"I Love College" had better be off the radio by the time I get home...

At long last, it's time for millions of term papers and finals. I have at least two more blog entries I want to write about life here, so I'll see if I can find time next week, which is (drum roll) my final week of classes at AUC! The following week is "finals week," but I have no finals then, so I'll see some more sights in Cairo and maybe travel with friends within Egypt.

In celebration of the end of classes, I'll ramble a little about life at the American University in Cairo, which should flow nicely into the discussion of the Israel-Palestine conflict that I've been putting off all semester. That'll be the topic for next time.

Though there are hundreds of exchange students from all over the world (mostly American), the majority of AUC students are Egyptian. Most of these students have moved from wildly expensive American-style secondary schools to the most respected (and wildly expensive by Egyptian standards) American-style university in the country. Packs of private drivers wait outside the gates in imported cars to pick up their charges after class. It's like watching Gucci, D&G, Prada, and Luis Vuitton parades pass through campus everyday. We middle class, scholarship-receiving, Old-Navy-flip-flop-wearing Americans are incredibly out of place among the outrageously wealthy upper crust of Egypt. The American students are widely stereotyped as being "cheap," which is true under the circumstances.

I've found it incredibly hard to make friends at AUC. These students live very different lives than we do. And, because AUC does see so many exchange students, we are nothing new or interesting. I probably should have made more of an effort to become friends with my classmates, but I wasn't really inspired to. I feel like I'm back in high school... and not my beloved SMS, but that stereotypical high school where everyone is clique-ish and shallow, where carrying books or wearing a backpack is "uncool," where people talk disrespectfully to professors, and where people stand around gossiping all day and clog all the hallways.

Like USIU in Nairobi, students at AUC can be very spoiled. I've seen cheating and blatant plagiarism treated like they're nothing. Punishments are just something you have to wiggle your way out of. People talk obnoxiously loud and watch movies (without headphones) in the library. It's a very different academic environment.

Earlier in the semester, a graduate student and pro-Palestinian blogger named Philip Rizk disappeared mysteriously on his way back to Egypt after organizing a Palestinian protest in Gaza. Campus rallies demanding his freedom brought together about 50 students. Later (totally unrelated), when the AUC administration proposed changing the university class schedule and lengthening class periods, hundreds of students came out in protest. I have trouble identifying with students whose priorities are so different from mine. Things like this have made me miss AU terribly. Despite my qualms with AU, it's a pretty good fit for me.

Anyway, I wanted to end with Philip Rizk so I can pick back up here in a few days. I'd previously planned to avoid talking about the Palestinian conflict because a) I'm neutral on the subject and b) I hate making people angry by talking about it, but I have to bring it up. It's a massive presence in my life here, and it would be ridiculous for me to pretend it isn't.