Lots of Reading

Well, I had been told that Hanane was returning from the hospital when I last wrote. As of this morning, she still isn't home. The doctor keeps saying "tomorrow." I just don't believe the hype anymore. She's been there a full week now. I hope she comes home soon. Mother and her friends were making cookies all weekend, and I almost went insane from the constant presence of the smell of butter, sugar, almonds, and cinnamon.

I registered for classes, did several hundred pages in reading to get ahead in this month's assignments to make room for writing papers. I hung out with the ladies and we went to Rabat's swankiest salon where I spent all of 75dhm to get my nails and eyebrows done. I love how cheap things are here. An hour-long massage is 70dhm, so maybe after my last final I shall go back to get some of the tension rolled out of my back.

The weather has finally decided to stay beautiful. The nights are quite chilly, so I have no problem falling asleep as I snuggle in all my layers. I got my laundry all done, so my armoire is full of clean clothes. Blanchette's battery is pretty much dead because of Morocco but it's been easier to go without her. I finished the Twilight series, read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and am now working on Through the Looking Glass. There's a group of a half dozen of us girls who were all reading Twilight at the same time, and now it's impossible to escape it. We find parallels in every movie, story, book, etc., so we're always making jokes about it.

Culture class was actually fun this morning. We have started our unit on folklore and discussed a bunch of Berber tales this morning. All of the stories involve beautiful girls, evil/jealous stepmothers, ogres/ghouls, and an eagle. There are some parallels between these and western tales but most are just their own thing.

The CCCL had some renovations done over the weekend. I had thought it was beautiful before, but having a few repairs done here and a few walls repainted there, it really has brightened the place up even more. We have a full schedule of mandatory lectures to attend and movies to watch from here until the very end of the semester. Even if there isn't a lecture, movie, concert, or demonstration on any particular day, there will be a birthday. Of our group of fourteen, five people have a birthday in this month.