School on Sunday

Oh yes, people, be prepared for some complaining. Here is a sampling of my beefs: Satan must have designed the Humanities and Social Science building at AUC, because it took me literally an hour and a half of walking around to find one of my classrooms. AUC students [as a group] are among the snobbiest that I've ever met. International students from the U.S. are even worse. Most of them ride on the reputation of their schools (UChicago, Georgetown) to qualify what they say as an expert opinion. AUC is ranked about 2000th in the world, but these people act as if it's Harvard.
Don't even get me started about school on Sunday.
Also, I was really surprised to find that I was actually placed in an appropriate level Arabic class. Though it caught me off-guard when I arrived to class late and everyone pounced on me with questions in Arabic. I could barely catch my breath, but I was relieved that I don't have to repeat the section I just took.

Other interesting snippets:
Sometimes I forget where I am until I see blatantly anti-Israel propoganda in the school newspaper, which caught me off guard not because I am a die-hard Zionist, but because I've hardly seen the Palestinian side represented in newspaper form.
It's probably worth mentioning that there is a five foot swastika spray-painted onto a wall that is literally less than 300 feet from my apartment building. I walk past it everyday to school. Distrust and (in many cases)hatred of Jews runs very deep here, and sometimes I'm worried that someone will figure out that Steinberg is not a German name.

In other news, I am super excited to be signed up for an October excursion to St. Catherine's monastery next to Mount Sinai. My other future travel plans include a visit to Saqqara, an Egyptian royal palace (not sure what that is, but it sounds promising), and the Citadel. I'm extremely disappointed (and a bit angry at the AUC policy) that I am unable to go on a school-sponsored trip to Luxor because I am not a campus resident. We'll see if I can come up with another way to go there, but so far I'm a bit stumped about what to do. Maybe I will just have to return to Egypt when I'm a little old lady.

Otherwise:
Included in one of my classes on non-Muslim communities in the Middle East is a field trip (yay!) to Old Cairo where there is a famous mosque, an old synagogue, as well as a large Coptic community. I've even set my mind on going to Turkey in November when I have a long break. We'll see how the rest of my trip pans out, but I'm hoping to see as much as I can of this country until I can get the hell out of here in mid-December.
Part of me wants to stay here longer, and part of me wishes I could leave today.

That's the end of this godforsaken post. Sorry it was so disorganized, but that's the state of my brain today.

P.S. I'm still really hungry. Ramadan, will you please end soon?