stupid school.

sorry about the huge lack of updates, but ive been pretty incredibly busy for the past few weeks. i have about 30 minutes before my bus comes, though, and i have decided to be irresponsible for your sakes, so im writing this instead of *starting* either one of the two term papers that are due next week. quite frankly, i work really well under pressure, and thats totally what im banking on.
while we are on the subject of procrastinating term papers, though, i would like to say a thing or two about the auc library. actually, its not completely the library's fault; mostly it is some stranger's fault, but i dont know the stranger and i want to focus my annoyance on something, so the library gets the brunt of the blame. i am writing both papers on a sufi mystic by the name of ibn 'arabi. he is considered the "greatest master" of islamic mysticism, and he wrote a lot of really profound stuff, and the auc library just happens to have 2 copies of his most profound work translated into english: the bezels of wisdom. and i wanted it for my papers. obviously. so i went to the library like 3 weeks ago and it was checked out- no problem, ill give it a few days, surely whoever has it wont hoard it because tons of people are writing term papers right now. a week later it still isnt back, so i ask the library to recall it, that is, to bump up the due date and send an email telling the person to bring back my flipping book. another week later, it still isnt here (and its rather overdue), so i ask the library to start calling whoever has it to get them to bring it back. of course, no one answers, so i havent gotten the bezels and im surely not going to before this stuff is due. and there was another book in the same situation, and the librarian talked to whoever had it and told them to bring it back today, but, of course, no. so i lack all primary sources. whatever.
yeah, ive been super busy. i cant even remember what i did 3 weekends ago; if i think to ask someone, ill let you know because im sure it was entertaining. but 2 weekends ago i played in my first egyptian rugby game. thats right, i joined the rugby team (sort of), and we had a trip to alexandria and completely destroyed the 'alexandria gladiators.' then a couple of guys from the team, one guy's girlfriend, me and a friend who had come up with me, trish, stayed in alex and played tourist. so we saw some catacombs and i went to the library again (i should have thought to check out the bezels there! dang), but mostly the trip centered around eating because there is an abundance of really fresh and amazing seafood in alex. so yeah, i stopped being vegetarian for the weekend. we ate tons of sea bass, crabs, prawns, calimari, some other kind of fish... and everything always comes with rice and salads and tahini and bread, and its usually like 40 pounds a person (8 dollars, eh), so its undeniably the best food for the lowest price you are likely to find without going to some egyptian's house.
then that week i read books in preparation for writing this paper. i have read four so far, and i feel pretty much like an expert on islamic mysticism. but a better story begins on tuesday (i think) night. i asked lauren that day if she wanted to go with me to the market because i lost my scarf and wanted to get another one, and she agreed but said that she would be at school until sort of late. i didnt particularly mind, so that night i went out with corina and smoked sheesha and waited for lauren to call to say she was back, which didnt happen until about ten. but we went anyway because, hey, its cairo, who needs sleep? unfortunately, neither of us knew how to get to the market, so we just hopped on a subway train and hoped for the best. unfortunately we had guessed wrong, and we had half a dozen egyptian men explaining to us the error of our ways in varying degrees of english. finally this one guy, who turned out to be named mohammad, go figure, said he would escort us to the right subway stop, which he did. and then he camp above ground with us to help us get a cab. and then he came with us in the cab all the way to the market. and by this time it was past midnight and the subway was closed, so i offered to pay for his cab but he refused; if you havent noticed, this guy was super nice. and not even in the creepy egyptian way (at least i didnt think so... lauren rather did, and she didnt talk to him, but thats another deal altogether). since he was so nice, i couldnt really say no when he asked me to go to dinner with him the next day.
but then he finally left and lauren and i wandered in the market and bought scarves and smoked more sheesha until about three in the morning when everyone started cleaning up and packing in. but then we got another sheesha... so by about 345 it was just us and a bunch of egpytian men sitting in this huge square; we were talking and they were waiting for us to leave so they could clean, so we left. but for some reason we didnt feel like taking a taxi (even though we were several miles from anywhere we knew), so we just started walking in the general direction of downtown. a couple of hours later we arrived at a square that i knew where we got some food and decided on a course of action. it was almost dawn, so i suggested that we wander over to chelsea's house (no more than a mile away) to watch the sun rise from the top of her roof. the only problem was that i had never walked to chelsea's from that direction and, cairo streets being what they are, we got lost, so finally at about seven in the morning we gave up and went home, and then i got up at 830 for school.
then the next night (wednesday, i guess) i went to chelsea's to hang out and at about 830 i remembered that i had a date with muhammad! he had sent me a text earlier telling me to meet him at the downtown subway station, which was quite near, so i thought, cool, we will get food and chill downtown for a while, nothing to worry about. so i went and met him and he was like, okay, now we are going to maadi (he lives in a completely separate district of cairo). and i was like, sure, whatever. so we went and got food and talked about arabic and ourselves and why eyptian men make white girls uncomfortable, and then he invited me back to his place for a drink... it was seriously the closest thing that i have had to a date for several years. when we got back to his apartment, though, i had to bail, so i excused myself and left, but he came with me to the subway station (and bought me some juice on the way) and then bought my ticket for the train and then got on the train with me and rode all the way back downtown and then came back up to the street with me and then walked a couple of blocks back toward chelsea's house with me and finally i was like, muhammad, you have to go home! i figured chelsea would be mad if i brought a random egyptian home with me... so he left and i went and talked with lauren in the hammock until like 5 in the morning and then got up at 830 for school the next day. so thats three days, less than five hours of sleep.
and i have more stories about last weekend, but i really have to go to the bathroom and then i have to catch the bus home, so yall will just have to wait until after thanksgiving. sorry.
and happy thanksgiving, whoever reads this :)