Ana bahib al-lughaat al-’arabeyya.

Title translation: I love the Arabic language.

As part of my Arabic class at Baylor, I have to keep a portfolio. In this entry, I wrote a biography about myself in Arabic. To my poor non-Arabic speaking friends is say this: enjoy the squiggly lines of goodness. It’s so beautiful too look at and listen to.

انا اسمي ساره رفيق. انا من مدينة استن لكن اسكن في مدينة واكو عشان ادرس في الجامعة يالور. ادرس صحا فه. انا بحب اتفرج عله الاخبر باليل. انا اشتفل غند الجريده في الجامعة بالور. اشتفل بين ٣٠ و ٣٥ ساعه كل اسبوع. انا ادرس الغه العربية برده عشان بحب الغه. السنه اجر انا درست في الجاماعة الامريكيه يالقاهره انا بحب الدواه مصر انا سكنت في القاهره في ٤ سهور و درس الغه العربية و صحافا برده انا درست العمية. اسكن في شفه صغيره قريب من الجامعه شفه عندها ٢ اوض نوم ٢ حمام مطبج و اوضة سفره

كل اوضة عنده سجاده و نطبج و عنده تلاجة دولاب مصبج و وتاجتز عندي ام ارمله و اثنين جوات اجت صغيره عمرها ١٧ سنة و تسكن في استن مع امي هي في مدرسه ثانوي و تعمل في مكتبة في مدينة جوجتون و جوجتون قريب من مدينة استن

اجت كبير عمرها ٢٢ سنه و تتخرجت الجامعة بالور السنة اللي فا تت الان هي تسمن ف و تدرس في مدينة سان انتونيو هي تدرس علم الاحياء و هوسكن

I also had to do a video for my Arabic class. Don’t laugh at my accent. I’m still learning. :)

If the future exists.

I don’t remember when life got so complicated. There’s so much to think about these days, mainly the future.

I’m ready for summer because it will hopefully be a chance for me to relax and do something I enjoy. I applied for the Critical Language Scholarship through the US Department of State. I know it is an extremely competitive scholarship, but I really hope I get it. It would give me the chance to go back to the Middle East and study Arabic.

Right now the goal is to one day, inshAllah, become fluent (love how I threw some Arabic in there :D).

Anyways, I am also applying for a journalism internship in London, which would also be a fantastic opportunity. My university has a program where students can spend a semester in New York. Ideally spending time in New York, Los Angeles, London or any other major city would be a great learning opportunity and really give me a feel for the industry.

With everything that’s been going on, I think it would be selfish of me to leave my family and add unneeded costs to go to New York and intern. It would also perhaps prolong my graduation which would again be an added cost.

Anyways, I’m torn between which I would do: go to the Middle East and study Arabic or go to London and intern. Of course that’s assuming I get either, which both are going to be competitive so who knows.

Either way my dream right now is to intern with a major corporation and just do something I enjoy. I’ve been working as copy editor for my universities newspaper and have really grown to like it. I’m not sure if I’m any good at it, but it’s enjoyable so that’s always a plus.

I keep thinking what I want to do with my journalism degree, but either way I think it’s something I will enjoy. I really love sitting on the computer and just playing around with different designs and learning different programs. Since I started working I’ve produced a couple of slideshows using Soundslides which was fun.

Anyways, I think this semester is going to be tough…a couple of my classes are going to require a lot of work and I know I’ve been a bit lazy lately. Sometimes it seems like no matter how hard I study I can’t quite get the grades. That’s the thing about school, some of the classes I’ve gotten bad grades in are the classes I feel I learned the most from, yet my grade doesn’t reflect that.

I honestly think that grades, though sometimes are important, shouldn’t be the main focus or concern for people. As far as my future “career” in journalism is concerned, I think I have plenty of skills to do a good job as a journalists, and that I will learn through my classes but in the end it’s my attitude and responsibility that matters.

ANYWAYS. Enough rambling! I’m out.

Peace.

Cairo: “I Want it Now”

Today, my day in Cairo was quite busy and hectic, but thankfully ended on a good note. I started off going to old AUC campus and basically walked all around getting all of the things I need to get done, done. I am a bit frustrated and mad about the classes I am in. And, as much as I would like to complain on here about all of the stuff that frustrates me about AUC, I think I’ll focus on the fun parts of my day.

 

After about 7 p.m. my day started getting good. Some friends and I took a stroll in Cairo down to the Nile River, which was quite relaxing, and a plus is that we didn’t get lost!

 

Then, we came back and found out about this Queen’s concert. Well, actually, It was an Egyptian (I think) band covering Queen songs. My roommate and I met up with another girl and headed off to the concert. I’m so glad that we were able to find the place, and decided to go to the concert, rather than go to dinner with a group of people were going to eat with earlier.

 

The concert was amazing, when I say amazing I mean. AH-MAZE-ING! It was not only my first Cairo concert, but my first “real” concert ever!

 

Anyways, this blog is shorter than the rest, but the Queen’s concert and dinner afterwards was basically the only highlight.

 

Tomorrow my roommate and I are thinking about going to the Egyptian museum, which should be loads of fun!

Egypt: Day Three

So, it’s my third day in Egypt and again it has been fantastic!

I was going to go sign up for a trip to Alexandria, Egypt and also hopefully get my Arabic course changed, but that didn’t end up happening. I woke up about nine and went in and out of sleep until 1:30. It was the first day that I got a TON of sleep. I don’t think I was jetlagged in the first place, but if I was I should be over it.

 

After waking up me and Christine, my roommate, went downstairs to hang out and get some online stuff done for a while. Then, we took a taxi to the old AUC campus and wanted to change classes/sign up for the Alexandria trip, but everyone from orientation had cleared out. So, by this point, around 6:30 we still hadn’t really eaten a meal so we walked over to Hardee’s and got some American food, which by the way was really yummy in my tummy.

 

We scarfed down our food and then waited to go on the horseback riding trip that we signed up for.

 

By the way, the taxi ride was good. I really enjoyed it as well.

 

Once we were finally on the bus, we took a look trip to Giza and went horseback riding, in the deserts and were able to see the Pyramids. It was all really nice and beautiful. From one side you see the city; the other, the pyramids.

 

We all saddled up on horses and took a long ride through the dimly, to not at all, lit desert. It was my first time on a horse, (sad considering I’m from Texas) and it was fantastic. We got the horses to ride and gallop fast.

 

Once we hit our destination, I took some pictures with the pyramids, horses and camels, but sadly my camera died!! I say it’s just another excuse to have to go again. The ride back was also fantastic; though of course as a first timer it took a while to get used to. Like everyone else, I kept on getting my legs squished in between the racing horses as well as  bouncing really high up and down my horse. I do anticipate being a bit sore tomorrow, but it was worth it.

 

There were quite a few times that my feet came out of the little thing you put your feet in (I know, I know, I don’t know what it’s called and I should) where I would lean to one side, but thankfully I didn’t fall.

 

Anyways, throughout the trip we were told not to give them baksheesh, a tip, but of course they kept asking for it. I felt rude for it, but the AUC people said they were already paying them, and their tip.

 

Anyways, my tour guide was a little too friendly, and desperate for baksheesh and afterwards and came up to the closed bus asking for Sarah looking angrily sad, asking for baksheesh. Of course, I ignored him and started looking the other way. This was my first encounter of someone really asking for a tip, and I was able to say no. J

 

 

Anyways, that reminds me that yesterday Christine and I went down to an art store and met some really friendly old guys that work there. I don’t know if I’m just being naïve, but I think they were really nice, in a not creepy way, and have decided that that will be the place I go to practice Arabic.

 

The guys were nice, asking if we liked Obama—they really seemed to have a genuine interest in what is best for America, and said they liked Obama if he was good for America. We also talked about Bush a little and said that most people in America don’t really even like him. He said something to the effect of, Bush was good for four years, but maybe not for eight.

 

Anyways, I want to go there again. It was the first time being in Cairo that the people we were buying stuff from carried on a conversation with us as well, instead of just selling us our products and letting us leave.

 

Anyways, I feel like there is so much more I can say about my trip here, but its late here and I feel like I’ve repeated a lot of my stories.

 

But basically, I’m having a blast. I don’t understand why people wouldn’t want to visit the Middle East. I know I am only in Cairo, which has been quite Europeanized, but the parts outside of Cairo that I have seen have seemed nice and enjoyable as well.

 

So, that’s all for this blog—let you know what happens tomorrow! (Hopefully time will permit).

(p.s. not edited=random)

Egypt in one month…and then some more.

þ

 

 

 

QSo…I leave for Cairo, EGYPT in exactly one month!!! Q

 

I am both excited and nervous. I think it’s just now really starting to kick in that I am actually going to be spending four months in the Middle East. It’s both exciting and a bit scary at the same time.

 

I’ve been reading Richard Engel’s “A Fist in the Hornet’s Nest: On Ground in Baghdad Before, During & After the War,” which has really been an eye opening book for what journalism during wartime is like. At times I forget that what I’m reading in non-fiction; a biography. Everything seems so unlikely and unrealistic—untrue. It’s just that some of the images Engel described were so heart-wrenching and saddening and a little too brutally truthful.

 

I admire Engel for diving right in, and being one of two American foreign correspondents that remained in Iraq, even in the worst of situations. I admire his bravery and genuine character, and most of all, I admire how he started out his career.

 

After starting the book, I must admit, that for one brief millisecond I doubted myself. Do I really want to be an international correspondent in the Middle East. It’s not that I don’t want to, I’m just not sure I’d succeed.

 

Also, I think life would be so much easier, especially as a journalist, if I were a guy. I see all these intelligent female journalists on TV plastered in make-up and designer suits, but I just can’t picture myself as one of those journalists.

 

I think like would be easier as a guy journalist especially in the Middle East (not that I am supporting the decision that women are oppressed, because they aren’t).

 

After reading Anderson Cooper’s biography (which I can later give a review on: A+ + +) and the beginning of Engel’s I see that they both went on their owns to these dangerous foreign countries looking for hard-hitting news to report, hoping to fulfill their dreams of becoming a foreign correspondent.

 

I’m not sure that I would be able to grab a visa, wads of cash, a camcorder, and other necessary equipment for a journalist and venture out to unchartered (by me) territory looking for news. Sure I am more than willing to take that risk, but I’ve got two problems. One, I don’t have the money for that. Two, I might could get money from my parents, but once I told them I was just traveling hoping to turn myself into my dream of a correspondent, they would never go for it. Three, the world is fiercely competitive and I on the other hand want everyone to get what they want before I indulge in my dreams.

 

That’s the difficult thing in life. Though anything is possible, there are limitations. I feel the old cliché of hard work and perseverance doesn’t always pay off the way that it should for the intended person.

 

Anyways, back to Engel’s book, I’ve been busy working 50+ hours a week so I’m still not done with the book. I never thought I’d find myself reading a book with an index for fun. Ha. Ha.

 

There was one particular paragraph that I really could relate to from. It was the opening paragraphs of the book after the introduction and reads,

 

“The journey that brought me to Iraq started in Egypt. I moved to Cairo after graduating from college in 1996 with a Bachelor of Arts in international relations and no real clue what I was getting into. I didn’t speak a word of Arabic or have any contacts in the Middle East. I’d set off with a thousand dollars in cash wallpapering my pockets and tucked into a money belt around my waist […] and a hope that I’d be able to make myself into a foreign correspondent.”

 

I first read this paragraph and though, “What a coincidence I’m going to Cairo in a few months and I have that same hope of making myself into a foreign correspondent.” Engel and I definitely have that in common J but who knows where this “foreign correspondent” dream will take me.

 

ANYWAY…I didn’t mean to get sidetracked….I hope to learn a whole lot from this trip for Cairo including culturing myself, learning more Arabic J, traveling around the Middle East (if money permits, and my parents don’t get freaked out by that idea)and I want to just appreciate life for what it is and maybe inspire others. I don’t know how, but hey…I could happen??

 

Anyways, I still have a lot of stuff to do for my trip; things to buy, papers to mail, and oh yeah, I still need a visa. K

 

I’m sure my blogs from now on will be talking about my excitement and anticipation for August 21^st when I leave for the big city of CAIRO!