Today in Egypt

A typical working day in Egypt...

7:42 Left the house for the short walk to the bus pick-up point. Not the most pleasing view I'm sure you'll agree. The red figure is one of the Bawab's men who cleans all the cars in the morning.

7:55 Bus arrives at its new time after I complained that I wasn't getting in until well after 9am when my first class is supposed to start.

7:56 Chrono Trigger shortens the longish journey to university. Time travel is always a good thing.

9:40 My first class on a Thursday comprises of 40 students. It is generally accepted in my line of work that a class size of 16 is perfect, although anything up to 22 can be handled fairly well. It is a huge challenge for me to teach this amount of students but hopefully this is just a short-term measure until we hire a couple more teachers. Oh, and my classroom has no air-con, hence the open windows.

9:41 Yup, 40 of them.

10:21 A wee cartoon here and there always raises a few chuckles.

10:31 Surf blip, eat apple, drink water, deal with students who are lost.

10:59 After learning that not enough books had been ordered for my next class which starts in an hour, I asked a colleague if I could borrow a few copies of the first chapter she had prepared previously. It turns out she messed up this complicated (if you count duplex copying as complicated) task and so down to the photocopy room I trudged to prepare 65 double-sided stapled handouts.

11:29 Bastard photocopier. If you ever need a photocopier de-clogged, I'm your man.

12:52 Lesson two with the Business students. Only 30 of them this time.

13:22 Arab students love a bit of grammar. I don't. Erm, what's an auxiliary thingy again...?

13:30 Coffee. Tasted like shit. Nice colleague kindly covered my last class of the day which comprised of 20 zero-level English students so that I could get on for the next hour and a half with...

15:03 ...sorting out mess that is currently the English Language Unit. Timetables, class lists, book ordering, classroom allocation and the hiring of staff have been neglected to the point of embarrassment. My colleagues are currently taking full advantage of the mistakes in the timetable which sees me teaching twelve classes with over thirty students and them teaching ten classes with around fifteen students as well as having Thursdays off. (I'm exaggerating, but not much.) I do actually quite like being in control and solving problems (and the opportunity to help to shape the department is one of the reasons I wanted this job) but am very aware that I risk alienating myself from them should they think I'm trying to 'be the boss'.

15:36 Working with excel and tables and whatnot requires frequent use of the 'tab' key. Usually when you press this key, the next cell to the right is highlighted. On my computer, it went backwards, and drove me feckin' nuts. A text or two to Currie, a trawl through Google and a forum post to blip later...

16:07 ...I found the solution. What a waste of half an hour.

16:27 Bus dude. Looks a little bit like Grant from Eastenders. Likes to play musical horns and shout at other drivers. Smokes a lot. Nice chap.

16:29 'Curtains'.

17:34 Narrowly escaping injury at the Grand Mall shortly after getting off the bus.

17:34 Road 206 on the short walk home. There isn't a lot of space for pedestrians.

18:34 Lebanese Nights for a Lemon Mint, apple sheesha and some chicken with the missus before heading home.

I am beyond knackered.