Some More Random Stuff

I had a goal today with John and Sarah to speak Arabic only, all day. So of course today is the day that all the teachers and administrators of the program came to have a meeting with us in English. I mentioned my goal to one of them, and he insisted that I continue with it and that he would translate for me. I told him I'd make an exception for this meeting, but he wouldn't have that at all. So yeah, I ended up looking like a tool because there were people there that couldn't understand Arabic and there I was refusing to speak a word of English. At least Khaled and I had a good laugh about it afterward.

Robert and I went to the gym and he nearly murdered me again. After I'm done with a set, he puts on three times as much weight as I had, and then after my last set he added my weights to his weights. Yeah, that just happened. I don't know how I make it back to my apartment on these days. I mean really, I don't know how either of us climb the four flights of stairs. Our legs are just torn to shreds.

The tailor on the next street over is an artist. Wow. I have a healthy respect for a man that can work with his hands, like every time Edgar or Abinadi or Andrew fixed my car while I looked on completely useless. This tailor, Hasan, is a magician. Many of you might know that I'm the cheapest man alive, and I've been giving a lot of thought to buying some new clothes here. I've shopped for them, I've looked at fabrics to make shirts, I've asked opinions. The thing that held me back was that I already have enough clothes. They just didn't look as good as they could. So applying a life lesson (If it's broken, fix it), I took them to the tailor, and wow, just wow. It's not hard for me to see how this guy makes a living, he's the best at what he does. The only person I can think of better is Stephanie Hall. So, I'm forty Egyptian pounds lighter, but that's less than $8 to have several items of clothing look a lot nicer. Uh, so good.

You guys that have written me your life stories are amazing. These letters are really good, and if they weren't private correspondence, I'd post them to this blog. I mean, honestly, this is really good stuff. I think more people should write. It'd sell.

Oh, and one last thing, and maybe the most awesome thing: I have a quote on my facebook page from years back. It says, "My eyes free what the page imprisons: the white the white and the black the black." In the t-shirt business that I'm starting, I want to put this in Arabic on a shirt. Trying to find this quote in Arabic has been miserable. I contacted at least two professors at the University of Alexandria, a professor at the University of Texas, the publisher of the book I found it in (City Lights Books) and several of my friends. Finally Adam Talib from Cairo Scholars wrote me back with the translation, which is:


يفدي الصحيفة ناظري
فبياضها ببياضه وسوادها بسواده

So that's coming soon, and the shirt is going to look awesome. We have two in the design room now, getting tweaked (or started on, whichever you choose).

Just some random stuff.