For Good

All good things come to an end. My semester here in Cairo is officially over and it has been one of ups and downs, great triumphs and failures, happiness and sadness, and feelings of emotion that I have never experienced and probably never will experience ever again. Would I change the way I did some things? Yes. But do I regret anything? No. Two quotes tend to sum up how I tend to live my life: the first, by Jack Kennedy usually pushes me to take action and not sit on the sidelines: “those who dare to fail miserably, can achieve greatly.” I always try to take a risk, I try to live on the edge. There is no status quo to my life (just like in the Middle East, ironically) but that is how I want to live. I thrive on change. I feel at my best in the midst and that leads into my second favorite quote, which was exemplified when I pledged Sigma Chi. “Life is about the journey, not the destination.” To me, living in the present is the most important aspect of life. Yes, the past and present are important, but all too often, we forget about the moment we are living in right now. I tried to have as many “Now Moments” as possible where I just stopped and took it all in, but I still always felt like I was thinking about the next step.

It is incredibly hard to believe it has been four months. Yesterday, I was driving through my hometown and I can’t even really fathom the fact that a week ago, I was driving through the most polluted city in the world, sharing the roads with eighteen million, while I now barely share it with eighteen thousand in Murrysville. Being home feels rather surreal; the people are different, the weather is different, the atmosphere is different, the lifestyle is different. Flipping on the TV and every channel being in English is nice, but it was a semester barely spent watching television whatsoever (so, clearly I am catching up during break). Junk food didn’t exist in Cairo, well it did, but it was double or triple the price of American junk food so with the standard of living seen as so cheap, I wasn’t about to spend five days worth of food budget on a box of cookies.

The inevitable question keeps coming up, every time I see someone new: how was Egypt?? they always ask. After all the gushy “well it was great, so nice to see you, I love being back for the holidays” deal, I normally say that it was full of highs and lows, goods and bads, but such is life. I moved to Egypt for four months anticipating nothing less. I studied abroad for the feeling of life, not just a feeling of travel. Four months is an incredibly long time to only have ups and goods and never have bad moments. Even on a two-week trip to Israel or three weeks in France, there will be moments of disconnect or dissatisfaction, so in a society that is nearly the antithesis – in some regards – to American culture, I would say I was rather successful during my time there.

Despite certain life changes, I was able to adapt decently. I longed for home (read: DC) at certain points during the semester, but I never feel like it caused an issue that detracted from my semester in Cairo.

I have been thinking a lot about over the past two weeks and there isn’t really anything more to say, other than I am glad to be back in DC and I am glad to restart my life. I met some great people, saw some great places, learned some great things and overall had a great time. I hope this blog made you feel like you were there, at any point during the past four months, which is what its intention was. I tried my best not only to let you know what I was doing, but it also served as a sort of journal so I could keep track of the stuff for myself.

Ma’asalaama or goodbye in Arabic. I nearly forgot how to write/say/spell it…