Back from the edge

The dreaded first day back to work wasn't quite as bad as I was expecting. I could feel myself losing it a little when I found out that Mr President, in his infinite wisdom, decided to ignore my plan to do staggered exams for our students next week in favour of doing them all at the same time. The problem with doing it His way is that extra staff are drafted in to invigilate (or proctor, as they say out here) and tend to not have a clue how to give instructions or fire off a good death-stare, all of which result in chaos as students cheat, talk, and ask the invigilators for answers. Added to this, only three of the sixteen halls now allocated to us don't have any audio equipment for the listening component of the exam, meaning I'll have to run about like a blue arsed fly with our massive CD players, of which we only have three that work.

Doing it my way, during their usual class time, would cause no such problems. But then if it was easy, this wouldn't be Egypt.

Talking of which, the bomb that went off in a church in Alexandria the other day has brought to light some predictable nonsense from the English department's resident religious apologist regarding 'true' religion and, more worryingly, Israel (which gets the blame for everything according to her). The last thing this country needs is to have its boasts of religious tolerance ruined by a bunch of idiots using this tragedy as an excuse to cause havoc in their communities, so hats off to President Mubarak for quickly getting on TV and trying to diffuse what could, according to my more learned colleagues (including, amazingly, a secret atheist, who would never admit to that in public for fear of being outcast), become a rather tricky situation between all the tolerant religious types. I'm always slightly uncomfortable with the use of the word tolerance here; Anyone who doesn't believe in the God you believe in is to be tolerated? How odd, given that someone with a different view of something you know to be literal fact would in any other situation make them a bit wrong and stupid. That said, I've always found it patronisingly commendable out here that for the large majority of religious people, as long as you believe in something, you're okay.

It's the atheists they can't get their heads around.

Anyway.

The pay that was thieved from me last month was added to this month's, the lavvy has been fixed, the rent has been paid, my internet speed should double soon, I enjoyed photography today, and, to finish where I started, the dreaded first day back to work wasn't quite as bad as I was expecting.