I hate Mondays

Shaqshuka breakfast

Yesterday I was totally taken up by correcting the students' theses. Correcting the grammar and syntax is the easy part ... trying to correct the logical flow of the papers is another. It drains my mental energies as half the time I have to guess what the students are trying to say. Some just go off the tangent and write everything they read ... irrelevant of the topic. Yesterday I did over 50 pages in 6 hours and was utterly exhausted. The day started early ... Mass at 6am in the Holy Sepulcher. Most of my students also came to attend. Then immediately we had a quick breakfast ... quite substantial as we had a lot to cover that morning: we had shaqshuka ... the quintessential moroccan-israeli breakfast of stewed tomatoes, herbs and eggs (without the sausages) with a huge loaf of bread. And then it was to the library where I went through with them their papers, making corrections and suggesting changes.

A funny cat at
the Thai fast-food 

In the evening I had to visit 3 pilgrim groups in their hotels: the 1st was outside the City in the western part of Jerusalem, then a quick dash to the east of Jerusalem for the 2nd group and then up the Mt. of Olives for the 3rd group. By 9pm I was utterly exhausted and needed to sleep. There was class at 4am to wake up to. I hate Mondays. I've slept only 3 hours in the last 36 hours.

The western airstrikes in Damascus has upset us all and we're all tense ... waiting for some revenge attack from Syria or south in Gaza. Though we're told that no one wants to escalate the tensions in the region ... still we're worried. Yesterday morning fighter jets were circling overhead all morning, and fighter helicopters as well. The roars scared many people and normal life was just rattled by their presence. As I was going home from correcting the students' work, I saw the fighter jets and helicopters above the Old City .... then I realized it was just a practice run for Independence Day fly pass. What a relief. I sent a message out to everyone I know here in Jerusalem and everyone felt a lot better.

Well one very good news though ... our very good friends and collaborators at the University of Milan, Emilian and Alessandro, were married on Saturday. They met during their volunteer year at my library 5 years ago ... and now they're finally married. We were so happy for them.

Well anyway I still have 3 more theses to finish correcting so I'm back to work.