At last - China!

As I write this I am sitting in my new apartment. I am living in the city of Jinan, a few hours south of Beijing. I have discovered that I am not able to view my blog or anyone else's blog for that matter, as I think they have been blocked here. Facebook if as well. The ironic thing is I have just gotten over my social phobia phase and I'm ready to start connecting with people again. The thing is now there's an actual physical barrier to doing that. I'm not even sure if you'll be able to read these blog posts as, as I mentioned, I'm not able to view my blog, but I hope that you can.

At Jinan airport I was greeted by a very friendly man called Shane, who had been helping me with my paperwork whilst I was in Bangkok. The weather was a bit humid but not too bad. We drove to my apartment which took about an hour. I had not slept but half an hour on the way to China so naturally I was quite quiet. I guess Shane panicked. What kind of teacher was I going to be? One that didn't speak at all? He asked me, 'Are you outgoing'. This question irritated me immensely and I snapped a reply back at him. After reflecting on my response I thought of how I could have dealt with the situation slightly better. I could have said to him, 'Shane, I have been travelling for 10 hours. I slept about half an hour in total. I'm hungry and dehydrated. But aside from all of that yes I usually speak little but when I'm in front of a class I'm a completely different person'. I was angry at him for jumping to conclusions based on a first impression of me.

When we got to the apartment two women were waiting for us. They greeted me but I was too uncomfortable to be very social. I also missed the fact that they had kindly laid out breakfast for me. I had a tour of the apartment and again they had equipped it with everything I could possibly need. I was touched by their kindness and attention to detail.

After a change of T-shirt we headed out again. The two women (director of the school and teacher trainer) took me out for lunch. We ordered sweet and sour prawns, beef and tomato, seafood soup and mixed vegetables. I've decided I quite like the fact that everyone shares food - you taste a wider range of things and it's more social. At dinner I made my first Chinese faux-pas. Before coming to China I thought it would be a good idea to learn about what was happening in the country. Most Chinese news stories these days are about the Bo Xilai court case. So I mentioned it. They tried to brush it aside with a awkward smiles, but I didn't get the hint. 'Actually, we seldom talk about politics'. Oops! I thought that was similar to not talking about the monarchy in Thailand.

They wanted to go for a walk but I honestly thought I would collapse in the streets. I told them that and they asked for a taxi immediately to take me back. I slept for most of the rest of the day.

When I got up I went for a wander around the local neighbourhood. A lot of people here get by on motorised scooters. I had a few looks, as there aren't many foreigners in my neck of the woods, but they were looks of curiosity and I didn't detect the slightest bit of maliciousness.

I'm going to get some sleep now as I feel a bit queasy. I don't know from what but I hope it will lift in the morning as I want to be ready and fit for work.

Obstacle no. 5: Nearly dying on the way to the airport

Why? Why couldn’t I just get to the airport easily and securely without needing to hope and pray that my mother wouldn’t find me in a hospital.

I decided to take a taxi to the airport today – the first time for me to do that (usually I just take the BTS skytrain). When I went to the reception of my hostel to book a taxi to the nearest BTS station she looked at me quizzically and asked, ‘You like BTS?’ What she really meant to say was, ‘You like torturing yourself?’ I did have 3 bags with me, one of which was a very heavy suitcase. I decided to spoil myself and take the taxi. She said the journey was 45 to 60 minutes on the Express Way and would cost me 300-400 baht. Might as well spend the last bits of Baht I have, thought I.

I was worried Taximan would be late so I asked her to call the taxi an hour earlier than I needed. My worries about his tardiness turned out to be ill-founded (as he turned up 10 minutes early). What I really should have been worrying about was making it to the airport alive.

Taximan seemed nice enough. I tried not to judge him for his ponytail but apart from that he kindly helped me with my heavy bag into the trunk of the car. He was a little younger than I like my Taximen to be, which meant he might be prone to speeding, or take a different sort of interest in me, but I brushed my doubts under the carpet.

He seemed OK manoeuvring the car around the small roads surrounding the hostel, it was only when we got to wider roads did I start to notice a potential problem. The car kept accelerating and decelerating suddenly, and I felt like I was a toy being shaken by a five-year-old boy. But it was only when we got to the motorway that my problems really began.

Taximan started driving so fast that I began to feel really sick. I wish I’d looked at the speedometer, but take my word for it, it was scary. Now some drivers drive fast but they appear in control, my uncles Hossam and Aiman being among them. What caught my eye was how Taximan’s head kept drooping. ‘Shit’, I thought, ‘he’s falling asleep’.

I turned round 90 degrees to face him, to verify what my peripheral vision was yelling at me, and hi head was in fact drooping forwards suddenly, then he’d pull it back up slowly. This was going on whilst he was driving VERY VERY fast. The possibility that he might be on drugs flashed across my consciousness. I asked him to ‘please slow down’ three times, but he either didn’t hear me or he didn’t understand me or he just plainly ignored me.

’40 baht’, he said suddenly.

‘OK’, I said mechanically. It was at this point in the story that I was convinced he was going to kidnap me and take me to his army of droopy-headed Taximen. I didn’t want to argue with him and tell him that the hostel receptionist had told me I would only need to pay 20 baht service charge, which is what I thought he was referring to.

But I couldn’t take it any longer. ‘Ahhhhhhhh’, I groaned, ‘I forgot my passport, my passport. Ahhhhhhhhh’. This was my response. Immediately he stopped the car. Thank god. I pretended to frantically search my bag, whilst mumbling jibberish, and it really was jibberish. I think the aim of this was to ascertain whether he was taking drugs or not. I looked at him straight in the eyes, trying to see whether his eyes were alert and focussed or droopy like his head. I found them to be quite alert. ‘OK’, I thought to myself, ‘maybe things will be alright after all’. I had a good mind to walk out of the taxi in the middle of the motorway, but I didn’t know whether I’d find another lift to the airport and besides, the area was very darky and slightly seedy.

It turned out the 40 baht was for the toll gate that we were just in front of. I relaxed a little. But not for long. Immediately he started speeding like crazy again. My stomach lurched, I thought I was going to spew. Then I noticed he was doing something else which made me feel very, very uncomfortable. He wasn’t holding the steering wheel. Instead he would lightly touch the top of it with one wrist, then lazily take that wrist off and put it in his lap. For a few seconds nothing was touching the steering wheel, and then he’d lazily put his other wrist on the top of the steering wheel. This, at VERY high speeds.

I panicked again. I didn’t know what to do. I took my phone out and pretended to call my mum. I vented to her in very loud, angry Arabic that I was in a taxi with a crazy Taximan and that I was going to die. I thought my shouting would scare him or something, wake him up and get him to grab the wheel like he meant it, but alas he did not react.

Strategy number 2: pretend I’m crazy. I started making rising noises that lasted 4-5 seconds, a bit like a revving car. I did this for a good few minutes staring blankly in front of me. Maybe if he thinks I’m crazy he’ll slow down. The possibility that he was going to kidnap me hadn’t completely disappeared either so I wanted him to make sure that if he did have any intention of kidnapping me, he would in fact be kidnapping a Crazy.

This phase segued into an acceptance phase. If the Universe wants me to go now, in this way, then so be it. Maybe my contribution on this Earth has ended and it’s time for me to go. These thoughts helped some way in easing my stress and for the next few minutes I just stared out in front of me.

I tried to make conversation with him, for the duel purpose of checking whether he was on drugs, as well as keeping him awake. He spoke very loudly, not too dissimilarly from the drunk men that fall out of pubs in the UK, so I was not comforted.

A few more minutes of terror and I decided to resume my random, noises. This time I stayed silent for a while then burst out with a certain noise. He didn’t bat an eyelid. I think what made it easy for me to do was the knowledge that he would probably just put it down to ‘cultural differences’ and he wouldn’t attempt to report me to any mental health authorities. As if he’d dare! Him and his drug-taking, head-drooping ways.

I couldn’t believe. We finally reached the airport. The preceding minutes were quite tense though, as he started to stare at me for longer and longer periods of time. A journey that should have taken 45-60 minutes took us 23 minutes. I might have saved time and money on that journey, but my stress levels were sky-high, so my health definitely paid for the difference.

I got out of the taxi and paid him his money. 2 smiley girls had just gotten out of the airport and were looking for a taxi. They went to him. My only thought is that I should have warned them. I sat on my suitcase on the tarmac, my green umbrella holding my head up. I just couldn’t believe I was still alive. My body was shaking slightly but I got myself up and into the airport.

Getting my Chinese visa - one obstacle after another

Why is it that ever since I left Egypt it seems like I have been bashing my head against constant barriers in my attempts to get to China. Today I wanted to get my visa sorted, because I was supposed to be in China yesterday, but I found that I was being confronted by obstacle after obstacle.

Obstacle no. 1: I went to the BTS station (the skytrain they have here in Bangkok) to take me to the Chinese embassy, but I couldn't make my way through the hoards of people. Apparently trying to travel anywhere in Bangkok at 8.30am is not the wisest of decisions. So, I went back down to the main road and asked a girl which train would take me to the BTS station I needed. 'I'm sorry, I don't know', she said with an awkward smile. I found a bus stop right in front of me. 'Maybe it's this one', I said to her, and jumped right on. I bet she was saying to herself 'crazy foreigner'.

Then of course I had got onto the wrong bus, so when it turned off the main road I leaped off it as fast as gravity would allow me. Eventually I made it to a different BTS station and arrived at the stop I needed.

Obstacle no. 2 (also known by its official title of, the BLOODY Chinese embassy).

The embassy opened at 9am. I got there at 9.15 am and it was heaving with people. There must have been over 500 in a modestly-sized hall. 'I guess this is what the most populous country in the World is going to be like', I thought to myself. I went to collect my queue number. I was 152 and they were still on 12. Great.

I sat down and stared at the red flashing numbers above the booths. They were going up so slowly. There was a gap between where I was sat and the booths and that gap was filled by people who I assumed had the correct numbers and were waiting in an orderly manner to be seen. Then I started doubting my naivety. What if.... What if.... 'No!' I said to myself. Don't even contemplate it! It can't be! But what if it was? What if... GASP! GULP! What if those people standing in front of me thought themselves superior of the queueing procedure and instead were just lining up behind the booths waiting for the first to become free. I decided to test this hypothesis and watched the crowds in front of me like a hawk. I'm pretty sure I didn't blink for a good 15 minutes and a man in front of me may have seen my straightened back and serious expression and wondered what was going on.

But just staring did not seem entirely sufficient. With that, I took out my stop watch and started timing the time it took for the numbers in the two booths directly in front of me to change to the next number. Yes that's right, pen, paper and stopwatch in hand, and a few more worried glances my way. The English queue etiquette has been pounded into me harder than I had first thought.

After 7 minutes and 36 seconds I noticed something quite alarming. A man, who must have been around 50, was hovering next to booth 1, one of the booths I was closely monitoring. The number 51 hung above the booth and a man, who I guessed to be French, was having his papers checked. When Frenchie left, 50-year old man went straight for the booth. And... the number hadn't changed yet! That could only mean one thing - that man had broken the queue law! If looks could kill, I would have sent that man to an early grave. I was so angry I contemplated running up to him, tapping him on the shoulder then somehow whistling very loudly (I imagined all of this very seriously in my head and just regretted not having a whistle on my person) so that I could get the attention of everyone else in the room and shout, 'This man thinks he's better than all of us! He jumped the queue!' At which point I'd jump on top of him and pummel the crap out of him. You can see I was very upset by all of this. Instead however, I resorted to staring at him. Non stop. Wherever he went, I stared. And stared. and stared. I could have stared at him forever but a voice interrupted my torrent of rage.

'What number do you have?'
'What?' I said quite abruptly - this voice had received a portion of the anger that was coursing through my veins.
It was a man in his forties and he seemed genuinely frightened by me.
'I have number 90 but I need to get some more documents. Do you want to swap numbers?'

After a few seconds I collected myself and fished out my number 152 from my pocket. I handed it to him and thanked him.

Obstacle no.3: I was really hungry.

We got to number 60, so only 30 left until mine, but the problem was I was starving. The first 30 had taken an hour so I reasoned I could walk the 10 minutes it took to get to the Tesco Lotus Centre, grab something rice-related to eat, and be back in time. I walked pretty fast there and back and luckily as I walked through the embassy door I saw my number on the wall. But. A filthy, queue-cheating piece of scum was at my booth. I was very close to tapping him on the shoulder and hissing at him 'Where's your number scum???' but I resisted. [Many of you may not know this, but I actually have quite an anger-issue. I get angry VERY quickly at trivial things but I can usually keep my cool at the bigger things. My sister thinks it's funny, I think it's bad for my health but when I think back to my thought process at the peak of my anger I have to admit, my sister might be right.]

Another man was unfortunate enough to ask me a question when I was mentally trying to stab in front of me. He too got an abrupt reply.

Finally, it was my turn. The girl took the papers but told me I needed to photocopy some other things. It was 10.55am. The application accepting ended at 11.30am. I ran out of the embassy, panting and sweating to find the nearest photocopier. The woman smelled my urgency (or my sweat) and did the job quickly (my smell may have been making her nauseous). 30 baht she said. I only had 1000. Frantically I scraped every last coin I could find out of my wallet and threw them at her ten hurried back to the embassy. The woman gave me a little pink slip and told me to come back at 3pm. 'Finally', I thought, 'I almost have my Chinese visa!'

Obstacle no. 4: 'You have to wait a very long time'.

At 2.45pm precisely I left a cafe near to the embassy and made my way back. In the few hours I'd been waiting, I booked my flight for 2am the next morning. Money had already been spent. I HAD to fly out in the morning, which meant I HAD to have my visa and passport today.

Outside the embassy, a long queue of people had formed. I joined the back. The next 15 minutes were really a repeat of my queue-surveillance activities I had honed in the morning. I saw a group of Thai people cut round from the back and get closer to the front. I stared at them. A foreigner cut the line right in front of me and headed to the front of the queue. 'What cheek!' I thought to myself. But I needn't have worried because the woman in charge of security at the front told him to go back. My gaze returned to the group of Thai people at the front. Should I go up to them? Should I keep my trap shut? Should I calm down, it's not a big deal? But dammnit, it was a big deal! These people were violating the sacred queuing system. With queueing its not about how much money you have, how pretty you are or how high your muscle mass is. No! It's about the age-old first-come-first-served principle. It's about respecting the individual rights of your fellow man, and these people were grossly disrespecting mine.

But I didn't have anything to fear because the kind security lady did not allow them in until the queue that had formed had entered first. 'Excellent' I thought to myself.

On entering the visa collection room we formed another queue.Then some bastards from the back headed straight for the counter! Breathe Amira. Breathe.

In front of me were about 6 foreigners. I heard one foreigner reach the counter then turn round again and say to his wife, in a tome mimicking the embassy employee he had just seen, 'You have to wait. Maybe long time'. This was repeated to everyone else that was in front of me in the queue, so I should have got a hint and sit back down but I wanted to stubbornly hear it for myself.

'You have to wait long time', she shrieked. (It really was a shriek, very high pitched, very sudden, very irritating.) I tried to understand why but she just repeated the same ennerving statement.

I assumed my predatorial seated position, glaring at the booths in front of me, back straight, not moving any part of my body. 5 minutes past. I saw a foreigner walk up to the booth and a few minutes later walked away with his passport. 5 minutes, long time, OK. I stood up and went to the counter.

'Sorry', the same irritating woman put up a CLOSED sign as I tried to poke my head through the small slot at the bottom of the glass divider. I went to the booth next door and the woman removed the closed sign. (Maybe it was just my imagination?) Anyway, long story short (I'm sure you're thinking to yourself, is this girl deluded? She made a 2-sentence story stretch into almost 30 paragraphs when she could have said ' I went to the Chinese embassy to get my visa but I got angry because I saw little respect for the sanctity of the queue'), after a few minutes I FINALLY got my visa! Hurrah! Woop woop!

So, I guess this means next time I'll be writing from China! Fingers crossed everything runs smoothly!

Back in Thailand

Back in Thailand now. The journey from Cairo to Bangkok was particularly arduous.

I left Cairo at 11pm (a creepy Egyptian flight attendant kept winking at me which made me want to throw up all over him) and got to Mumbai 6 hours later, having slept a total of 5 minutes.

Then, in Mumbai I had a 17 hour wait. S-e-v-e-n-t-e-e-n hours. Fortunately I'd already made plans for this ridiculous layover, and I'd got a visa to visit Mumbai for the day. I was very lucky with getting my visa actually because the day after I'd got my passport back the streets of Egypt erupted into what many news outlets have termed a 'massacre' but what a lot of Egyptians I spoke to referred to as 'a much needed `attempt to instil order and security back into the country and rid it of terrorists' i.e. the Muslim Brotherhood.

Getting the Indian visa itself was quite amusing. The Egyptian woman at the Indian embassy sent me away twice because I didn't have sufficient proof that as a holder of an Irish passport I am entitled to 30 days in Thailand without a visa. On my third trip there I printed out a paragraph from the internet (which would have taken her 3 seconds to look up herself) that stated that EU nationals did indeed get 30 days in Thailand (for tourism purposes) on arrival.

Then she said the most audacious thing yet. 'Yes but... Ireland isn't in the EU'.

'For the love of God and all things good in this World (a rough translation of the Arabic that I almost yelled back at her) Ireland ISSSSSSSSSSS in the EU'.

She smiled at my use of colloquial Arabic, and ceased troubling me. 150 Egyptian pounds later I had my visa to India. My mum later told me that the woman was probably looking for a bribe of sorts.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So, I got to Mumbai and headed for the 'pre-paid taxi' stand. To be honest I had no idea whatsoever what I was going to do in Mumbai. I didn't even have a place name to tell the pre-paid taxi man where I wanted to go. But nevertheless I stood in that pre-paid taxi queue waiting for inspiration to hit me. And then it did. In the form of a shy Japanese boy.

Just as he'd paid for his taxi to take him to God knows where, I tapped him on the shoulder and asked him where he was going. I had no idea where the place he said was but I asked him if I could go with him. He agreed and with that I saved myself 250 rupees and the embarrassment of having the entire queue look at me as I confessed to having no idea where I wanted to go.

The journey from the airport to the boy's hostel was a long one. During the journey I found out that we were going to a very illustrious hotel - The Taj Mahal Palace Hotel and what a hotel it was! (The boy wasn't staying there, he was staying in a cheap hostel close by). I later looked up this hotel and learnt that it has hosted guests such as Michelle Obama, The Beatles, Angelina Jolie and Bill Clinton.

When we arrived outside the hotel I decided to go inside and ask for 'tourist information'. I had no idea how swanky it was inside. There was a huge reception with a waterfall feature and plush orange sofas lit in a dim, golden light. I went to the reception and was greeted by a smarmy, insincere man. When I asked for tourist information he obliged by showing me a map and pointing out the 'markets' that I'd asked to see. Clearly the guests of La Taj Mahal do not shop in the markets I had questioned him about. Then, when I asked him if he knew of anywhere that did yoga he lifted his nose high in the air, and through an undisguised grimace asked me if I was staying at the hotel. Just remembering that jackass makes me feel sick. I left the reception, that was filled most notably with Gulf guests, as gracefully as I could manage in my ripped trousers and batter rucksack and headed for India Gate, that was just in front of it, trying to shake off the cloud of inferiority the man's attitude had dumped on me. I later learnt that the Taj Mahal hotel had been one of the targets of the 2008 Mumbai bombings in which 164 people had been killed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now here comes the truly shocking and incomprehensible part of this tale. What happened next made me start thinking if there really is some universal intelligence that governs our lives, that we too quickly dismiss as 'co-incidence'.

On the plane to India I'd been thinking about a photographer that was making a film for the group I was part of in India last year. I remember thinking that I wished I'd gotten to know him a little better because he seemed like a really nice guy. But that was in Delhi, almost 1,500 kilometres away from Mumbai.

I'd been walking around for about an hour, not going anywhere in particular, just seeing the sights and remembering the distinct smell of India that I'd first picked up on last year. As I crossed a road I saw a large group of foreigners crossing in the opposite direction. 'It must be a school trip', I thought. Then they started speaking British English and something clicked. Maybe they were on the Study India programme. They were followed by a photographer holding a large video camera on his shoulder. Wait a second. It was him! I blurted out something that sounded like Study India and he turned round. He took a few seconds to remember me, but it was one of the strangest events of my life. How? In a city as big as Mumbai how could our paths have crossed? How?

For most of the rest of the day I was in a reverie, torn between trying to comprehend what had just happened and wishing I'd followed up on this strange event somehow. But my timidity took charge and I headed round the city once more.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The flight from Mumbai to Bangkok was at 2am. I was exhausted when I arrived into Bangkok and learning that my baggage was missing was the slimy icing on the mould-infested cake that was my journey. But I couldn't even go straight to the hostel because I had to pick up some documents the school I'm hoping to teach at in China, sent me two weeks previous to my arrival.

I walked as if in a zombie-trance to the post office and to my dismay the documents were not there. The next few days comprised of a cat-and-mouse chase of these documents until finally this morning I was able to retrieve them. The stress has not been good for my system.

To add to matters, yesterday my bag arrived. Minus a gold Nefertiti necklace my mum had bought me when I was younger. I had stupidly put it in the front pocket, without questioning the honesty of the Egyptian and Indian airport staff and of course it was removed. They'd also taken a small pair of travel scissors. Why? Don't they have scissors where they're from? They'd searched every pocket they could get there hands on minus one that I had put a pad lock on, at the last minute. If I hadn't I would have said good bye to the laptop I'm typing on right now, my camcorder and all of my other electronic items. I got off light I suppose.

Now I have to wait until Monday to go to the Chinese embassy and apply for my visa. Getting the documents this morning has lowered my stress levels slightly but I'm really anxious to start working. I feel like I'm no use to anyone at the moment, and I'm ready to be useful again.

Surprise! I'm in Egypt!

It's been a while since my last post. In short, whilst I was at the retreat in Chiang Mai I had a strong urge to be with my family. I'd disappointed my mum by cancelling my trip to Egypt last minute and I felt that I had achieved all I wanted to achieve in Thailand and I was ready to see me family.

So, I've been in Egypt for 3 weeks or so. I spent the last week of Ramadan with my  family, we sent 5 days on the Mediterranean, near Alexandria, and I now have a few days before I go to China, via Bangkok.

Yesterday was pretty intense. 60 people died and I saw a man on a motorcycle with blood running down his entire length. I went out into the street only twice and both times I felt like I was in serious danger. I started imagining what it would be like if I got stabbed or shot. I was really prepared for anything.

My cousin and I walked to the main road where there were groups of men and teenagers standing guard against a Muslim Brotherhood attack.  We were looking for our male cousins who we had told to go down to the main street so that we could take a picture of them as they appeared on our TV at home.

I focused on my breathing the entire walk down so that I wouldn't panic, my cousin however was not as calm. We got to the main street and a man told us to go back home. He said there were teenage boys from the 'slums' who were known to be volatile and dangerous. This scared me more than a Muslim Brotherhood attack because it meant that I had to be on the look out for everyone.

With that I called out to my cousin and we walked back home. I hated how easily I let myself panic.

On of the most important lessons I learnt yesterday was that I can no longer blindly trust the media. The Al Jazzera arabic channel we sometimes watch, constantly streams one side of the story - the Muslim Brotherhood's side. But it's not just them. The BBC, the Guardian, and a lot of other news sources use biased, emotive words such as 'massacre', 'bloodshed', 'bloodbath' to explain what is going on.

They are painting a picture that the Egyptian military are indiscriminately slaughtering Egyptians just to maintain power and keep the 'coup' alive. They are painting the picture that the military is against democracy and its power-hungry eyes cannot bare to watch a democratic Egypt taking shape.

WRONG! How on Earth was Morsy and his administration democratic???? Morsy made himself above the constitution, above the law. He made himself into a dictator. This, therefore, is a step towards democracy, not away from it.

It's also funny how the media is portraying how its the Egyptian military against innocent Egyptians. WRONG AGAIN! The Egyptian people on the whole support the military with all its heart. After it saw the oppression and ignorance of the Muslim Brotherhood over the last year, ordinary Egyptians have had enough.

It therefore is not the Egyptian military against the Egyptian people, it is the Egyptian military and the Egyptian people against Muslim Brotherhood terrorists. They keep harping on about their 'peaceful' ways but actually 'peaceful' is their code word for 'create as much carnage as you possibly can, then add a bit extra just for kicks'.

Yesterday was also the first day I developed a genuine, emotionally-invested interest in current affairs. I had never related current affairs to my own life before, but after yesterday I can't stop reading the news. I knew nothing before!

So I'll close by saying... I see a bright future for Egypt. I see that Egypt will overcome this terrorist threat and start to re-build its country. I see that the Egyptian people will emerge stronger than ever before after these few years. They will remember who they are and feel empowered to take control of their lives once more. I hope to one day come and live in Egypt and work in the education system, to try to empower as many young Egyptians as I can.