Saturday, April 12, 2003

Thanks to my friend Care for the inspiration in renaming this journal. I think it's more appropriate than just the general "J travels", eh?

I've been feeling a bit whipped today. The combination of:

-not enough sleep
-too much sun
-being way too active
-not drinking enough water

over the past 3 days finally caught up with me on Friday night through most of the day on Saturday. I was really sick on Friday night and slept on-and-off for 16 hours before finally dragging my tail out of bed at 1:30pm Sat. afternoon to go meet up with my classmates to talk about an assignment we have due on Monday.

I'm feeling soooooooo much better now. I just took it easy tonight and watched Top Gun on my computer.

At some point, I'll get around to posting the pictures from the camel market. That was Friday's big trip...

It's been great to hear from so many people lately. I've been getting lots of emails and I found out that my good friends Matt and Jen will be having a little boy in August! *smile*

Thursday, April 10, 2003

Tired now, but good stories from today.

I visited the big, solid, old things in Giza.

More later...

Wednesday, April 09, 2003

Well, I taught this afternoon.
(much to my surprise!) *grin*

One of my classmates was sick today, so she couldn’t make it in. So, I was given the “opportunity” to fill in for her. *laugh* I joke because at first, I didn’t know how to react when they asked me to help out. The first thing I thought was, “no – are you crazy? I don’t have any time for preparation and I need to do handouts and…”

But right away, my instructor told me that it was really just an opportunity for me to have a bit of unofficial/unobserved/ungraded practice. I’d just be up there on my own and doing what I could but I wouldn’t get a grade for it or anything. She added that I should “have fun”, so I decided to go for it.

I felt a bit unprepared while teaching and the lesson didn’t feel as good as some I’ve done, but my classmates who were observing me said that it looked great to them and the students were into it. I’m really glad that I was able to do this. I definitely wouldn’t do one of my graded lessons with so little preparation, but this let me find out what areas are really coming naturally to me now. Giving instructions, monitoring the students, and changing from one task to another just work out ok for me now…

As a treat, one of my classmates brought in a poppy seed cake that she made. I don’t need to take any drug tests soon, so I tried it. Very yummy!

Speaking of food…my friend Lisa asked me about what food you can find and here’s the answer I gave her:

Many N. American and European items are available in Cairo. There's a chain of "supermarkets" that carry all sorts of crazy things. They just added Quaker granola bars and Quaker Oats to the shelves 2 weeks ago. Pretty expensive, though. $8 U.S. for a small box of granola bars or a medium-sized tube of oats.

Most things, I try to buy the Egyptian version that is similar. I could pay way too much money for imported Kellogg's Corn Flakes, but it's much cheaper to get the local "BiscoMasr" Corn Flakes.

However, with all that said, it's random little things that don't exist. For instance, you can get cake mix in vanilla, orange, and chocolate flavors. That's it. There's Jello, but for some bizarre reason you can't get Lime (not that I care). Only Strawberry and Cherry, plus Mango

I guess there's an even bigger supermarket somewhere in the rich/ex-pat part
of town, but I haven't been there yet.

UPDATE: The quest for shoelaces continues. I haven’t looked in a couple of days, but I need to get out there tonight and check out the situation. *grin*

Tuesday, April 08, 2003

It’s been one year…

Check the entry for April 8, 2002 to find out what happened one year ago.

What a crazy year it’s been! So many changes!

Today was a nice, lazy day. I finished reading _The Two Towers_ and managed to get a bit of sun while doing it! *grin* I slept in until about 10:30, too! But the evening will be busy. George, the Egyptian accountant/assistant at the MCC office is picking me up at 6:30 to go over to his house to meet his family. Dinner? He just invited me today, so I’m not sure what’s happening.

At 8pm, I need to be at my Arabic tutorial, so things will be a bit rushed. But that’s ok.

I’ve been chatting a bit with my aunt Alonna and uncle Michael as I write this. What fun!

Monday, April 07, 2003

Ah, a good day!

Class is finished and I don’t teach again for a few days. So, Tuesday I have “free”! *smile* My lesson went well today, but it was really stressful/difficult for 2 of the other teachers in my group. I feel bad for them.

At any rate, I’m still a “Pass” for my grade and I’m headed for a “Strong Pass”, given my improvement and success in my past few lessons. That’s a bit of a relief!

A few classmates were going across the street to the “Back ‘n Time 60’s CafĂ©”, so I went with them for a celebratory Cappuccino! This place must be very new b/c it’s extremely clean. Quite a nice place and not very busy since we were there so early (around 7pm). My friend’s Mocha looked better than my capp, so maybe I’ll go again and get something chocolaty.

I’m back home to eat some of the leftover fish from last night and then I want to go out again in search of shoelaces. I got some better suggestions at class today, so maybe I’ll get the right thing today. After that, I might stop in for some tea/Backgammon.

Now for dinner!

Sunday, April 06, 2003

Today, my big quest is to find black shoelaces. In my favorite pair of dress shoes, the laces have worn out. My guess is that I can buy them at a shoe store, but we’ll see in a couple of hours if that guess is correct.

Another nice day. One thing about the air being so dry is that laundry doesn’t stay wet for very long, once it’s hung up!

I met up with some of my classmates this afternoon to discuss our teaching. I’ve finished my assignment for Monday and I need to write up my lesson plans after church.

Darren hasn’t been feeling very well the past day or so. He thinks it’s slight heat stroke and dehydration. He’s been resting a lot today and I’ve been trying to look in on him every once in awhile.

The speculation is that the young Presbyterian volunteers who were sent to Cyprus for 2 weeks will stay for _another_ 2 weeks. Silly! It’s so safe here, so we can’t figure out what their program can possibly be thinking…

Last night, I saw on the news about demonstrations in S. Korea and Japan, but there’s been nothing going on in Cairo lately. I guess last week in Alexandria there was a gathering of 30,000 protesters.

Listening to Billy Joel Greatest Hits V2, Disc 1 right now...