Monday: Arabic 101 quiz
Tuesday: Turned in my final 26-page paper for my history class (spent the entire weekend writing it)
Wednesday: Egyptian Arabic final exam
Thursday: Did absolutely nothing all day except clean my apartment, catch up on e-mail, and go to Target
Friday: (today) Arabic 101 final exam at 2pm
Next week --- Turn in final draft of my urbanism "courtyard" paper after making corrections this weekend and then take my history final exam on Thursday. ALMOST DONE!
The true miracle in all of this? I got an "A" in Egyptian Arabic. Seriously, I'm in shock. My teacher sent us out our final grades for the semester, and I clung on with a 90.7% --- I can hardly believe it! I know I absolutely tanked on the final exam (well, she said I got an 86%) but luckily my earlier grades were better so it evened out. For me, that class was really really hard because they already expect you to know Arabic coming into it. I did the two years at State, but I wasn't anywhere near fluent or at the level of other people in the class, who were either native speakers or were in intermediate or advanced Arabic, so I am particularly proud of my grade! Yaaay!
As for my Arabic 101 final today, I'm not too worried, as my teacher said I need to get a 50% or LESS to lower my grade to a B in the class. So basically, I'm not even worried about studying. I'll just do a quick review about an hour before I leave for the exam.
Regarding other matters, I spent more than an hour in the toy section of Target yesterday looking for both a Christmas and a birthday gift for my soon-to-be 4-year old niece (poor little thing's birthday is on December 27th). Do you know how difficult a decision that is? First of all, there are about 8 aisles of things to choose from. Then, I had to get something that was light because it costs a fortune to mail anything heavy these days. Secondly, I wondered if the little figurine and Barbie doll things were too advanced for a 4-year old or if she might lose the small shoes and parts to some of these things. Then I wondered if she was getting too old for something like Dora the Explorer. I was going to get her a princess tiara set, but then I thought maybe I was contributing to negative stereotypes about women, which also completely ruled out anything with play make-up or cosmetics items. I also learned that girls' toys only come in the color pink, which I found highly disappointing. I almost got a Care Bear or a My Little Pony but then I thought, well, "these things aren't very fun after about 10 minutes. I mean, what do you do with a My Little Pony after you're done brushing that tiny mane? Nothing, it's boring." Therefore, I was literally paralyzed in the toy department. I actually got embarrassed when an employee saw me in the same section like an hour later. I almost got her a little medical kit, which was the most appealing option, but in the end, if you can believe it, I walked away with nothing, thoroughly disappointed at myself for wasting an hour of my life with no final decision -- and all over a gift for a 4-year old!
So I came home and parked myself (again) in front of my computer and revved up Amazon.com, where Miguel said I could find some good "recommended" toys from the experts, whoever they are. While this was true (ie: they recommended this really cool pretend cash register), I discovered that none of these toys qualified for the "free shipping" options because they all came from Imaginarium as opposed to the Amazon.com warehouse. So do you know what I ended up getting? -- A Disney book with six different "princess" stories (ie: Ariel, Cinderella, that genie girl, and whoever else Disney is promoting these days). Not grossly anti-feminist because I figure it will contribute to her reading skills in a couple years, but I think I might be a disappointing aunt. Shouldn't your single aunt be the one that gets you things your parents won't buy you? No, I'm the lame aunt that sends the un-fun books for Christmas because I apparently have toy issues... poor Isabella.
Moving on to other things, I got myself motivated after my Egyptian Arabic final to make my "courtyard house cake" for the dinner that my professor hosted at his house last Wednesday night for our final class. It was harder than I thought, but I was pretty happy with the results. Here are the pics:
Here is the exterior front -- please note the mashribiyya (wooden lattice) windows and lack of external lower windows... all key features of the Middle Eastern courtyard home.
Next:
Here is the inside of the courtyard house, complete with tiled fountain and abaya-clad Muslim woman (thanks to a plastic figurine I found at the dollar store). Added note: My mother commented via e-mail that the cake looked a bit "compact and dense," to which I must explain that I was working with ONE brownie pan, and one brownie pan only (all my kitchen stuff is in storage back in DC). Therefore, the woman is a bit cramped in the corner. In fact, as the "house" is two cake mixes layered on top of each other, I didn't realize how deep the courtyard pit would be. I had to use my tweezers to lower the woman into the courtyard (or what looks a bit more like a hole, I guess). As I was lowering her, she popped out of the tweezers and got covered in frosting on her backside. So she was leaning against the wall to camouflage her frosting incident. Plus, there really was no where else for her to go. Hey, a brownie pan is pretty small!
And finally:
Here are my classmates, minus one kooky girl named Eliza Dray, who didn't show up. Yes, the guy in the back is a bit strange. His name is Ron Richards, and he rides the same bicycle he's had since he was 12 years old, seriously (he told me when I asked about it). I have even seen him riding that little bike around town on the weekends. Odd indeed. Freaks really are everywhere. There is no escape. Of course, what in the hell am I talking about making a courtyard cake with figurines and spending an hour at Target staring at toys for nothing?
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