I remember when, I remember, I remember when I lost my mind

how does "ms. bosley" sound. professor bosley? i guess i cant really pull that off without a degree... oustetha bosley. perfect. :) why, you may ask, am i pondering this? because, my dear, you are talking to (well, reading the blog of) a real live professional changing the lives of young ppl everywhere TEACHER. sort of. im teaching an english language class at a school in coptic cairo! how cool is that. how much would you LOVE to be my student. soaking up my wisdom with eager little ears... merrit and i are duel teaching 2 classes a week, mainly of university age students who have a very basic grasp of english. there's this english proficiency test that a lot of jobs in egypt require that you pass, and so we're teaching level 8 out of 16. its a volunteer position bc the school is run by a church. coptic, obviously. they dont really train you at all but they provide the text books so...we'll be creative. and how hard can it be. honestly. right?

in other news i applied to officially become a student - as opposed to a tourist - in egypt today. very exciting. turned in my passport and everything. it was kind of ridiculous; the office of student business or whatever was located in room 423 in the main campus building. there are 4 floors to the building. sounds like a pretty straight-forward room to find, right? oh no. egyptians like to play vith your mind. (yes i spelled it like that on purpose. its the accent. jaffar anyone? anyone?) i walk up to the fourth floor, and of course the 400s end at 420. why wouuld they make it that easy. now there are 2 wings to the building, so i walk back down to the first floor and take the OTHER set of stairs up to the OTHER fourth floor. but these rooms start at 430. at this point i had begun to tear out my hair and spit at passersby. i finally find someone who i can get directions from, and they send me outside, across a courtyard to another segment of the building which is, apparently, only accessible by fire-escape. now why didnt EYE think to climb the shady-looking stairs up the side of the building? how foolish of me. the office itself was un-labled and about 9 ft square. oh misr, how i do love thee.

oh and i saw a fantastic movie this weekend! - ismuhu the yacoubian building. i dont know if its out in the states... its this 3 hr long movie based off a book written by Alaa Al Aswany that has some really fascinating commentary on contemporary egyptian society and govt. def see it if you can find it. it just came out here so it might take it a while to make its way across the atlantic... a main character is that guy from "terrorism and kababs" - hilarious movie i saw at middlebury. he's normally a comic actor i guess... this movie didnt really lean in that direction although he did slip u a few times, which apparently was not entirely faithful to the novel. which i must read. immidiately. it was esp cool bc it takes place in cairo and i recognized a bunch of the places, and thus felt superior to all future viewers of the movie. i was like, "i ate there last night!" and "that's where that riot because of the naked girl happened!" yeah dont ask.

life is going pretty well on a whole still, although egypt is beginning to wear on me. everything is so much harder to do here... i think my neighbor's comment yesterday exemplifies what ppl go through here:

"the plumber was supposed to come yesterday at 4pm, so he's not THAT late by Egyptian standards"

frustration. and it is really hot outside. and people NEVER STOP BEEPING THEIR DAMN HORNS. its like a whole other way of communicating - they dont use them out of anger like they do in the states so much... its more just a friendly reminder to the other cars that, yes, theyre still there. sort of a "im coming up next to you where there isnt a lane but no big" or "im going to make this totally illegal turn across trafic, so despite the fact that i know that all laws of physics say you shouldnt be able to stop in time, im beeping to encourage you to try at least" or to pedestrians "i suggest dodging. now." or theyll just be sitting in traffic and theyll decide that they dont really want to be sitting there anymore, so theyll beep. which will encourage all of the cars around them to beep. a whole medley of beeping. now in the states this would be foolish because likelihood is, if the traffic is stopped, there's a reason it's stopped and beeping wont do anything other than piss off the ppl around you. in egypt however, because there are no stop lights (or rather, there are no stoplights that anyone pays any attention to), there are actual policemen controlling traffic flow. the beeps are drivers way of telling the policemen that they think theyve been stopped for long enough. and the policemen listen - probably because there is always the danger that the policemen are next in the line of traffic controls the drivers will stop paying attention to, and the traffic here will degenerate into total chaos. but that would just give egypt more personality, right?

so i guess my "honeymoon stage" is over. bummer. and now, according to the international student services office, my feelings towards egypt will degenerate into loathing for everything egyptian and/or non-american. something to look forward to? hopefully i wont swing that far. i just need a treadmill. treadmills cure all ills.

ok now i have class for 4 hrs. yay! look at my positive attitude.