Bringing Things up to date / 最近どうなってるんだ？

Location: Meknes, Morocco
Status: A bit homesick, but otherwise OK

Can't read Japanese? Scroll down for English.

さて、久しぶりだね！最近全然書いてないから今まで何してたか書こうと思った。

仕事

冬セッションは1月10日から3月18日までだった。良くない生徒やクラスが得になかったけど他よりいいのがあったね。まぁ、とにかく結構楽しくて難しくない仕事だね。でも冬セッションにはカウチサーフィン以外に面白い事があまりなかったんだ。暇はほとんど家で本を読んだりギターを弾いたり音楽を聴いたりiPodに入っているダウンロードした映画を見たり日記を書いたりしたんだ。あまり家を出たくないんだ。ちょっとひきこもりになった。でもな、それはそんなにダメな事じゃないと思うよ。お金をためているから家を出なくていいじゃん。

3月19日から4月8日までは休みだった。何か旅行したかったけど、スペインへとかモロッコ以内でも良かったけど、色々あってどこにも行けなかった。やっとビザみたいな「Carte de Sejour」ってやつを申し込めたんだけど領収書を早くもらえなかった。－で、申し込み中に領収書がなかったら国を出ちゃいけないんだ。そして「すぐもらえるから数日待っててね」と言われてずっとメクネズにいたんだ。残念だったけど。ちょっと友達に会いにスペインへ行きたかったのに。でも面白いカウチサーファーズが来てくれたから結構楽しかったな。

それで、春セッションが今週始まった。また教えている。今回はもうちょっとハイレベルな生徒だから結構おもしろそうなんだけど、まだ一週間たってないからわからないね。でもおもしろくなるだろう。そして新しい部活みたいなクラブを作ったんだ、この英会話で。それは「Creative Writers Workshop」という物語とか詩など書くのが好きな生徒のためのクラブなんだ。結構面白そうだろう。楽しみにしている。

とにかく次の休みは6月なんだ。それまではどうになるんだろうな。

カウチサーフィン

そうそう！この旅が始めたからこのブログには何回かカウチサーフィンについてちょっと書いたね。何か褒める事をやめられないみたい。本当にすごいことだよ。旅人心とか面白い人に会いたいとかそういう人だったら絶対参加したほうがいいと思うよ。ホストしてもホストされてもどっちでも超面白くて楽しいよ。去年旅してた時に沢山なすごくいい人に泊まらせてもらった。そしてモロッコに来てから25人ぐらいが俺の家で泊まってくれた。とても楽しかったよ。

今まではカナダ人、アメリカ人、スペイン人、イギリス人、イタリア人、日本人、ギリシア人、プエルトリコ人など俺の家に泊まりに来たんだ。みんなはすごく面白くて楽しくていい人だった。カウチサーファーがいる時は出かける時なんだ。メクネズを紹介するために。メクネズをよく知る事になったからいろんなきれいな場所とか面白い場所など結構あって見せてあげたいからね。

とにかく、いつかカウチサーフィンについてもっと詳しく書くつもりなんだからとりあえずそれでいいじゃん…

モロッコについて考えたら…

もっとモロッコについて書こうと思ってたけど、今はちょっとできないね。ちょっと説明しにくいからなんだ。いつか書くつもりなんだけど、とりあえずこれで…

(これからは英語)

I've been pretty out of touch lately, so I thought I would bring things up to date for those of you who are following this.

Work

The Winter Session ran from 10 January to 18 March. I didn't have any bad classes or really any bad students, but I had some of both that were better than others. Still, all in all, it isn't a difficult job and I do enjoy it. Nothing particularly exciting happened with work during the Winter Session. Outside of work, I mostly hung out at home reading books, playing guitar, watching downloaded movies on my iPod, or writing in my journal. The only times I didn't really do this was when I was entertaining CouchSurfers (more on that below). I don't like going out much. However, that isn't such a bad thing, since I'm trying to save money anyway.

Anyway, from 19 March to 8 April, we had a break from work. I was hoping to do some traveling, either around Morocco or out of it, but things came up that prevented me from being able to do so. I finally got all of my paperwork together to apply for my "Carte de Sejour", which is basically a visa so I can stay in the country and work here. Near the start of my vacation, I submitted everything to the police, and they were supposed to give me an official receipt which I could use if I wanted to leave the country while they are processing the application. However, they were very slow getting me the receipt (I got it on 12 April), so leaving the country during my vacation was not an option. It's a shame, because I would have liked to have gone up to Spain and visited a few friends. Also, during the vacation, I had some CouchSurfers scheduled to come and stay at my place, and since I had already promised them, I couldn't really leave. The ones that did show up were cool, however, so that worked out well.

Anyway, the Spring Session has just started and will run until June. Since this is still the first week and I haven't taught all of my classes yet, I'm not sure how things will go, but I'm hopeful. I'm teaching mostly intermediate and upper level classes, so it should be interesting.

Also, I have just started a new club at the ALC: the American Language Center Creative Writers Workshop. Assuming I find enough interested students, it should be a lot of fun, and hopefully just the kick in the ass I need to do more writing myself. The plan is basically to give students who have a passion for writing a group of people they can share their writing with and hopefully get some good comment and critique on how to improve it. There will probably also be various writing exercises and such as well as a lot of discussion about the art of writing and how to improve our own abilities. (As you can see from my writing style, this is something I sorely need)

Anyway, we'll see how the session goes.

CouchSurfing

I've mentioned CouchSurfing several times over the course of writing this blog since my travels began, and I cannot praise it enough. It is a simply amazing phenomenon, and I encourage all travelers and like-minded open-minded people to join up and either host or be hosted by wonderful people all over the world (or both, of course). During my travels from May to September of last year, I mainly was hosted by several CouchSurfers across England, France, and Spain. Since coming to Morocco, getting my own place here, and getting used to living in it and putting furniture in it, I have been hosting several travelers passing through. I think I have hosted about 25 people total so far, and I love it.

I've had travelers from Canada, the US, Japan, Spain, Italy, Greece, Russia, Latvia, England, Puerto Rico, and perhaps more. Everyone has been super cool, and we've managed to have some good times. These are the main times when I go out and around Meknes. I know my way around the city fairly well, including a lot of places that usual tourists probably wouldn't get to, so I usually take the CouchSurfers out and around town. There are some nice things about this city, and it is fun to show them off to those who stop by.

Anyway, in the future, I'll probably devote an entire post to CouchSurfing, but for now, I'll leave it at that.

Thoughts on Morocco

I intended to write a good bit about my impressions of Morocco after living here for 6 months, but I'm having a hard time organizing my thoughts on the subject. I guess it will have to be the subject of a future post.