Yesterday we went to the KU Cancer Center for the complete series of tests.  The day went smoothly: first was the bloodwork, during which they left in a port since I'd need an IV for the contrast part of the CT scans.  Next came the full-body x-rays.  The tech took about 20 x-rays, which is more than usual, but it will be good to have a complete picture.  Then I drank two full glasses of the barium-laced drink, which has gone from a "smoothie" to a fizzy fruit flavor to what tastes like plain water.  CT scans aren't as difficult as MRIs, though the drink and then the contrast cause chills.  After several scans, they told me I was done, but as I started to get up, they decided to take some more.  Finally, I went to the third floor, where there are many small cubicles, all with TVs and DVD players since some patients are staying for hours to have their chemo drips.  I was just there for a shot, so my stay was only about 15 minutes.  Shots don't bother me (a good thing since Mohamed gives me an anti-coagulant shot every morning), but these do hurt a bit as the nurse slowly injects the fluid.  Then it was 2 o'clock, and I hadn't eaten yet, so we had sandwiches at the cafeteria and headed home.  I was rather amazed because usually I crash at about 1 every afternoon, and I felt energetic--until we hit the outskirts of KC when I passed out until we got home.  And then I could barely climb the stairs to get into bed for a continuation of my sleep.  I'm not sure why this is so tiring, since none of the tests is particularly difficult or stressful, but there were three hours when I simply couldn't stay awake.  One of the reasons I rarely drive is that one minute I'll be feeling lively, and then without warning my mind and body shut down. 

Usually I'd do my next post on Friday, but since Friday we go back to KC for the results of the tests and the consultation with the oncologist, I'll wait till Saturday to write the next entry.

To continue the previous topic, here's one last example of teaching in a non-American university.  During 2003-04, I had my last Fulbright to teach at the university in Meknes, Morocco.  Once more, I had a happy and fascinating year: the students were sweet and tried to learn, my colleagues were friendly, and everyone was incredibly generous.  But there were no resources of any kind, and the system gave dysfunction new meaning.  For perhaps 20 years after the French left Morocco, there were only two universities--one in Rabat and one in Fes.  But the country needed more educated citizens, the demographics showed a high percentage of young people, and there was severe unemployment, especially among the young.  So the country created twelve new public universities, including the one in Meknes.  At the same time, the king began a policy of the 'Moroccanization' of education, meaning that the many new positions were filled by Moroccans rather than the remaining French.  Unfortunately, there was a very small pool to staff the positions, especially in a field like English.  So many of the professors were unqualified but held the positions and taught very bad English to a new generation who, in turn, taught bad English to the next generation.  In my department in Meknes, there were perhaps three professors who spoke passable to good English--and all of them had stopped teaching to go into more lucrative administrative posts.  Department meetings, which seemed interminable, were conducted in French and Arabic.  Several of my colleagues never spoke to me in English.  My favorite was Nfissi, who lived in Fes and so rarely came to campus.  When he did, we often had lunch together (he had perfected the technique of ducking under the table to tie his shoe when the bill arrived).  Nfissi was a Falstaffian sort whose English seemed to consist entirely of titles of Shakespearean plays. When he told stories, they were in French.  When others told stories, he would listen, laugh jovially, and then contribute, "All's well that ends well" or "Much ado about nothing."  Those two were his favorites, but if the story was gossipy, he might use "Romeo and Juliet" or, for sadder stories, "A winter's tale."  I never knew whether he actually spoke English or not.

Meknes was known as a hotbed of political dissent, so when the new university was built, it was divided into three campuses, each on the edge of the city and each distant from the others.  That meant that they were relatively far from where the students lived, so getting to them involved some effort.  That problem was complicated by the fact the the city bus drivers were on strike for the entire year I was there, so the only public transportation was to walk in the heat or to take a petit taxi, which cost about $1 one way from the center of the city--not a lot for me, but almost prohibitive for the students.  For the first month I was there, there were no classes because there was no schedule.  Every two or three days, the chair and I, along with a couple of other professors, would spend hours over coffee in one of the many coffee shops to complain about how difficult it was to do a schedule--and not do one.  Since all the students took exactly the same classes at times the professors determined, I was never sure what the difficulty was.  Meanwhile, day after day, the students would gather outside the university walls, waiting for a schedule to be posted.  The three campuses in Meknes were all surrounded by high walls with only one gate for students to enter in order to prevent potential rabblerousers from coming on campus.  Everyone had to show a student or faculty ID, and there were security forces, both uniformed and in plain clothes (though because of their age and their clustering around the gate, it wasn't hard to identify them) to keep out non-students. 

When in October the schedule was at last finalized, it was Ramadan.  We were supposed to operate on a condensed schedule, but neither students nor professors showed up, so there were no classes till mid-November.  The first days were not promising.  The university was beginning its first master's program in English, so a few of us conducted interviews with potential students, and the decisions were absolutely arbitrary.  The student who had the highest grades as an undergraduate was blind, so he was rejected because he could never, according to the consensus, do the work--despite his record.  Another student was rejected because he was growing a beard and was thus considered a potential Islamist and threat.  One professor asked every student to explain X's theory of something or other, and when the student couldn't shook his head to ask me whether I could believe the nerve of the student.  Since I had never heard of X or his theory (and can't remember now who and what they were), I could indeed believe the students' deficiency.  Those students who had had that professor did know, however, so they were admitted.  Late in the year, as another example of how arbitrary the system was, I was teaching a graduate course in public speaking (another instance of teaching something I knew little about).  One of the students complained to the chair that I was asking them to do public speaking rather than teaching theory, and the chair told me he was going to expel the student from the program for criticizing me.  I said that in the U.S., students evaluated professors all the time, and we were frequently criticized, so he shouldn't oust the student.  But the chair didn't listen and the student was kicked out not just of the course, but of the entire program.

In mid-November, when classes finally seemed to be about to begin, we had our first full department meeting.  Professor Amar was already present when another professor, who hadn't spoken to Amar for years, greeted him as Professor Hamar.  The word 'hamar' means donkey in Arabic (and hamir were everywhere) and is an insult like calling someone a jackass.  Amar punched the other professor, who hit him back, and then we all went in and had the meeting as if nothing had happened.  Surely now classes would start.  But the students in Meknes are known for being politically active and for the rest of the year they were almost continuously on strike.  I would start teaching a class, and after five or ten minutes, the door would burst open, and a group of strikers would come in, start yelling in Arabic, and the students would leave.  The issue that year was that the administration was introducing mid-term exams, which the students were refusing to take.  The week of the tests, none had been given anywhere on campus by the time my Thursday class met.  Writing a mid-term wasn't easy, since I had barely taught, but I arrived at the class with 40 or 50 copies of an exam in my hand.  I was greeted by the students standing outside the classroom and asking whether I was going to try to give them a test.  I said that that had been my plan, but I knew that they wouldn't take it, so I suggested that we meet as a class, go over the exam, and at least they would know what material I thought was important and how I tested.  They agreed that was a good idea, so we started the exercise.  To no one's surprise, after about ten minutes, the strike leaders arrived and started yelling.  The students explained, the leaders were not pleased, and a huge dispute broke out.  Some of the students formed a cordon around me saying that they knew I'd like to try to reason with the strike leaders, but that it was better if I stayed out of it.  Finally, about half the students left, though half stayed.

The administration threatened to give everyone a zero on the midterms, but the students won and no tests were given.  Prof. Hamar, er, Amar, who was not liked by the students (or by me) got punched again, and his tires were slashed.  One evening during this period, I was sitting alone in the building that housed the English office (students were never allowed to enter the English office--or the one hall on campus where professors gathered to drink coffee), the lone light shining in the darkness.  This night the strikers had thrown rocks at the security forces, who then shot at the students, hitting one.  The next day, I could still see the blood on the sidewalk. 

After the winter break, there was actually some semblance of normality.  Strikes continued, but not so frequently, so I taught a few classes.  I liked the students very much.  They truly wanted to learn (when they weren't striking), but there were no books (everything I taught I had to photocopy at my own expense, but the real problem was finding material to copy), many of the professors rarely showed up, and when they did, they were only interested in teaching theory.  Students who could neither understand nor produce an English sentence were forced to do the current version of Chomsky's diagramming, which at that point (tree diagrams having been renounced) consisted in covering pages and pages with a diagram that began at the upper left hand corner and moved diagonally down the pages.  When the year was about to conclude, we started giving the only exams of the year.  These were given on an arbitary schedule, often proctored by a professor who had not taught the class.  The students cheated constantly, and I rapped my knuckles, yellling "Skoto" (quiet) more often than Judge Judy raps her pen.  I reduced one student to tears (is there a pattern here?) by moving him away from his friend.  They thought I was kicking him out, which would mean he failed the year.  After all the tests had been given and some had been graded, the professors went on strike.  When I heard from the chair of the department the next September, the exams had finally been graded, but classes hadn't begun because it was so difficult to arrange the schedule.

Once more, I had had a wonderful, exciting, and endlessly interesting year.  And despite the horror stories, I enjoyed the students, who were doing the best they could in a system that made me want to come home to convince my students here of how lucky they had it.  All's well that ends well.