Day 125 Cairo

Monday, Cairo

First day of my last month of school.
Started off with the bad news that Media Arabic level two would not be offered this session. Bummer. Went to Colloquial level 5 to see how the teacher is, possibly to take the class depending on her. She's alright. Mostly, the cool thing is, there are only 5 people in the class, not like last semester's where there were about 10.

Had koshary with Ian and a friend of his. Regular back to school talk "how was your break" etc...

Formal Arabic, level 7 with Khaled. I can see why Angela had a crush on him.

I have a man crush.

He's an awesome teacher. I think for a teacher to be awesome one must be slightly infatuated with them.
Right from the start he captivated my attention. He speaks super clearly, uses words he knows we know/ words we don't but in context it is guessable.

The class is composed of Khaled, Ivan and Sonia. Ivan is studying Arabic here until he goes on to Bahrain to do research there on a fellowship. He seems kick ass. American of Mexican descent from California. Sonia, whom I know from my past two classes is here studying to improve her Arabic. She is British-Egyptian. She's 24 I think but looks like she's 20. She learned French in college and taught English at a university in Strasbourg, France for two years. I think she got bored of it and decided she should get back in touch with her roots and learn Arabic. Good for her.

In the evening, met up with Atef again. Then Sarah and her visiting friend sat with us. Met Chris' parents, who are both SUPER American. His dad did not like Egypt at ALL and couldn't wait to go back. His mom seemed to have been more relaxed and easygoing throughout their trip therefore seemed to have enjoyed it.
A hilarious excerpt from an email Chris sent me a week ago:
"though this shouldn't be shared, my mom told me that on their first night here my dad freaked out saying that he wanted to take me home with them when they return to the states b/c he's so worried.  he also has recurring nightmares about having to return to egypt to claim my dead body."

Got home, did hw. lol.