End of Year Musings

Spring semester classes finished last week and this past weekend was the final exam. Final exams are all graded and I should disseminate them to students in the next couple weeks. My first academic year here has pretty much come to a close. We are required to stay for another five weeks, however, for various administrative tasks that I have yet to be clear on. I guess I'll wait and find out. All in all, I can breath a little easier and sleep in, which makes a world of difference. As a newcomer teacher in this institution, I was required to undergo a pretty extensive evaluation process that started from the mid-year point and ended yesterday. I received my final evaluation for my first year here and I am happy to find that I received a "More Than Expected". I am satisfied with this. Given how extensive the process was, I think it was a fair reflection of my abilities: pretty good, but there's always room for improvement. There were also circumstantial limitations to my job that may have affected my performance but I won't go into that...:D I'll just say that I've done the best I could here.

Lately, I've been having flashbacks of when I had first moved here and how I felt about it all. It's possible that the recent hot weather (back up to the 40s and beyond now) has triggered these recollections considering this was how hot it was last summer when I had first arrived. I'm amazed at how much things have changed for me psychologically and even materialistically. When I say materialistically, I mean that I now have disposable income that I absolutely did not have for the three years prior to me coming here (while in Cairo). At that time, I could barely live within my means and sometimes even begged and borrowed when even necessities were beyond my reach (i.e. food, books, etc). Fast forward to this past academic year of 2008-2009 and I have shot up in the income bracket (mind you, anything would have improvement), was able to buy my first car (with loan - Nissan Tiida!), have a comfortable home that I do not have to share, and am able to indulge myself with the occasional pair of shoes, clothes, books, and dinners out. Nothing crazy, but I don't feel deprived so much anymore.

As for psychologically, well, that's a longer discussion. It has been a challenge to be here in ways that I had not anticipated. I didn't anticipate the amount of free time I would have with very little to do. I didn't expect it to be this hard to adapt to this place, let alone, like it. I didn't realize how hard it would be to develop and maintain friendships here. An effort really has to be made in that department. Finally, I didn't know that being a single woman would be a liability rather than a freeing advantage, but this is indeed the case in this part of the world, where most foreign communities stick together and live in nondescript compounds. On the flip side, I have learned to be more resilient and independent. I have spent more time alone here than at any other point in my life and this has led me to value things that maybe I should have valued more in the past. I appreciate friends, family, good books and movies. I appreciate a home-cooked meal prepared by a neighbor. I appreciate my good fortune to be here, to have a job in this global economy. I appreciate having a car and the freedom to go where I please, which is really nice. So all in all, it's a mixed bag. I don't know if being here was a blessing in disguise (I don't think I'd go that far) but I do appreciate what I've learned since arriving here.

That being said, I am flying out in five weeks and am looking forward to going home. Let the countdown begin!