Rambling rover…

“I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I’m awake, you know?” – Ernest Hemingway

Well I met you at the blood bank
We were looking at the bags
Wondering if any of the colors
Matched any of the names we knew on the tags

You said see look it that’s yours
Stacked on top with your brothers
See how they resemble one anothers?
Even in their plastic little covers

And I said I know it well

That secret that you know
That you don’t know how to tell
it f–ks with your honor
And it teases your head
But you know that its good girl
Cause its running you with red.

Then the snow started falling
We were stuck out in your car
You were rubbing both my hands
Chewing on a candy bar
you said ain’t this just like the present
To be showing up like this
There’s a moon waning crescent
we started to kiss

And I said I know it well

That secret that we know
That we don’t know how to tell
I’m in love with your honor
I’m in love with your cheeks
what’s that noise up the stairs baby
Is that Christmas morning

Currently listening to Blood Bank by Bon Iver. Cover
by Kina Grannis.

Today was a good day. I had a bit of a lie in, compared to my regular weekday.

I woke up around 9:30 and threw some clothes in the washer, packed up my bag, grabbed a yogurt out of the refrigerator and left the apartment, backpack slung over a shoulder and iPod starting up. Outside it seemed like car traffic was pretty infrequent and usually this means less pollution in the air. The sun was shining, but it lacked the oppressive heat that sometimes bakes down on you. A block down the street I stopped at a local shop. I’m almost reluctant to use the term shop since it doesn’t really describe it. It’s like a newsstand that evolved into something else… It’s got a sprawling little area with 4-5 refrigerator cases and sells everything from cigarettes, which you can get for about $1US to yogurt, to bread, juice, and lots of chips. No roof, mind you… just all sort of sprawled around. I stopped off on my way past and bought a bread roll, juice, and a yogurt for the road, total price was probably $1.75US.

The air had a nice breeze and for once it felt like my throat wasn’t burning from the pollution in the morning. It’s usually worse in the cooler months and mornings. According to a friend this is because the colder air keeps the pollution closer to the ground and it tends to hang in the air. On days when it’s really obvious everything has this overcast grey quality to it… Down the road at a café I met up with a study group. All of them are in at least two of my classes and this morning we were going over some notes and questions for our Public International Law class, easily one of my favorites… though at times it’s a pretty difficult topic.  I arrived just as they were getting started and ordered an Americano and settled in…

The class itself is pretty fascinating and covers a enormous range of topics. Everything from what ‘is’ international law to ways it is created, jus cogens, the nature of statehood and sovereignty, and the organizations and courts found on the international plane. I love it. This is precisely why I chose a law centered program as opposed to a human rights program…

We have midterms this week, hence the studying. For tomorrow it’s Refugee Law which is going to take the form of a moot court in which we argue for or against a person’s refugee application.  It should be interesting to see how that ends up going! Later in the week, on Tuesday, it’s the public international law midterm which is going to be a 24 hour final. Basically we pick up the final and have 24 hours to answer the questions… don’t worry, we were told, if you work through it all it should only take 6-7 hours…

Hmm… other news… (?) I’m the graduate assistant in the Law Library. It’s not a real complicated job. Mostly help people with research questions and staff the library when the head is elsewhere… It’s a little extra experience and it should give me a 15% tuition reduction for next semester! I’m also trying to line up an internship doing some refugee and asylum casework here in Egypt. It would be truly invaluable experience, especially after the refugee law class. I’m trying to line up scholarship and fellowship aid but it’s a pretty slow process… but that’s Egypt and the AUC for you… the folks that took 2 months to process money I’d already been given.

UPDATE: Haven’t had a chance to post this one yet, so I think I’ll just keep it going J
Midterm is over and done with! Not sure where I stand with it… According to some students they spent about 14 hours working on it… Not pretty L

Last night I went over to Paul and Jessica’s for a home cooked meal. Autumn and Carolyn tagged along. It was delicious. Every time I have protein in my food my body goes into shock a little Earlier that morning I had met up with Carolyn and Autumn for brunch. We found this place near the metro station that does an amazing greasy spoon breakfast. Big pancakes dripping with syrup, beef bacon, eggs, warm mounds of butter and thick slices of toast… bottomless coffee mugs. It was truly delightful. In fact this weekend in general has been pretty solid. The night before brunch I met up with the girls at their place and I provided moral support while they made curry and rice. We played some music and just chatted things up a bit. Egypt isn’t all bad… But it seems to be the people around me that are making it work…

A month left of classes! Then it’s finals and a plane ride home for winter breakJ I’ll be arriving in Seattle on the 17^th of December and staying for as long as humanly possible…. It should be 6 weeks… I’ll probably spend most of it out in eastern Washington with my parents and then try and get out to Seattle for a few days to meet with friends, coffee, and a few meetings at my old university.

I can’t seem to remember if I posted this on the blog or not. I did a ‘guest blog’ a few weeks ago for a friend of mine who was traveling for work. It’s on the importance of YA fiction. Take a look if you have time! http://realmlovejoy.blogspot.com/2009/09/tim-starkweather-on-ya-books.html

Here are some pictures from out and about the neighborhood…

Autumn and Carolyn and I went out to this place that does a great full American breakfast… Eggs, pancakes, hashbrowns, coffee! It was amazing….

This is one of thousands of little stands all over Cairo. it’s like a mutated newsstand… it has refrigerators with juice and food type things. This one is across from my apartment and groups of guys in their early 20’s tend to hang out around it till like 1am.

Another attempt at studying… Finding places to sit and work can be hard in Cairo. Especially if you need internet and/or have a cesspool for an apartment. Autumn and Carolyn and I were trying to study while smoking sheesha and sipping mint tea, a success on many levels… though studying wasn’t one of them

Matt and I were in pretty ferocious need of a bathroom…

Shot of one of the downtown campuses

Train station in my neighborhood

A crazy crowded day at Sadat station downtown… I got a fist in my ribs for trying to snap the picture. Love you, Egypt.

Neighborhood driving…

Cramming for a midterm at a cafe…

Studying hard…

More studying…

It rained in Cairo… I loved it…

Long time gone…

You know, mate… It’s all about swings and roundabouts…
- My friend Mohamed

Off in the night, while you live it up, I’m off to sleep
waging wars to shape the poet and the beat

I hope it’s going to make you notice…
I hope it’s going to make you notice…

Someone like me…

Use Somebody – Cover by Kina Grannis

Well this is certainly a long time coming It’s been awhile since I put a blog post up and a lot has happened in the last month and a half since I arrived in Egypt. To be frank, most of it has been bad. I truly wouldn’t have gotten through it without the love and support of my family and my friends, both old and new, who i am sure i stretched to the limit dealing with my sadness and sometimes full blown craziness…

I love every single one of you dearly… Thank you.

So, what has been happening? What hasn’t been… It’s been a whirlwind. But i think i’m finally coming out the other end of it now. It’s easier to write and talk

Me, uploading this right now

about it when you have finally hit bottom and begun to pick the pieces back up. So, here comes the laundry list, not listed out of anger or for sympathy, but because it just makes such a great damn story that it has to be told…

When I arrived in Cairo it took about a week and a half for my camera to be stolen. I’m pretty sure it was lifted right out of my backpack on the metro. Probably. At any rate, when I’m on the metro my backpack is sitting squarely between my feet…

My apartment flooded. Twice. The water doesn’t work in the apartment in the morning and the faucet had been left in the on position. The drains also didnt work so the water quickly escaped the sink and began flooding the bathroom. The first time it wasn’t too bad, flooded bathroom. The second time managed to flood the whole apartment. My roommate slept blissfully through all of it.

The bowwab (somewhere between a doorman, cleaner, handyman, jack of all trades) came up and cleaned it and eventually we had a bunch of plumbing replaced.

Shower is currently broken. It’s been broken for over two weeks now. My roommate, whose apartment this is, doesn’t seem inclined to get it fixed. I’ve been showering at a friends place and at the gym at the university.

My bed is broken. It basically consists of some wooden slats laid down over a frame, but the slats don’t actually fit so they break and fall through all the time. A few pieces of cardboard have been laid down to try and pick up the slack, but it’s a pretty rough sleep!

My laptop broke after the second or third week. Just died. I took it to a guy here and he seems to think it was the motherboard. It’s technically under warranty so he suggested that I try to get it fixed when I came back to the US for christmas.

In the meantime, I needed a laptop for school and contacting family.
I located a woman through an expat website and checked out a laptop she was selling. It seemed legit and I paid for it. It turned out to be a lemon and I asked for my money back. She refused. I was ripped off, sadly. I resold it for a pretty big loss and had to purchase a small new ‘netbook’.

Throughout all of this I have been having many many problems getting access to my money from AUC. I’ve been more or less out of money here in Egypt for awhile and it was down to the 11th hour when I finally found the right person at the university to harass about getting access to my loan money. But in the meantime, it took them over a month and a half to get it to me during which I’ve been eating bread and yogurt.

I got a serious case of food poisoning/stomach nastiness and had to go see a doctor. They loaded me up with 4 types of medication and didn’t really bother telling me what it was they were giving me, despite my requests. I went online and checked them out myself. They love the heavy antibiotics!

I was hit by a car, twice. Nothing bad but it was pretty much the last straw after the laptop broke and I was ripped off. When the car hit my side it broke the prayer beads that I wear. I bought them at Meiji Jingu in Tokyo and it was my constant reminder of Japan. Broken. Hundreds of pieces all over the street.

This was, in my head, my breaking point. I had hit bottom. I didn’t have anything else to lose.

When I go to the main campus out in the desert I have to catch a charter bus down the street from my house. Usually you buy tickets or have a bus pass. I haven’t been able to buy a bus pass yet, so i just had some extra tickets I purchased. Midway through the ride a ticket checker decided he didn’t like the way my ticket looked and kept questioning me on it. He eventually stopped the bus and ordered me to get off it.

The Egyptian government cancelled all classes due to concerns over swine flu outbreaks. Classes finally started back up again a few weeks ago and we are all scrambling to make up the lost material…

That’s the list so far. I’m sure there are a few things that are escaping me right now, I’m trying to keep a list going for when this is all over and I can add it to a book or something… But it hasn’t been all bad…

I really love my program. The international human rights law program is everything I hoped it would be. I really think that if it had failed to live up to my expectations I would have packed my bags and called it a day… I’ve also made a good group of friends in my neighborhood. My friend Mohamed lives just a few blocks down the street. He’s a professor at AUC and we usually grab beers on the weekend, or tea during the week. I also have Paul and Jessica. Jessica is in my program and bizarrly our parents or her grandparents have some mutual connections and they told us both to keep an eye open for each other… I though, yea right. what are the odds… But we ran into each other on a train in Cairo and started chatting…. then realized we had been told about each other. They live just a few blocks down the street and we study together or, like last night, we all went over to Mohamed’s and he made us dinner… It was pretty terrific. So, the good and the bad. So far, the bad has been pretty bad. But it looks like it’s finally shaping up…

I miss Seattle with a fierceness… and all my friends and family. I think it was compounded pretty hard by all the nonsense and money problems over the last month and a half… It’s been prompting some pretty serious soul searching and self analysis… I find myself wondering if this is the kind of work I really want to do… Am I cut out for it? Did I make the right choice coming here? They aren’t really easy questions and the answers… well… I have a feeling i’ll have to ‘make’ the answers, I don’t think an actual right one exists…

Well, that’s about all i have right now… It’s almost 11pm Cairo time. I’m sitting outside at a cafe procrastinating on some research. I miss you all

Some pictures a friend snapped:)

Some of the Human Rights Law gang

Jessica and Paul

Evan, Fawziah, myself. Looking a little haggard.

Video on pollution in Cairo during the Fall from the BBC…

Patience…

“He who rides the sea of the Nile must have sails woven of patience.”
William G. Golding

Currently listening to Daylight by Matt and Kim.

“and in the daylight we can hitchhike to maine
i hope that someday i’ll see without these frames
and in the daylight i don’t pick up my phone
cause in the daylight anywhere feels like home…”

Classes are on hold right now due to government ‘concerns’ over swine flu. Mind you, I haven’t heard of any outbreaks among students or faculty recently. Apparently the Egyptian government ordered that all schools shouldn’t hold classes until October 3rd. So we wait. I have a feeling that once my professors regroup though that we will be expected to handle all the readings for that period and probably have some sort of work around or meeting to attend. I can’t imagine that they would let two weeks pass by without any work to be done!

So in the meantime I am trying to get as organized and ready as possible. A friend I have here was a criminal investigator before she started graduate school. I saw her notes the other day. She had binders for every class, tabbed out and separated according to which week the readings or notes were from. It was pretty intense and gave me a few ideas of my own

To be sure though, it’s extremely frustrating. I finally arrive and get started and then everything is put on hold. I didn’t come to Egypt to be a tourist I cam to be a student…. let me be a student! I’m sure i’ll have time to for travel and the like but for now i’d like to get this show on the road…. Also, I was told next week would be when I could get my loan money… So i can’t really afford to travel anywhere anyway!

I have met a number of people in my program though. They all seem really great and interesting. Loads to talk about and the students who have been here longer are really supportive of the newbies.
My camera was stolen a few days ago so i haven’t been able to upload any new pictures or anything I’m pretty sure it was just lifted out of my backpack…. possibly on the metro. Lesson learned. I now take my backpack off and situate it squarely between my legs whenever i need to stand still for more than 3 minutes… Once the loan comes in I might be able to pick one up here. I’m scouring the expat community boards for any postings but so far nothing.

A few nights ago the LSA (Law Students Association) went on a meet and greet / Felluca ride on the Nile. It was an amazing night. Cool breeze, fun meeting people, the river looks great at night

Hmmm what else? I am rereading ‘The Eye of the World’. It’s the first book in the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. I found a used copy in a bookstore here and picked it up. Naturally, I will now be craving the others and I’m pretty sure finding them is going to be ridiculous. I’m doing two readings right now for my Human Rights and Humanitarian Law class. One by David Kennedy and the other by Peter Rosenblum, both of whom I have heard of or read before.

Well hopefully this class disruption won’t last long and we’ll be able to find a work around.

In the meantime here are some pictures a friend took from our Felluca ride on the Nile! The Nile at night… Pictures were hard with the boat rocking.

Amoding, Fawziah, and Myself

Some people in the program

Me

Im awful with names, but it turns out they are both from Seattle. One did her Masters at my alma mater the other went to SPU

Fawziah and Me

And just ‘cuz, my niece and I before I left

Quick Post…

Just a quick blog update. Nothing truly substantial

Currently listening to Satellite by BT

Yea. Wearing sunglasses inside. I'd like to have actual pictures to post... But they were stolen

Classes just started this week here. Currently taking International Refugee Law, Public International La w,and Intro to Human Rights and Humanitarian Law. It all looks pretty amazing and we’re going to be covering some really intense topics.

That being said though, I have been working through my first few legal readings and I want to hit my head against a wall… Never before, while reading, have I had to say wait, what was that word…? Or have read for a page and a half and realized i had no idea what was just said. It’s going to be an interesting experience.

My apartment is in an area south of Cairo called Ma’adi. It’s got a pretty big expat community. Pretty green for this city. Some cafe’s, shops, etc. I found an expat center that has free wifi and a cafe so that seems to be where I’m going to spend most of my time! In fact, that’s where I am right now. It was about 1ooF on my way in and I am quite happy to spend most of the afternoon curled up in here. Studying in hot weather just doesn’t happen for me. In the morning I wake up and hike to the AUC bus stop. It’s about a 30 minute bus ride to the new campus outside the city. Sadly, none of my classes are out there… I usually bus out there to use the library, study, gym, or get some fresh air…

My classes are all at the old downtown campus which the rest of the school moved away from. They decided to keep the law program and refugee studies programs in the city so it would be closer to resources, jobs, internships, what have you. I get it, but it’s a little annoying. All the faculty offices and study areas seem to be on the new campus which is an hour bus ride from the old.

Tomorrow is the LSA (Law Students Association) orientation and felucca ride. It sounds like a meet and greet followed by sailing on the nile. So… you know… it’s got that going for it… which is nice

AH, and my camera was stolen. Not amused. And more importantly not sure where to go about replacing it here in Cairo. I’ll have to ask around…
Ok! Just a quick update… things have been pretty hectic getting things set up for class. I haven’t really had a chance to poke around or explore much yet. Hopefully once I get settled I can get out more!

I’m a pretty big fan of BT, the artist at the top of the page. He does everything from experimental, dance and pop, vocal alternative. I once watched this interview with him where he was talking about an experiment he was doing with biometrics and music. He had this idea to see if he could use changes in his brainwave patterns to create and control music. It’s pretty fascinating stuff and leaves his work wide open for creative possibilities

Cheers!

Jetlaggy funk…

Slightly more than three times the size of New Mexico
- CIA World Factbook: Egypt

Currently listening to Sally MacLennane by The Pogues

We walked him to the station in the rain
We kissed him as we put him on the train
And we sang him a song of times long gone
Though we knew that wed be seeing him again
(far away) sad to say I must be on my way
So buy me beer and whiskey cause Im going far away (far away)
Id like to think of me returning when I can
To the greatest little boozer and to sally maclennane

I arrived in Egypt a few days ago. Since then it has been a whirlwind of jetlaggy haziness and anxiety. I am pretty sure that I managed to sleep through the first 48 hours of my time here. Mind you, I wasn’t unconscious the whole time… But the periods where I could be called ‘awake’ have felt like the day after a very bad wine bender.

The trip itself was pretty uneventful. Seattle – Chicago – Frankfurt – Cairo. I had a few hour layover in Frankfurt. I walked off the plane just as the sun was rising and had an amazing view of this fiery red morning. I noticed, in my haze, that the Frankfurt airport is incredibly busy and they have a constant shortage of chairs…

Finally touching down in Cairo and catching a cab into the city was an adventure in and of itself. Had I not been so exhausted and delirious I probably would have actually been worried about my safety… as it is though a detached and hazy part of my mind seemed to look around and say ‘well this seems sensible enough’. You see, in Cairo they don’t really use lanes, signals, speed limits, or any of the more common devices found in a western city. You can tell attempts to install or line them occured sometime in the past but it never really caught on with anyone. The resulting experience ends up being a cross between a Mad Max movie and the Indy 500. Cars, buses, and bikes all swerve in and out dive bombing each other. Signals are never used and are instead replaced with a constant car horn. The car horn is used to signal lane changes, anger, let someone know a taxi is nearby, warn a pedestrian, you name it. You can use a horn for it.

I met up with the girls, Nicole and Carolyn, at the Sakanat al Maadi station and walked to their apt. I ended up crashing with them for a few days before moving into the apt. I had arranged. The girls have an amazing place in Maadi. It’s a gorgeous apt, big balcony, and it’s near a lot of grocery stores and restaurants. The neighborhood itself is a pretty big expat haven. It also has a lot of trees and green so the temperature always manages to feel just a little bit cooler than the rest of the city… The apt. that I found is a few blocks away and not nearly as nice. I actually have been debating whether or not I wanted to stay at the apartment or not. It smells like a grandmothers mothball riddled closet, the water doesn’t really work in the morning, my bed is broken and nasty stained. Plus it looks like it’ll be over a month till internet can be installed… I honestly had begun looking for another living situation… But the girls live within walking distance, as is the metro station, grocery stores, and I found a small cafe nearby that has internet access… At this point its a case of the devil you know… Nicole’s apt may also have an opening in 3 or 4 months so I hope to squeeze in there if it works out.

I went to the new AUC campus out in the middle of nowhere. It’s truly gorgeous. A lot of old students complain about it being so far outside the city and not near anything else. Personally though I really like that. In downtown Cairo around the early morning you can wander around and it feels like fog is rolling through the city creating a gray outline out of the early sky and buildings. It’s not fog though. It’s smog. Cairo is one of the most polluted cities on the planet. So much so that you can truly feel it coating your mouth and lungs after awhile. By my second day I had started to develop the ‘Cairo Cough’. So the trip outside the city to the new campus is actually something I enjoy. The air is a great deal cleaner.

I met with my program director and arranged for my classes. I’ve been trying to get a sense of what the program will be like and how heavy the workload will be. It seems like it’s going to be pretty intense. Though it’s an MA law program they teach it in the full on intense law school Socratic method, plus a lot of reading and writing thrown in for good measure. It’s a little daunting but I am here studying exactly what I love to study. I’m hoping it balances out.
This quarter I’ll be taking International Refugee Law, Intro to Int’l Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, and International Law. I’m also contacting a group in Cairo that works on refugee protection to try and arrange an internship. Classes start on the 6th of September, though we have a law student dinner and orientation on the 3rd.

Last night I went over to visit the gang at their apartment. They were making carrot soup from scratch. The blender had broken so we had to mash the carrots with forks. Then the cork ended up breaking off in the wine bottle so we had to strain the wine out. All in all it was a nice little cairo cooking adventure. Then we sat out on the balcony and chatted while the sunset. It was easily the most enjoyable night i’ve had here yet. I’m still not sure what to make of Cairo yet. I think living in Seattle and Tokyo really spoiled me in a way. Tokyo, though huge and bustling, is one of the cleanest cities i’ve ever been in. There is also this undercurrent of order and structure that always appealed to me. In Cairo that’s thrown right out of the window. The city is chronically dirty and grimy, you have to remain pretty vigilant that you aren’t being taken for a ride when it comes to paying for taxi’s or other services. Often times it really helps to have an Egyptian friend who can do some of the negotiation and talk for you.

Well, that’s it for now. I haven’t really had a chance to do the tourist thing yet. Maybe once classes settle in and I feel like I can move around a little better I’ll have some more interesting things to post. Right now I have limited my excursions to school and my surrounding neighborhoods…

Here are some first picture grabs from Cairo:

Me feeling pretty haggard at the Frankfurt Airport

More Frankfurt

Nicole, Carolyn, and I on their Balcony

Lanterns up for Ramadan

View from the girls balcony

Some random shots around the AUC campus

Filtering out the wine…

Mashing Carrots

The gang making dinner…

Get Psyched! The Travel Mix…

This morning I have decided to create a travel mix for my 25 hour journey to Egypt. I love all kinds of music, rock, pop, irish, techno… a lot of my favorites tend to run toward the… how shall we put this… depressing. Lots of Death Cab for Cutie, a little Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Lesley Gore, Mogwai…

And this simply will not do for my 25 hour travel time to Egypt. I need to be excited. Energized. Pumped. Not down and thinking about home and missed friends, but adventure and new places.

I need, in short, my ‘Get Psyched Mix! Travel Edition’.

It’s going to be all up, all awesome, all the time. I’ve got some Armin Van Buuren, BT, Kings of Leon, even some Regina Spektor! Some of it is mellow but only so it can keep building and rock your traveling socks off!

The playlist ended up being pretty big… But then again I have a looong trip to deal with

EDIT: I’ve had trouble with the embedding. To see the playlist click on the popout player!

Alright, I leave in the morning. I think i shall try for some sleep before getting on the road.

Top 10 things to work on in Cairo…?

“The autumn leaves are falling like rain
Although my neighbors are all barbarians
And you, you are a thousand miles away
There are always two cups at my table.”
- T’ang dynasty poem

Currently listening to Ikebana by Kevin Shields.

Well, Top Ten things for me to work on at any rate…

I fly out on the 26th. Just a few days from now. I think i’ve mentioned before that moving is always pretty hard on me. The goodbyes. The stress. The worry about being forgotten. Even with the internet and skype access, it still hits me. On top of that is constant knowledge and questioning of what my goal is. At the end of the day this is a very expensive investment in a future career that may not end up playing out at all. Do you know how many people are looking for jobs right now? Hundreds. Literally, Hundreds…

Ok, well i am doing better today. Trying to stay focused on what it is i hope to do in Egypt.
Here is my first Top Ten List for things to do when I arrive in Cairo:

1. Oh, Grad school. MA program. Can’t beat that with a stick. Camels. Camels you
get to beat with sticks.
2. Karate at the university. Finally try and stick with and finish my black belt. I figure i have two years… may
as well!
3. Fencing. I took it as a kid. I think it looks sexy. Silly, but sexy.
4. Sail up/down the Nile.
5. Gallop on a horse through the desert while the sun sets in full view of the pyramids… huh, how awesome
is that!?
6. Smoke some double apple sheesha in a cafe with some old men.
7. Avoid the Typhoid outbreak the egyptian govt. is keeping a lid on.
8. Probably going to get ‘Montezuma’s Revenge’ at some point. Im taking a tip from another traveler at this
point. I’m just going to take a sip of some local water as soon as i arrive and get it over with. Bam.
9. I’ve been brushing up on my haggling. Looking forward to it. Should make a good blog post.
10. Ten… hmmm…. What should ten be. Ah, achieving my ‘maximum awesome quotient’ TM. Or MAQ
(pronounced mack). It’s basically a guideline developed by myself and the National Institute of Health that
measures each persons ability to be awesome and their personal potential for achieving it. I’m going for
high marks.

I think it’s a pretty solid plan. Somewhere in there I’m going to try and locate a gym. Apparently Gold’s has a chain in Cairo but it’s stupidly expensive. Some of the bigger hotels have gyms and you can usually negotiate for some sort of membership. Right now it looks like i’m going to be staying on a friends couch while I look for an apartment. She has been pretty awesome about advice and insights on living in the city. I’m a little nervous about the program itself. I’ve been looking at the course catalog online and it looks like i’ll probably be taking ‘intro to international human rights law’, ‘international law’, and probably a course on refugee aid/law. It’s all really amazing stuff that i’m really excited about but who knows. I imagine it’s going to be rough. Also, it looks like the law classes were moved to the Main Campus outside the city. It’s a gorgeous campus but that probably means an hour+ commute each way from downtown Cairo…

I subscribed to a listserv used by expats and scholars in Cairo. Lots of things for sale, advice, rentals, that kind of thing. There is a running discussion on gardening and composting in the city. It’s a little surreal!

The biggest hurdle for this move is going to be money. I have it all squared away with loans and the like, but since the school is in Egypt they have a suitably frustrating and roundabout way of letting me get access to it. I have to first arrive in Egypt and go to the university. I then sign for the check, they take 5 days to process it, then send it to my US bank account. So the whole thing may end up taking over a week. Grrr…

Well, off to do some more reading. I am visiting an old favorite coffee shop in the town I grew up in. I’m here for a few more days before I leave so stop by and say hi!

The Other Side of the World…

“I am not the same having seen the moon rise on the other side of the world.”
-Mary Ann Rademacher

Burn it down till the embers smoke on the ground
And start new when your heart is an empty room
With walls of the deepest blue
The flames and smoke climbed out of every window
And disappeared with everything that you held dear
And you shed not a single tear for the things that you didn’t need
‘Cause you knew you were finally free

And all you see is where else you could be when you’re at home
Out on the street are so many possibilities to not be alone

Currently listening to Your heart is an empty room by Death Cab for Cutie.

I am typing on the outside patio of a small cafe in Chelan. The floor underneath my table is a pattern of cracked rock resembling a cobbled street. Weekenders and locals around me are chatting amiably in line while kids run screaming pell mell like squirrels through a tall forest, climbing up and around parents legs and disappearing outside. Outside the remnants of a small town parade are filtering by: A group of dancing horses, old restored cars and rotary groups handing out candy. In many ways this is my hobby. Sitting in coffee shops, reading the news or a book, doing research for a paper, travel, or making sure i hadn’t missed anything on Facebook in the last 12 hours. Too be honest I had begun to feel jaded and unenthusiastic about moving to Cairo. Once the novelty and excitement of a new adventure has worn off the reality of planning and logistics set in and I realize, as i realize anew each time, that with each adventure goes a ton of run-of-the-mill planning and reading. That each time you embark on something like this you inevitably say goodbye to loved ones, friends, and family, and it begins to seem like a long slow slide toward the unknown.

But in the end its those journeys and experiences that make us appreciate sitting on the front porch at your parents house watching the sunset on a warm night or your favorite table by the window in your neighborhood coffee shop. When you stretch yourself in that way you build an appreciation not only for the bigger world around you but also those old haunts you simply no longer have to think about. The ones that have always been there and you had come to think that they always would be.

I have now been out here in Chelan with the family for a few weeks and one questions continues to come up when talking with family members or old family friends. Why Cairo?
And I can understand their confusion even as i find it a little amusing. The idea of going to school outside of the US never crosses many peoples minds let alone to go to Egypt for it. I had been accepted to a terrific graduate program in the UK, one that I had already told I would be attending in the Fall when I heard I was accepted to the American University in Cairo. So why Cairo? And I sigh a little when I answer people because it’s a hard thing to explain to someone who would never dream of going to college outside the US. How do you explain that simultaneous drop of adrenaline and excitement coupled with a healthy dose of fear and anxiety? How do you explain the feeling of exploring a new place for the first time or connecting with another person in another language in another country, or the realization that no matter what corner of the world you travel to at the end of the day we are all still searching for the same things for ourselves and our families. This is more than just picking a great graduate program. It’s about engaging with what I want to study. The people involved and influenced by it, the regions of the world that deal with it, and yes, a little bit of something new.

A few days after I was offered acceptance to AUC and was still trying to make up my mind I met with my mentor and friend, Therese. Therese had been a professor for a class I took a year or two ago called ‘Critical Issues in SE Asia’ and she spends 1/2 the year living and working in Thailand. She did her graduate degree at a university in the area, has worked as a consultant for Human Rights Watch, teaches, and is a lifelong advocate for human rights in the area. She smiled when I told her I was leaning toward Cairo. She hadn’t wanted to influence my decision but she had been hoping i’d do it. She told me that if I did go that route I’d be making a choice between a life centered on academics and a life working in the field. A college versus an adventure, and that it would fundamentally change the person that I am.

Sometimes the things in life that end up changing us, making us grow, altering our perspective or the direction our life takes, come at us out of the blue. Sometimes we choose the let them happen and we walk towards them willingly, if with a healthy sense of trepidation.

But maybe that change started before I was aware of it. Perhaps I can echo the quote at the top of this page from Mary Ann Rademacher and as a child I was left slightly changed, having seen the moon rise on the other side of the world…

Sounds of Summer…

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”     – Mark Twain

In a world of desire,
oh who would come and catch you when you fall
in the wind and the fire?
oh who would come to save you?

High above any danger…
Locked inside the tower of your mind,
dreams are veiled; passion blinded.
Safe from fear and fire.

Oh who will find me?
In your midnight eyes, I see a summer sunrise.
Fly far beyond these silver winter skies.
I see a beautiful life. Oh, come and get away.

Do you see the horizon?
Walk upon the water, you will find
all is still and yet alive
in the morning light.

Oh who will find me?
In your midnight eyes, I see a summer sunrise.
Fly far beyond these silver winter skies.
I see a beautiful life. Oh, come and get away.

Dance dance in the morning light.
Open your darkened eyes.
Hey, hey, it’s a beautiful day.
It’ll be ok. It’ll be ok.
Currently listening to Who will find me? by DJ Shah feat. Adrina Thorpe.

I’m taking a break from packing to grab a cup of coffee and answer some emails. I actually hadn’t really thought that this will be the last time i’m here at my coffee shop down the street from the house until I started writing this It’s a weird sensation being both incredibly excited about something and apprehensive about it all at the same time. It’s almost like waiting to meet someone for a first date. What kind of impression will you make? Are you going to click? What if you two just don’t get along?

The above song by DJ Shah is rapidly becoming one of my favorite songs for summer. I’ve noticed that a lotof my ’summer songs’ have similar qualities. Electric guitar, female vocals, pretty upbeat. They all remind me of the summer after my friends and I graduated from high school. I convinced most of my close guy friends to get jobs at Nintendo play testing video games and we spent months working and partying with each other. It remains one of my fondest memories to this day. Watching Josh fall out of his chair when his attractive supevisor walked by. Trying to catch some sleep by jamming the controller in a circle so Link spent a 1/2 hour running around in a field. Trying to explain it when the leads wanted to see video tape of a bug i’d found. Getting some other testers together to see if we could all organize Link’s instruments and play ‘low-rider’ together.

I just got back from visiting Chelan. That’s the town in eastern Washington where my parents live. I’ll be staying with them until i leave for Egypt. This time however I was with friends and we stayed at someone’s property up in the hills overlooking the lake. They had a gorgeous piece of land with a pool on it. I managed to get a pretty wicked sunburn. No real big surprise. My sister when looking at the pictures commented on my neon vampire pale skin. It was great spending time with friends. I am reasonably sure I will see most of them before I leave the country but it still felt like a ‘last hurrah’.

I’ve been in touch with a few AUC graduate students. They’ve offered some great advice on Cairo life and being an expat. I’m really looking forward to going I should probably get back to packing… *sigh*.

Wild Horses…

I watched you suffer, a dull aching pain
And now you’ve decided to show me the same
No sweeping exits, or offstage lines
Could make me feel bitter or treat you unkind.

And wild horses couldn’t drag me away…

Well I know that I dreamed you, a sin and a lie
I’ve got my freedom, but I don’t have much time.
My faith has been broken, and tears that must be cried…
Hey, come on… Let’s do some living yea, after we die…

And wild horses couldn’t drag me away…

Currently listening to Wild Horses by Michelle Malone

Goodbye, Seattle. It’s an odd sensation. I’ve ‘left’ before but it’s always been temporary. A vacation. A study abroad. But I can’t call this next journey temporary. I’ll be in Egypt for the next 2-3 years and it seems unlikely that I will be coming back to Seattle for anything more than a family visit.

When I was a child my family moved around a lot. My dad was an officer in the Coast Guard and for the first part of my life we moved like clockwork every two years. I think it did a number of different and very confusing things to me as a young boy. On the one hand the traveling and exploring gave me a sense of perspective and appreciation for the world that was very important later in my life when I went on to major in international studies. It imbued me with an intense wanderlust that, I think, worked it’s way into my subconscious that every two years I needed to pick up and try something new. It seems to happen with jobs, with places, and with relationships, Sadly.

On the other hand though, it seems to have left me with some pretty intense separation anxiety. I love traveling. I love exploring new places and and cultures that I could never encounter otherwise. But I cannot stand to leave the people and places that I love. Vacations are easy. Moving, with the sense of finality it imparts, always hits me like 18-wheeler. Since my dad retired and we moved out to Washington State this will be the first time I have actually ‘moved’. Not shuffling from the eastside to Seattle, not finding a new apartment or house, but actually moving.

I wear a claddagh ring I was given a few years ago. I stopped wearing it for awhile because of all the history that goes with it. But I wear the ring again now because I really like claddaghs and what they represent. And this is by far the best one i’ve seen. For me now it’s a promise. A promise to never settle or compromise in the things I want out of my life, no matter where it ends up taking me. The ring is a little battered and careworn now, but I think that’s pretty appropriate. It matches exactly how I feel.

So how do you say goodbye to a city? Wish it the best? Thank it for the memories? Assure yourself that maybe you will see each other again someday and that it will always have a special place in your heart?

Or do you just say nothing… Because it’s a city. And it already knows how you feel.