Bearshorty's musings

Today was all about writing a lecture on Byzantium and having the discussion about “On Becoming an Arab” article.

And right before my classes as I was sitting in the computer room at school printing out the chronology and the rest of Ibn Battuta I got hit with a muscle spasm in the middle left back. It really really hurt too. And since then my back has been complaining at me. I took some Advil. I’m getting old. And I really have to stop carrying heavy backpacks. I really hope my back settles down.

My students couldn’t handle the Ahmed article. It had too many facts and date for them to stay interested and many found it too hard to finish reading. I kept telling them that they need to challenge themselves. We basically went over the chronology and I mostly lectured at them, discussing the arguments of the article. One student, in a display of adorabless, just could not understand why Egypt and other countries went to war with Israel in 1948 and how they could just not want Israel to exist. He really could not understand how some countries don’t want other counties to exist. Their lack of political knowledge really threw them here. My favorite complaint was from a guy who was confused because he did not know what Ottoman Empire was even as we went over it on Thursday because he didn’t look at his notes from that class. Head…desk. And even as they found this article difficult and hard and boring, I really hope they would get something out it.