Oct 13 2011
6 Comments
Anecdotes, Humorous, Three minute read

I Be in Cairo, Maties!

my worthy vessel!

Arrrrr, me hearties! It be another cool mornin’ in Cairo, Egypt, where I be setting me anchor fer the next couple o’moons.

All me grog be gone and me maties be floatin’ off on them wink-eyed adventures. It just be me, me parchment, and me quill left ter tack the sails down till the golden lady shine her pretty face.

On the morrow, I be crossing swords with an Arabic quiz me captain put to me, and if I wants ter stay off the plank I best show it both sides o’ hell. But in the witchin’ hours, me mind be keen on gettin’ lost at sea, if ye catch me drift.

The winds be a changin’ these days. Times were in the deadly moons of August when one couldn’t hardly set sail for the blasted hell fire settin the sea a’boil. Aye, it was a hard times fer the lot of us, our breeches all a’moistened with our brow dew, and our foot fingers all a’wrinkle from the boot ponds. Ye scallywag land lubbers hasn’t got the first dawn’s twinklin’ o’the sufferin we sailed through.

But now the mooney lass shows ‘er pearly face o’er Mohandiseen when I be drinkin’ my hot elixers and I be as comfortable as a seagull in a crow’s nest. And then I gets ter thinkin’ of the days ‘fore the swashbucklin’ in this here sweet trade o’ Arabic fellowships. And I gets ter yearnin’ for them colored trees in fall months and for the sweater wearin’ and pumpkin latte drinkin’ me maties be postin on their facebook poop decks. And I thinks about me old lady and the old man, and me wretched brat siblings I loves as much as any buccaneer loves his dubloons.

And I ain’t bein’ lily-livered or sentimental like, but sometimes me thinks, “Arrrr, them colored trees sure put that there sparkle in my eye like a young corsair eyein’ his first cut o’booty. And I bet my right eye and no regrets that my blasted sister be readyin’ to battle a swaggy quiz at sailin’ school right in this here drop o’time.” But I swear on hell’s brimstone that  in the depths o’me heart ocean, I knows I only be missin’ one out o’the scores of fall voyages I be set to take this side o’the pearly gates.

So set yer sails and polish yer decks, ye sorry sons of biscuit eaters! I may be pillagin’ this here side of the pond, but I be returnin’ come hell or high water. I be comin’ to make bay at me parents’ abode and hunt fer th’ jobs. I be comin’ to plunder the wealth o’me sister’s weddin’ guests and strike fear into th’ hearts o’the caterers. I be comin’. And I be seein’ them colored leaves on me screen saver ‘til that dawn rises.

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Oct 12 2011
2 Comments
Anecdotes, Humorous, Lists, One minute read

We are a Bunch of Nerds

the resident nerds of tahrir

Next semester, we students of CASA have the opportunity to take courses that are not solely focused on language and have academic content as well. Moreover, we get the chance to suggest courses ourselves. Since we are all a bunch of nerds, there has been a flowering of emails suggesting all kinds of courses that we could take…subjects you couldn’t even imagine, like a course focused on the fantastic animals described in pre -17th century Arabic travel literature.  This is the stuff of nerd paradise.

I have decided to hop onto the feverish academic bandwagon and offer a few course titles myself, so without further ado, may I present to you

CASA Spring 2010: Course Suggestions

1. Inequality Manifest: Spoiled American Students and Their Experience in Egypt

2. Pant Usage in Post-Colonial Egypt and the Tailoring of a Transformation

3. Applied Poetics: Arabic Poetry’s Place(s) in Your Daily Life

4. Advanced Reality Grasping: Calling a Spade a Spade

5. The Effect of Unicornic rule on Imaginary Arabic Literature

6. Fountains on the AUC Tahrir Campus: Why?

7. American Arabic Students and the Contemporary Blog Post

8. Cairo: Fragrant and Musical, or Stinky and Noisy?

9. Hadith and Blogging: What the Prophet Said

10. Intermediate Time Machine Installation and Usage

11. Arabic Grammar Nerds: Their Function as a Social Phenomenon

12. CASA Students: the Relationship between an Unhappy Home Life and the Rate of Expatriation

13. Improvisation: Telling People Why You Study Arabic

14. Arabic: What Do the Squiggly Lines Mean?

15. 15th Century Egyptian Embalming Techniques: a Practicum

16. Advanced Media: Building Effective Emotional Barriers to Bad News

17. Your Parents and Medieval Islamic History: How to Make Them Care

18. The Healing Qualities and Mystical Powers of Advanced Arabic Rhetoric

19. Vowels: Accessory, Amenity, or Need?

20. Horseback Riding, Power Lifting, and Calligraphy

21. Pharoanic Hygienic Standards: a Practicum

22. The Futility of Love: Arabic Literature Expressing Hopelessness and Loss

23. Arabic Media: How to Fold Newspapers into Planes and Hats

I, along with the rest of CASA,  look forward to an academically enriching semester and one that will no doubt be extremely useful in all our personal, professional, and facebook  lives.

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Oct 10 2011
2 Comments
Serious-ish, Two minute read

P.S. I’m Still Alive

Like the situation in Egypt, this puddle stinks

Look, I hate to be a Debbie Downer, but things don’t seem so great here in Egypt, and I’m not talking about the disgusting puddle outside of AUC’s Tahrir campus.

Even as we were all doing cartwheels and singing “ding dong the witch is dead” after Mubarak’s departure in February, some questions lingered in the background like “What next?” and “How difficult could it be to set up a democracy in a country crippled by poverty, corruption, and decades of political stagnation under the rule of dictators?” Turns out it’s pretty difficult, especially since it seems the egg of democracy has been shoved into an iron safe guarded by the general of the armed forces of the chicken coop for “security purposes.” Iron safes aren’t good places for eggs.

We already knew that the economy was going down the tubes, people were still hungry, and the political transition was moving slower than cool molasses. And then you have Sunday, October 9, 2011. There are conflicting reports of what exactly transpired (obviously), but basically, Christian protesters in Cairo were attacked by thugs of some kind and then the army stomped in with its big ol sticks and started putting down the demonstration violently: 26 dead and over 300 injured–the worst case of violence since the winter revolution and a painful indictment of the current political situation and its major players.

How do we feel about this? Not great. Though I am merely an Arabic student here for a short time, I find it incredibly disturbing and disappointing to see this kind of violence. Frankly, it makes me want to vomit when I think about the ploys the Supreme Council of Armed Forces is using to stay in power: sectarian strife, the fear of chaos, the promise of security even while it attacks citizens protesting peacefully. Is it not disgusting? But what can anyone do about it? What’s the alternative? People are tired of revolution and disillusioned about the future….why couldn’t prosperous democracy just happen? Why can’t it be like Idahoan instant mashed potatoes that fluff up into a delicious side dish within seconds?

And as if the violence itself wasn’t enough, state television got creative and its portrayal of the events differed significantly from what other independent channels like Al-Jazeera were broadcasting. Sounds like someone read Mubarak’s diary: “Today, I told the people at TV to just make it all up. Go crazy! Use your imagination! Make me look awesome!” And also the army attacked the building of an independent TV station (Al-Hurra).

So….it’s hard to say what’s going to happen in the coming weeks, but I hope people get angry,  forget their revolution fatigue, keep on fighting the fight. If you have any suggestions for how they should do that please direct them to peopleofegypt@yahoo.com since I’ll be too busy in class to do anything really.

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Oct 10 2011
2 Comments
Humorous, Serious-ish, Two minute read

Current Obsession > Egypt’s Future

My cool Swedish friend, also brother.

STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING!

There’s this song that I’m OBSESSED with and you’re going to love it too! Give me your computer and I’ll find it on YouTube so you can listen to it! It’s only 6 minutes long, and with loading time that makes a total of 10 minutes you’ll have to wait to hear it! It’s not very mainstream but the lyrics are really ethereal. The true essence of the song only hit me on about after the 18th listening but I remember the first one being really awesome too.

Oops I closed all your windows…you didn’t need those open did you? Here, we can share headphones. Or I could just watch you while you listen to it? Okay I’ll stand in front of the computer and you can either look at the screen or directly into my eyes for the full six minutes while you decide whether or not you like the song and I decide whether or not we can remain friends. Remember this is one of my favorite songs so it’ll really hurt me if you don’t like it. Think about that as you’re trying to avoid eye contact with me. Also, you can’t just say you like the song; you have to say something profound, like “The music really brings together the disparate thematic elements in the lyrics” or “it’s like he described the feeling of almost remembering a childhood dream in a completely new way.”

Do you mind if I sing along? I don’t know all of the words but I can hum to fill in the blanks. What? There are violent clashes going on between the army and protesting Copts near Tahrir? 19 dead and 150 wounded? Tear gas and the sound of gun shots floating over the Nile? Okay fine we can look at Al-Jazeera after we listen to this song and then…oh wait! There’s another one that’s really awesome and I bet you’ll love it. You like “noise” music right? It’s music that makes a statement by purposefully avoiding any kind of melody, tune, rhythm, or order. It’s really big in Scandinavia right now, and my super cool Swedish friend is really into it. This one’s only 9 minutes long but it’s totally worth it, and then after that we can look at the “news.”

Say, I hope we don’t have class tomorrow…it would be so awesome if this post-revolution violence paid off for us!

(should my belabored writing have not made it clear, this post was facetious. I don’ t mean most of these things, but you’re left to guess which ones).

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Oct 09 2011
11 Comments
Anecdotes, Two minute read, Wedding

Bride’s Sisters Need Attention Too

Far right is getting married. She’s a few years older now.

I saw my (triplet) sister in a wedding dress for the first time about 30 minutes ago, via the pictures my mother sent of the shopping trip my she and my sisters embarked on without me.  I realize I’m in Egypt, but would it be too hard for them to wait an unreasonably long time so I could give them advice to ignore when I came home for Christmas? Is that really too much to ask? According to my mother, it is. And so I’m left living the experience in 2-D, alone in my room in Cairo, looking at the beads and white fabric and wondering what the what is going on.

Seeing my sister in a wedding dress was surprisingly weird and emotional even if I wasn’t present in the flesh.  And thus the news of  “my sister’s getting married” continues its slow journey from theory to reality.

She really is going to get married. There will be a color-schemed wedding with lots of friends and non-friends and food and drink. Her last name is going to change. Eventually she’ll go off and live with her husband and there will be a life together in a place no one knows (hopefully not Oklahoma), and I’m going to be moving in with them after I get back from Egypt (probably not true). Her life will be permanently altered in a way that I won’t be able to understand until I myself am married, and there’s always going to be that weird guy hanging around at our house or at her bungalow, apartment, or shack.

All I can say is that if this wedding dress picture experience is any indication for the future, I’m going to be a complete wreck at the wedding and will alternately be using her dress to dry my tears or begging her to explain what happened over the past 21 ish years that brought us to this point. Weren’t we going to be kids forever? Can I please move in to the apartment next to them/spare bedroom to be a part of their married life? Are honeymoons really just for the couples or can sisters come too? How big of a deal is this? Can I handle it? Can she handle it? Can the caterers handle it?

She probably doesn’t realize this, but her wedding is a big life change for all of us, especially her. I wish I could be there as she picks colors and doilies, but I suppose the random blog post is going to have to do instead. And yes, she’s probably mad about me blogging on this topic. But luckily she rarely reads my blog, so maybe she won’t find out about it. Let’s just keep it a secret between you and me, okay? I’ll let you know how the wedding goes. I’m co-piloting, by the way, so it will be in safe but emotionally unstable hands.

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