IDK what this blog is about.

I’d like to preface this by stating that I finally got to AUC, and my internet worked at the same time Iw as there, and therefore, I am completely caught up with posting my blogs online. Until we get internet at home, I will continue to write them during the night, and then post them during the day. I’m not sure exactly how well this system is working, but I am glad to see such an… enthusiastic response to my blog. For a few months it was seriously lacking followers. Just a simple note to those newcomers reading -- I often have grammatical mistakes, and the clarity of statements may not be crystal, but do not fear! These are done on purpose. I have set up the blog to allow others to glimpse inside my mindset at the time I hit the keys. My writing voice follows how I would speak (as I am sure you can figure), and just as there is no Ctrl Z in life, I feel that the “prose” that I am typing should be raw and full of truthyness. I do not go back and edit (except to weed out bad mistypes and some spelling errors) what I write as I hope you, the reader, can get a TIFF version of my head instead of a JPG. If you fail to understand that reference, it will simply suffice to akin it to seeing my faults and failures instead of a refined finished product because what goes on in my head is neither refined or finely polished and I feel my literary work should express this fact in its glorious detail, either for good or ill.

Another question I am debating in my head is how long I should keep this blog about my day to day activities. If you want boring dribble about what boring people do, god created twitter. Go waste your time there. Obviously it is the experience and the perspective in Cairo that is interesting. I am considering starting to drift back to my older style of ideas and research. I have found that the city of cairo is perhaps a good ten degrees cooler than AUC. I have a fairly good theory that involves what I believe to be cars, NO2, photons, O3, and ultra-violet radiation. This can lead to the reason of massive migrations to urban centers in the hotter parts of the world. But Alas! The only problem is that without available internet I cannot do the research that I need to do to confirm my suspicions. Still… This very post is a shift from my current tone of conversation into a more monologuical style (thats a word I just made up, take monologue, and turn it into adjective?).

I encourage you to read my previous posts. They are quite humorous because you can see into my brain just a little, especially over a year ago. Its quite funny to read them. Ahh… Nostalgia….

So right now I am sitting on my bed, using the back-propper-upper to lean against my bedpost. The computer is quietly humming “Walking After You” by the Foo Fighters. The sheets on my bed are yellow, flecked with images of bird feathers (oddly enough). Strewn on the end of my bed past my feet sit a strange amalgamation of what was in my pockets. And no you hobbit lovers, its not “string or nothing”. I am doing some laundry atm, so I switched from pants to shorts to wash my jeans. I’ve got some coinage, contact stuff, my headphones, a book titled “ Capitalists, Workers, and Fiscal Policy -- A Classical Model of Growth and Distribution”. Strung on the aft (for you sailors out there) of my bed is my towel. Its drying. I share a bedroom with my dubious roommate Andrew, as you might very well know. I find I am calling him “Drew” after Andrew Lucasko whom I knew many years ago, though he since has apparently disappeared off the continent. That is double ironic because I am the one in Africa, and Andrew my roommate is actually nothing like Lucasko. Strange.

Our room is the common bedroom shared by two boys. Disorganized piles of organization dot the landscape. His pile of papers and bathroom supplies on the left, my pile of boxes and electrical components on the right. His suitcase sprawls on the floor while mine sits upright, although, I would say we are evenly messy.

So within that frame of reference, I can start to talk about my day.
I’ve been trying to avoid talking about AUC. There is just too much to say about the American University of Cairo, and I have been pushing off the date to avoid tackling a topic of such massive proportions.

I shall briefly talk about my day at AUC. We went in this morning on the 8:30 bus. One of the perks of living in Maadi is that we only have a 30 minute bus ride, as opposed to the possible 1:30 bus ride that some have to endure in different parts in the city.

My internet worked! That is why I finally got caught up posting my blogs, checking my facebook, uploading some pics, and sending out a few emails. What is important is that my computer is working, the internet for my computer on AUC is working, and so life is pretty good at the moment. Because of that I basically sat online until noon in the library. I had a sort of internet orgasm if you will. It was glorious. Then came lunch time. The “egypt” cafeteria store isn’t open yet, so I had to buy some overpriced pasta (27 pounds). Still, it was good-ish and filled me up. I still haven’t figured out how to make pasta here at the house. I did go to the store today and buy the ingredients for, and later cook up, some potato pancakes. Yummmmmm…. I love eating.

Back to AUC. After lunch, I decided that I needed to change my classes. It was on my to-do list for a long time. IDK how the “signed us up for classes”, but they did a poor job. Luckily, the place I went was one of 3 good administration facilities (the other two being the one chick at the tech desk, and the library).

I dropped one arabic class (sorry Mustafa, I didn’t want to get up really early to take my foosa, or standard, arabic) but picked up a one credit and another 3 credits for a total of 14. This ok with me since anything over 15 credits costs you even more at this university (trust me, its expensive).

So what are my proposed classes? I added Intermediate Microeconomic Theory (I’ve already taken Intermediate Macro, which probably will end up being the much more interesting one). I’m also taking Econ 312, which is Economic Development. Hopefully we’ll do some fun stuff. I’m getting into reading about how the Classical economic model can pull through this current economic recession (the last recession basically killed old school Keyensians off) by figuring out how to have a long term view of growth that can include fun stuff like global warming, and depletion of natural resources. I have some good ideas, but I’ll take some new perspectives. My next book will be Michl and Foley (2007), since apparently they tackle this problem from the Classical Economics vantage-point. We shall see.

I am in the AUC Choir (singing! yay!), which is a one credit, and I threw in “Intro to Engineering” which is a strange one credit. IDK what it’ll be good for, but we’ll see. After my stint at BP, I feel I can roll with the best of the engineering community. Hopefully it’ll be fun. I’m not sure why it is so short (one credit), but maybe we’ll blow some stuff up.

Finally, I’m taking Intro to Photography. I feel this is a good skill to have. If I must be honest… I signed up for this class because I thought I might be able to loan out some Digital SLR cameras. Some really nice ones. Then I can run around Egypt with a good camera. I mean, god, I have Photoshop on my computer. I’m all set up to do some really great photo stuff, but my point and shoot canon SD is a great camera, don’t get me wrong, but not good at all for trying to change focal angles. If you are really close to a subject you can do it (like 2 inches away), but besides that, it just takes good pictures. Thats what it does. Of course, there aren’t a whole lot of expressive shots you can get. Either way. I like photography, and I think if I’m going to make it a life hobby, what the hell, I might as well learn about it and get some credits. My big question is what it will transfer back to Madison as. Exciting.

Alright kids. I’m off to my bowl of cereal and TV time. It was fun ya’ll. Keep it real.