Resenting Jessica while watching some other tacky movie

Jessica is gone with her family, and we didn't feel like we could watch the next "Love Comes Softly" movie without her, and we are quite resentful. So it's some other Christiany/Inspirational movie. I have not paid attention at all so far. I see a lady jogging on the beach, and she looks distraught. She's watching a funeral. There's another girl with fuzzy red hat.

We took Wael to the airport on Wednesday night, which was really Thursday morning, because he was leaving for America to be with his wife. He has been a really good friend to me and has taken care of me and of my family while they were here. It was... sad. We rented a minibus and all went to meet him at the airport. He is from Alexandria, and he had a small group come to bring him to the airport. The farthest we could go was just to take him to the place where he checked his bags, and then we said bye to him quickly. I watched his mom. Then I watched his dad and his friends. I just wanted to cry for them because he's going to start his new life in a new place, and who knows when they will see him again. The weekend before he left, I was in Alexandria, and he and I stayed up until 5:00am on Saturday night just talking about the differences between America and Egypt. I told him everything from how they give everyone water at restaurants to how people in America see it as feminine when men cross their legs the way the men do here. I said that the police can get involved if a man hits his wife because the only reason for someone to hit another person is that they can't gain the control that they want. I told him about canned foods and how the hand motion that means "wait" in Egypt means absolutely nothing in America. I pray that everyone will... be okay. I just mourn for his parents and his best friends. Mourn--that word sounds so... Biblical and sad, but it feels right. (I overanalyze my word usage.)

I love sitting in his family's shop and watching them work and the people come and go. The guys who work that joke around and laugh and tease each other. Friends come and are greeted with kisses on the cheek and then are invited to take a seat by the small table with Wael's dad. Some little kids come to buy things for their families, and just about every man above the age of 10 buys a pack of cigarettes. I've sat in that shop for many hours, and have drunk MANY cups of tea, Nescafe, cappucinos, and most recently Turkish coffee. (Alec and I drank some while we were there, and he said, "Huh... you can almost chew it.")

By the way, Alec narrated my life during that trip. Everything that was happening he would narrate in a deranged and chauvinistic and even Michael Scott-ish kind of way. I would be drinking my water, and he would say, "Sara slowly sipped her water, congratulating herself on her wise choice of beverages knowing that she, above all, did not need any more sugar in her diet." I looked at him angrily and said, "She also practiced self-control..." He finished my sentence by saying, "...by choosing to drink water instead of sugary drink." So cayad. I don't know how to spell the word "cayad" in English, but a "cayad" person is a troublemaker or someone who likes to make people angry. The students always call Krista "cayada" because she's tough. I have become quite fond of this word and now use it all the time, especially describing Abanoub, one of my 9A students that I like to joke around with.

I plan for my classes and grade papers in the morning from 7:30-10:30 when I have my first class, and one of the student workers is named Peter. He is in 9A, and he has an amazing work ethic and loves to learn. If we use a word that he doesn't know, he asks us how to spell it and then goes to look it up later. His class was watching "Gifted Hands," a movie of Ben Carson's story while Jessica was gone with her family, and he actually took notes and is going to write a report on it--for fun! Oh, we just love him so much. He's quite a breath of fresh air from the "I-don't-really-feel-like-putting-the-last-letter-on-the-end-of-most-words-because-I'm-careless-and-anxious-to-write-my-next-word" kind of students and the "I-was-run" kind of students. ("I was run." Hmm... really?) Peter is a younger student (Alec compares his voice to that of Mickey Mouse) and he is just the sweetest thing. Anyway, Jessica and I taught him to call us "woman" in a really demanding voice (like an ignorant chauvinist) because it was so out of character. Krista was helping him with his math homework during study hall, and I told Peter to ask her, "What's my homework, woman?" She then whispered something, and he turned to me and said, "Make me a sandwich, woman." I busted out laughing so hard. No woman in America wants to be told that her only place is in the kitchen. That's so ridiculous that its only slap-worthy or laugh-worthy, but nothing else. Some of the students heard that, and though they don't understand why it is so funny to say that, they still do. For some it sounds hilarious, and for some it sounds a little to close to something they might actually say. :)

I haven't really gotten to the point of what I wanted to say, but I'm exhausted, so goodnight.

I'm forcing myself to stick with reading Jeremiah. I have tried to read it, but then I have felt overwhelmed by my lack of knowledge and then quit. The more that I read in one sitting, the more it makes sense to me. I read about Manasseh in Jeremiah 15 and then turned back to 2 Kings 21 & 23, and it's really interesting. Try to read a lot in one sitting.