New Campus, Same Old Problems

School has begun again, and is as problem-ridden as expected. AUC has moved to its new campus. . .partially. Much of the materials have moved, but plenty have not, and so we all suffer through an excruciating limbo during which not much works and there's not much to be done. What will follow will be a litany of complaints. Skip them if you do not want to read my whining and simply scroll down to the picture of the dog. She's much more adorable than new campus.

So: the administrative problems are normal for my school and are only exacerbated by the move. The real problem is the distance. To get to new campus, you have to ride for miles into the middle of nowhere, and then keep going about a half hour longer. Here is one of the entrances:

The distance presents further problems when you bring the bus schedule into play. There are buses to campus only once an hour, and for some reason this month the last bus leaves for campus at 11.40 am, hardly useful when you haven't got class until 2.40. To get home from campus, we are offered only two options: a bus at 2.15 and another at 4.30. This means that someone who is taking, say, an art history class finished at 12 has to wait at least two hours to leave.And if you miss the bus you can't quite walk home. This is what the neighborhood looks like from the library:
A whole lot of nothing.

Some of the problems facing new campus: classrooms don't have basic features like air conditioning, electricity or even doors. The cafeteria is not finished so that, for the however-many thousand people are on campus, the only food options are two small cafes providing windows: Jared's Bagels and Cilantro. When they run out of food (which they have already done), then you have run out of luck. Luckily we are currently celebrating Ramadan and a theoretical majority of people on campus are fasting, but they won't do so forever.

Half of the shelves in the library are empty like those above, and it was unclear whether the readings required for my class Sunday had made the move yet (they had, but the slides required had not as of last class session).

It's never encouraging to see construction works milling about in their hard hats when you're on the way to the library. Also bothersome is the lack of basic planning. Take for instance the issue of shade. New campus is in the middle of the desert, and yet there is shade only when provided by buildings. As a result, students stuff themselves in large numbers into the small passageways between buildings and it is rather difficult to get through unless you happen to accidentally elbow a few of them.

The dog is really cute, however.



She belongs to my roommate and is five and a half months of giant-ness (Great Dane). When she's very excited to see someone, she will leap into the air as if on a pogo stick, and she also favors attempting to fit her massive frame into people's laps.

Egyptians are fascinated and terrified by the dog. Some people hide when she goes by and one girl even screamed in fear when we rounded the corner to where she was standing. My roommates and I already have a reputation in the neighborhood as stewards of the Big Dog.

We've yet to see how the dog will react when faced with sheep.

I mentioned earlier that it is Ramadan, and this means that much of the city is decorated by lanterns to celebrate this month. McDonald's is also decorated, and all those interested can fold up their very own McDonald's Ramadan lanterns for fun and profit (you are also invited to break your fast at the McDonald's drive-through around the corner from my house):


One side of the lantern says "Holy Ramadan," and the other has a particularly terrifying image of good ol' Ronald McDonald.

I love that this exists.

In closing, here is a very encouraging image from the Oakland Zoo I took while at home a few weeks ago:



I didn't see any large buildings nearby which might fall on me in the event of an earthquake, but you never can tell with faults.