A Quick Description of Class

     Having been here for a month and having been through three weeks of class, which also happens to be half the total class I take, I thought I would take it upon myself to update you on what my day to day is like, here in Oman. First it would be prudent for me to inform you that the week here is Saturday to Wednesday as opposed to Monday to Friday. Every Saturday through Tuesday I get picked up outside my house at 8 o’clock or so and we get to the World Learning Center at around 8:15. From 8:15 to 8:45 I am in my first Arabic class and because I am the only one in my level I take this with a private tutor. When all the other classes get let out we know that the class is over and we are all on a nice half-hour long break. I typically do not eat breakfast but I usually use this time to make myself tea and check facebook and my email, you know the truly important things. At 10:15 we all go back to class for an hour, and during this time I have the option of studying by myself, however, I usually study with the intermediate class. At 11:15 we get a short fifteen-minute break and then we go into our final hour, which switches off between conversational Arabic and Omani dialect, which I also spend with the intermediate class. At 12:30 we, theoretically, have a break until three, which is often filled with random meetings, involving, talking about the program and how it’s going and things like that. I do find time to eat lunch, however, and then at 3 or 4 it is time for my econ lecture. The program is split up into two tracts, Political Culture and Economic Development, and 5 of us, including me are in the econ track. After a two-hour lecture our school day is over and I head home. The rest of the night is filled with homework, dinner, maybe a run and sleep.

     Wednesday is a little bit different. There is no Arabic and we start our day at 9 with a three-hour research methods lecture by our Academic Director. This is primarily an anthropology class mainly directed at preparing us for the last month of the semester, when we are writing our ISP. We then have our long lunch break and the day is finished with another econ lecture and/or a reading debrief, which is basically when we all gather and discuss the weekly readings. This week we finished on Tuesday with our Arabic midterm and then, on Wednesday, we left for the southern city of Salalah.