Alyastan

Right now, I'm learning to say the days of the week in Czech to facilitate communication between me and my current crush. See, my friend Salma has two Czech friends who're here studying Arabic, and being a good friend, she introduced me because she thought I'd like Tomáš. And I do; he's cute, funny, very sweet, and pretty smart and cultured. I just wish he wasn't leaving in early December. Anyway, I don't know if he's even interested in me, or if he's just being nice to me because I'm Salma's friend. Last night, I took my cousin and went to visit him and his friend in their flat. We spent a nice evening drinking and talking. Layla and I even sang to them all the comical patriotic songs we know. And tomorrow we're taking them on a felucca. I'm even skipping uni. >.>

Oh, speaking of uni, I'm enjoying this semester. It's more difficult and more satisfying than the last two years. Even though some subjects are whopping my ass (*cough*translation*cough*). And I'm beginning to have a clearer idea of what I want to do in grad school.

In conclusion: yay!

The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books here. How do your reading habits stack up?

Bold means read it (and finished it)
Italic means I didn't finish it
Underlined means I read it for school (if it's then bold I read it again later; italics and I didn't finish it)

( For the purposes of this meme, 'read it' means 'read it either in English or the original language, unabridged'. )

I still have two years to go in school. I'm incredibly bitter about that; if I hadn't switched educational systems between high school and uni, I'd have graduated already. However, the upside is, I have plenty of time to prepare grad school applications.

The truth is, I'm still not sure what I want to do after I graduate. There're so many things I want to do, like work in a variety of places, both abroad and in Egypt; I want to go to grad school, and I want to enrol in another undergrad program (in biochemistry! It'd be so much fun! I love biochem!). But hey, I'm gonna start with the most obvious, right? So I'm looking at grad school programs.

Holy shit. Too much choice.

No, really. So far, all I know is that I want to study something to do with the relationship between literature and other arts/society/culture. Or with arts/cultural management, but I'm hesitating on that, because while this is the career path I most likely want to get into, the MA programs are chock-full of law, business and economics courses and I've never taken those, and what's more, I'm pretty sure I'm gonna end up hating them. So I'm looking at Comparative Literature MA/PhD programs, French Lit MA/PhD programs and Cultural Management/Arts Management/Cultural Policy MA or MBA programs. TBH, so far the most attractive programs are in Comp Lit, and I think I could handle those, despite Comp Lit being a notoriously difficult field. They have language requirements; I love language requirements. And most of them have Latin among those requirements, and I've missed studying Latin so much omg. <3 And they allow me to choose Arabic as my 'cross-cultural language'.

So my current plan of action is:
1. Contact people at each of those programs, explain about my background/education/work experience, ask questions, get to know each program better - ASAP
2. Study for and take the TOEFL iBT - Next winter/spring
3. Really study for and take GREs (General and Literature Subject Test) - Next spring/summer
4. Study for and take the IELTS - Fall 2010
5. Maintain a GPA of over 15/20 at uni, and try to raise it to 17.5/20 (so it'd be 3.5 on an American scale)
6. Look for scholarships: contact Chevening, Fulbright, Ford Foundation, British Council, various Sawiris-owned organisms... - Fall 2010
7. Ask for recommendation letters and start preparing applications - Spring or Fall 2010
8. Get a job in an arts-related entreprise other than my current workplace (which makes up 90% of my CV!)
9. Any more suggestions? I'm really improvising, because I have no idea what to do.

Now I'm wondering if I should travel next summer, or save my money for the application/testing/mailing fees. Because, um, I'll basically be applying EVERYWHERE EVER, so we're talking 15+ applications. I'm... kind of really set on getting accepted somewhere. Basically, I know I've gotten really sucky undergrad education, and I want to make up for it.

I took sunset photos!

( Pretty colours! )

( 7 cat pics! )

Oh, for fuck's sake.

I mean, I'm a little annoyed that Bush is portrayed as some kind of champion of human rights, when his administration gave millions in military aid to the Egyptian government, which the latter used to violently repress political dissidents and demonstrators. But still not as annoyed as I am over the Obama administration cutting funding to human rights NGOs. And then you want to pretend we're all friends? Fuck you. It's because of stuff like this that Islamists are getting more popular every day.

I want to marry this complete stranger.

I wish people would stop saying "both sides are full of fail", re:warningsfailything (which I don't want to call wank because to me it does sound dismissive). They're not. One side is full of fail and the other is full of win with occasional faily people here and there. The same thing happened during Racefail as well, with bonus "I won't take sides OMG". >:(

Man, all that, and Livia's the "tedious pill"?

Why the fuck is there no Paypal for Egypt?

:< Totally not fair.

What. The. Fuck.

EWewewewew

GAH!

Got my passport back from the German embassy. First thought: yay they gave me the visa!

Second thought: wait, why is it only until July 31st?

Basically, they cut the last 3 days out of my trip. The 3 days I'm supposed to spend in Dutchland. ;_;

So now I need to call the Dutch Embassy to apply for another visa for those three days.

>:(

AAAAH! AAAAAAAAH!

I've been looking at posts about the Iranian election results, and how Americans are quick to come to the conclusion that the election has been stolen because the side they support lost. Which is somewhat true, IMO. However, all that I read about how fast the ballots were counted and Ahmadinejad's winning percentages, sounds a lot like what happened here in the last election. Except, you know, more subtle, because Ahmadinejad tries to at least pretend Iran's a democracy.

Anyway, what I'm getting at is, whether the election was stolen or not doesn't matter at this point, where protesters are being beaten and killed in the streets for speaking their mind.

So I found some of my elementary school friends on Facebook, most of them guys. Latest conversation:

Friend from 4th grade: remember when we used to hit each other?
Me: and play soccer in the classroom while the teacher was trying to teach?
Me: those were good times
Him: man, yeah. i miss being a kid.

Oh, and today I saw the CUTEST SIGHT EVER!

We have rats that live under the metro tracks, right, and I usually entertain myself by watching them scurry around while I wait for the metro. Today, there were two rats, running after each other, over and down the tracks, for about 5 minutes; it looked like they were playing. The rat in front kept running around the other rat then diving beneath the tracks. So, so cute. :D

Went to the German embassy today, and the lady who took my application said my case looks "very complicated" but that I'll probably get that visa. So... yay, I guess. I won't know for sure before two weeks, though.

Okay, the comments on this make my blood boil. I actually got angry enough to post this:

Empower yourself. That's where it all begins and ends. So you have a dictatorship there? Who kept on electing Mubarak umpteen times with huge majorities and stands silent while he grooms his son to take his place?

That's... not how dictatorships work. If you think we elected Mubarak, you should come to Cairo on an Election Day, and see the police wrestling, threatening and beating up voters to keep them out of the voting booths, and paying poor people by the thousands so they'd go and vote Mubarak. If you think we stand silent, you should come see the demonstrations where young people are beaten and arrested for daring to speak their mind and the truth.

Where is your own voice and courage, before expecting a foreign president to interfere on your behalf?

I also suggest you should come see our prisons, where prisoners are routinely beaten and tortured. My grandfather and all his brothers spent 10 years each in those prisons, for daring to dissent. So don't talk to us about voice and courage. Come see what the millions of dollars that the US sends the Egyptian government yearly achieve for us. Come see how your tax dollars are used to silence and oppress a whole people, then you can talk about courage.

We're not saying "OMG please rescue us from our ebil government!!!" We're saying, stop financially and politically supporting a government that you know is dictatorial and oppressive. Where is your courage?

Then I had to shorten it by 22 words. Bah.

The United States mission to spread democracy in the world, will seem hypocritical when simultaneously most of its allies in the Middle East are dictators and lifelong Kings or Presidents.

"Will", hm? Right.

Wow, this person is irritating. I did not know anyone could be that irritating on the subject ofMulan, of all things.