Today wasn't particularly exciting for its hours of analyzing SSPS data and making a Power Point presentation for tomorrow, but I did call and chat with my grandma and my mom to wish them a Happy Mother's Day.  I also had a phone interview for a half hour.  It seemed to have gone well and I'll know for sure whether or not I've been awarded the scholarship by Thursday.

Lynch from Abu Aardvark not thrilled with Cairo as choice of location for Obama's pivotal speech

Israel PM Netanyahu coming to Egypt tomorrow

Saudi judge okays physical abuse should wives spend too much of husbands' money

  I polished off a law paper today, leaving two group projects and two final papers between me and freedom.  Tonight, I went to a friend's birthday get-together at the once shabby-chic (now just shabby) Café Riche in downtown Cairo.  Tomorrow, I am meeting with my Methodology class group to assemble and process our findings on Nigerian migrants.

  Today I was meant to go to Ma'adi to volunteer with the project through which I teach English, but some unforeseen events delayed that.

  On Sunday, I'm interviewing for a fellowship.  It's a really exciting prospect to think that I might have found a way to fund my next semester here.  Keep your fingers crossed for me!

News:

President Obama to give major policy speech in Cairo on 4 June

Since my last post of a quarter day ago, I've gone to my (rather helpful) advising appointment.  Ray explained that he doesn't suggest trying to do my thesis and two courses all at once next semester, but I think I'm going to try and get as much of my research done as possible this summer.  I'm really not inclined to spend Spring 2010 at AUC, but we'll see.  In any event, I'm not the least bit worried either way and am reenergized about my thesis and how dynamic and engaging the process of research and thesis-writing promises to be.

Following my meeting, I made a pit stop at home, chatted with the ever-changing group of people in my living room, and walked to Doqqi.  In between the two bridges, that is to say past the Mohammad Mokhtar museum, I was approached by a grinning Egyptian who I guessed was around my age.  I'd made it that far without any remarks or hindrances thanks to my power-walking and iPod-listening, but the chap was insistant, so I took one earbud out and greeted him tersely.  Over the next ten minutes, however, I realized he wasn't trying to show me his cousin's shop or sell me hash or take me on a tour.  He turned out to be from the countryside, but commutes in to take classes at Cairo University.  He was walking there from downtown as I was heading to get my haircut.  We chatted and inevitably America (I was picked out as American for a change, usually I'm mistaken for a German or an Englishman), George W. Bush, and Palestine came up.  I elaborated my views briefly, apparently to his satisfaction.  He then told me about his American friends and all the English they'd taught him, producing a notebook filled with obscenities and other "useful" phrases to enrich his academic English.  He inquired what the phrases "freak me out" meant, as he'd seen it somewhere and written it down so that he could later look it up.  I wanted to use it in context when he asked if I had Skype, but recognized that it's common for Egyptians to be so gregarious and socially straightforward.  I gave him my Facebook info instead.  Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to meet for coffee and pick up a little more Arabic.

  My haircut was great, as last time.  Getting all the massaging and shampooing and conditioning and cutting and styling for the equivalent of just over twenty bucks with tip included is fantastic.  I had a different hair-cutter this time, but he was just as good and also French.  I left feeling lighter both for having spent an hour relaxing and because he took a whole lot of hair off.  After a funny little discourse with the Ethiopian receptionist, I took off for the supermarket I raved about after going there last time.  More of my meagre funds spent on food.  Ma3lesh!

  I walked all the way back home, glad that my taxi-eschewing, in my mind at least, makes up for not exercising much.  I've just finished dinner and am going to a house party that's raising funds for an AUC organization offers a variety of courses to refugees.  Somewhere in there I hope to get some time for myself and to make a dent in my papers and projects!

News:

Egyptian FM claims Iran and Israeli nuclear threats equal; dismisses reports of own nuclear activity

  Erratic sleeping and filling my free time with social events (knowing that some of my friends are leaving for good while I'm away and some I won't see all summer) and with school work (which seems to be exponentially increasing with the advent of the semester's end have detracted from my faithful blogging.  My apologies.  

  The lastest news in my corner of the world is as follows: 

Weapons grade uranium found in Egypt

Egypt's National Council for Human Rights publishes its fifth annual report after delay

Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to visit Egypt on Monday

Africa prepares for H1N1

  I spent yesterday breathing it bits of the Sahara as Google's weather report for Cairo accurately read "sand".  The sky turned whitish-yellow while the air itself seemed almost tangible because of the dust and sand it was full of.

  Undeterred, I managed to finish my thesis proposal and venture outside to make the trek to campus to print it out and submit it.  We had a guest lecturer from the Cairo Family Planning Association who talked about FGM and its pervasiveness in Egypt.

  Later in the evening, Phil and I joined Marise and her family for a trip to Hyper One.  This Egyptian hypermarket is apparently the homegrown answer to chains like Carrefour and Spinney's.  As with any of the hypermarkets, it's a strange feeling to stray into the suburbs and see this little slices of Egypt that are superficially similar to America, but not at all the same beyond the fact that many of the people who shop in them know nothing of life downtown or in the cities poorer districts.  In whichever country you find yourself, it's always possible to isolate yourself from societal problems.

  Yesterday was the president's birthday, but I didn't notice any particularly extravagant indicators of this.  The Daily News Egypt reported on it, but as of this entry, I cannot acces the website, nor can I find anything on Google news.  Strange.  What I have heard a lot about was the continuing of the rather ill-advised pig cull and the reactions.  

  Beyond this brief update, I haven't much time to type as I have to get my nose to the grindstone.  Final papers and group projects to finish up!

  Struck with motivation, I am dedicating what's left of the evening to working on my thesis proposal which I think I've spent more time writing about in blog entries and Facebook statuses than actually attending to.  Today hasn't been entirely unproductive, though.  I met with my law group to begin out mock convention on the discrimination against migrants.  The interviews with Nigerians for my other group have been moved to tomorrow.

  The project I'd been teaching English through that had been shut down temporarily is starting up again soon.  I'll be transferred to a different suburb because of reorganization, but should get a few more weeks of volunteering in before I leave.  I will also return to the position past the end of my Rotary scholarship.

News:

Farmers clash with health officials as Egypt goes ahead with its mass slaughter of the nation's swine

Taxi rides and general driving conditions ever-terrifying in Egypt

Is Egyptian State Security on Twitter?  Hoaxer takes credit for impostor account, but others insist government maintains a presence

  Happy May Day, everyone.  Though growing up in Peoria, I knew the 1st of May as a more benign, rather unimportant having something to do with leaving flowers on peoples' porches, it is an important day to celebrate labor and protest for improved working conditions around the world.  Protests are especially vigorous this year given the economic crisis.  Moving beyond labor issues, many in the States are calling for progress on immigrants' rights.

  Meanwhile, in Egypt, the president reminded his constituents that striking is illegal and that doing so would only serve to hurt the economy.  While he was busy doing that, I was, with the assistance of my saintly Egyptian friend Marise and her helpful brother and her godsend of a mother, negotiating the renewal of my lease.  After ten months of getting ripped off, I finally have more or less a fair price.  It's a relief, but I'm holding my breath until I get the physical contract itself in front of me and signed by both parties.

  I got up early for the occasion and cleaned and am rather tuckered out.  Last night, we played Risk until the wee hours of the morning after some tasty and inexpensive Lebanese food in Mohandaseen.

  I've been making headway on my thesis proposal, but a group project for my methods class will have to take precedence today when Cynthia and I go to interview Nigerian migrants about their experiences in Cairo.

  I'm not longer dying from a migraine, but it last through yesterday.  At least I don't have swine flu, I guess, which is, says the WHO, henceforth to be referred to by its scientific name H1N1 Influenza A specifically because of Egypt's spirited but "misguided effort" to prevent the spread of the virus.  The Egyptian government now is claiming the measure was not swine flu-related, but rather a "general health measure".  Either way, Egypts' hogs have been sent to slaughter and Brigitte Bardot isn't very happy about it.  

  Meanwhile, back across the world in Peoria, Ali al-Marri pleads guilty to charges of aiding terrorists.  While it's more than a little unsettling to see Islamic fundamentalism hit so close to home, I sincerely hope that the events surrounding his trial don't fuel more of the ignorance and Islamophobia that are inevitably reflected in the comments on PJStar stories about al-Marri.