A Short Morning Thought

I woke up this morning from a really weird dream. I'd lost one of my best friends in a strange event and I was left torn apart. I actually cried in my sleep! I can't really write too much on the details, but you get the idea.

I'm sitting here thinking "Gosh, I really wish I could see her and talk to her, but I can't." I'm here in Egypt and I have my amazing email to stay in touch. Until the time comes to see each other once again, I will use this as fuel to remind myself that I'm here and although I'd love to see my friend- I can't. I'm going to make the best of this day and do what I can to make Egypt a better place, God willing that I can be patient enough! The day will come for me to talk with my friend that I'm sure hasn't been obliterated like my dream portrayed.

Time for staff meeting. Let's go day, here I come!!!

The Red Sea = Sweet

I'm sitting here in an internet cafe and life is good. I have had the day of my life! I swam in the Red Sea and snorkeled around for nearly three hours and it was amazing. I never thought I would miss swimming this much, but I guess I was wrong. It feels funny to actually try to swim here, because my stroke feels SO weird. I feel good for about the first 15 strokes and then I remember, "Oh ya, I haven't seriously swam in 7 and 1/2 months..." Weird or not, it was still great just to swim around and observe the awesome nature that the Red Sea has to offer, except the Jellyfish! I got stung by one yesterday. I didn't see how big it was, but I'm guessing it was at least the size of a semi truck because it left me seven welts on my arm. Anyways, so needless to say I have animosity/"respect" for jellyfish now. I dodged them all day long today as I was swimming, which was difficult because they were all over the place.

What else happened today?... I did "free diving" for the first time and I'm going to say that I absolutely loved it! There were these two people that were putting on these "monofins" today and I was thinking, "What on earth are those for?" Anyways, I watched them go out from the shoreline as I basked in the warm sunlight and decided that I was going to go see what they were doing. After watching them swim out 1/4 of a mile they stopped and then went underwater. I swam to where they were and was just watching them dive down on the line that was hooked up to an inner tube.

They saw me watching and asked me if I wanted to try. At first I refused, but they insisted and so I tried it. I went down the first time and I don't think that I got very far, but the second time they gave me a depth gauge and I went 21 meters. The trip down is fun, but the ride up is amazing because you should put your head back and let your lungs take you to the top. It's a really, really, really, really, really cool feeling! I want to see if I can rent the equipment for it tomorrow somewhere. I talked to them for a bit and their names were Sven and Gutrude- they were German. They didn't speak very much English and I don't speak any German other than "Donkashun" which I used in a practical manner for the first time today.

The other thing of note that I did today was as I was swimming along, I saw these scuba divers down at the bottom of the Sea and I decided to swim down to them. Just as I was about to go down Monte said, "It'd be really funny if you went down there and gave them the "out of air" sign and then came up." I decided it would be a good experience to go for and so I did it. I swam down about 40-50 feet, tapped on the guy and gave him the "out of air" sign. He handed me his regulator and then I swam to the surface. I never realized how much the air out of the tank fills up your lungs! Since I didn't have any scuba gear on it was really easy to just shoot up to the top. I felt my lungs expanding and so I had to seriously exhale to even it out. Even when I had gotten to the top, my lungs still felt like they had a lot of air in them.

Well, that is the sum of my stories for the day. I'm tired and I can't wait to sleep, but I'm on vacation from a long stretch of school and so life is VERY GOOD!

Distrust

I realize that for the past two weeks I don't trust:
-God
-A few friends
-Many of my students
-Some of the local staff
-Some of my roommates
-Anyone in Egypt trying to sell me something
-Even my pet cat
-And the list goes on...

It has been a really long time since I've written on this blog. There have been days when I have something that I think "wow! I've got to write about this on my blog" but then I just lose my taste to do anything. In all honesty, I think I've been pretty depressed over the past two weeks. I wasn't too sure why I was so down for the past little while, but I've finally realized it now that my Spring Break is here and life is slowing down. It's funny to me how when life becomes so busy that the most obvious answers become so elusive.

This week has been the 2nd longest week that I've had in Egypt. The 1st longest week was when I first got here. That week was crazy for me because time just stood still. I couldn't sleep at night and was getting about two hours of sleep. I remember just laying in bed thinking to myself, "Am I going to become a sleep insomniac?" Anyways, I'm digressing from the point that I'm trying to make- this week has been long, REALLY long. As of today, I am finally on vacation and now I can just think about last week.

Last week I was distrustful of almost everybody. I know my problem with a frienda has tripped it off and I think that the situation I have with my students makes it pretty easy to get into this state of mind. The teacher-student relationship is an awkward one because unless a student has an immense amount of courage to face his/her mistake they will blame it on the teacher and therefore seek to show the teacher how wrong he was. Many of my students often try to take advantage of me and it is so aggravating. Even the ones that I think to myself, "Ya, I've established a good connection with that one. He won't try to manipulate me." and then he ends up trying to pull a fast one on me.

Up until the past two weeks, I was pretty much over my feelings of betrayal by students, but the problems with my friend just tripped it off. I took so many things way too personally this week- it was ridiculous! If a kid acted up at all, then I hammered him.

I was edgy with other staff members, too. I have a hard time trusting a few of the staff members here because I don't understand them... AT ALL! It's hard to not just let myself assume the worst. Assuming the worst never leads anywhere worthwhile...

I'm glad it's break, I'm going to take the time to process what's going on.