Good afternoon readers (it's 4:30pm) where I am today while reading this and I don't have class tonight! I have a midterm instead. But it won't be bad. The professor will email it out at 5pm. It should take us 2-3 hours to complete, but we have 72 hours to return it. It's not nearly as bad as my other midterm this semester. I have four classes but only two have tests. The other two are very theoretical and broad concept classes so instead of papers, we have papers, many many papers over the semester. But my other class with a midterm was International Law, which in itself is an impossibly broad and theoretical class, as was its midterm. The midterm was emailed to us at 2pm. It was estimated that it should have taken us 6-8 hours to complete and we only had 24 hours to return it. In reality, it took much longer. I finished in just over 9 hours, and my 7 friends in the same class all took longer. There are 6 people that I know of in the class that pulled all-nighters to complete it. And now I sit, awaiting my grade. The professor emailed a couple of hours ago that he is in the process of posting the grades along with comments for each of us online now. Mine still is not posted... so keep your fingers crossed with me.
I have also been teaching English this semester as a volunteer in one of the churches in Coptic Cairo. It has been a lot of fun,and the new English semester will start in 2 weeks. I taught two classes (22 students each) on Wednesday nights. I will move up to the next level with my students. It was so much fun, and kind of challenging. I didn't realize how much of the English language that I don't know, and apparently others don't either. I would ask some of my friends questions I had, and NO ONE seemed to know the answers. For native speakers, it seems we take a lot for granted in our speech. Rules are not so much dictated to us as we grow up, but instead we just pick them up through listening and conversation. They exist no doubt -because we do it, but we don't KNOW them. So when trying to describe to my class why can't use this word here or can't say this, I needed more than "because that's what you do" or "because that SOUNDS more correct".
It turned out I would often look on the internet and find really weird or completely inaccurate statements, or none at all. On the internet! Are you kidding - NO ONE has asked this question on the internet before! So I would sit for a while and write example sentences of whatever grammar problem I was presented with, and try through trial and error to deduce a possible rule that might exist. I was successful in most cases. However sometimes I would THINK that I found a very concrete, clear rule, only to my dismay to find it mis-used in next week's homework, and i would have to start over again... frustrating.
The worst questions were the ones that came on the fly, and which I answered confidently and quickly. I learned to stop doing that actually.
"Mr. Randy - we can make 'she is' the contraction of 'she's', what is the contraction of 'she has'?"
"Oh class - that is also "she's"
Next week's homework: "She's a tall woman. She's brown hair."
Randy - CRAP!
Next week's class: "Okay class now you can only use "she's" for she is when describing someone - nouns and adjectives. And you have to use she has otherwise. You can only use "she's" for she has when using verbs. Such as:
She's been to China twice this year. OR She's ridden a motorcycle before"
This was my process week in week out. I would never have told you before I got here that there was a rule for when you could use she's for each of its forms. One for verbs and one for nouns and adjectives. It is just part of our speech. But now I have to know it - because 44 eager college students are depending on me to make sure they don't tell someone "she's brown hair"!
I appreciate my teachers all the more now - forced to come up with smart, engaging, concrete rules and answers on the spot for eager minds with many questions. It is harder than it looks people! Appreciate those who taught/teach you! I do! This one's for you Ustetha!
G'do
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Friday, November 5, 2010
Egyptians on Strike
So while I was sick last week - I didn't blog extra. First the one blog I did make wouldn't publish.... and I finally got it to publish today but had to take the pictures down to make it happen... boo. But anyways... last week was eventful on campus. The janitorial staff went on strike with a huge showing of support from the students and faculty. The law department I am in was in support. In fact the Department Chair helped to organize part of the strike and I believe was in the negotiation process. It was HUGE. The workers and hundreds of people gathered around them protested for hours each day outside the administration building. Without anyone to empty the trash, sweep, etc - in about 24 hours we were literally swimming in a sea of trash. Just to compound things a little - the weekend was to be the Alumni Sports weekend where the Algerian, Mauritius, Egyptian and Libyan national rugby teams were having exhibition games, there were exhibition games from the AUC sports teams, the sports awards, all kinds of things. And it was an excuse to bring out alumni (and their $$$) to see all the new campus and the athletic areas of campus.
So just to make sure the administration would be fully and completely embarrassed in front of the alumni - the students went the extra mile in dirtying up campus. Instead of just throwing your McDonald's bag let's say on the ground... you held it upside down and emptied its contents of wrappers, ketchup packets, napkins and few stale fries onto the ground and THEN through the bag on the ground. The idea was not only would the administration be embarrassed, but they would be forced to tell the alumni where their dollars were NOT going - to the staff that work 6 days a week and bring home $75 per month.
Yes - I said they net $75 per month. Some of the more senior janitorial staff bring home as much as $135 per month. It's truly outrageous really. When an undergraduate student pays 55,000 pounds each semester and a graduate student pays 80,000 pounds each semester to attend and live here - and the janitorial staff (80 of them combined- net less than 50,000 pounds together each semester). Yes the amount of money that ONE undergraduate student pays per semester to attend school and live on campus - pays the entire NET salary of EVERY janitor on campus for the same time period. It makes me a little nauseated and REALLY frustrated. That's why many of the American students were out in force - one because a lot of us have union parents and we know what it's like when they have to walk out on their jobs just to get treated fairly. And two - because we know it works. And three - because none of us could believe that our money was contributing to a system of such gross inequality.
Well needless to say they had to hire a private janitorial firm over night to clean up campus but it wasn't fully clean by the time the alumni got here. They were standing around in circles pointing to fountains FILLED with trash and garbage cans still overflowing on the ground. The added attention of the strike making it on to plenty of blogs... campus and Egyptian newspapers and even on CNN.com (http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-508913) the administrators budged. The students started a facebook solidarity page with 1100 supporters and an online petition with over 2000 student signatures. The workers got most of their demands met. The administration even went so far as to email the exact terms of the settlement to the ENTIRE AUC community because they just wanted to see the protests end and they knew that EVERYONE was involved anyways so they felt the need to save some face.
It felt really good to see the students mobilize around an issue so quickly and willingly. It felt really good to see Egyptians realizing they deserve rights and protesting and striking for them. This is something as I understand it - does not happen in a country with the authoritarian nature that Egypt has. I heard rumors of other places in Cairo being inspired by AUC and striking at their jobs too.. I don't have details but it was exciting to see the populace move in this direction. It reminds me of the famous quote - all it takes for bad people to win is for good people to not do anything about it. The good people of AUC and Egypt did something about it!
So just to make sure the administration would be fully and completely embarrassed in front of the alumni - the students went the extra mile in dirtying up campus. Instead of just throwing your McDonald's bag let's say on the ground... you held it upside down and emptied its contents of wrappers, ketchup packets, napkins and few stale fries onto the ground and THEN through the bag on the ground. The idea was not only would the administration be embarrassed, but they would be forced to tell the alumni where their dollars were NOT going - to the staff that work 6 days a week and bring home $75 per month.
Yes - I said they net $75 per month. Some of the more senior janitorial staff bring home as much as $135 per month. It's truly outrageous really. When an undergraduate student pays 55,000 pounds each semester and a graduate student pays 80,000 pounds each semester to attend and live here - and the janitorial staff (80 of them combined- net less than 50,000 pounds together each semester). Yes the amount of money that ONE undergraduate student pays per semester to attend school and live on campus - pays the entire NET salary of EVERY janitor on campus for the same time period. It makes me a little nauseated and REALLY frustrated. That's why many of the American students were out in force - one because a lot of us have union parents and we know what it's like when they have to walk out on their jobs just to get treated fairly. And two - because we know it works. And three - because none of us could believe that our money was contributing to a system of such gross inequality.
Well needless to say they had to hire a private janitorial firm over night to clean up campus but it wasn't fully clean by the time the alumni got here. They were standing around in circles pointing to fountains FILLED with trash and garbage cans still overflowing on the ground. The added attention of the strike making it on to plenty of blogs... campus and Egyptian newspapers and even on CNN.com (http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-508913) the administrators budged. The students started a facebook solidarity page with 1100 supporters and an online petition with over 2000 student signatures. The workers got most of their demands met. The administration even went so far as to email the exact terms of the settlement to the ENTIRE AUC community because they just wanted to see the protests end and they knew that EVERYONE was involved anyways so they felt the need to save some face.
It felt really good to see the students mobilize around an issue so quickly and willingly. It felt really good to see Egyptians realizing they deserve rights and protesting and striking for them. This is something as I understand it - does not happen in a country with the authoritarian nature that Egypt has. I heard rumors of other places in Cairo being inspired by AUC and striking at their jobs too.. I don't have details but it was exciting to see the populace move in this direction. It reminds me of the famous quote - all it takes for bad people to win is for good people to not do anything about it. The good people of AUC and Egypt did something about it!
Thursday, October 28, 2010
American Football
So last Friday night I went with some friends to Wadi Degla, one of the big sports clubs in Egypt (in Maadi suburb of Cairo). For those of you not familiar with Cairo, think of it as New York City. Everyone lives in New York, but you really live in Manhattan, Long Island, the Bronx, the Village, Upper East Side, whatever....that's Cairo. Anyways, Wadi Degla is one of the biggest sports clubs in Cairo as it has branches in Maadi, New Cairo and 6th of October City. My friend Khalid plays for Wadi Degla New Cairo. The three Wadi clubs and a club in Alexandria have all started American Football teams this year. They have a 4-team league that will play games every Friday night. It is so much fun. This was the first game of the season and it was New Cairo at Maadi.
It was a blast. They "know" the rules to American football but they're not quite followed. For instance as soon as the ball is passed to someone, you see 22 people running down field, like soccer more or less. The crowd loved it though. Except the game was slightly anti-climactic ending in New Cairo winning 2-0. Imagine me and the other American guy Justin in the stands trying to explain to the crowd what a safety is and how football can have a score of 2. Nobody knew that there was any scoring option other than a touchdown. But what I liked is that the crowd was into it, the players had fun, and it was a good time.
The first picture is the teams shaking hands after the game. The second picture is the team playing. Number 8 (white team - Maadi) is the quarterback and he's passing the ball off to his running back. The third picture is me, Khalid and Justin and my friend Hassan in the front.
The last picture is of the Wadi Degla signs at the club.
I'm sick as hell by the way.... so while I lay in bed this weekend, expect some more blogs to come!
-G'do
It was a blast. They "know" the rules to American football but they're not quite followed. For instance as soon as the ball is passed to someone, you see 22 people running down field, like soccer more or less. The crowd loved it though. Except the game was slightly anti-climactic ending in New Cairo winning 2-0. Imagine me and the other American guy Justin in the stands trying to explain to the crowd what a safety is and how football can have a score of 2. Nobody knew that there was any scoring option other than a touchdown. But what I liked is that the crowd was into it, the players had fun, and it was a good time.
The first picture is the teams shaking hands after the game. The second picture is the team playing. Number 8 (white team - Maadi) is the quarterback and he's passing the ball off to his running back. The third picture is me, Khalid and Justin and my friend Hassan in the front.
The last picture is of the Wadi Degla signs at the club.
I'm sick as hell by the way.... so while I lay in bed this weekend, expect some more blogs to come!
-G'do
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Every floor is my ashtray. Every street my garbage can.
NO NO NO. Don't assume from the title that I've become a complete litter bug. This is just how I feel sometimes. EVERY floor - the floor of classrooms, the sidewalk, the street, the floor of restaurants, the floor of buses and trains, the floor of the mall, I'm no exaggerating to say that EVERY floor is an ashtray for people. I feel so uncomfortable sometimes because I look around for a trash can or ashtray or somewhere I can appropriately dispose of my cigarettes but my Egyptian friends are always "just drop it." So I have acquiesced and now every floor is my ashtray too. However, I have not been able to acquiesce to the fact that every street is my garbage can. People just drop it when they're done with it. Much like cigarettes. Newspaper? McDonald's bag? Soda can? Cigarette pack? Tissue? It doesn't matter! Just drop it where and when you're done with it! Seriously the environmental people in the States would probably just cry here.
So school has been keeping me pretty busy. And I also am teaching English to Egyptian college students too. The problem is that my classes are at the old downtown campus, an hour away from where I live on New Campus - which is out in the middle of the desert. So each day I have class - Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Thursday I take the 10AM bus downtown and I meet my friends Kais (German-Tunisian) and Ellen (American) and we study until our classes are 5:00. After class gets out at 8:00, we (me and my other classmates) take the 8:30 bus back to campus and we arrive close to 10ish. So I am gone every day from 10 til 10. My friends on campus have been giving me hell because I'm never around anymore. But these grad school classes are brutal IF you get behind or don't stay ahead. I'm doing great - because I have made sure to always stay up on it. But I've seen some classmates who haven't - and it's not a good thing.
I'll tell you all about my English class disasters in my next blog - so stay tuned. I'm learning how to be a teacher as I go, and believe me I have so much sympathy for those who teach now!
But last weekend was SO much fun. I blogged before that I had the privilege of being asked to help recruit for IUPUI at a college fair in Egypt with the IUPUI Director of International Recruitment. It was SOOOOO much fun! It was CRAZY and I didn't expect that we would have the turnout and interest that we did. It was an overwhelming response. I shutter to think what would have happened to poor Pat if she had been there all alone! Let me explain something about Egyptians. For Americans - it is widely accepted that you can make a career out of pretty much anything. So people go to school to be nurses, engineers, lawyers, doctors, they study math and history, they want to be teachers and police officers, they study political science and social work. Basically American students have diverse ideas about what success is - what they want to devote their lives to and so what they study in college.
This diversity DOES NOT exist in Egypt. You MIGHT be successful as a lawyer or businessman. You can probably do pretty good as a doctor. BUT engineering is the only REAL way to be successful and make lots of $$$. So this fair was mostly a bunch of US liberal arts colleges. One had a law school (but not medical and engineering). One had engineering (but it wasn't well known and didn't have medical or law). One had a medical school (but not law and engineering).
IUPUI has IU's nationally ranked law school. IU's nationally ranked medical school. and Purdue's world-renowned engineering school.
Thus - EVERY student wanted to talk to us. It was crazy. There were two of us behind a table and in Cairo and Alexandria both we were absolutely mobbed with at least 75 students at a time for the entire 3 hours the fairs. NYU looked pretty bored. I thought Boston was going to fall asleep. And here are Pat and I who can't stop to take a drink of water because the students were aggressively (yes there was some pushing and yelling) seeking information. "I want to be a doctor. I want scholarships!" "I want to be an engineer! How much?" "Do you have scholarships for medical school?!" And this was how it continued for three hours. The problem was once we were done talking - we had ABSOLUTELY no idea who was next and so we just picked someone and that's who we talked to. We tried to talk loud enough that everyone who had similar questions could hear. However that didn't work. Because as soon as I was done. The student next to this one would have the EXACT same questions - apparently expecting different answers.
It was so much fun though. These students are so so so eager to be successful. And to many of them, success means a degree from the states. They are so eager to do it. I have never seen American students so eager. It reminded me of why I hear stories like in Purdue. Two of their Master's programs in engineering this year (I think Mechanical and Electrical but can't remember for sure) have NO American students in them this year. It is this eagerness to succeed that is leaving American students and employees behind in the world. We have taken for granted too long that we are American and so all will be okay. While the rest of the world is aggressively trying to pass us up. And they are using our own colleges to make that a reality. And I say - good for them. Americans could take a page from the eagerness and determination that these students show. It shouldn't give Americans an excuse to write articles like "Foreign workers take American jobs" or "The assault on American Universities" that I have seen. They should be writing articles like "Americans are falling behind and its our own fault" and "Wake up America! Success comes to those who want it most - and that's not us anymore!"
~Randy
~Ramy
~G'do
~IUPUI International Ambassador
So school has been keeping me pretty busy. And I also am teaching English to Egyptian college students too. The problem is that my classes are at the old downtown campus, an hour away from where I live on New Campus - which is out in the middle of the desert. So each day I have class - Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Thursday I take the 10AM bus downtown and I meet my friends Kais (German-Tunisian) and Ellen (American) and we study until our classes are 5:00. After class gets out at 8:00, we (me and my other classmates) take the 8:30 bus back to campus and we arrive close to 10ish. So I am gone every day from 10 til 10. My friends on campus have been giving me hell because I'm never around anymore. But these grad school classes are brutal IF you get behind or don't stay ahead. I'm doing great - because I have made sure to always stay up on it. But I've seen some classmates who haven't - and it's not a good thing.
I'll tell you all about my English class disasters in my next blog - so stay tuned. I'm learning how to be a teacher as I go, and believe me I have so much sympathy for those who teach now!
But last weekend was SO much fun. I blogged before that I had the privilege of being asked to help recruit for IUPUI at a college fair in Egypt with the IUPUI Director of International Recruitment. It was SOOOOO much fun! It was CRAZY and I didn't expect that we would have the turnout and interest that we did. It was an overwhelming response. I shutter to think what would have happened to poor Pat if she had been there all alone! Let me explain something about Egyptians. For Americans - it is widely accepted that you can make a career out of pretty much anything. So people go to school to be nurses, engineers, lawyers, doctors, they study math and history, they want to be teachers and police officers, they study political science and social work. Basically American students have diverse ideas about what success is - what they want to devote their lives to and so what they study in college.
This diversity DOES NOT exist in Egypt. You MIGHT be successful as a lawyer or businessman. You can probably do pretty good as a doctor. BUT engineering is the only REAL way to be successful and make lots of $$$. So this fair was mostly a bunch of US liberal arts colleges. One had a law school (but not medical and engineering). One had engineering (but it wasn't well known and didn't have medical or law). One had a medical school (but not law and engineering).
IUPUI has IU's nationally ranked law school. IU's nationally ranked medical school. and Purdue's world-renowned engineering school.
Thus - EVERY student wanted to talk to us. It was crazy. There were two of us behind a table and in Cairo and Alexandria both we were absolutely mobbed with at least 75 students at a time for the entire 3 hours the fairs. NYU looked pretty bored. I thought Boston was going to fall asleep. And here are Pat and I who can't stop to take a drink of water because the students were aggressively (yes there was some pushing and yelling) seeking information. "I want to be a doctor. I want scholarships!" "I want to be an engineer! How much?" "Do you have scholarships for medical school?!" And this was how it continued for three hours. The problem was once we were done talking - we had ABSOLUTELY no idea who was next and so we just picked someone and that's who we talked to. We tried to talk loud enough that everyone who had similar questions could hear. However that didn't work. Because as soon as I was done. The student next to this one would have the EXACT same questions - apparently expecting different answers.
It was so much fun though. These students are so so so eager to be successful. And to many of them, success means a degree from the states. They are so eager to do it. I have never seen American students so eager. It reminded me of why I hear stories like in Purdue. Two of their Master's programs in engineering this year (I think Mechanical and Electrical but can't remember for sure) have NO American students in them this year. It is this eagerness to succeed that is leaving American students and employees behind in the world. We have taken for granted too long that we are American and so all will be okay. While the rest of the world is aggressively trying to pass us up. And they are using our own colleges to make that a reality. And I say - good for them. Americans could take a page from the eagerness and determination that these students show. It shouldn't give Americans an excuse to write articles like "Foreign workers take American jobs" or "The assault on American Universities" that I have seen. They should be writing articles like "Americans are falling behind and its our own fault" and "Wake up America! Success comes to those who want it most - and that's not us anymore!"
~Randy
~Ramy
~G'do
~IUPUI International Ambassador
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Survived the Weekend
So I had a pretty fun weekend. It started on Thursday night (as the weekends in Egypt are Friday and Saturday). I survived my first sandstorm on Thursday night. It was SOOOOO bad. I was trying to catch the bus at 7:15 to go meet friends downtown and the storm started about 7:10. It was just a blinding wall of sand that blew right at you. My nose, mouth and ears seemed full of sand. I was blowing sand out of my nose and cleaning sand from my ears still the next afternoon. It was funny because it FELT just like a storm in the States. The sky got dark and you could see "clouds" rolling in and it started to be a little windy. I SWEAR I thought it was going to start pouring. This of course is silly b/c it rains in Cairo maybe once a year. But suddenly it was just SAND everywhere. While in the bus the lights reflected off the sand like fog or heavy rain and it really decreased visibility. Once we got into Tahrir (downtown Cairo) it was better, but still windy and it was still kicking up sand. When I got back to campus later the next morning the place was a WRECK. Signs and trash cans, patio tables and umbrellas, chairs and trash just blown all over the place. This campus is FILLED with water fountains and they were just completely clogged with leaves and sand.
But I had a lot of fun this weekend. Tonight was a felluca ride (my third or fourth so far) for the Law Students Association. A felluca is like a sailboat that you ride on the Nile. They aren't particularly fun after your first one, its really the company and fun you have with friends that make them worth it.
I met some new friends Thursday night too. I'm glad I'm a social person or I would hate living here... but I don't cause I meet people like every week. I found out some GREAT information about Gaza too. I met a girl who has been a few times. I want to do my internship there and so she had great pointers and information to share with me.
Also I got confirmation from Pat, the Director of International Recruiting at IUPUI that she will arrive on Wednesday night. I'm attending a University fair with her in Cairo on Friday and Alexandria on Saturday. I'll be offering the alumni perspective to IUPUI in an attempt to recruit for Egyptian and other Arab students to come to IUPUI for their undergrad or grad school. That is really exciting and providence that I got to meet Pat right before I graduated and planned to meet her for this. Its kind of exciting to represent my school as an alumnus so soon after graduating.... woo hoo!
Loving Cairo,
Missing home,
Never wanting to leave,
Randy
But I had a lot of fun this weekend. Tonight was a felluca ride (my third or fourth so far) for the Law Students Association. A felluca is like a sailboat that you ride on the Nile. They aren't particularly fun after your first one, its really the company and fun you have with friends that make them worth it.
I met some new friends Thursday night too. I'm glad I'm a social person or I would hate living here... but I don't cause I meet people like every week. I found out some GREAT information about Gaza too. I met a girl who has been a few times. I want to do my internship there and so she had great pointers and information to share with me.
Also I got confirmation from Pat, the Director of International Recruiting at IUPUI that she will arrive on Wednesday night. I'm attending a University fair with her in Cairo on Friday and Alexandria on Saturday. I'll be offering the alumni perspective to IUPUI in an attempt to recruit for Egyptian and other Arab students to come to IUPUI for their undergrad or grad school. That is really exciting and providence that I got to meet Pat right before I graduated and planned to meet her for this. Its kind of exciting to represent my school as an alumnus so soon after graduating.... woo hoo!
Loving Cairo,
Missing home,
Never wanting to leave,
Randy
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)