Back again...

...and this time for good.

Tammam is living with me again. His neck and back have been giving him so much trouble that he was out of school for a week. When I first saw him, he was in a neck brace and could barely move, and when he sat up or stood it could only be for several minutes before he was forced to lie down again. Oh, and his water got shut off, and he was electrocuted by his light switch. So he moved over here, closer to people so we could help him out. And boy, have people really come through. Saba and Mona bought him all sorts of groceries, and then Robert cooked him breakfast and packed up all of his stuff and moved him over here, like a hero. Valerie came and cooked him dinner last night (I ate some too), while Sabry has been on top of helping him throughout the week. And Amin came over last night, and brought lunch/breakfast today (and gave me some too).

So he's doing better.

But if you live in Egypt, I think you should know that Tammam needs food. Lots of food. Food for two people. And don't put milk in it, I'm lactose intolerant. You're the best.

We will not go quietly into the night!

So our internet has been worse than patchy for weeks. It won't connect, when it does connect it is so slow that nothing will load, chatting has been almost impossible.

Repeated calls to the internet guy didn't help, either, and then Michael yelled at him publicly, so the relationship has been severed, to say the least.

Right when I was trying to download Harry Potter 6 from my friend's server.

Well, no worries, I'll just use the girls' internet downstairs. That worked for about a day, and then it would connect but nothing would load. How odd.

Until I got a phone call from Katie. Apparently the internet guy has my IP address and blocked me from using their service.

We will not be silenced. We will not go quietly into the night.

John's Birthday

List of weird things that happened on John's birthday:

We found out about the unfortunate passing of our friend's boyfriend's cousin, who was 24. John is 24.

The Pope issued a letter of apology to the Irish involved in a scandal. John is Catholic, and he has an Irish last name.

And lastly, John received birthday French toast because Katie wanted some. John is not French.



A birthday French toast cake!



Matches doubled as candles, and burnt into the cake.



John still loved his cake.



And I loved the French toast pyramid we made in honor of Egypt and birthdays.

Katie's Turn

I've dealt with a fire, Tammam dealt with a worse fire, and now Katie wrote about her turn.

Test, and a class

We had a test in Fushaa class today, it went terrible. It wouldn't have been so bad, but I mistook the word فنون for قانون and wrote 250 words about law, and not art. I talked to my teacher and I think I'll be alright.

Then I went to my first University of Alexandria class this semester. It was packed, like there wasn't sitting room, and there wasn't standing room either. And that was with more people piling in. People were starting to sit on each others' laps. We left to gather our thoughts, and someone went inside to announce that the class had been moved down the hall. It was a literal stampede. Like if someone fell, they'd have fared worse than Mufasa, no joke.

We all get packed into the next room, and we're sitting about as far away from the door as we can be, when we're told that this is not our class. So we hack our way through the jungle of people and chairs to get out, it took a really long time, and we gave up.

Welcome in Egypt.

It doesn't make sense...

I mentioned something political to my Egyptian boss, and he told me that it's inappropriate to talk politics with people when you're not from that country. He made it out to be a pretty big deal.

For reals? People here stop me all the time and ask me about Obama. What's up with that?