So. After weeks of writing to-do lists, I am now finally ready to head off for my year abroad. I've even gone to the immense trouble of creating a blog with a suitably lame blog name, so you better read it!
I'll be leaving Norway tomorrow, 30th August, and will spend the weekend with a classmate in Rome, before we head to Egypt on the 3rd of September.
Lucky as I am I have managed to catch a nice cold, so now I have a little something to remind me of the homeland as I start my travels. I am also very happy to have received an e-mail from SOAS this very evening with information which would have been very helpful had we received it two months ago. Nothing makes you feel more prepared than when you right before departure receive a long list of things you should have done before leaving. I'm sorry to disappoint you, SOAS, but I somehow doubt I will be able to undergo a full medical examination and obtain a medical certificate during the next six hours.
After two years of studying Arabic, I am armed with useful phrases like "Certain modern literary trends in Europe (...) are characterized by the abandonment of realism as practised by previous generations, in that they no longer have the intention of presenting a picture of a given person or event which makes us think that it corresponds to reality, but rather incline to a fragmentation of narrative in order to present multiple points of view and to juxtapose scenes which appear to be disconnected", so in other words small talk should be no problem. Real ice breaker, that one. Egypt, I'm ready!
