5 classes, two exams and one weekend left.

I didn't come for the religion (since, in my humble opinion, there is only one God/Allah and the message is all the same between religions), though it's an interesting moment when there is a part in the textbook that has verses from the Koran and Madeha will sing them. It's an art to singing the phrases together and the pauses between each stanza (or whatever each entry is called). Great – since my reading is halting and I can't sing – and I don't think interpretive dancing is an acceptable substitute. She makes up for it by making us read and then re-read out loud all the other dialog. (If I were the type of person to get headaches I would have one non-stop from Saturday to Wednesday) Still – it's been suggested by other students to take a Koran reading course since it has all the punctuation (which is critical for pronunciation – since an incorrect stress can mean something opposite, immoral or undecipherable) I might look into that as long as I don't have to sing. And I really hate reading slow.

The intensive is just that. Carolynn (from Sweden) was commenting on how none of us taking an intensive for the first time truly understood how intensive it was going to be. I'm torn between setting up a blog devoted to the Fajr Center experience alone and letting everyone else find out for themselves – just like I did. It's not just what we're learning or how much but then there is the re-writing of all the dialog and/or vocabulary that gets checked and is part of your grade. So – when you're instructed to copy the dialog 5 times it means copy the dialog 5 times and include all fatas, damas, kasras, sekuns, etc... and what is missed is corrected in red pen. 5 times. I'm running out of refills for my mechanical pencil.

There are two sisters from South Africa (one is in our class) – but they keep missing class. Pity to think their parents spent all this money to house them here, pay for schooling and they only show up half the time. Their dad works two jobs – so it's not a cool thing to do (found that out in class during an exercise – it's not like I came straight out and asked them). Madeha (our class instructor) simply threatens to kill her every-time she does make it in since the homework is rarely done. That alone is terribly amusing. She reiterates in English the many ways she will kill her to get the point across. And we're in the lower levels....so I wonder what the she's like teaching the advanced courses?

As for the other girls: the eastern girls (mostly Kazakhstan) keep to themselves. The Nigerians are super friendly – hopefully they'll want to come along on Thursday's adventure/mishaps (by the way: their national team lost against Egypt in the Africa's Cup game last night....they were ok with it since Egypt is out of the next World's Cup so it's a consolation win in their opinion). There is one chinese girl in particular that is quite interesting to observe. She's been in Cairo for two years and is taking level 3 over for the 4th time, yet firmly belives she should be in a more advanced class.

Bored with homework last night, my flat-mates and I went for a walk – not an easy thing to do at night as it isn't how this culture kills time. Last night was the exception since there was literally no traffic as everyone was watching the game. We were able to follow the game results by the cheers and knew when to make straight for the flat.

Tonight – we're going on a felluca ride on the Nile, Tenday's insistence, though she said she'd go with or without us. And since she's a magnet (vortex?!?!) for weird – we're all going. Pictures will follow. We have all been plied with homework for the weekend and have been threated with a little exam on Saturday...we'll have to make everything half day kind of trips. I still need to make it to the Egyptian Museum so Alexandria will have to wait for another time. More than anything, I really want to see dead people. And the vases. But mostly dead people.