.

These broken shoes
They've done some walking and

Through all these holes
I touch the ground and it feels

like home.

I don't need anything.

Haya Mustawa Rabi'

My toes are cold. I forgot to mention that we've started a new level. I'm so grateful I got the 8 o'clock class I asked for; everyone else's is at 11.15. It's so much more practical for me to have this class - it means I actually have time to do things after. Really, it was such a boon that mum was here for exactly the remaining duration of the last level, because I might've died if I had to the stuff I normally do and homework. So Level 4. I still feel like I don't really know any Arabic at all. How can that be? What will it take? I figure I might get up to about Level 10 before next August, inshallah, which is actually just one level shy of the complete course. Regret at not being able to finish it but for one course briefly crossed my mind, but I really can't bear the thought of staying here longer than necessary. Like everyone else, I just want to go home. If we have lots of time at the end of the last level we can do, I hope we can come home early.

John - do you miss me enough to give me a job again in August/September? Please? Think of all the benefits! You won't need to train me, I'll have another language to add to your repertoire, and and and! Everyone LOVES ME because I'm SO NICE. You can't really argue with that, right? *hopeful*

I'm actually really dreading going home and not having a job/munny. I have to pay for my course at the IoE, and I definitely don't personally have that money. Actually, part of why I agreed to come to Egypt this year was if dad would be so kind as to pay my fees the coming year (gosh, expense upon expense :S) - I've always wanted to learn Arabic, and it was always part of my master plan, but the timing had me a bit sideways. At the point where I came up in discussions, I'd already been accepted to read my course, and I was anticipating it and preparing for it, etc. So yeah, big change of plan, had to request a last-minute deferral and everything (the result of which I found out after I got here XD).

Need to start heading to the chicken *blink* ...to the kitchen. I don't know what to do for dinner, too un-bothered. I wish food would cook itself.

...

Mum left last Wednesday (15th), and we all went to the airport to see her off. When will Allah allow me to see her again? There is something else, though - before she came, there was something about being here...strandedness, desolation, maybe? But since she's been here, it's like the house has absorbed her presence, as somehow it feels like she's still here - maybe she's in the other room, maybe she's sleeping - maybe. Because she has been here, even if she isn't now, and the house remembers it. I can see her, sitting on the piano stool, I can hear her moving around in another room, I can feel her sleeping. I can feel her happiness in being with us, equal only to our happiness to be with her.

--

I just slashed the inside of my left ankle quite deeply. I thought I'd cut it on this sharp corner of glass, and I looked down and I was right, and it was bleeding black. Then I was like, oops, bloods! and bobbled away to wipe it with something (only found a tissue)(previously used to wipe my nose). But then it just carried on bleeding and I couldn't even see where the cut was, or how big. Heidi and Z just sailed on out the door, and Tabassum and Abdullah just moseyed away, so I was like, 'oh. No one's going to see if I'm okay. Okay.' It was slicking with blood, and by the time I got to my first aid stuff it was all over my sock and still coming, but I couldn't first-aid it on my own, so I had to call those two anyway. Didn't want to though. Abdullah and Tabassum were my ambulance - they wanted me to say that.

It's starting to hurt now. XD

-

'Many were the tears shed by them in their last adieus to a place so much beloved. "Dear, dear Norland!” said Marianne, as she wandered alone before the house, on the last evening of their being there; “when shall I cease to regret you!—when learn to feel a home elsewhere!—Oh! happy house, could you know what I suffer in now viewing you from this spot, from whence perhaps I may view you no more!—And you, ye well- known trees!—but you will continue the same.—No leaf will decay because we are removed, nor any branch become motionless although we can observe you no longer!—No; you will continue the same; unconscious of the pleasure or the regret you occasion, and insensible of any change in those who walk under your shade!—But who will remain to enjoy you?"

- Marianne Dashwood, Sense and Sensibility