Blogging
From Abroad

WEDNESDAY

The day of study culminated with a great Berber dance in the center of the campus. There are always surprise events that occur on campus.

TUESDAY

Right now, we are in the middle of a tremendous dust storm! My first.

Apart from class, I spent the day immersing myself in the French language. I watched a 45 minute documentary in three hours (ample time to look up words and phrases), I wrote out verb structures?I even changed my computer’s settings to French. I’m going all out!

A few friends were trying to help me improve my pronunciation of the French ‘r’, which still gives me a lot of trouble. They said I needed to say it like a ‘sexy, charming Frenchman’. This worked, but I can only do it if I act like I am a womanizer. Not sure how well this will go over in class.

I believe that the harder I work on acquiring language skills, the better experience I will have on the weekends when I have time to travel. When I was in Fés last weekend, I was sitting with a shopkeep and chatting away. However, the conversation finished when I exhausted my knowledge base of French.

MONDAY

I am finally starting to feel better; my energy is coming back and I am optimistic that one more night’s sleep should do the trick.

Earlier today, I decided to investigate the AUI library and I am very impressed with the facility. I picked up a book called ‘A Season in Mecca’ and thus far it is very interesting. It is about an anthropologist from Morocco who is traveling to Mecca for the hajj, which is the traditional pilgrimage.

While I was walking to class, I heard the seemingly ubiquitous trance music pumping in the center of the campus. I found that this was for AUI’s club fair. I signed up for the Diplomacy Club and the Explorers’ Club, both of which met tonight. I figure this is a good way to meet some Moroccan students.

When students are walking to class, the vast majority walk very slowly and talk with their friends. For some reason, I cannot get used to this and want to keep walking fast. I tried the slow walk the other day and enjoyed it, but I am still hardwired to pass people when they are moseying down the path. Must be an American thing.

My French class is much more difficult than I had expected. I am cheating a bit as I have only had one semester; however, there is no intermediate class between the introduction class and this one. Oh well, c’est la vie!