‘”JUST spoke to S1 and S2. They were gassed several times yesterday as they tried to cover protests. I said “made in the USA baby” and S1 said “and so is the Coca Cola that we are rubbing in our eyes to make them stop hurting.” ♥♥ They ar…e ok, and going to a safe house in Rihab tomorrow because the city is lawless with looters and thieves. S1 confirmed that there are groups of civilians armed with kitchen knives, metal poles and hunting rifles on all corners and entrances to the island of Zamalek to protect it but he does not know how long that will last. According to S1, Mohandiseen, Imbaba and Nasr City are war zones with protester-on-protester violence and looting (not sectarian in any manner). I told them I would call at 3 pm their time tomorrow to check in again. They send love and they want everyone to spread the word about what is happening.
interested? PETITION TO SEND UN TROOPS TO EGYPT TO PREVENT A STATE OF ANARCHY”‘

Please educate yourselves – about this and as many international issues as you can. I keep hearing concerns about ‘how this will affect America’, as if increases in oil prices can be equated with what’s happening [yes I understand that terrorism is also being considered]. Zamalek is the area where I lived a year ago. These places are real and these people are real. I’ll post some links soon. Here’s a video I sent a friend who hadn’t read much. It’s short, certainly not thesis material, but it provides an image.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xWiBCIxjIk

‘on all corners and entrances’.

I got this burn on my arm shortly before I left for Egypt. It looked, I thought, like a Pyramid. I just tried to find it and almost couldn’t. Since I’ve returned, it seems to have faded. We invent things like this – semantics in strange places – even more so when the places are strange. Because Egypt is a strange thing to understand for a lot of people, they ask – Pretty Sure that it has – how it’s changed my writing. Or they say – Pretty Sure that they’re revolutionary – how people are Really The Same Everywhere. And I have to get all mystical and say I’m Not Sure Yet and Yes They Are, respectively or nonrespectively, depending on whatever. Anyway, I don’t know how or if it’s changed my writing. But we all seem to breathe even in air that shouldn’t suit us. I got the burn from a Styrofoam cup of instant noodles. The air is dirty because humans have polluted it. Things that are signs are effects, I think. I wonder why ‘Styrofoam’ is capitalized, and why I use the word so frequently that it’s a persistent wonder. Again, strange places. This is why we like capitalism, when ‘we’ do. There need to be tiers. That isn’t a pun.

I almost quoted nothing. From a book. Its introduction.

‘I required to be transformed, however little I believed that it could happen.’

So. I’ve been home for what. Like a month and a half? Not sure. The first month was me getting readjusted to things. Which I won’t discuss at length here. It was also me telling stories. Especially, I found, from the end of my trip. So here they are. Ish. Also I can’t quite remember the course of events as it was because we visited like four countries in seven days. I’ll try to break the stories down by country.

Sweet Statue Thing in Lebanon.

Lebanon: So most of this will be, again, about gender/performativity. I definitely had a more ambiguous gender during these seven days than I think I have ever had ever. At this bus stop in Lebanon, I’m pretty sure I was confused [and hit on – holla] for/as a gay man. Wonderfully enough, I was told not to let this happen. However. I was confused for an Attractive gay man. Wink. Which I think because this dude was leading me around by the wrist and would tentatively walk toward me with his friends and just look at me. It was interesting. He also was helping us try to get tickets. But yes. I doubt that he would have touched me if he had thought I was a woman. Also it seemed like he and his friends were trying to guess at some point. Nonetheless. Oh and I told them my name was ‘Alex’.

The issue at this bus stop, besides me tiny-freaking out about how to act when I walked and sat and talked [because I didn’t know which combination would derive the least amount of prejudice aka Lebanese bus stop beat down [which sounds like an awkward triple ecks film]] – so the issue was that we needed to get only to the border at Syria but the workers couldn’t understand and we didn’t know the word for ‘border’ AL-HADOOD. Something like that. And they thought we wanted them to wait and we didn’t want to pay for the whole trip that we wouldn’t be taking.I’m out of breath. Another time, mumkin.

Syria: So the bus trip worked out. Which was cool. Here’s. The. Deal.We were at this mofowkin border for ELEVEN JESUSLESS HOURS. This is a problem because most Americans are held 4-6 hours because Syria doesn’t like America because America is giving Israel money and Israel is lame all over Syria. As far as I know. So we got there at 1am and these workers were assholes to us. Not to mention the exit border guards in Lebanon hated on my travel-friend [TF] but she got their boss and swore at them and it was spuhMazing.So what happened is this. We ate Pringles and some nasty-weird milk thang, got stared at by these two boys who later threw trash or whatever at us to wake us up from the Stairwell in which we had to sleep. TF was BAMF and let me use her shirt when I was freezing. Also there was. Inexplicably and amazingly. A mattress at the top of these stairs. I unfortunately lost my camera in Syria so I can’t upload the video I took of me strung out on the smells of oh-damn-this-is-whack.

Eventually we decided we had to steal their teapot. [Gettin on that formatting business]. It belonged to some border guards, I think, and was just hanging out on the bench where I spent a lot of time sleeping and TF spent a lot of time grillin crazy men to let us into Syria. We hid the teapot under her shirt but they moved it later. However, she did find some sort of shoulder patch with stars that must indicate rank or something. So that’s in my room at home or whatever.

By the end of that eleven hours, we both had crying breakdowns and were exhausted and hungry and awesome. TF just informed me of this delicious fact – I’m not sure if it’s true, however. Apparently the Syrian government shut down border admission to Americans like five days after we were there. She seems to think it was because of us. And I seem to think that is possible. I guess I haven’t correctly depicted the situation, but, at one point, we were going into two different offices every five minutes complaining and whining and crying and yelling. At one point I even gave another one of my anthropological speeches about being A Human Being Just Like You. I even told like four crazy guard men, in Arabic, that I was traveling these countries to gain a better understanding of a culture of which I had always felt deprived. They laughed.

Anywho. I wouldn’t have wanted to deal with us again. Though so many of them changed shifts that nobody had an accurate understanding of what we were going through to visit their country – which we each were most eager to visit. Well the coffee/tea guy was pretty cool. I guess we saw him later in Syria. Weird how these things weird.To clarify ish, the problem, I guess, was that they weren’t getting the call or fax from Damascus that would clear us for entry. Also someone asked TF if I was here son. Giggle. As he was looking at my chick name and the indicative F in my passport. She was more offended that she seemed mom-age. Cute.

Jordanian Airport Food.

Jordan: At the airport we got physically examined [felt up?] by a rather attractive female guard wearing a hijab. We giggled like spidiots. Also you know people in Jordan have money because the taxi drivers have sweet rides and get pissed [like-holding-a-grudge-the-whole-ride-pissed] if you shut the door Too Hard.

Next glob/s: Caves in Lebanon, Syria other than the border, Israel, grass in Cairo, this crazy boy in The Khan, TF shaming Jordanian airport employees like an epic. 

I read this in a book that someone lent me. It doesn’t really move me currently. But I’ve had it saved, so. Wait I lied. It non-punningly moves me.

‘and my hope is eighty airplanes’.

I don’t what time it is because I stuck a ripped off piece of gum wrapper over the clock on my laptop with a piece of old gum that I found on this box of those little heart candies with messages on them. This candy was a gift. Thanks for that. Anytheway. I think it is mumkin ['possibly' - this is the Arabic word that I Hated and now say Too Often] like 230am but I am going to all kinds of crazy trying to get my LAST finals and such done for my AUC time. Not sure but I’m thinking my one all-nighter [I have been not into them this semester] might be on my last day of school. Fthewhat. Then I’ll be done being an Egyptian Junior. Ooh my music is on random so now ‘The Fame’ is playing. Title track, that is.

So the promise is I promise this: to post the like two or three blogs I have written on notebook paper at some point. Soon? Mumkin. Ever? Yeah probably. But I’m flying to Beirut in like 22 hours. Then chillin my way up to Syria and then to Israel. Jordan I’ll see for like a baby minute. So. Yeah. It’s my last night in the Zamalek dorms because a friend in Maadi is letting me keep my business [luggage] at her place. Otherwise, I’d have to pay like twenty dollars [100 Egyptian pounds - holla, that ain't happenin, son] a night for the two extra nights I’d need once I get back on the 28th.

Then back to America on the 30th. Listen I smelled America on the bus today and didn’t know what to think.

This blog is me procrastinating from several Thangs. Homework, yes. Emotional distress also. Seriously. I talk about this more in the promised blogs in the future. But for now let’s just say that I’m too busy to even be sad. But I like to mope. I feel like I’m entitled because I write poetry and belong to more than one oppressed minority group.

?

Mkay. Thanks for reading, you invisible turtles of everything.

From a song, come on.

‘K-kinda busy. K-kinda busy. Sorry, I cannot hear you – I’m kinda biz-ay.’

Surpassing the supercomputer.

AUC had these booths during orientation week. In their defense, I think some dude is chillin out in the background. I mean. The balloons were helpful but their English was a little difficult to understand. Hey, I’m not trying to sound ethnocentric. Anyway we worked it out.

TiTiTiTiTip.

Saw this in the UTI [remember that from an older post?] office thing. Again, like nobody thought ‘UTI’ was funny, nobody else really thought ‘TiTiTiTiTip’ was funny. It’s not that it’s dirty or anything. Just say it really quickly in a high-pitched voice. I know someone else out there will concur. And when the time comes, we shall meet.

Gettin. Down.

Saw these signs when I was first here and I was like WTF Do You Mean? So I now refer to this as the Gettin Down With Your Bad Self sign. But really every time I look at this, that’s what I think. It just tells you where a door is. Which. You know. I’m sure you realized.

Yep. Conditioned Air.

Saw this near Coptic Cairo, I think. For air conditioning, mumkin? But really nothing I could say could do this justice.

The Khan.

One of the many [like hundreds] of shops in the bazaar khan el khalili. I shall be returning there soon, I think, to buy things for people and hope they like them. This will involve a lot of bartering in broken Arabic, so. It’s cool if you just like what you get. That was kind of not a joke and that was kind of a joke.

Mosque at The Khan.

Lighting was odd, but it looks kinda cool I think.

From a song. It actually makes me think of someone I wouldn’t have expected. I actually just typed out half of the song and then replaced it with this, so.

‘And if the tempo was lousy, it was lost on all but you.’

It’s getting hot here in a painful way. The weather.

Everything good all at once is this:

Arabic Nexium.

Arabic. And my favorite prescription medication. Also – yep. My bedding matches my medication. Here’s how the pharmacy at AUC works.

International students must purchase medical insurance through the University. If a student buys something a local pharmacy, they can bring in the receipt to the school pharmacy [wait I just realized that there are often not receipts, ha] and get reimbursed. So I’ve heard. Or you can go to the school pharmacy and experience the sketchiness that is AUC.

[I just raised my hand in class and talked about colonization of languages. Hot.].

Anyhow a friend walked in, signed in, and got some hardcore sleeping pills after like three [I can’t read my writing – it looks like I wrote ‘mans’?] minutes. I walked in and the physician was like I can’t find your name [on a list of students with health insurance]. To which I replied: They force all the international students to get health insurance. He looks at his computer for like a second, starts writing it out. And I’m like I need it for a month. He was like Anything Else? But in a sincere way. Yes I’d like an elephant tranquilizer. Nope. Nothin else. Came back in a few hours and picked it up. Only had to show an ID to pick it up, but not when I ordered it. Well I only showed it the first time to get it though they didn’t have it and the dude recognized me when I returned.

Listen I’ve gotten used to the shady means by which Egypt operates, so I’m not sure if this is as relaxed as I think. But I mean. I’m pretty sure it should not be that easy to get muscle relaxers and the like so easily. That was a lot of repetition of derivatives of ‘easy’ and ‘relax’. Ish.

Also in case you’re Wildly Interested, the medicine Nexium is for acid reflux. [I can’t believe I don’t talk about this all the time]. Which is ‘like heartburn, but all the time’, as I often say. I am In The Love with this medicine, and had run out of my prescription and the generic I brought and didn’t want to pay eight thousand dollars to get it sent here [pick-ups from the post office are strangely expensive]. I’ve had acid reflux since ninth grade in high school. But I told my family doctor and he never did any tests so maybe I have something else. Anyway, basically overweight fifty year old men get acid reflux. Mad love to all of my comrades, but the point is that it’s weird that I have it and it also sucks. So I’m glad I have this Deliciousness called Nexium to heal the ulcers in my esophagus. Disgusting. Also I do a lot of product placement by accident. Wink.

Oh funny story. Got another haircut. However. ‘Twas a bit different from last time. What happened was this: I walk toward the strip of three hair salons and see this Very Cross-eyed Dude beckoning me into his shop. Just one eye was intense. Really I’m not trying to be a jerk – he just had it goin on. So I couldn’t tell if he was looking at me. I saw that the place where I went last time was closed and he was still ushering me in. But I mean. This was a men’s salon and I’m pretty sure they’re serious about these things. So I was like why not.

I kept my hoodie on and put my ring in my pocket and deepened my voice a bit and decided to be a boy for twenty minutes or so. I was actually kind of nervous, ha. He offered me tea. I said no. Due to nervousness, I think. We talked a bit in English and Arabic. I showed him a picture [in which I was wearing a girl-ish shirt, ha] to get a cut similar to it. I decided that maybe he knew I was a female and just wanted my money. Halfway through he asked my name and I’m like Lie! Lie! Lie! And of course I told him my name. No biggie. Just the name of the Prophet’s daughter. He handled it pretty well but made sure to tell me like six times to go to another next time. And he kept telling the other [non cross-eyed] worker ‘ismooha Fatma’ [yes, no ‘i’ (oop now you know my name)]. Her name is Fatima. And they got some chuckles. Wasn’t a bad haircut, I must say. Half as cheap as the one I got at the chick place.

Also he asked if I was Muslim after I told him my name and I was like Yep. Nope. I’m not. I realized after I left that that made it worse because many Muslim women veil their hair from unfamiliar men. I left the salon feeling quite excellent. Weird, right. But my step-mom and I joked about me sneaking into a men’s club here. So that was my shot. Not like what that would mean in America, as far as I know. Just dudes smoking sheesha and playing backgammon. They say ‘sheesha’ or ‘shisha’ here. Not ‘hookah’. Consider it.

This became a blog about gender performance by accident. Sometimes I have no idea who I am to anyone. If I had to guess, I’d say I’m this:

Love Bench in Athens. And my right shoe.

Sometimes, also, I think of how my step-dad looked in the airport terminal before I boarded and I have to turn up my music because it makes me sick to know that people know me, love me.

Also Happy Mother’s Day to anyone who ever gave birth to anything.

From that Google Chat thing that says status. I almost only noticed it as it was intended.

‘You are invisible.’

Now that I’m far away from some of my stories, I feel like I can tell them more succinctly. Here are things I said I’d discuss. 

Egyptian Museum of Antiquities 

Okay so this is a really sweet museum. In Cairo. It has scrolls! Cool. It’s cool just accept it. Also whatever the plural of ‘sarcophagus’ is – there are rooms full of them. Saw mummies of humans and non-human animals. Like an alligator [crocodile?] and horse, I think. Massive. And epic. It cost extra to get into the human-mummy room. Like sixty pounds – twelve bucks. But still. There was this one really beautiful mummy that must’ve been preserved like whoa. I wish I could remember the name. And I dunno. Uhm. Yeah but the organization is hilarious because it doesn’t really exist. Huge – like Very Very Large statues are just kind of Everywhere on the plaza level. Yeah I said ‘plaza’. But yeah. And they’re next to fire extinguishers and maybe trash and the like. My roommate who went to Israel is talking about how nice the people were. Also I’ve heard this about Syria. I need to go to other places but I’m poor. Lame. 

Old Men 

So this story intersects this and the first category. In general, the old dudes I’ve encountered are cute. I actually can’t quite remember why I even made this a category. I think because I have a picture of old men that I like. 

Dudes outside of a mosque in Coptic Cairo.

I also have an old woman story. Anyway, I’m transcribing [wrong word?] this from my journal. 

At the entrance to the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities [notice how I changed the name], we ran into a large group of men. I think they had just finished praying and were reentering. I heard this ‘ahem’ like thing behind me and was pushed a bit. Maybe. Then a tap on my arm. And it was this old dude. Neither cute nor creepy. [Ha I forgot that I wrote that]. Then. After tapping me, he starts pushing something I couldn’t see against my side. He passed me and looked back with this weird face. Amused, perhaps. In his hand he was wiggling this little rubber rat up and down – the thing he had pushed against me. This was so bizarre that I was actually kind of shocked. I mean really wtf. But I give you points for novelty. 

Old woman story – a few of you have heard this. It’s okay. So my friend and I were on some bus in Greece going somewhere and this old woman in front of us was trying to tell me something and we both laughed kind of apologetically for not understanding the other. So finally she just said ‘Beautiful’. It was so sweet. I was like ‘Oh! Thank you.’ I don’t know. Then she gave us some kind of pretzel-bread thing. 

Best gift ever, holla.

Come on. Cutest. Thing. Of my life. Before that she was trying to translate through some boy in the seats across from her. But whatever. She gave us bread. It was good, also. I took a picture of the back of her head. 

Awesome-lady-in-Greece's head.

My friend didn’t want me to. But how could I not. 

Rain 

So it’s rained once since I’ve been here. Some sprinkling also. Which is more than I thought it would. Some people say there was also hail and maybe snow or something. But here’s the actually important thing. The green hoodie that I basically wear every day was stained Brown. Hi. The air is so dirty here that, when it rains, the nasty is pushed down through the atmosphere. I had read about this before, though. This is not the catch-on-your-tongue-while-singing-whimsical-whatever kind of rain. It’s like some stank, son. Also the lightning was fabulous. Maybe I’ll steal a picture from somewhere. There is definitely a Facebook group dedicated to the event. 

I already started putting up pictures, so I don’t need to address that category. 

Haircut 

I don’t know if I’ve talked about this here or just in emails to people? Worth repeating. 

Since I have been in Egypt, I have only gotten one haircut. I think I got ripped off but I don’t care because. This. Woman. Who washed my hair. Another adorable old woman. Maybe it’s because people aren’t allowed to touch each other here unless they’re men, but the intimacy of the pre-cut hair-wash that she gave me was so gentle and beautiful that I had this big dumb grin on my face and wanted to cry. The cut wasn’t bad. The man who came and did it was sweet and old and when I decided that he might be gay I said ‘Oh, dude.’ Aloud because I was happy. But yeah he was compliant with my desire to look even more like a boy. I mean that’s not my desire, but that’s probably what he thought as I was like – shorter. I didn’t push the issue after that, even though I had an awkward pretend mullet. But uh. Yeah might be getting another tomorrow. Oh my point was – don’t be afraid to have short hair here, if you’re a female. I was going to grow mine out before I came. Then I was like Nah. I could use some more discomfort in my life. 

Fun fact [I think so]: ‘Haircut’ in Arabic, looks like the words for ‘story’ and ‘poetry’ – so like ‘a poetry story’, but you have to pronounce it with different short vowels. I still feel like I’ve said this before. Anyway. I think that’s really lovely. 

Okay I have two other categories that I said I’d cover – School Crap and Good to Know. For the former, I dunno what’s gonna happen. For the latter, I want to talk about taxis. So I’m going to wait until I grab some photos of the two main types of taxis here. Seriously it will take me about two minutes if I go and stand in the street tomorrow afternoon. 

Language Lesson Hurray 

Oh and I want to teach you some colloquial / common Arabic phrases. Check out my fantastic not-really phonetic breakdown. Ha. Yeah I don’t think I’m spelling these correctly in transliterated Arabic either. Mafish mishkala. Which, along with ‘mish mishkala’, basically means ‘No problem.’ The first sounds like ‘ma feesh’. The rest look how they sound. Moving on. 

Mumkin [I don’t like this word] – moom kin: Means ‘possibly’, ‘probably’. A lot of people say it. Gross. 

Shukran – shook rawn [like in ‘scrawny’]: ‘Thank you.’ Doesn’t matter how much Arabic you know. You will say this word like nobody’s business in the Middle East. 

Afwan – off wan [like you’re about to say ‘wand’]: ‘You’re welcome.’ I love this word. When said correctly, it sounds really cool. Starts with the difficult letter I discuss in the next thing. Mish mishkala. 

Aywa – I wuh: ‘Yes.’ This is the colloquial way of saying it. Also it’s more fun. If you draw it out, it sounds like ‘Iowa’. The other sounds like Nom – but really it has this complicated sound in it that you likely can’t make. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMrmbldwH08&feature=PlayList&p=A71D37639C41BA57&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=20 Start at 1:20 – not really the most accurate thing I’ve ever heard. But yeah you say this word formally, or when your name is called. Also okay most people don’t pronounce that letter. 

Insha’Allah – in shaw Allah: This is a great word. Basically means ‘Hopefully’ and it is said Always for Everything Ever. Literally means ‘God willing.’ A Wikipedia page exists for this word. Yeah that’s right. 

Yanee – yawn knee: Sorta. Again, the ‘a’ is actually that weird sound that is a ‘3’ when transliterated. So y3nee, might be how it’s written. It looks weird. But this is a filler word used A Lot. Means ‘like’ or ‘you know’ or ‘I mean’. Literally, it means ‘it/he means’. But yeah.

La: ‘No.’

Okay enough of that. The reason that I’m telling you is because I am going to miss Arabic so freaking much when I’m back in America and expect all of you to know these words by then so I can say little familiar phrases and it will feel like home. Because Egypt and my Nile island are certainly home right now. Though oh my gosh. I’m also excited to be back in capitalism. Also I’m going to start responding to comments right in the comment boxes. Just found out I could do that. 

I began and ended my last post with stream-of-consciousness writers. This was unintentional. 

Same woman as last time. What can I say. I’m enamored. 

‘and the earth, after the voyage, still seemed an island to him, the strangeness of standing’.

Saw this is Greece. Sweet.

Someone was complaining that I should post pictures of myself, so.

I match the bedding.

Delphi.

Yeah Greece – in the country, mostly – is breathtaking.

Also Delphi.

I’d forgotten about the existence of green.
Now for Egypt.

Women in Library in Alexandria.

The guy in the bottom right looks like a spy.

 I posted those so you could see the spy-guy changing from talking into his secret microphone to looking shiftily to the side.

Family in Alexandria.

They wanted a picture with me because I have a Muslim name and am American. The woman sitting approached me and I was really intimidated. But then she took my hands in her hands and said sweet things to me in Arabic.

From a novel by a remarkable woman. I must be off to discuss her, in fact.

‘and in what garden did all this happen?’

I am sick of a world where we say ‘I’m afraid to walk around at 530pm’, because it implies that there are times fundamentally appropriate for fear. I am sick of walking down the street clutching my passport – but not too tightly – because my name and, thus, my everything – might be stolen. I’m sick of being desensitized to severely ‘disfigured’ beggars – coldly wondering if it is a ploy. Sick of feeling loathed by the old prostitutes and drug addicts on the streets when I love them. These are the things my poetry is about, the ‘controversial’ topics I love to discuss. But I’m afraid to be alone with them. It’s weird to realize the obvious things, rather than just knowing them.

I’m sick of walking down the street – in Greece, Cairo, Cleveland – with a hardened face so I’ll be left alone – but remembering to soften it enough so people won’t feel inclined to ‘intervene’ in whatever it is that’s moved me.

I go back to Cairo soon and I don’t know. I can’t wait to be there for some things – its beautiful language. But others – like the things Hooker Athens [as I semi-affectionately call it] and Cairo have in common – I’m in no desperate rush to touch them again. But somebody must. This parasitic relationship human beings have with their environments – flourishing grotesquely in a manifestation of ever-distorting, unrecognizable structures – is something I don’t think we should accept. Yes, the world will eventually end. But that statement is so deceptively passive. Recycle an extra bottle – better, reuse a cup. Drink water with your hands and watch it and know what it means to be a thing of cycles. Hug someone you love. Make a movement, be vulnerable, lie one less time a day. Do these things ever work?

I’m not furious, exactly. Just furiously filled with a love for capacities that I’m afraid will go untouched. The beggars in Cairo and Athens – like women in Cairo [and elsewhere], for example, are conduits for the emotions or lack of emotions that the rest of us express. Just part of the landscape. Something to hate. But they wake up and go to sleep and have to eat and drink before they die. Their nerves send and receive electrical impulses to jerk or still and cover up when cold – but sometimes nothing exists for the function. A sad rejoinder to piss between sidewalks and repel noses for a few city blocks. Am I young in this? What does it mean to be moved without movement? And I’m into population control in the way that Malthus discussed – which may or may not be surprising. But I don’t know where I am when I hate the things I do and accept that there are too many bodies to not act desensitized.

I know that this is another intense blog. And that it’s general. But what else can I do but write? If I were reading this, I’d say – stand up. Make eye contact. Buy less shit and more good. But I know that ‘good’ isn’t real in the way I ultimately work. But for the moment I need to not be reading it. I just need for someone to know.

The beggars in Athens often have amputated, burned, or – as I said – ‘disfigured’ limbs. Very very startling to see if you Look, because they often reveal them as a way to gain sympathy and money. My friend referred to their limbs as ‘gross’ or ‘disgusting’ in a way that signalled desensitization rather than actual hatred. On my way back to the hostel, one woman was following me and I felt really uncomfortable. Why discomfort? Why disgust? With our own lack of resources? Are we biologically wired to despise asymmetry? Are they taking up ‘our’ space? Am I taking up someone’s space? It seems like a battle between the reptilian brain and the frontal lobes – preservation as a goal – consideration as a mechanism. It’s weird to experience the awkward attempts we make at alignment.

I sort of made friends with the woman who works at the bar, here. When she walked by, I looked up and recognized her [and was recognized] in a startled sort of way. Did you ever recognize someone when it was the last feeling you thought you’d soon find? Hyperbolic associations aside. It’s like. I don’t know. I wasn’t alone anymore, but I wasn’t stuck – not really.

Someday I’ll tell you other things.

But the beggars – in Egypt they aren’t characterized by amputated limbs. It seems that being alive there kind of heralds a mentality.

Also a lot of what I’m feeling is also coming from the translated modern Arabic literature I’ve been reading.

Today I was thinking I like how ‘we’ verbs are conjugated best in all the languages I’ve learned.

From a book – cut off from its sentence, I like the verb more as a noun.

‘tiptoed back to collapse’.

Something I’ve realized is that I’ve been making it progressively easier to stalk me in this blog.
Also I wrote this in the middle of March and it’s just been hanging out as a draft, so.

Here’s my daily routine and course schedule at AUC this semester:

Sunday/Wednesday: 700: Get up [my family is shocked! I am shocked!]. 800-845: Bus to AUC. 1130-1245: ECLT – English and Contemporary Literature – The Bloomsbury Group [this is like a topical seminar type deal]. 200-315: ALNG – Arabic – equivalent of ARAB 202 at Case. 330-445: ARIC – Not sure what this code means – Modern Arabic Literature in Translation. 500-600/630/700 [seriously, it really depends]: Bus to Zamalek.

Monday/Thursday: Same times but different classes. Although I do have Arabic every day of school, except it’s 200-250 these days. I start the day with ANTH – Anthropology – Gender, Power, and Social Change. Then Arabic. Then finish with RHET – Rhetoric – Writing and Cognition.

There is no class on Tuesdays except, I think, for students who do the ALI - Arabic Language Institute. This is an intensive Arabic language learning program. I think they get one day off [I get Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday off] and don’t really have a Spring Break. But also they learn a shitload of awesome Arabic, so. Something to consider. Also I think Assembly Hour [I love that the word 'Assembly' is used] is from like 1-2 each day.

Oop 1120 on a Wednesday. I must be off to discuss the Victorians.

I’m eager to upload the blog I just wrote. So I’ll write another describing classes. Thought it might be nice for prospective students to have an idea of a course schedule.

Saw this on a sign.

‘Don’t Touch Danger’.