The joy of finishing

Hey Folks,

So what’s up? I hear E-town got a huge dump of snow this weekend. I hope you had a chance to go skiing, or will do so in the next little while. Indeed hitting the slopes for some spring snowboarding is one of the things I’m really looking forward to upon return. BTW today’s weather is 33C and sunny ;)

So back to the present. I’m feeling that same feeling I’ve experienced so many times and it’s as good as ever. The feeling after finishing a course, the one that comes immediately after handing in an exam paper or giving that final presentation. I did both of those today, and so I’m really enjoying the resulting emotion.

I had an oral presentation in my spoken Arabic class, 15 minutes on anything, in Arabic of course. I gave it on my time at Behman Psychiatric Hospital. I owe many thanks to Amani, Nabila and my friend Diana for their help in editing. The presentation went really well: everyone enjoyed it; people understood it in part (which in itself is a great success), asked lots of questions when they didn’t, and were in general interested in the topic. So I was really pleased.

After that, I had a written exam in Modern Standard Arabic. It also went really well, I think. We’ll see tomorrow, but it felt good. So we’ll see. I actually think I learned a lot in that course.

So now what? This is the big question. My return ticket is for exactly 4 weeks from today, so now I need to either: fill my time here with something useful, take my time elsewhere in the region, or come home early. I’m not interested in taking the next course. I don’t think it’d be a good use of my time and money. It was expensive-ish, it took a lot of time and I don’t have the motivation. Also, I’m not thinking there’s a lot I can start and finish here in one month that’ll keep me busy.

So my top 2 options are coming home early and traveling. The biggest knock against traveling is that I would be on my own for a great deal of it. This of course is one unique feature that isn’t in itself bad, but given that I’m a fairly social person, built for having a smaller number of more long-term, deep relationships, it’s a bit a scary proposition. I'm one who's not super interested in history or stuff like that - I just like stuff that looks nice and I enjoy sharing it with others. When I say scary, it's not as much the fear of the experience as it is thinking that I'm just not sure I'll really enjoy it. The advantages are seizing the chance to do and see stuff I have while I'm here, the learning experience of traveling, and the growth that can come from that, and especially from traveling alone, and the fact that I simply don't know how it'll be till I try.

The advantage to coming home early is that I can start working (insert sarcastic cheer here). But that has the advantage of bringing in, rather than spending, money. The influx of financial resources is considered useful for the partial funding of such educational endeavors as I will be undertaking in the upcoming 6 years. The other advantage is to come home and spend purposefully, as opposed to putsing around Cairo with little purposeful work or service driving my time. The disadvantage is that I’m here, it’s now, and there aren’t a tonne of opportunities like this, so I don't want to miss something that I'd miss just 'cause of laziness or lack of personal investment and some types of risk.

So I’ve thrown my thoughts of the present situation at you (like I’ve done with all blogs). I hope you don’t judge me for them. BTW You can be sure I’ll let you know what I plan is shortly after I know it myself.