My girlfriend, Kristen, came to visit, that was a lot of fun, although it wreaked havoc on my grades. I should be able to still do well, it just was a strenuous week is all. I tried to do extra work before she got here, in the hope that I could get ahead. That was a pipe dream. With everything I have to do just to get by, there really is not too much getting ahead unless I squeeze time away from the less important things like sleeping and eating. Really, maybe I can try to combine the two. Some sort of device that can inject the food into me while I sleep. I know it will be all the rage with the med students if I could bring it back to UCSD. But now, after that week, it's easier to catch up than it was to get ahead. Maybe because when I was trying to get ahead I didn't really have to do it, but now that I have to catch up, I really have to do it!
Having a guest is fun though. I get to show someone around and experience all the wonder of the city like when I first got here. It's also nice to be running around with someone that is not broke. My last friend here was hoping to get by on some ridiculously small amount of money everyday. Cairo is cheap, but the tourist events add up! We did all the fun stuff like ride camels around the pyramids, hold baby lions at the zoo, and see the awesome view of Cairo from the Citadel. She also mercilessly made fun of me for my videos I had been doing for ERC-tv. She loves them more then life itself, and she watches then every night before she goes to bed. But when she recites to me some of the things I say, I don't know what I was thinking. It's so corny, but that's just what comes to me at the time. I do love making those videos though, and I have a ton of footage. I just need to edit it all together when I get back to the states.
And I didn't even get hassled for having a girl in my apartment from the locals.
The last time I had a girl there, it was my tutor and I was studying Arabic. The apartment across from me is a lawyer's office, and the waiting room is directly facing my door. When I entered my apartment with an Egyptian girl, it really got people's blood pumping! And then I closed the door, which if you have a woman in the apartment, you're supposed to keep the door open, lest everyone thinks you are tainting this woman's honor. Within two minutes, there was a knock on my door and the whole waiting room is outside yelling at me, with the lawyer himself trying to rationally persuade me that what I was doing was wrong, and some old man in the back chanting slurs, and claiming that he's seen me with a different girl every night! We yelled back, showed the Arabic homework and slammed the door. The issue was never really settled, but I'm just not used to this whole idea of society trying to uphold the morals of everyone else. I like good old America, where if I want to slide down the slippery slope of sin and vice, well, Thomas Jefferson tells me that's my right! Of course the real issue wasn't that she was a woman, it's that she was an Egyptian woman. It's been several months since then, and now when I had my American girlfriend stay with me the whole week, there was not a peep of dissent. She's a foreigner anyway, and everyone knows their morals are beyond help.
In other news, the more Arabic I study, the more I realize what a hard language this is. It's not something you can study for a year or even two and then have it. You really need three years or more of intensive study to be able to speak this language. And I have some friends here who have studied it for seven or even ten years, and they still can't read a book, or have a full conversation. Not that I'm discouraged, it's just there are a lot of words out there. I can't quite put my finger on why exactly Arabic is so difficult for English speakers. Maybe it's the totally different vocabulary, or the sounds, or the grammar, but I miss those sweet and simple Romance languages! I never really applied myself to learn one before, but after Arabic, I feel like I could learn Italian in about a week! The point, anyway, is I need more Arabic before I go back to UCSD and this summer is a perfect opportunity. The program I really want is in Beirut, Lebanon. It was a toss up between Beirut, Lebanon and Damascus, Syria. Beirut is having a political crisis, for those who don't know, and is having trouble getting their elections going for a new president. I really think the country is going to be fine, so long as there are no more major political assassinations. Of course the kicker is the last major assassination of a top Lebanese official was actually in Damascus, so I'm kind of screwed either place I go. On the upside, the situation may have scared away all the other Americans, so I will really get a chance to speak only Arabic, and if civil war does break out maybe I'll get to ride in a helicopter as they're evacuating the American students. I have my fingers crossed!
