Dear Blog

Dear Blog,
How are you? I am fine. I've missed you. Sorry it has been so long since I've been in touch. So much has happened and now I don't even know where to begin. Perhaps a list, since my last blog entry until now:

-I moved from Agami to Cleopatra Hamamat in Alexandria.
-I attended the wedding of Maryam, a wonderful student and now wonderful friend. I became close to her entire family, who welcomed me with kindness and great generosity. I call them my Egyptian Family. My sister calls them my fake family. Either way...
-I was playing football with my Egyptian family one night and I ruptured my other achilles tendon.
-Had surgery in Egypt--Great doctor and surgeon, friend of my egyptian family.
-Became close friends with Mostafa, whose building I lived in in Alexandria/ am extremely grateful to him for his help and care and friendship and arabic lessons/ couldn't have made it through the recovery without him/ best of friends
-also want to thank Karim, Maryam, and rest of Egyptian family for their help throughout my recovery. i am so blessed to know people like this.
-flew home for a month and a half to finish recovery, attend the family reunion, and Rachel's wedding/ all great experiences/
-moved to El Rehab, Cairo with Beth (am very happy she came to egypt and to be roommates)
-Ramadan Kareem (school was postoned until after the holiday :))
-moved from rehab to el maadi with channan and beth/ love our apartment and area/ much more to do/ besides, maadi is fun to say
-began teaching--woke up for school the first day with a sore throat
-lost my voice
-taught anyway
-fully recognize that i am not cut out for elementary education/ i enjoy the children, and can teach them, but my organization skills are quite a bit lacking and that is pretty important when working with elementary grades
-frustration with the school, seemingly endless frustration
-danae comes to visit(coptic cairo, khan el khalili, downtown and Garden City, hospital (for Channan, who rebroke a toe whilst already in a cast--something that could only happen to her), Alexandria's Roman Theater (where I ran into a schoolmate from my undergraduate years), Catacombs, Calla Qaitbey (3 times), Alexandria Biblioteque and museums, Mostafa's home, because he is family and took care of us. x)
-wednesday afternoon, Amira comes to my classroom to announce the school will be closed for 2 weeks due to a couple cases of H1N1 virus amongst our students
-teachers are to report to school sunday however to figure out a gameplan for handling the latest developments
-friday, receive email announcing that a year 4 student passed away due to misdiagnosis and mistreatment of H1N1-no school sunday.
-waiting to hear the latest news in regard to school
-still love egypt with all my heart
-anxiously awaiting the arrival of my mother and two of my aunts for Eid.

So dear blog, it is with best intentions that i again venture into this business of blogging. But before I go, a list of books i've recently read in egypt (because i love lists):

--The Yacoubian Building
--Life of Pi
--To Kill a Mockingbird
--Stranger than Fiction
--and others whose titles escape me at the moment

Love you Blog,
Sincerely,
becky

P.S. Holla Holla Halloween