurry from all of these words. And cuz I have to go cook.

Its getting hot here agin *sob*

Help!

So sorrrrrry

Sorry I haven’t been updating. This morning I woke up from a dream where I was screaming the definition of the word ‘inchoate’ at a faceless examiner (at least I knew the definition). Thats when you know its bad. The highlight of my day today will be buying a dictionary. Thats when you know its bad. I have an irrational fear that I will not be able to find a dictionary. Thats when you really know its bad.

Anyways, being surrounded by words and word vomit means that sitting down and dribbling out some more words is low on my list of priorities. Its somewhere below curling up into the fetal position and slobbering.

Things I will blog about (probably later today unless I die of heat stroke walking to the bookstore, grocery store, and souq- its getting hot here again):

-Zuzu and how fabulous she is now (alhumdulillah) and what it took to get her there- the untold story. Yes… there was more than what I already bored you to death told you about.

-Some of the absolutely horrendous words they make you learn for the verbal section on the GRE. Oh wait.. maybe I should blog on Veridical Paradox about that one. Will leave link.

-My last day at work (yes I am now officially funemployed- as my friend Forsooth likes to call it… or at least did until she went broke.)

-How I help DU’s youngest daughter with her English because the ease of it helps soothe the wounds left by the GRE’s vocab list.

-Uhm… well anything else random that pops into my mind while I am word vomiting writing said future post.

Now.. I’m off to walk all over christendom (oh wait, that word actually doesn’t apply here) to find a dictionary (suck it merriam-webster.com,) Doha Jasmine rice (its the ish,) and fresh produce.