Can it possibly be the end of May already???? Amazing! In some ways, it feels like I’ve been here a long time with all that I’ve done but in other ways it barely feels like I’ve been here any time at all! Yet it’s been almost 4 months!

Up early to have breakfast with Scott and Willie before they head off to the airport. After that I’ll do a bit of studying, take a nap, and go to Arabic tutorial tonight.

After Willie and Scott went to bed last night, I went up to the office to plunk away on the guitar a bit. Unfortunately it’s out of tune, so I need to get some help on that. While I was there, I turned on the TV and got sucked into “Maverick” with Jodie Foster and Mel Gibson.

What a funny movie! I had forgotten how many little jokes were in there! My favorite is the Danny Glover cameo. If you haven’t seen this western or haven’t seen it recently, I highly recommend it!

Hot, hot, hot! It never cooled off last night like it has the past few nights. *sigh* That’s not a good sign! It can’t be summer yet, can it???

So a few days ago, while window-shopping at one of my local computer stores, some of the young Egyptian guys started talking excitedly around me. They were convinced that I look like this famous French soccer player:

Zinedine Zidane

...and some pics...

I had no idea who this guy was, so I went hunting on the net, found some pictures, and then ask for a couple of opinions from folks back home (you know who you are) to see if they agreed.

Opinion 1: “Yeah, I can see the resemblance”
Opinion 2: “Are you taking something hallucinogenic?”

Now, you get to decide. What do you think? Let’s get a vote going here!

Hangin’ out with Scott and Willie from South Africa today!

We had a good time and they are really nice guys. Both are in their 30s, married and have children. Today was quite hot but they saw it as an opportunity to get used to the heat they will feel in Algeria over the next few weeks.

Yes, Algeria. The place that just had the major earthquake. That’s where they are headed now. Nothing associated with the quake, as their trip was already planned when it happened, but things still might be chaotic. They don’t know if there will be power in places…

Scott and Willie work with a Christian organization that my old roommate Darren’s friend Mike is part of. That’s how they got connected with me to stay here. It’s really worked out well.

They arrived around 8am, so we spent a bit of time chatting and relaxing, then went out shopping and checking out Cairo from 1-6pm. Scott got a couple of souvenirs to take back with him. We had nice prayers before both of the meals we shared together.

It’s 9pm and they are both headed for bed, since they’ve been awake for about 40 hours now! Yikes! I’ll stay up awhile yet, probably practicing a bit of Arabic and guitar. I read over Arabic notes earlier and got quite a bit of verbal practice with our outing this afternoon. So that leaves the guitar. I did some finger exercises earlier on the bus, but not much.

We’re getting up around 7am so that the guys can get a bus for the airport around 10am and fly out at 1pm. They’ll be back in a couple of weeks, right before I move to Tanta. Good timing!

Visitors arriving early tomorrow morning from S. Africa. Must get up at 6am to meet them. *sigh*

Arabic went well. That's a plus.

I had my first guitar lesson with my friend Juan. Difficult, but fun! More on that later...

I wasn't home much on Sunday, so please excuse the lack of an update.

Sunday morning, I started a workout routine with Mike, on of the other MCC'ers. We did all upper-body (bicep, tricep, shoulders, chest, forearms) yesterday and abdominals we can do every day just on our own, I think.

After that, I stayed around his place for the day (Clue, Gin Rummy, and a nice spaghetti dinner came with the deal *grin*). One of his students was with us for the afternoon, so that was fun and I got a bit of Arabic conversation practice with him.

I didn’t get home until around 9pm and I was quite tired. I made it until about midnight and then crashed!

Well, I had a fun afternoon but a frustrating evening. One-out-of-two isn't bad... *smirk*

This afternoon was a nice potluck with people from church downtown (just one I visit sometimes) in one of the more foreigner-oriented communities. Nice to see lots of trees and just chat for hours on end. Mostly just getting to know people better and talking about what we all do, but it was good.

The frustrating part was during Arabic tonight. *sigh* As I'm presently studying, I'm not putting in enough time or not doing things write to learn/memorize quickly enough. I guess I just need to use my time more efficiently and sacrifice some of my "free time" to get things going better. Each lesson we just pile on more and more and I feel myself slipping behind where I should be.

But Bob Marley music is making "everything alright".

I'll get through this, so no worries at this end. Just venting, mostly. For more on writing like this, see David's thoughts on Blogging...

Music suggestions from my friend Mel. She's always good for non-mainstream music ideas.

“Old School Freight Train (www.osft.net) The first time we saw them, they did a cover of "Superstition" by Stevie Wonder...VERY cool.

We also saw Mike Doughty (www.superspecialrock.com), who is Mr. Do-It-Yourself-er. He was the front man for a band called Soul Coughing until about 4 years ago, but now it's just him and his guitar on stage. Pretty cool guy.”

Both sites have MP3s to download, if you’re patient…

I still have Pink in heavy rotation on my computer. I think I’m going to keep listening to the tracks I have until I get really sick of them.

At some point, I’ll need to borrow some CDs from people to rip to MP3.

Or maybe I’ll download some MP3s, but it’s so slooooooowwwww over a phoneline connection.

But there might be some hope for that situation. One of the other MCC volunteers (Mike) teaches at a Catholic Seminary here in Cairo. They get lots of money from the U.S. and have really nice facilities like decent computers and a (somewhat) fast Internet connection. (ISDN, for those techies out there)

I might go over there sometime and “borrow” their connection to upload photos and download some music. *grin*

Mike is also going to put me in contact with their computer/networking guy so that I can talk wireless networking with him. I think it would be a nice thing if they had a little wireless network connection set up. (I could also use that when I come to Cairo for visits *grin*)

I’m pricing the hardware at one of the computer stores in my neighborhood, just to get an idea of what it would cost. Looks like about $80 for cards and $160 for the access point. Not sure how that is compared to in the U.S.

Very tired from Frisbee, the heat (100F this afternoon), so the music-related post must wait...

Instead of reading what I would have written, call someone and tell them that you love them or you miss them (whichever is appropriate).

*smile*

Oops...

I forgot to actually put out the link for Darren's party pics, but it's there now. And here's the link, for good measure:
Darren's Going-Away Party

Username: jpics
Password: easy

I'll try to add the music-related posted (promised from yesterday) later.

Ahoy -- random thoughts ahead! (you’ve been warned) *smile*

So if you can't find Baking Soda, how do you bake? It's easy to find baking powder, but that's not what my recipes call for. Even in the Western-style supermarket, I can't find baking soda...

Thoughts? Ways to improvise? A no-prize will be given for all correct/useful answers received.

Speaking of prizes...

I came to a realization today. Quiz programs aren’t very effective or entertaining when there aren’t any prizes involved and every caller gets the answer right on the first guess. *smirk*

How did I come to this realization? Well, after my Arabic lesson today, I stopped by the office to relax and I turned on the TV. On NileTV (the sometimes English-language Egyptian network), they were showing a program called “Cinema Quiz”. They would show 10 minutes of an Egyptian b&w movie from the 40s or 50s and then go to a young, attractive Egyptian woman in the studio who would read a question and ask people to call in with the answer. Then, they’d go back to the movie for 10 minutes, and return to her and have a caller guess.

Note the word “guess”. Of the 4 questions/answers I heard, the caller was blindly guessing each time and freely admitted that they didn’t know anything about the movies and the director they were discussing. Add in several “hello, are you there” moments with the hostess talking to a disconnected phoneline and you get to a weird program. Well, at least to Western eyes. When the correct guess was given, it was followed by a "great, please call us again" by the hostes. Couldn't they at least send them a box of tea or something??? *grin*

On the plus side, the movie was quite funny and had English subtitles so I could check to see what I was understanding. The plot involved a rich man with a wife, but also a mistress. Of course, both women end up in the same place and the same time, so he has to convince his trusted (if incompetent) friend to pretend that he is married to the mistress.

Silliness ensues…

Yes, that plot appears to go across cultures. I was reminded of Jerry Lewis for some reason.

-----Odd News story for the week:

Story about a NY Times writer who included inaccuracies and lies in recent stories to intentionally get fired:
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/Northeast/05/21/blair.ap/index.html

That’s enough for now.

Tomorrow’s topic: music – stay tuned!

...for the record...

I never said my mom writes too many comments, nor did Erik. We're all glad to read my mom's comments, right?
Love ya' mom!

Just got back from a really good jazz performance and I was reminded of a few things.

1) I really like jazz, and I’ve missed hearing good live music and guys just up there jamming on a sax, guitar, and drum set. Here, they throw an Oud into the mix. I guess it’s what the guitar is derived from.

2) People in Egypt usually walk slowly, but any vehicle you’re in is driving much faster than you would expect, given the crowded streets. My mini-bus on the way home was no exception to this. Horn blaring all the way, 14-16 of us crammed into a Toyota minivan, no seat belts, and just going on faith… *smile*

A story connected to that:

Last week, Tuesday was Darren’s last day so we had the lunch at Chili’s. Well, I never described how we got there. We had a group of 6 going from Dawson Hall, so we split up 3 each into 2 different cabs and set off.

About mid-way there, I realized the cabs were racing each other!!! Our driver looked somewhat serious and was wearing dark sunglasses, but he flashed us the occasional smile. The driver of the other cab had this huge grin on his face every time he overtook us! Sadly, our car lost the race but I guess we all won since we survived. I was sitting in the front seat and the ladies in the back seemed a bit nervous, especially when we realized that our driver didn’t really understand where we wanted him to go. Fortunately, the other driver did so we followed him.

So the name of the group I saw tonight is “Freddy Rizk & Friends”. (that link is for an upcoming performance that I'll hopefully make it to) They’re mostly Egyptian, but one guy is French and another spent a bunch of time in Quebec. Apparently, they’re touring the U.S. soon, so look out for them. I highly recommend them – definitely worth the price of admission. Well, I paid less than $2 for my ticket, so it’s tough to complain! But I did really enjoy the show – non-stop music for 2 solid hours.

Very funny! I randomly found this link (http://www.freep.com/news/religion/kens19_20030519.htm) on the freep.com yesterday and then my friend Mike emailed me the link to draw my attention to it.

It’s about a church called Kensington. This church planted Genesis, the one that I had been attending in Royal Oak. Now this article is about another church they are going to plant…in Salt Lake City, Utah!!! All this and a connection to the Detroit Lions too – go on, read the story!

Last night, I caught up with my friend Rob on MSN Messenger and it was really nice to catch up with him. Anyone else want to chat with the help of the Evil Empire ™? *smirk*

More Arabic today, and maybe listening to a jazz performance tonight. We shall see…

Well, I've updated the links to pictures so hopefully that's working. Not much today beyond studying and reading so far. But that's an ok day in my book! *grin*

So does everyone I know from Albion like Dar Williams? Shelby just went to one of her concerts... I know Fin, Misty, Erik, and Dan are all fans, plus Shelby and Kevin. Any others?

Speaking of requests from answers (comments in the journal or emails are fine) -- does anybody have a picture of me from Halloween last year in my Jester's outfit? If so, can you send it/them to my yahoo email account? Thanks.

While writing this, I was listening to a group from the UK called "frou frou". Weird name, nice music.

Had a leisurely day, then played a bit of Ping Pong and a card game called "Pit" with the folks over at Dawson Hall. I'm trying to adjust my schedule for the heat by staying up late, getting up kinda early, and napping in the afternoon. We'll see how that works out...

It's been a movie-watching as study-break weekend. Friday night before I went to play backgammon, I watched "Murder in the First" that Rob gave me before I left Michigan. Kevin Bacon did a pretty decent job in this one...

Tonight, I needed to stop at the MCC office to drop off some paperwork, so I decided to watch a video. But first I got caught up in watching subtitled music videos. Yes, you read that right. It's a strange concept, but these were songs sung in Arabic, but with English subtitles. Interesting to see what these songs are really about. Apparently all the pop songs here are love songs...

So I finally got around to watching "The World is Not Enough". It came out in 1999 and I'm pretty sure I saw it, but I had forgotten almost everything about it. Brosnan as Bond, so I can't complain too much -- but some of the jokes are getting really cheezy!

On an unrelated note, isn't it odd how sometimes when you think about people the timing works out that you hear from them right away. I hadn't heard from my friend David in a week or so, but I got to catch up with him a bit today.

Erik shared with me today that he's very impressed by all the comments I get on this journal. But he gave me a hard time about how so many of them are from my mom! *grin*

Thanks for reading and commenting, mom!!!!

Based on David’s recommendation, I’m currently downloading the mp3 of Ani Difranco’s song/poem “self-evident” which discusses September 11 and the current U.S. political situation. The lyrics are really interesting…

It’s downloading slowly over the phoneline, of course. But I am now hoping for a faster connection at some point soon. How? Well, every time I walk past the computer stores down the street, I look in the window to see what their newest items are.

Well, on Thursday I noticed that they now carry D-Link wireless networking cards for laptops and wireless access points (sorry for all the tech-talk). So, I’m hunting around my neighborhood to see if anyone has a DSL connection with a wireless network set up. I thought the store selling the cards might, so I carried my laptop up there last night, but it couldn’t pick up a signal. Unless they turn things off at night. I need to check during the day and also try the area around the internet café in our neighborhood too.

Unfortunately, Netstumbler only has a map for the U.S. and no site I can find by searching has any info about Cairo...

Tonight I watched WWE wrestling on TV. I’m so ashamed. It was an accident, I promise. *grin* I was sitting at my favorite coffee place, playing backgammon, drinking Tang, and watching music videos when all of a sudden they switched it to cheesy wrestling. Silly! *laugh*

So many changes in the week since I last wrote a good journal entry…

I still need to catch up by telling stories from last weekend at the MCC Retreat, but that will wait until I get the pictures uploaded.

Last night, Darren (my roommate these past 3 months) flew home to Canada. *sniff* I’ll miss him, but I better not write too much about that, since he might be reading this! *laugh*

We had a really nice going-away party for him on Monday night, here at our place. Lots of the Sudanese teacher/volunteers from St. Andrews came, along with the Presbyterian volunteers we know, and even my friend Khaleem who I met at my Arabic class that I took when I first got here! Lots and lots of yummy food – people really brought lots of things!

So Tuesday was Darren’s last day in town so we planned to have one last big lunch. So we went to Chili’s! *laugh* Yeah, like you’d see in the U.S. – in fact, it was like they took one apart in the U.S. and shipped it over here. They’re just like the ones you can go to there! Kinda weird, but worth it to have Coke with Cherry syrup in it! And they give free refills! (that’s a rare thing here!)

After that, I spent a few hours working on my lesson with one of my classmates and then finally made it back home around 9pm. Darren finished packing and watched South Park while I worked on my lesson but at 1am I stopped so that we could play our last few games of Scrabble together before Craig picked him up at 1:30.

He should be back in Canada by now, I think. Hopefully Darren made it safely…

Today was my last day of my teaching course, so I’m DONE!!!!!!!! On Sunday or Monday, I’ll see my “provisional grade” and in about 8 weeks, I’ll get my certificate to show that I completed the certification. It was a long course and really difficult at times, but tremendously useful! I’ve learned so much.

Well, I need to catch up on some emails I’ve been ignoring for the past week and upload some pictures!

Got back from Alexandria late last night and into bed around 2.30am. What a great weekend! Pictures and stories after things calm down around here. Maybe on Thursday.

Darren was supposed to be leaving on a flight late tonight (Monday) but the flight was rescheduled for Tuesday night, so he's along for a bit longer. We had his going-away celebration tonight. Good fun and nice to see so many of his friends.

Tired, so I must go to bed. Tuesday I'll be doing a bit of preparation for my last day of class on Wednesday. I'll be taking a break to join Darren and some folks for lunch.

Heading out after a morning/early afternoon of baking. I'll be in Alexandria from now through Sunday night.

Stories when I return, hopefully.

I learned a valuable lesson this evening…

Don’t buy chocolate bars on a warm day! *laugh*
I wanted a snack after class and I ended up with some really mushy chocolate.

On the topic of food, I’ve had a special request to make Molasses Cookies for Darren’s going-away party on Monday night. So, I’ll be baking again on Thursday morning/early afternoon since I’ll be gone at the MCC retreat from Thursday night – Sunday night.

Our friends Annie and Hashim asked for the cookies, so I’m happy to make them. I just need to do a bit of shopping Thursday morning to get ingredients. Hey, it’ll get me out of bed at a decent hour!!

Teaching went really, really well today. I taught my best lesson in the past 3-4 weeks. The topic was “the language of gossip and rumour”. Yes, thanks to me a group of Egyptians can now say bad things about their neighbors, friends, and co-workers (in English). *grin*

The class really got into the language we were using like “you’ll never guess what I heard”, “promise you won’t tell anyone”, “my lips are sealed”, and “I’m all ears”.

“I’m all ears” was a great one to do. There was a bit of confusion, so I ended up trying to demonstrate having big ears by putting my hands up on either side of my head. That was reasonably effective and we also discussed Dumbo the elephant. So silly!