My schedule

I will post more fun stuff after this, but for now, look at my schedule and drown in the jealousy that is me taking three Egyptology classes...
Introduction to Colloquial Arabic
Art and Archaeology of Cairo
History II: the Middle Kingdom to the New Kingdom
The Cultural Geography of Ancient Egypt
Temples of the Ptolemaic Pyramid

Jealous yet? Oh you should be... because I get to go on field trips and my advisor loves me. Unlike the 75% of the people that she makes cry, I was in, out and had a prettified slip of white paper in front of me courtesy of the American University in Cairo.

On to other more amusing things that I have been up to, my past two days have been filled with island exploration. This is in no way meant to sound exotic--no I haven't fled Egypt yet for the Greek Isles. While I did fly over them on the plane and definitely want to visit at some point based on the pretty blueness of the water, there must be pyramids before ionic columns. The islands I have been exploring are two islands in the middle of the Nile called Zamalek and Geziret el Roda. I live about 4 blocks from the Nile at a point between the two islands, in an area called Garden City. Garden City is the home of the American, British, Canadian, and Italian Embassies, so if there is any running for embassies, I am in close range with lots of big trees and crumbling fences in the way to hide me. In fact, crumbling is a major theme of Cairo--the buildings, the sidewalks, the bridges, the boats, the stray cats and dogs and a variety of other animate and inanimate objects that probably shouldn't be crumbling. It's a beautiful city with the remnants of varied and eclectic architecture of Islamic, Oriental, and European styles. I guess I'll talk more about that when I start classes on February 4th and get to take my fun Cairo field trips. Eventually, I'll also get my pictures posted online, but that will only happen when I get my appropriate RAW converters so I can post them online and appease all of those demanding evidence that I am here and alive.
Still on the theme of crumbling, though not a politically corrent observation, I have experienced and witnessed an interested hypocracy of gendered issues. In modern Cairo, the vast majority (well over 90%) of the women are veiled, a dramatic increase from the norm of even 5-10 years ago. However, as the call to prayer rings out five times each day from the minarets and loudspeakers of the city, very few women or men are praying, but are instead walking, talking, conducting business, and otherwise carrying on without regard to this brief "interruption". A traditional sign of piety, the veil is clearly not worn only by the pious and instead is a social obligation and pressure. Not only does this create a hypocracy in that the men are not required to show a similar modesty and piety, but in that it makes life for difficult for non-veiled women such as most westerners. Men from 8-80 years old feel they have the right to harass women (actually all women, though the emphasis is on non-veiled women) with simple comments ranging from "hello" or "welcome to Egypt" to following a woman down the street demanding her name, place of origin, calling her a "yankee" (my personal favorite), or asking her "how much?". While I understand that the general perception of western women is taht we are collectively promiscious and easy, but my new roommate Kari stated it best: "Oh yes, he found my weakness... when someone says "hello" to me, I get so turned on my pants start unbuttoning themselves. But really, this is just pathetic." Realistically, forget easy... we're not that gullible and we're all wearing way too much clothing to act in a loose manner.
An additional and unfortunate paradox of this behavior is that it creates a barrier between the women who are veiled and those who are not. That women walks in, hair gloriously shining in an obvious seductive manner and it isn't a matter just of propriety, but a personal threat against other women as she is "consciously seducing" the men around her.
The entire matter is very reminiscent of "My Short Skirt" from the Vagina Monologues--my clothing isn't an excuse for your lack of respect for women and moral conscience.