So, I know you’re probably all tired of reading stories about me being back in class, and guess what? Here’s another one! BWA HA HA HA. 
I’ve sort of forgotten what it’s like to be back in a classroom from the student side. In the … many years (سنة متاددة) … since I finished my Master’s degree (خلاصت على المجستير), I’ve taught a number of workshops, lectured at conferences, and I’ve grown quite confident at being in the front of rooms with anywhere from five to five hundred pairs of eyes focused on me as I do my thing. I make dumb jokes, and it’s all good, because once you’ve actually been up on stage with the lights on you and had the train of thought you were riding pull out of the station without you, what’s left to worry about?
So, it’s been a bit of a learning experience … or, more technically, a relearning experience … to be back in the passenger’s seat, sweating about homework assignments, laying awake at two o’clock in the morning wondering if you what you wrote is pure crap, and wishing you could call each of your fellow students to see if they found the assignment as impossible as you did.
And so, today, I was reminded of this when class ended and Professor handed back all of the homework that was turned in on Tuesday, to all of the students … except me. What I got, instead, was, “كريس، ممكن ان تمشي معي الى القسم؟ اريد ان اتكلم معك عن واجبك” which means, “Could you walk with me back to the Department? I want to talk with you about your homework.”
It’s funny how that feeling of your stomach contracting in stressful situations can come back with all sorts of attached memories in certain circumstances. And so, I stood there, twiddling my thumbs (and alternately wondering if I was so stupid that I’d misunderstood what she said to me), watching everyone else take their assignments and leave. And then we departed the room, and … well, I won’t go into the whole conversation as it’s about Arabic grammar and even if I translated it to English (which I really don’t want to do), it wouldn’t make a very good story.
The bottom line is that I’ve sort of been wondering in the back of my head if we (she and I) had been heading toward the, “Are you certain that this is the appropriate level course for you?” discussion (with the implication being that maybe I ought to go back to the first year and start all over, rather than trying to pop into the fourth year class pretending like I’m about to reach the Superior level on the end of year proficiency test).
Fortunately, the discussion that followed was not anywhere near as bad as I mentally wanted it to be. She pointed out that there were a number of problems, and I told her that I’d had problems writing the text in the first place because I couldn’t decide what I wanted to say, and then I had problems actually saying it. And she smiled and pointed out that language is a tool, and no amount of grammar learnin’ is going to hide the fact that you don’t have the foggiest idea what you’re talking about.
Of course, I have to do the assignment again, and I do have those recurring points of grammar that have always dogged me regardless of which language I study: gender agreement, number agreement (and Arabic is one of those fun languages that has plural AND dual), and using the wrong prepositions with the wrong verbs. It’s all pretty standard stuff, and I have to play catch-up, just like anyone else who’s been away for seven years.
But she didn’t tell me I was in the wrong place, and I kinda feel good about that.
But, man. Next time I wanna be teaching the class. This whole student thing is for the birds …
