Day 29

February 17th

Tomorrow is the day of my first test in two months. It is actually the day of two tests, both my Arabic and my Colloquial. Since they are the first tests and since not much information about them was given ahead of time, I really don't know what to expect. As such today was devoted to studying. Yes, it was quite uneventful.

I did however have a conversation on the bus ride back from Boxing with somebody who is in 212 Arabic. 212 means he is starting in Book 3 Chapter 5, well ahead of me. This guy has spent two summers at Middlebury College, solely studying Arabic. This is mighty impressive, especially with the reputation of Middlebury. However, the disappointing this was even after all this Arabic, he still could only get the gist of what was going on in newsreels. How much Arabic does one have to go through in order to actually be considered fluent. I was hoping on learning Arabic and then moving on to some more languages, ideally Spanish and possibly French. However, I don't think I will ever be able to move on them if I can't ever get Arabic done. I am really lucky that English is the lingua francia of the world.