Vegetarianism

Having recently spent more time making offerings to the porcelain gods than a week-long frat party, I have come to seriously doubt my body's ability to regain the ability to handle certain foods. It is with this that I establish my conversion to vegetarianism. The mere smell of meat nowadays sends waves of nausea through my entire body. I want to inform everybody of this so that there are no awkward surprises in the future. It is possible that my body will adjust once back in the US (i.e. with food regulations in practice) and that I can resume my normal diet. Until then, I resign all animal products except eggs, seafood and dairy.

Mohammed keeps wanting to use my camera to photograph Baby whenever they change her outfit. They have their own camera with a full memory card. Mohammed knows how to delete pictures, how to go to a lab to get some developed, and how to go out and find another memory card. Still, he wants mine because it's better than his. I hate to tell him "too bad" time and again, so instead, I have "forgotten" my camera indefinitely at my friend's house. The fête de bébé will be this Saturday, which is annoying because I had had plans to attend the Fulbright convention here in Rabat and do any last shopping with the girlies.

This weekend was quite nice. I got a fair bit of writing done concerning my two term papers for class. I did my Arabic homework over the span of two hours because it was an insane amount. Other than that, I was with the ladies, Monica, Rebecca, and Hilary. We took Hilary on her first trip ever to the beach here and did lots of meandering about the medina. This past week started the tourist season (they're EVERYWHERE now and I miss being the only white person in the streets). We all realized Friday evening that none of us had documented much of Rabat, so we took the opportunity afforded by the swarm of tourists to pretend to be tourists ourselves and photograph and ogle things that we normally wouldn't. We bought milk, eggs, Gruyère, flour, butter, bananas, strawberries, Nutella, onions, and peppers. We went to Hilary's house and made crêpes and scrambled eggs and it was absolutely the most delicious thing ever. Let me tell you that it is no easy thing cooking in Morocco. For one, there is no such thing as a level surface anywhere - not the counter tops, not the pans, pots, or trays, not even the stove. It was trying indeed to get things fully and evenly cooked. We did crêpes and eggs on Saturday and then repeated the egg experience on Sunday. Again, I love the cheapness of food here. It's hard to spend more than 100dhm on a single meal that you're preparing yourself. Fifteen eggs cost 13dhm and three peppers and an onion cost 3dhm. After we had prepared everything, we watched many movies, to include Prince Caspian, The Aristocats, and Peter Pan (recent, live-action one). We found Twinning's tea and were very happy to sit and sip all evening long.

In culture class just now we discussed Moroccan music genres. I myself presented Andalusian music and got a genuine "good job" and "thank you" from Prof Mekouar, so that kind of made my day. This week's topic is music, then film for next week, and then it's finals week. Our paper is due next Monday with the final the next Monday so that Wednesday we can discuss all of that stuff. Oh no, not Wednesday, for on that day a conference is being held in Mekouar's honor (*makes regurgitating noise*), so instead we'll have class nonstop on the very last day, Thursday 1 May. It'll be worse than high school, for it will be 8.30am-4.30pm sans cesse.