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*

Tired now, but good stories from today.

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

More later...

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*

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!

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 Café”, 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!

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...

Early morning – late night.

I was up at 5:30am to do some homework and then make it downtown for the 8am train to Alexandria.

Our MCC group was going to hear a speaker discussing Egypt in the Bible and various ways of interpreting events. Mostly about the situation of the oppressed vs. being the oppressor and ways to present the situations to Jews and Muslims.

I slept for most of the trip, so that was good! *smile*

The talk was really good and with questions/answers it was about 2 hours. After that, we went for a nice lunch with lots of red meat (I don’t eat that very often here due to low availability and high price), then we had a couple of hours before our train back.

So we wandered over to the Bibliotecha Alexandrina -- check out the site for good information and some pictures. I took a few pics of my own and will have them available soon. The building just opened this winter, so it still looks new inside and out! It truly is gorgeous and I was pleased to see people using the library for research. Well, mostly for research. Many of the computer terminals were being used by university-aged students to watch movies or listen to music online. *smirk*

On the way back, the train stopped briefly in Tanta! That’s where I will hopefully be teaching, so I hopped out of the train for about 30 seconds. Now I can say that I have officially “been in Tanta”. *grin*

We made it back by 8pm and I rushed back to meet Darren, Annie, and Hashem at the office to watch “The Fellowship of the Ring”. Since I’ve been reading the books, I thought it would be nice to watch the movie, too. We had pizza to go along with it, so that was fun!

Off to bed now. Studying, studying, and more studying is the plan for Sunday.

For a good laugh, go to:

http://people.albion.edu/jenzer/_test.asp
(then click "Refresh" or "Reload" in your browser to see different pictures.

This is what the Albion College website (that's where I went to college and worked for 2 years) looked like on April Fool's Day! I'm glad they have a sense of humor there!

I've been messing with the layout of my journal a bit, since I added the weather update. I got a comment that it was hard to read the entries b/c they were so narrow so hopefully I've fixed that. I also updated some of the links and what I'm reading.

Frisbee was good. Met more random people. Need to shower and study, then sleep so that I can have energy for Alexandria on Saturday.

*burp*

I just got back from a big “International Dinner” at church. We had representatives and foods from different countries – Armenia, Canada, Denmark, Egypt, Germany, Great Britain, Holland, India, Ireland, Philippines, Portugal, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Russia, Switzerland, and the U.S. People from each country sang songs for the group and then we shared our foods. It’s quite a diverse church, eh?

My contribution was a modified version of my mother’s wonderful lemon cake. It seems that lemon pudding doesn’t exist in Egypt, so I had to substitute custard mix. I also had to replace the yellow cake mix with orange cake mix. Let’s just say it didn’t quite turn out like “Mom used to make”. *laugh* But it was pretty good. I’ll have to keep experimenting to see different ways of making it. The unique part is the orange juice/powdered sugar/water/margarine mixture that you put over the top and I was able to do that (with juice from an orange I squeezed, even!)

I went for some things new and some things familiar. From the Sudan, they had this really thick porridge-type thing. Basically flour, starch and water in quantities so that you had a sticky, thick mass that could be cut into pieces. Very bland, but filling. That was my first taste of Sudanese food.

In addition, I tried some spicy dishes from Sri Lanka and India, plus beef in Guinness from Ireland. On the U.S. table, I chose a bit of corn bread and some baked beans.

While eating, I chatted with a couple of people I’ve been getting to know, plus an older couple that’s new to the church. An Egyptian woman joined us at the end and then asked for my help walking her elderly mother back to their apartment. What a sweet old lady!

Now I’m digesting and procrastinating. Friday and Saturday are both going to be really busy days and I have lots to do in preparation for class on Monday. But I’ll manage!

Really hot today!

It's 8:30 evening and about 32C. That's the 90 in F. *sigh* But it's a bit cooler inside our place and it should cool down to the 60's for tonite. I'm trying to see if I can add weather to the page. Let's see if it works...

April Fools Day!

I tried to think of some good joke for today, but the joke was on me! Instead of joking, I ended up doing some serious thinking…

How different would the experience that I’m having now have been just 10 years ago?
By that, I mean that if people in their 20’s were doing this in 1993, how would their experience have been different than mine?

In 1993, they would _not_ have had:
-easy/cheap Internet/email access
-digital pictures to send/receive
-mobile phones so that people could reach them anytime

People just 10 years ago would only have had phone calls and letters to stay in contact. Imagine, mailing a letter and waiting weeks for a response!! *laugh*

What about 20-30 years ago? In Egypt and many places, the availability of a phone would have been severely limited at that time.

For those of you reading this with experience living “away from home” for extended periods of time, what do you think about my questions – based on what you went through.

…and for everyone else, what do you think? Are you glad about having this level of contact? Or would it be better to look forward to visits or hand-written letters?

Please post Comments or share your thoughts with me through email.

Which way is better? It makes me very happy that I am able to stay in touch with so many people by email and chatting online. I also like being able to have this journal available. But does this make me feel too close? It’s the _feeling_ of closeness, without the reality of being with/near people.

If I didn’t have all these ways of staying in contact, then maybe I would just go about my life and not think of people as often, or just look forward to people coming to visit. I think of my friends and family often – when I look at a picture, hear a song, see a certain car, or just remember back to happy occasions.

Now don’t get too concerned. *smile* Certainly, I’ve been a bit sad in thinking about this topic today and in typing out my thoughts, but I’m ok. A very good friend asked me today if I was feeling “culture shocked”. At the time, I denied that I was, but the answer is probably yes.

But I’ll get through it, and it’s not too bad. Today was a good day! The sun was shining and it was very warm. It was 25C (77F) when I was walking around at 6pm and it was much warmer than that at noon when I was getting a bit of sun and reading.

…listening to Fleetwood Mac’s “The Dance” while typing this… Any other Fleetwood Mac fans out there? Will anyone be getting tickets for their N. American tour this summer? The song “My Little Demon” seems to be stuck in my brain now.

I still have some preparation to do for teaching on Wednesday (yeah, I’m a broken record when it comes to talking about class), but after tomorrow I have a few days off again. I’m surrounded by good people here, and I have plenty of support.

Another day, another teaching experience.

Today was the first day with the “Upper Intermediate” group. What a change from the “Elementary” level students from the past couple of weeks. I still have some bumpy moments, but today went well for me.

This evening, I’ve been relaxing a bit. Scrabble with Darren, now some email, and then for tea and some Backgammon.

Tomorrow, the cycle of lesson planning begins again, as I get ready to teach on Wednesday. That’s about all I have planned.

Some random pictures...

Username: jpics
Password: easy

From Saturday:

Just got back from a performance of the Cairo Symphony Orchestra at the Opera House. The main piece was Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana -- it was amazing!

I kinda organized the evening. I had been hoping to attend this performance and I convinced a couple of other people to go with me. Carmen and Mike from MCC came along, plus this young woman named Charlie.

Now I’m trying to download my email, but somebody apparently sent me a message with a big attachment, so it’s taking a long time! I hope it’s worth it…

It was a big email with a Power Point slide-show with images from the war. Very well-done pictures, but the situation still saddens me.

I’ve been struggling with this entry. I have in my mind this really good comparison with Fight Club but when I try to write it out, it just loses all its meaning.

So I’ll just have to say that the past couple of days, I feel like I almost understand something or almost feel comfortable…and then some little thing happens to remind me that I’m still not quite there yet. I’m a bit discouraged right now about Arabic. I haven’t had the time/desire to devote enough time to it lately, so I’ve forgotten some of what I learned when I first got here.

But I suppose that feeling will pass. It’s a gorgeous, warm day out so I’m going to enjoy it!

Today should have been a leisurely day, but it ended up being a "these are the little frustrations in Egypt" day. Nothing major, just a bunch of little things.

Arabic was tutorial and I don't think my tutor liked it when I basically told her that we need to slow down b/c of my need to work on teaching and have enough time to relax. Oh well.

More tomorrow...

I’m passing!!!!

My teacher-training course, that is. Today was the end of the first two weeks (wow!) and we received our first evaluation. The course is “continuous assessment” so essentially they can be watching us all the time to rate our performance, participation in our learning sessions, etc plus we’ve had 1 written assignment (I got a “pass” on that too), and the teaching sessions we’ve done so far.

So, I’m fairly pleased. The class is tough and people do fail sometimes. They went more in-depth on our evaluation and in some areas I got a “Satisfactory” mark, but on a couple of them, I got “Satisfactory, but needs work”.

Overall, I’m getting a “Pass” grade. The scale goes “Strong Pass”, then “Pass”, down to “Fail”. At this point, I’d say most people are in the “Pass” category with some of the really good folks probably getting a “Strong Pass”.

I rewarded myself with a waffle covered in chocolate syrup and some chocolate ice cream at a pancake restaurant! This is the one near where I have my Arabic tutorial. I finally made it to one tonight, after calling to cancel for the past 2 weeks. It was good to be back! (and have a treat!)

Thursday night, I’ll have another Arabic tutorial, so I have homework to work on during the day. Thankfully, between now and Monday morning, all I need to do for my teaching class is think through my lesson and write out my lesson plan.

I think I’ll be up awhile tonight, since I can sleep in a bit on Thursday morning.

Oh, as an update on the weather, I think that Spring started today. Well, at least it was much warmer today than the last couple of days…

I’m listening to the Fleetwood Mac “Rumours” album right now and I’m going to check on their tour dates/locations online tonight. Supposedly, they’re doing a world tour this summer.

This afternoon, it was 12 C here. *brrrrr* It’s probably more like 10 now that we’re into the evening. Converted , that’s around 54 F this afternoon and 50 F now. Plus rain. I got rained on 2 different times today as I was out walking around!!!!

Not much going on today. This was my “day off” from my teaching class, so I spent a few hours this morning on work for class, and went in to meet with people from my group for 2 hours this afternoon, and now I have work yet to do tonight. Some day off! *laugh*

I did take some time for myself today. I’m happy to report that I finished reading “Fellowship of the Ring” and I’ll soon be starting “The Two Towers”. I’m really enjoying Tolkien, but I’m glad I saw the movies first.

Links to some pictures...

Username: jpics
Password: easy

Coptic Cairo (about 20 pics):

and

Walking along the Nile, pretty trees and the "Nilometer"

COLD!!!!!

With a capital *shiver*

*laugh*

The past couple of days it’s been pretty chilly. I’ve needed to wear a jacket outside, no big deal. Well, today it rained and then got really cold! Yes, it rained again. That’s now 6 times it has rained in the 6 weeks or so that I’ve been here! Very unusual!

Today, our tutors at class who have been in Cairo for 3-5 years all said that this is the longest they can remember winter “hanging on”. I guess usually it’s getting quite warm by this point. Oh well, when I’m sweltering in the heat this summer, I’ll probably be glad that it was cool for awhile longer.

How cold is it? I’m not sure b/c we don’t have a thermometer and I didn’t walk past the one that’s near here. It’s definitely the coldest it’s been in my time here. I could see my breath while walking – if that’s any indication! Colder here than in Michigan, I bet. What an odd concept!

-----------------

My teaching class went really well today! Sure, there were little glitches and I still got some feedback from my tutor and fellow students about my talking too fast, but it was definitely an improvement over my first time teaching. Yeah, I need to work on my delivery – I’m trying to slow down and I did better with that today, but when I get a bit frazzled I have the tendency to juststarttalkingreallyfastandrunningwordstogether. It’s tough for the students, so I really need to work on it.

But I enjoyed today’s class much more than my first one that I taught. I was told by one classmate and my tutor that I look very natural and comfortable in front of the class. I’m getting there, that’s for sure. Two of my other classmates weren’t so sure about that. They thought I looked nervous up there. I was, but my confidence and comfort levels are increasing. Unfortunately, so is the difficulty level of the classes we have to prepare!

My part of today’s lesson was to introduce the topic of “What is a loner” and go over some potentially difficult vocabulary words like: “country” (as in green places with trees, not a nation), “suburb”, “meal”, “guests”, “lonely”, and “loner”. First I just did a bit of talking about myself and had the students listen. Then I had them do a matching exercise with the definitions and words.

No scheduled class on Tuesday, but I need to do my lesson plan for teaching on Wednesday. A few of us from my group are going to meet on Tues. afternoon to discuss our ideas/plans.

Sorry for all the teacher talk.

-----------------

A bit of follow-up from yesterday’s topic about the best and worst experiences of our lives…

I haven’t checked my email to see if anyone has been sharing, but hopefully you have been. Since I started thinking about all this, I asked one of my new friends here that question and found out that he/she (to protect their identity) is married! I would have never suspected! This person is separated from their spouse (by the other person’s choice) and is really struggling with the situation. The best moment of the person’s life was falling in love with the person and the worst was when the separation took place. Sad…the person is and has been praying about the situation and now, so will I.

-----------------------------

Another link to look at:

Bloggers join the war effort -- soldiers and other with personal reports from Iraq

In case you missed this article from the Washington Post, check it out:
"Attack was 48 hours old when it began"

For some reason, I'm having a bit of trouble downloading my email right now, so I'm sorry if I don't get back to you right away.

In class today, as one of our practice exercises, we were asked the following questions:

What are the best and worst moments of your life? Why are they so memorable?

(pause)

(pause)

It took me a few minutes to really think about this and I should still probably think about it more. I’m pretty sure about the best moment, but I don’t know about the worst one. Is that a good sign.

The worst moment I could think of was when my Grandma Gautsche was at the hospital, dying. So many family members and loved ones were around, but there was so little to say to anyone.

*frown*

But it makes me smile to think about my happiest moment. It’s a fairly recent memory from within the last year.

My happiest moment was when I helped my nephew Justin learn to tie his shoes. At least I think I did. *grin* I was at one of his soccer games and he asked me for help tying his shoe. Turns out, he hadn’t learned yet so I tried to teach him. I don’t know if he remembers or if someone else actually taught him, but that’s a really happy moment in my life.

So it’s time for a bit of feedback. To all those reading this, please email me and share the best and worst moments of your life. (if you’re comfortable sharing, of course)

I did nothing but go to my teaching class today. I was there from 9:30am – 7:15pm. *sigh*

At the very least, I am being presented with a lot of information about teaching. I'm still not sure how much I'm learning, but I do regurgitate a bit of jargon like "communicative" or "Task-Based Learning" every now and then. *laugh* It's prettty good, but some of the days are really long. Tonight, I didn't get back from class until 7:30 (got there at 9:30) and now that I've finished dinner it's almost 8:30. I teach on Monday, so I need to finish up a lesson plan and some materials yet tonight.