Another week & still overwhelmed.

Well, I’ve now taught a FULL WEEK of classes. Where do I begin?

First – I take a taxi to and from school every day. The ride takes from 10 to 25 minutes, depending on the time of day (and the route that the driver decides to take). I “learned” early that there is a specific place that is best to catch the taxi each way, so that the driver takes the “most expedient” route to my destination. This doesn’t always work – especially if the driver has NO IDEA where your stated destination is!

So, I’ve “learned” the Arabic word for LEFT, RIGHT and STRAIGHT AHEAD, oh and HERE IS GOOD (for getting out). Unfortunately, I can’t give explicit directions in Arabic, because I haven’t learned that much yet. This precipitates interesting situations where I give a one word direction to the cabbie, and he (they are ALL men) proceeds to ask me about a million questions in Arabic. I’ve learned what the question “Btetkalema arabi?” means and the answer is always “La’a” (Do you speak arabic? No.) Lately I’ve been getting cheeky and answering “Shwaya” (a little) but in reality, that is incorrect.

Even so, I’ve had to direct a number of cabbies to both AUC in downtown and the hostel, in Zamalek. Luckily, left-right-straight and let me out here seem to do the trick! Even with “commuting” by taxi on a daily basis, I’m still a bit jumpy about the “traffic guidelines” or lack thereof that one experiences daily. There are a number of areas on my commute where a street/lane merges with a larger street/lane. There are lines painted on the street, and yet, there are AT LEAST n+1 cars (where n=number of lanes) driving in that space. Often there are n+3 in the space. So on a 2 lane bridge, I’m in a car that is one of 5 across the space. One learns quickly that elbows NEVER hang out the windows, as they will be take off by the adjacent taxi!

The two labs that I am teaching began this week. One is a distribution class (non-majors getting a science credit) the other is a majors intro class. The level of students (both academic and interest) is markedly different between the two classes, as are the instructional materials provided for the students. This is a great and very interesting introduction to two classes that are offered. The “stuff” available in the lab is less extensive than I’ve used before, but the content covered is much the same. The biggest difference, for me, is the relative “weight” of the lab in a given course. For some courses, students can FAIL the lab portion and still pass the class. After all the work at Highline to make sure that students in “lab science” classes received the “lab” component, this was startling to me.

My mantra this semester, however, is “Watch and learn”. It is futile to go into a new situation and immediately begin changing things you don’t understand. So, for this semester, I am doing as has “always” been done. I am keeping notes of how it is done, and any thoughts/reactions to be shared with colleagues later. No use shaking the snow globe right away – gotta know what the scene looks like first.