You Can't Make Mistakes.

Break 2 in progress

I am currently taking coffee-break number two from writing and revising Chapter 2 of the Thesis. I’ve been working on this for about two weeks and will be glad to be done this weekend. Nothing really big left to be done. I have e-reams and reams of notes that I am consulting and compiling into what will be the finished project by the end of the summer.

This afternoon I need to look again at a couple of interviews with former heads of the order that I am studying and see if there is any more historical-background-type data that I can glean from them. I haven’t watched or listened to these particular interviews in a few months and I can’t remember right now which is which, but I know that there is something in there.

Anyway, as I was taking this break, which I think might morph into walk-around-the-block break in a minute, I was thinking about the snowballing effects which occur during procrastination. For instance: I decided to take a break 10 minutes ago and poured myself coffee. Then I sat back down in front of the computer, and decided that taking a break meant at least doing something other than what I was doing before. Then, being afraid to get out of the writing mood, I decided that I would write a blog entry. It should keep me in that mood while also getting another task done.

Now, I feel like I should really get up and walk around a bit because my ass hurts from sitting here all morning typing. This is very dangerous and could lead to vacuuming if I walk through the house, or watering the plants if I go into the garden, or almost any other thing. If I walked into the right environment, I might cure a disease.

What I am saying is that I think that procrastination periods can be very productive and helpful, but not necessarily for what you are intending to do. I am sure that the Segway was invented in a period of procrastination. Also: penicillin.

Regardless, I am going for a walk now. I cannot be held responsible for the creative brilliance which will occur in the next ten minutes.

What was your last creative procrastinating moment?

Tell me what movie this quote is from:

“Are you Mexi-CAN, or a Mexi-CAN’T?”

I’ll give you an extra point if you can tell me the actor as well.

We’re shaking things up a bit, Egypt-style.

After nearly a semester here in Alexandria, I feel as though I haven’t accomplished nearly as much as I might have liked to. This is not for lack of trying. I have been met at every turn by roadblocks, bureaucracy, and—frankly—bullshit. I have had endless trouble getting an internet connection, upon which I depend for doing research, communicating, and more.

The library here, though a great resource, takes me a half-hour to get into every time I go, because I must check my bag, carry only what I predict that I will need, register my laptop with security, wait for lines of tourists through three stages of security, reserve a study room, and so on. Once inside, the books are there, and I can find the articles that I need from the JSTOR and Wilson archives online or in the stacks, but I can’t download them, or print them unless I use my laptop, which sometimes has trouble with the internet in the Library.

On top of that, the collection is still not fully processed, so they do not allow circulation yet, so the books stay in-house. You can copy anything you want, which the staff will do for you. This is very convenient, but you have to get your requests in early or you are SOL at the end of the day without the copies that you need.

My classes at the University in Arabic have been an utter joke. I learn more Arabic in the street than I do in class—of course, which is why I am here. The teachers are quite good and there is the odd session in which I learn something new. However, for the most part, the classes are mostly a rehashing of things that I learned years ago, none of which actually help you to read or speak any better. Rather than reading novels or newspapers in most of the classes, we sit for hours and go over lists of new vocabulary or undertake silly, fill-in-the-blank exercises on prepositions, adverbs, and verb conjugation.

Initially I thought that we were just doing a quick review session to get us ready to get to work. The quick review has drawn out over months, and this “intensive” course lacks any measure of intensity. I have one instructor who does make us do the things that I am looking for. For Dina’s media Arabic class, every week, we look at media pieces and then bring them to class and go over them as a group so that she can explain things that we may not have understood. We can listen to the news on the radio or television, read magazines and newspapers, or whatever we like.

This is the method by which I would prefer to be studying at this point. You can only learn so much grammar before it will simply not be of any use to you. You can know all of the grammar in the world and still not be able to read. This is a problem.

Again, the problem here has not been with the instructors, it is that they are not operating using any pedagogical model whatsoever, and the control over what they do teach us is coming from some sort of central authority, the pedagogical understanding of whom is entirely outdated.

So I decided to take matters into my own hands. I am going to finish out this semester in Alex and then move to Cairo and take classes at a little language school. I will not get credit for this, but will likely learn more. At the same time, I will be more able to get books that I need and be able to use the AUC (American University in Cairo) library for research. I think that it will all work out in the end, allowing me to take what is actually an intensive course in Arabic and thus giving me more time to work on other very important things like, say, my thesis. I have several chapters partially written right now, which I will finish over the coming holiday when I no longer have to spend 4+ hours a day wasting time sitting in useless classes.

It also will work to my advantage because I have a few good friends who live in Cairo who can show me the ropes that I don’t already know. It will also put me in closer proximity to tourist-type things that my friends want to see when the come to visit.

This move will likely occur in the first week in January. Wish me luck.

We threw a great fundraiser for Kalamazoo Pride last night at Metro. It was a date auction. We raised a good sum of money, everyone had a good time: it was a success.

That said, I am totally wiped out today. I am just lying in bed, watching The Matrix, and I am done for the weekend. Which is not to say that I won’t be working on my papers and presentations for the end of the semester.

This week has been really full, otherwise. Dr. Bruce Lincoln from the University of Chicago gave a talk here on Wednesday night. I skipped the Kalamazoo Pride meeting so that I could go out to dinner with him and some of the religion faculty and graduate students. It was an excellent time. I really love being part of the academic world because everyone is on the same level. Sure, there are some academics out there who are terribly competitive, snooty, and mean-spirited, but the vast majority of those that I have come into contact with are brilliant, manganimous people. I think, though, that this might be the result of being in a religion department. Apparently, religion scholars are a little odd. Go figure that I would end up with the odd folks.

But, then, if being odd means that you are approachable, amiable, and you make good company, sign-me up. For now, I am off to a long nap. Today is going to be excellent.