"Time Won't Let Me Go"

It feels like time here is moving so slowly. But, then again that's how it felt when I started my adventure in Prague too. I know it will pick up, but at the moment I feel as if I'm not doing a whole lot...which is only sort of true. I mean, this has been the first week in a brand new program with brand new classes. AMIDEAST has done a fantastic job of letting us adjust to taking classes with such a rigorous workload by not making us do much else this week and for that I am grateful, as I know the rest of this semester is going to be difficult. 

Right now, I'm in kind of a slump. It's the week of my birthday and I'm not home with anyone I know and to top it all off...I have a cold. I know that once this cold passes and I become better friends with those in my program, life will get better and go back to being what it normally is for me when I travel...a lot of fun. 

I'm just still in the awkward phase. I'm trying to figure out who I'm going to be friends with and just how much we have in common. It's the first week of college all over again. And I have to say, Prague was a little easier on me in this respect. I mean, I traveled over to the Czech Republic with Kris and then became fast friends with Steph, Shayna, Dave and everyone. It was easy to find friends, I guess because we all had the same interests...film, television, etc. Here it's just going to take more time...and those who know me know how I feel about things not happening instantaneously.

But, enough of my ramblings about things that haven't quite fallen into place. Since I started classes I've done quite a bit. I decided to drop MSA and replace it with International Relations of the Middle East, which is taught by a gentleman who is in the Egyptian parliament...it's going to be a very interesting class...I'll keep you posted as the semester continues. But, other than that, I'm taking the same classes I was before. 

Classes:
~Colloquial Arabic
~Introduction to Ancient Egypt
~Customs and Manners of Ancient Egypt
~Art and Hieroglyph*** I'm most excited about this one!
~International Relations

I managed to make it through the whole first week of classes, even though I contracted a cold at some point, and that includes not getting killed as I crossed the street on my way to school. Though I'm still working on the whole "I want to adventure" thing...still not comfortable going by myself just yet. 

Honestly, I haven't done a whole lot this week. I went down to the AUC bookstore three times to pick up some of my books for classes, which are costing me a small fortune (yuck!) and I had koshary (yum!) twice. Also, yesterday we were introduced to a cool place called, The Culture Wheel, which is a really awesome art place in Zamalek that holds film nights, and plays and all sorts of other things. We were there to see a dialogue about how Islam is viewed in the West. It was really interesting. You can tell a talk is good when you don't realize you've been sitting in the same place for two hours. I think I'm going to have to venture back there more often to satisfy my art craving. 


And so, there you have it folks! I'm going to now try and see what everyone is doing tonight. I was working on finding an internship and such, but I'm getting tired of looking and being on the computer. 


More to come! Just keep watching!