Randy's Post (No. 2)

I have found that Arabic is a rather difficult language to learn. The course itself lasts from 8:30am to 2:00pm and the professor usually allows for two much-needed 30 minute breaks. Before we slither out the door at the end of the class (our minds having been shotgun-blasted with curly symbols that all resemble each other) he jovially assigns homework that usually takes at least four hours to complete. Last night Chris and I were up until 4:30 studying for our second exam and half of the night was spent debating our roommate, Phil, on the validity of the Natural Law. Phil is a graduate student with a religious studies major and holds to the idea that much of Christianity is irrational to outsiders and a leap must be made for one to come to the truth. Brilliant, he debated with us until around 2:30am and did Kierkegaurd proud.

Back to the professor. The professor, a Jew who speaks Hebrew, Arabic, English, Latin, Russian, and French, is unaffected by any of the stifled moans as he keeps turning the pages (from right to left) and assigning more exercises from our textbook (which is written in HEBREW, not English, I might add). He simply replies, "it's simple" (pronounced Seem-pul). Well, I couldn't agree less that learning Arabic or doing the assignments is Seem-pul, but I do realize that I'm learning a whole lot and can't imagine a better environment in which to learn it. So far, we have learned seven weeks worth of material in a mere six days. As long as we keep our mouths firmly clamped to the fire hydrant, I think we'll be ok.