Well, since I'm stuck on campus for a few hours with virtually nothing to do (not that I have nothing to do. I have a whole lot to do, but none of it is with me here and now) I figured that I would try to fill the world in on what Andrew does all day.
Andrew has been teaching Arabic all semester--and he loves it. Perhaps the only downside to him teaching Arabic is that he teaches at 8:00 am everyday and sometimes it is hard to motivate him/myself to get out of the bed, especially now that it is dark and cold and snowy. But, the upside of that is that no one else wants to teach the 8:00 am section so he gets to teach next semester as well (yay)!
This semester has been particularly fun for him. Sami, Layla's little brother, is in Andrew's class, as well as someone who served in Italy with Andrew, as well as one of my cousin's roommates.
Andrew is taking both Italian and Arabic classes this semester (about a 50/50 split). It was kind of hard for him at first to switch between the two (three, technically since some of his classes are in English) languages all day, everyday. He seems to be a pro at it now. Let's see...what classes is he taking?
| ARAB 531R | TBA | TBA | Adv Study Arab | Hijazi, Feryal | |
| ARAB 531R | 3:00p - 3:50p | TTh | Adv Study Arab | Parkinson, Dilworth | |
| GEOG 271 | 12:00p - 12:50p | MWF | Middle East | Emmett, Chad F | |
| HIST 240 | 5:00p - 6:15p | TTh | M E Hist to 1800 | Davis, D Morgan | |
| ITAL 322 | 11:00a - 11:50a | MWF | Adv Composition | Arcidiacono, Maria | |
| ITAL 460 | 9:00a - 9:50a | MWF | Dante's Divine Comedy | Sowell, Madison U |
So, that's what Andrew's doing.
From what I hear from him (not that he complains or anything), but he doesn't really like Ital 322 or Arab 531R--the one with Feryal, who also was one of his teachers in Jordan. He likes the class with Dil just fine. He finds his Geography class too easy. He really enjoys Dante and History. He finally found out that his two majors, Italian and MESA (Middle Eastern Studies--Arabic) really do work well together. While reading in Dante's Divine Comedy, he came across Mohammed and a lot of his teachings. In fact, it seems that Dante really studied up on Islam and used a lot of Islamic principles in his works.
Andrew has been working with President Sowell (he was Andrew's MTC branch president) on getting a paper ready to publish about Islamic ideologies in Dante. It should be a fun little project. And Andrew was thrilled to find a correlation between his two majors other than that they are simply languages.
So, between teaching and going to class, Andrew also is working at the Harold B. Lee Library. If you are in our family and go to BYU, it is kind of imperative that you work at the library. I mean, I work there, my mom works there, my cousin Craig works there, Andrew's dad worked there, and I believe his Uncle Matt did, too, so it is altogether fitting and proper that Andrew should work at the library, too.
He works in the "Info Commons" giving tech support and all the fun stuff that goes with it (projects, teaching the occasional class, angry patrons, etc).
When he's not working at the library or doing homework, he's usually doing speaking appointments with his Arabic students. His students are required to speak with Andrew for like 15 minutes a week or something, which doesn't sound too bad until you realize that he has 21 students, so the time really adds up.
In addition to that, he's been helping me keep up with Harman work (since I've been massively stressed out recently), and has been an absolute dear, coming to my every whimper after our computer ate my 150 page book that I had been working on all semester (well, one of the two that I'm currently working on). I'm sure that I've been absolutely dreadful to live with since my book died (we're in the process of resurrecting it. It's a painful process). My mom offers Andrew her sincere apologies for my being unable to handle stress well.
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