School Spirit

Back to school and I hate it there, I hate it there/
Everything I want I gotta wait a year, I wait a year.
-Kanye West, School Spirit

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Sunday marks the beginning of the school week in Egypt, and so commenced the first day of classes, and the first day of add/drop. This was our chance to wrangle our hastily-made schedules created at the whim of our Queen Tomader during the advising session. I had drawn up my schedule based loosely around the idea that I should have some type of Arabic class, a writing or English course, and something Middle East related.

Going into our advising sessions, we knew course titles and times, and little else. Because registration was not done online, it was impossible to know which classes were full. I ended up writing down a list of things that sounded doable, and Tomader put me in whatever courses she felt like. This left me with a rather mysterious schedule. Did I really want to take two Arabic courses? What all did "Art & Architecture of Cairo" really entail? Should I have a lit class too? As it stood, I had a pretty good schedule so far, meaning no class on Sundays and one class on Thursdays, a possible perpetual four day weekend. But I wasn't entirely satisfied with it, so Hammad and I ventured to campus on the first day of add/drop.

In the United States, add/drop usually lasts for at least two weeks, allowing students to attend classes before they decide whether they wish to keep a course or not. At AUC, it lasts five days. Time was of the essence.

Hammad and I got to the ISSO office, the only place international students are allowed to register, at 11am. The office had been officially open for an hour. Its waiting room, the size of my parents' walk-in closet, was filled with frazzled Americans, trying to sort through the dozens of binders of course schedules and previous years' syllabi. While Hammad tried to figure out if there was any order to the chaos, I found the syllabus for my Art & Architecture of Cairo class, and saw that it contained 8 mandatory weekend field trips to various locales.

Eight?

Um, how do you say "hell no" in Arabic? I could find something better. Since none of these courses would count for my major anyway, maybe I'd use my time in Cairo to take a lit class. As I was pondering my options, a home made sign up sheet was thrust in my face. "This is the second sheet," the girl said to me. I signed my name and Hammad's name in slots 5 and 6 respectively. "I've been here since 8:30, and they just took number 4."

Hammad and I decided that it would be prudent for us to leave, and then come back later. We had some errands exercises in futility to run, and by some, I mean:

1) Give a passport picture to the Housing Office for our dorm ID (different than campus ID), even though they already have two separate pictures on file.

2) Go up three flights of stairs to computer lab. Wrestle with login. Check online listing of course times and dates to create list of potential new classes in a less chaotic environment than the ISSO office.

3) Go down one flight of stairs to the Office of Technical Services, where we give the "confirmation number" to activate our newly created AUC email accounts.

4) Attempt to login to our AUC email accounts. Find that "username and password do not match!" Be told that they should be working by this afternoon.

5) Go across campus to Office of Military Affairs/Visa to get our Student Visa. Give them a copy of our passport, and requisite forms. Be told to come back in "about a week."

6) Go to the off-campus AUC Medical Clinic for physical. Have blood pressure taken, recorded. Have physician ask if we had any "heart problems." Get signature.

7) Attempt to find post office to mail my dad's birthday card. Be told by security guard it's on the Greek Campus (two streets down). Go to Greek Campus; inquire as to location of post office. Be told wrong floor, twice. Find post office and ask to mail a postcard. Be told it's 1.50LE. Give the nice man the post card. Be told a stamp is needed, to be purchased in the Cashier's Office downstairs. Go to Cashier's Office; ask man at desk if stamps can be purchased here. Be answered in the affirmative. Stand in line for 10 minutes. Be told there are no stamps here, and to go back to Main Campus Post Office.

8) Hold in anger.

9) Take medical form and two passport pictures back on-campus to the Office of Sports. Turn in form; be told to come back on Tuesday for gym ID (different than dorm ID, different than campus ID).

10) Recheck AUC email account. "Username and password do not match!" Return to Office of Technical Services. Be glared at. Be told that it should be working by tomorrow morning.

11) Return to ISSO office by 12:30 pm to find out that they were on number 35. Of the second sheet.

12) Hear Tomader yell that the office was closing for the day in half an hour (for all those paying attention, that's a 10am-1pm work day.)

13) Curse the sky.

Seated, slumped and snoozing all over the office were disheartened students who had been apparently waiting for hours. Some had been sent to the back of the line because their form had been incomplete. Some had been turned away because Tomader disagreed with their rationale for dropping a course. Spirits were low, and tensions were high.

It was here that the frustration really set in: Why couldn't registration be done online? Why couldn't add/drop be more than five days? Why was the office only open for three hours? And why the hell did I need three separate IDs?!

Because that would make sense, was the common answer to my rhetorical questions. I lamented with the kids who were milling about Tomader's door, hoping to be seen by the woman with the magic hand. I had given up the possibility for changing my schedule that day, but leaned against the wall and chatted in subdued tones about the chaos of it all.

Suddenly, a voice broke from the heavens: "NEXT!" It was another student's turn. I realized then that there was no system at all, and much like the Metro or the public restrooms, who dares wins. A girl pushed me from behind into Tomader's office, saying, "You first, me next." I was in the lion's den.

The woman has quite the reputation, and probably deserves every bit of it. She embodies the word fabulous, always dressed in vibrant designer sweaters, capes and shawls. She double-fists espresso shots. Her bling has bling. She wears her (Chanel) sunglasses at night. Students shrink at her wrath, brought down for the smallest of clerical transgressions. Her whim is to be feared.

Her organizational system I'll never understand. It involved lots of paper, scribbling of names in red ink, flipping through files and yelling directions at her shrew of an assistant. Somehow I caught her on a good day, as she efficiently swapped Art & Architecture for Modern European and American Literature. She sent me from her presence with a commanding finger.

As I stumbled victorious into the waiting room, replaced by the girl behind me in the hallway, I heard Tomader cry, "15 MINUTES!" Most of the students were in the waiting room, sitting patiently for their chance in Tomader's court.

"What number on the sheet are they at?" a boy with a laptop asked. I hastily explained that there WAS no sheet anymore, and that whoever was near her door when she beckoned got in. This prompted some serious outcries from the good little American students who wait so nicely in line for their chance that doesn't seem to ever come in Egypt. They all got up to stand in the hallway, but by then it was too late.

I had my classes, and by the next day Hammad would have his. For those of you who care (hi, Mom), I'm taking:

-Arabic of the News (Media)
-Colloquial Egyptian
-International Politics of the Middle East
-Modern American and European Literature
-Creative Writing

Not bad, all around. It's much too soon to tell how the classes are going to go. I'm still in the process of trying to track down elusive "course packets" from local copy centers, begging for syllabi, and arranging appointments with professors. I'm still trying to get used to how things work here.

While this semester doesn't seem academically challenging, I imagine it'll try my patience. My friends said that the biggest problem I would have in Cairo was dealing with the inefficiency of the Egyptian system. And so far, it seems to be true. I just don't get why I have to log miles walking between buildings and campuses turning in forms, photos and papers. I can't comprehend the confusing and user-unfriendly administrative system. And I really don't understand why I need 3 ID cards. Or why registration can't be done online. Or why people spend so much time just sitting around and talking, when they could be doing anything else.

I guess that's the American in me. I'm always looking for a way to make things efficient and fast, to require as little effort from the user as possible. To be the most convenient. To me, this "inefficiency" isn't an obvious facet of Egyptian culture that I should adopt as a guest here; it's a problem that could be fixed. There could be another way.

But I'm going to have to stop looking at it like that. For Egyptians, this is how things work. And while the plethora of stamps, sheets and signatures seems annoying and inefficient, things DO get done here. It just takes a little longer. I guess for the duration of my stay here, I'm going to have to try to take a breath and relax. To let things unfold as they will. To worry less about time.

It'll probably do me some good.