bleeegghghhh

Today was the second day of classes, and I'm already using up sick days. Apparently the pizza that's sold on campus is making a few people sick. I'm not surprised, as I found a piece of cardboard baked into my pizza the other day. In addition to the pizza, I tried a sip of water from a water fountain on campus, thinking that it might be worth getting used to the local water if I'm going to be here for a whole year. So now my stomach hates me. Fair enough.

Some of you might be thinking, "you went all the way to Egypt, and you're still just living on pizza??" Pretty sad, I know. Unfortunately, there's not a whole lot of food options on campus. Another reason why I plan on living off campus next semester. Dining options include McDonalds, Subway (coming soon!), an Italian fast food place, Cinnabon, and Tabasco. Tabasco is our "dining hall," which I expected to be a cafeteria-type place, but instead has a medley of more fast foods. I'm a little disappointed by the lack of Mediterranean and Middle-Eastern food on campus. Tabasco has schawermas, but not much else in that department. I mean, I know it's the American University in Cairo, but do ya think we could have a little less American and a little more Cairo? Oh well. After this episode, I think I'm going to start cooking (gasp!) in our little lounge kitchen, which consists of a fridge, microwave, and hot plates. We'll see how that goes.

Anyway, classes yesterday were great. I really feel like I've been placed into the right levels. In the states I would be starting Intermediate MSA (Modern Standard Arabic), but with the Arabic intensive program, I've placed into High Elementary. Everyone in my class, which consists of 5 or 6 people, seems to be on more or less the same page. Some people have a better hold of the grammar, while others have a broader vocabulary, but I think it will even out soon enough. My Egyptian Colloquial Arabic (ECA) class, on the other hand, is set up to kick my ass, I think. It's at the complete beginner level, but it is simultaneously similar enough and different enough from MSA as to completely confuse me. I'm pretty dedicated to learning it though, as it will be the most useful dialect of Arabic that I'll ever learn. Tomorrow is the first day of my Arabic in Written Media class, so Inshallah (God willing) I'll be feeling well enough to attend.