Pyramids and punctuation

So I got two things totally wrong in my last post. Firstly, it did not rain. In an apartment above the door of the internet cafe someone was emptying out the contents of their air conditioning system. So the welcome cool air that blew gently through the door was being cooled by the collected humidity of what should have been a sweaty Egyptian flat. eugh.

The other thing I was sadly wrong about was that my feet had adjusted to my flip-flops (jandles/sandals/thongs). On the walk home I became aware of a blister, that swelled, burst and promptly filled with street grime, so I took off the offending footwear and walked the rest of the way home barefoot. This is not a task to be done flippantly given the immense array of items that can be lurking in Egyptian street garbage... From chicken bones, to hyperdermic needles, to cat poo.

We re now teaching actual real live students, I started out with a 12 year old boy, tutoring one to one. The kid could spell and calculate better and faster than myself. I first established his interests by playing a few games, we played hangman I wrote for him "Mission Impossible" which was his favorite move... I noticed later that I had spelt it "Mission Impossable" darn, on his turn he put down a hell of a lot of spaces, I figured it was a sentence without gaps, it was actually "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" spelt right. In the classes I'm doing ok, I have a good rapport, control, timing, etc but suck arse at grammar spelling and pronunciation.... Which is sadly what I should be teaching.

Emily has gone, she was a really balancing component to our group dynamic. So she is missed. Emily studied linguistics so wasn't getting that much out of the course and has gone to stay with friends in Cairo. I spent a lot of time with Star. She is slowly helping me with grammar (remembering the 'r' now) and spelling. She is very patient and good at explaining spelling through the origin of words.

unfortunately thing that seems to happen, expectations seem to expand size. Every famous site I have witnessed is always much smaller than anticipated. Compared to my perceptions Niagara falls were small, Stonehenge was tiny, The Mona Lisa a postage stamp, so I expected the pyramids to be smaller than expected, but I knew they were big... So they became bigger than my re-adjusted expectations but still small.



I walked around the great pyramid in 10 minutes and that is with stopping every couple of minutes to decline offers of t-shirts, photographs, camel rides and general niceties. I don't seem to get that same size mis-calculation with land, Swiss Alps were awe inspiring and The Australian desert was stunning. I'm looking forward to getting out into the Egyptian desert next week.... I haven't seen a sky full of stars in far to many years.

The course ends in a week. I have no idea where I'm going to go, or what I'm going to do. Soon a lack of funds will inspire me to act. it always seems to be a good motivator.