Well I am finally done with my finals and the semester has come to an official end!!! It's a bit weird to have been in such an intensive program for 9 months and now have nothing to do. Even over the winter break I had a tutor and continued with my intensive study, so since it's over I'm trying to adjust, and it is a weird feeling.
Here were my grades!
A
A
A
B+
I'm a little sad about the B+, but it was a written media course that was way over our head and we all struggled greatly, so I can honestly say I did my best and learned a lot. My friend Mark told me they didn't allow him to take the course until he had 4 semesters of Arabic under his belt, so to do it after just one semester is not an easy feat.
As for now, Casey has a couple of weeks left, so I am being a good 'house husband' cleaning our clothes, shopping, and trying to figure out how to fill my days w/o torturing myself with counting down the hours till we leave :)
needless, to say it will be good to see you all very soon.
Casey's school choir performance is on Sunday Wish her LUCK!
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
6 more days
I have 1 day less than a week of school left!!!! On monday I have my written Media final and my Amea(egyptian arabic) final, then on tuesday from 12:00-2:30 I will be doing my Grammar and Reading/Writing final. Exciting times.
Nothing much new is happening here. We aren't planning anymore big tips or anything like that. We are gearing up to go back home to Texas. We are so excited for our future. There are so many unanswered questions. We get to find a place to make home, get jobs, get back into college classes at UNT, and plan for grad school. We have no idea where we will be in the next 2 years and what doors will be opened to us. We have been so blessed here and have been able to see so much and learn so much. I'm very fortunate to have been able to see the middle east up close and personal and learn to converse in Arabic. It is still so fun for me to write in Arabic and I'm keeping a journal in Arabic so I can just write freely about whatever comes to mind.
Hope everyone is doing well and we will be seeing most of you soon....insha'allah
Nothing much new is happening here. We aren't planning anymore big tips or anything like that. We are gearing up to go back home to Texas. We are so excited for our future. There are so many unanswered questions. We get to find a place to make home, get jobs, get back into college classes at UNT, and plan for grad school. We have no idea where we will be in the next 2 years and what doors will be opened to us. We have been so blessed here and have been able to see so much and learn so much. I'm very fortunate to have been able to see the middle east up close and personal and learn to converse in Arabic. It is still so fun for me to write in Arabic and I'm keeping a journal in Arabic so I can just write freely about whatever comes to mind.
Hope everyone is doing well and we will be seeing most of you soon....insha'allah
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Friday, May 9, 2008
Our Winter Palace!
Isn't it beautiful? The flowers and the gardens were just amazing and all the trees had little signs next to them saying what year they were planted in which was pretty cool I must say!
Valley Of the Workers
Everyone's gotta live somewhere right? And the famous carvings and paintings in the Valley of the Kings and Queens must have been done my someone! But who? and where? We actually visited the valley of the workers where they all lived and traveled to the valley of the kings or queens each week for about 5 days. They were paid with food and homes. Their lives were really interesting too, and I can't believe how well preserved their homes were! (or how tiny they were, of course... maybe everyone then was just short.. just kidding) Seriously though, it is a city of dwellings. Then there are the tombs of the overseers there too. Apparently when the workers came home for the weekend they would have to work on the other guys tombs.
Hot Air Balloons!
Besides the staying at the Farouk's Palace part... I know you have seen some pics Joe put up earlier of our hot air balloon ride! When we were driving out to the place with all the balloons it was so surreal almost, I kept thinking that the balloon would go astray and not crash, but fly off into Oz where the world will change colors.
It didn't. The ride was completely smooth and it was incredible to see some of the site from so high up in the air! It is hard to believe that I really rode in a hot air balloon, flying up 2000 ft in the air in a tiny basket, held up by a huge HUGE balloon with some fire under it. Sounds pretty crazy, how did someone come up with that I wonder?
more from Luxor
When we went back to Luxor for my birthday it was fantastic! Of course we didn't get to stay in a luxurious cruise boat. BUT we did stay at the Winter Palace of King Farouk! Wow huh? Plus, Luxor is just beautiful and there are a lot of things to see and do. These pictures are from the Temple of Ramses III. We were just having a little fun!
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Morphology
Today is Egyptian Labor Day. I welcome this day off because I have been feeling very overwhelmed lately. There seems to have been lots and lots of tedious little rules in Arabic introduced to me this 2nd half of the semester that I haven't yet felt I have completely down. It is such a rich language with so many little things that matter so much, so I welcomed this day off, so I can do a little review over the past several weeks of grammar rules.
At the moment I'm in the middle of studying Morphology. This is how the words morph into other meanings. This is one of the things that makes arabic so hard for westerners to learn b/c we have nothing to compare it to b/c there is nothing like it in our language family.
The closest comparison I have been able to come up with is last names. Last names are a recent invention I've heard that most of them were founded on family trades like Baker Shoemaker etc etc or founded on special meanings. then many of the got letters added on or dropped and transliterated into words easier to pronounce in areas of the world people moved to. So, now many times it's not easy to trace a name back to it's origin so we can look them up in books and find really cool meanings for them.
Well, that is kind of how the entire language of Arabic is. It's kinda fun, interesting, and hard.
There are 10 verb forms and I have learned 5 of them so far. The forms I have learned are reflexive and causative; meaning, they either mean someone or somthings is doing it to itself(reflexive) or someone or something is forcing someone or somthing else to do it(causative)
It is very fascinating that the very for study also means to teach. If the same root is plugged into form 1 it means to make yourself learn ie to study or if the root is plugged into form 2 it means to make someone else to learn ie to teach.
Not all the words can be traced back this easily and Arabs are like anyone else wherein they learn the language growing up so the words just 'sound right' they are not consciously plugging them into different forms--there are slight and not so slight differences in writing and pronunciation between the forms so they are different word that mean completely different things---but to us foreigners we have to learn to system to make sense of it and be able to learn how the language works to be able to use it properly.
It's interesting to sit in class and have the teacher give us a verb in form one like 'to be' and ask us what we think it means in form 2 and we think real hard then figure out it means 'to create' or a word like 'to get out(leave)' and in another form it means to extract or copy. Also, each verb has a form where a noun in derived like to sit can also mean to make someone else sit down and also can be a noun 'sitting'. Lot's of stuff to learn....
Morphology makes me understand how so many people esp. Arabs love linguistics. They can trace these word straight to their original source and it usually has a rich and profound meaning since the major source of Arabic is from the Quran. For example, the verbs used to express 'to speak' 'to talk' 'to discuss' etc... are words related to the sacredness of words b/c words are very sacred in Islamic texts, so many of the roots and sources of these verbs are meanings like to pierce straight to the heart like a dagger or other deep positive and negative meanings to express the different effects words have on people.
very interesting stuff.
At the moment I'm in the middle of studying Morphology. This is how the words morph into other meanings. This is one of the things that makes arabic so hard for westerners to learn b/c we have nothing to compare it to b/c there is nothing like it in our language family.
The closest comparison I have been able to come up with is last names. Last names are a recent invention I've heard that most of them were founded on family trades like Baker Shoemaker etc etc or founded on special meanings. then many of the got letters added on or dropped and transliterated into words easier to pronounce in areas of the world people moved to. So, now many times it's not easy to trace a name back to it's origin so we can look them up in books and find really cool meanings for them.
Well, that is kind of how the entire language of Arabic is. It's kinda fun, interesting, and hard.
There are 10 verb forms and I have learned 5 of them so far. The forms I have learned are reflexive and causative; meaning, they either mean someone or somthings is doing it to itself(reflexive) or someone or something is forcing someone or somthing else to do it(causative)
It is very fascinating that the very for study also means to teach. If the same root is plugged into form 1 it means to make yourself learn ie to study or if the root is plugged into form 2 it means to make someone else to learn ie to teach.
Not all the words can be traced back this easily and Arabs are like anyone else wherein they learn the language growing up so the words just 'sound right' they are not consciously plugging them into different forms--there are slight and not so slight differences in writing and pronunciation between the forms so they are different word that mean completely different things---but to us foreigners we have to learn to system to make sense of it and be able to learn how the language works to be able to use it properly.
It's interesting to sit in class and have the teacher give us a verb in form one like 'to be' and ask us what we think it means in form 2 and we think real hard then figure out it means 'to create' or a word like 'to get out(leave)' and in another form it means to extract or copy. Also, each verb has a form where a noun in derived like to sit can also mean to make someone else sit down and also can be a noun 'sitting'. Lot's of stuff to learn....
Morphology makes me understand how so many people esp. Arabs love linguistics. They can trace these word straight to their original source and it usually has a rich and profound meaning since the major source of Arabic is from the Quran. For example, the verbs used to express 'to speak' 'to talk' 'to discuss' etc... are words related to the sacredness of words b/c words are very sacred in Islamic texts, so many of the roots and sources of these verbs are meanings like to pierce straight to the heart like a dagger or other deep positive and negative meanings to express the different effects words have on people.
very interesting stuff.
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