Halftime

     Winter break started for us in mid-December, and those last few weeks of class (coupled with Eid Al-Kabir and cold weather) made us crave a break pretty bad.  Even the most dedicated of us began to check out a couple days early, just because we were tired. 

     So I went to France.  My trip was planned for quite a while and I was pretty excited about it.  I have a couple French friends who were students at OSU for a quarter back in 2007, and they were nice enough to let me stay with them while here.  What's more, they're really a lot of fun to hang out with and my friend Sebastien took me to his parents house with him to celebrate Christmas.  

     It's been a very relaxing time.  Warm, real showers and central heating have been quite the luxury.  Plus, there is never really a time I've had to be anywhere or do anything except for Christmas, so I've had the freedom to do whatever I want with no one to answer to.  

     It's 9:34 a.m. right now on January 5, and I am somewhat excited to go back to Fez.  As you know, I've been studying Modern Standard Arabic, which is formal Arabic and somewhat useless around Fez.  It also is the more academic form of Arabic, and what I was studying at Ohio State.  In my last few weeks in Fez, I was starting to become frustrated with how little practice of the language I was getting outside of class, because it really would have helped me with my work in class.

     However, now I will be studying the dialect.  This is good for a number of reasons.  First, it will be useful, both now and for the rest of my stay in Morocco.  Second, I won't be studying out of Al-Kitaab (the MSA book we use here and at OSU), which means I get a break from our standard pace of learning.

     This break has kind of felt like halftime during a big game.  It's been a nice chance to catch my breath, take a step back, and re-evaluate how to approach what I've been doing.  The game's about to begin, so I've gotta get in there.  Four months down, five to go.