*Warning Arabic studying, English might not be so Well*

Arabic classes are killing me. Who invented this damn language!! I know it's all just a big joke the whole Middle East plays, every time there are foreigners around they just start making weird sounds and then they go back behind a curt and start snickering amongst themselves "He-He, look at the white guy, he's actually trying to translate me clearing my throat, what a fool!" as they say it in crisp clear English.

HOLY CRAP!! I am dying, I am really dying, I study my ass off every day, I have two tutors just to keep up with the reading, I will probably fail everything, but hopefully in the end I will have learned me some Arabic! Right know I can read the newspaper, and get the general idea from most articles and I can watch AL-Jazeera, and get some of it, but if they talk fast, I don't have a clue what's going on. Really, reading is what has improved the most for me, but hopefully next semester, my listening skills will be getting up there too. Someday, someday maybe speaking. I can actually speak with lots of people, but I'm always using the wrong conjugations for the wrong something, but people understand me, they just don't like me.

All in all, language is going good, Arabic is just hard. I really think I'll be pretty good by the end of next semester, but the trouble is I'm barely getting a chance to see Egypt. I visited the pyramids, the Egyptian museum (which is amazing) and that's about it. I really don't have any time to go to Luxor or explore the Nile or anything. Fortunately, the semester ends in two weeks, this is the home stretch, I just have to keep going until I get through finals, then I get a nice, sweet break.

I'm not going anywhere, I'll be staying in Egypt for Christamas/New Year's, but I'll get a chance to actually explore Egypt, see the Aswan dam and all the Pheronic temples, and there are tons of old Islamic and Christian sites here too. I've seen none of them.

The plan right now is survive the next two weeks (I give it 50-50), explore Cairo, for the next month. My friend is actually coming here for two weeks in the end of December (the only way he could go is through the philanthropy of his sister, since he continues to have no money, but I think the experience will be good for him), And I am going to Rome to meet up with the Girl in January, which shall be awesome!

I was going to stay in Cairo the whole time, but I caved, I need to see a GIRL damnit!! Cairo is not the place to go to meet women, in case you heard otherwise. I really am not trying to meet any American girls here, because I want new experiences and all that nonsense, but guess what, this just isn't the place to meet Egyptian women either! Oh, well.

So this new semester starts up again February 2nd. I don't know if I'm going to do advanced again, really wherever they place me is fine, it a toss up between possibly being pushed to learn more, but at the same time also wanting to kick puppies every day and the end result is that the stress might make the advanced level less effective than something more reasonable. But we will see.

I was making videos, but I have been too busy with school as of late. If you want to check them out there are six I believe up on youtube at www.youtube.com/kstaight . Tell me what people think. I think some parts are good, but I want to know how I can make them better for next semester. I will probably make more during the break when I have time. That's it for now.