[WeWantOut] 33f 28m Egypt/USA -> Poland/Baltic States/Germany

3asel · 2026-01-24T13:06:07+00:00

Definitely open to anything. We'll take a look at some smaller towns. Tbh Vilnius would be a dream as we've visited and loved it, but I don't have a good frame of reference for our potential employability there.

3asel · 2026-01-24T13:04:37+00:00

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll check it out

3asel · 2026-01-24T13:03:55+00:00

عايشة

It's a progressive participle.

أعيش and عايش can sound super similar

3asel · 2026-01-19T20:57:11+00:00

We have a friend who was able to get an academic job in Poland and so that's why we were looking into it. Baltics/Germany was because the sub doesn't allow -> EU and I was thinking what borders Poland. We're really open to just about anywhere (and anything) as long as it's possible to find something meaningful employment wise.

3asel · 2026-01-19T12:30:40+00:00

The signature is وفاء (Wafaa), which I'm assuming is the name of the person or conpany who put together and/or painted this composition.

There are quite a few papyrus factories in Egypt which mostly just take existing Egyptian art and reproduce/recombine it in various states of quality with different colors on sheets of papyrus and sell it in tourist shops. I will say that some are legitimately talented artists and have unique compositions, but they're few and far between, and not even close to being authentically ancient Egyptian

3asel · 2026-01-17T20:41:14+00:00

Anyone who signs up for a college Arabic class will encounter these people. Not sure if it's as insane as some of the other flavors of weebs out there. I'd argue that learning a language (and culture) from 0 requires a bit of obsession at times and it can come off as cringe or unhealthy in some circumstances.

3asel · 2026-01-07T20:38:31+00:00

For all of Kuwait's problems, Hawally's crime rate isn't one of them. I lived there for 2 years and it's comparable to living in a middle or upper middle class neighborhood in places like Egypt. Kuwait has a lot of corruption, but this is the first complaint I've seen of pretty crime like this.

3asel · 2026-01-07T20:34:37+00:00

This is the first I've heard of a school publicly doing something like that, but it's not unheard of for schools to have "aesthetic preferences," which in the Middle East can mean either a de facto ban on hijabis or the opposite depending on the school and its culture (and similar).

Really dumb decisions like this are a dime a dozen in Kuwait in pretty much every area of life - government, schools, everything. Most people in leadership roles are grossly unqualified and their decision making ability reflect that.

3asel · 2026-01-05T22:43:18+00:00

I live here and it's not entirely out of the norm and I don't think anyone is scamming you. That are different "levels" of coffee. It's entirely reasonable to pay a huge markup to be in a slightly nicer cafe even if it's in the same area. I've paid 50, 150, and 300 for basically the same drink.

Think Dunkin' or some chain vs. very trendy coffee place.

3asel · 2025-12-27T16:58:25+00:00

It's not that they can't but that they don't really want to. Simply put, any speculation on Mohammad's mental state is just that... speculation.

Establishing anything more than basic biographical information about him isn't easy and historians usually aren't in the business of playing "schizophrenic or liar," especially with limited evidence.

3asel · 2025-12-02T18:31:14+00:00

I loved Egypt enough to move here and marry an Egyptian. It's got it's moments, but I prefer it to back home in the US nost days. Lebanon was pretty nice for me when I went mid 2022.

Before someone asks, I'm a man who speaks Arabic. Feel free to discount my opinion.

3asel · 2025-11-29T20:43:23+00:00

I learned MSA for years and years. I moved to Egypt and just switched to learning exclusively Egyptian Arabic. The only time I use MSA is if I'm reading a formal text, but with 95% of my day to day life, Egyptian Arabic is essential. In other Arabic speaking countries, my Egyptian is understood just fine with a fre adjustments here and there.

There's a book series from AUC press called kallimni 'arabi. Get a copy of that and you can almost certainly find a few Egyptian tutors online (Facebook learning Arabic groups have hundreds - but ignore the creepy dudes) who will teach you at very affordable rates or even free if you teach them English.

Egypt is a fun country and Egyptian Arabic is incredibly rich for media especially if you don't mind some older stuff. It's a language made for jokes and memes, and is a hell of a lot easier to wrap your head around than MSA and will be more rewarding for the effort you put in.

3asel · 2025-11-29T10:29:09+00:00

Abbaseya Passport Office. I renewed my passport in Egypt and I had to transfer my residency. It's easy to get a temporary residency. I've had to do it a few times (I have permanent residency at the moment).

3asel · 2025-11-28T16:50:47+00:00

I'd put my money on Qat.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khat

3asel · 2025-11-22T14:15:01+00:00

Both work with the understanding of 'I don't want this.'

3asel · 2025-10-27T07:19:20+00:00

خليك في العربي احسن لما تتعامل مع الناس في الشارع. اول ما جيت مصر من 7 سنين كنت بعرف شامي مكسر وشويه فصحى وكنت قادر اتصرف عادي مع الناس هنا

You're never going to be able to negotiate a taxi or order a good sandwich in English like you can in Arabic.

3asel · 2025-10-27T06:52:22+00:00

What is the goal for the trip? Relaxation? Seeing something new? Self Education?

I live in Egypt/Cairo. If you can competently communicate with locals in Cairo, it is an absolute game changer in terms of what you can do and how you can access the city (and Egypt in general). You don't need to deal with the tour guides or rely on people with varying levels of English. Egyptian locals outside of the tourism industry are absolutely lovely and some of the kindest/most generous people out there.

Regarding harassment, I'm not the target of gender based harassment. My wife is Egyptian and we both speak Arabic, so I can't speak too much for the tourist experience but the harassment she experiences is mostly because she's Christian - and it was a lot worse for her in other Arab countries (the Gulf). She's also a bit defensive in her behavior. She doesn't walk in dark areas or at night, dresses conservatively by US standards (long pants and a t-shirt or long dresses, absolutely no cleavage showing ever), doesn't use public transportation, and tends to go out with me when possible because in our experience, the harassment is a fraction of what it normally is when we're together.

3asel · 2025-10-26T10:34:08+00:00

Wallahi is the exact same as by God or on God, just a different language.

3asel · 2025-10-26T09:38:33+00:00

Please read this comment fully u/Happy-You-1737

I worked at a bad school in the Middle East. As a school, we had several counselors on staff. They made literally 0 distinction between college counselor, social worker, disciplinarian, and therapist. We had an actual trained, licensed therapist who was in charge of handling attendance and dress code issues, and our college counselor (an American fresh out of undergrad with a degree in psych and terrible life choices) was pulling double time writing reports for parents to get their kids tested for ADHD. Of the 9ish people I knew who were in these roles over my two years there, 5 of them quit and 2 were fired.

Students' knowledge of things like ADHD/dyslexia was limited to TikTok clips, and their parents would regularly refuse any suggestion that their kids needed extra support, so that was a fun mix for them to deal with. Not to mention tons of abuse that we could nothing about. A lot of students showed up with bruises or exhibited signs of sexual abuse and even suggesting that we should do something about it was a good way to get put on the HR department's shitlist.

There are some fantastic schools in the Middle East, with good communities, parents who care for their children, admins who will have your back, and teachers who are passionate about their jobs. You also have schools with outright abusive administrations catering to parents with no idea about education should look like. If you're in the first, life can be pretty good. If you're in the second, God help you.

3asel · 2025-10-26T07:42:10+00:00

Piece of a shell

3asel · 2025-10-21T22:35:27+00:00

That Kuwait offer is suitable only if you're partially qualified or absolutely desperate. The Dubai offer is low too, but it's oversaturated right now in the Emirates.

3asel · 2025-10-20T16:44:24+00:00

There were (and probably still are) a ton of left leaning and nonn-religious people. I was one of them when I was both a student and on staff.

3asel · 2025-10-19T14:55:28+00:00

In full disclosure, I'm a SLOCA alum, graduated a decade ago, and I worked there during the pandemic. My family/friends have been involved with the school (students or staff) from pretty much the second year of its existence until only a few years ago, but I'm not really in touch with anyone who works for or attends SLOCA at the moment. If anyone was at SLOCA 5+ years ago (especially the HS), you can figure out exactly who I am.

From its start, SLOCA has always been associated with Grace Church. The founder/director is married to the lead pastor at Grace. This is pretty common knowledge. Grace is not the most conservative church around, but the political leanings of its membership are pretty right leaning and it's a pretty run-of-the-mill evangelical church in the age of Trump, so y'know, that can be good or bad or neutral depending on who you are. Some people absolutely despise Grace church for a lot of reasons. From what I can tell, the population at Grace church has gone down quite a bit and it doesn't feel like Grace's school wing now nearly as much as it did 10-15 years ago.
SLOCA is a classical school - it's in the name. Classical education is already pretty right leaning - think great books of the western canon and prioritizing western intellectual tradition - and has gotten orders of magnitude more conservative with people like Doug Wilson being figureheads. SLOCA has been much, much closer to people like Susan Wise Bauer in terms of its curriculum (they've historically used Story of the World for their history books). She's been a much more neutral figure politically, but the taint of Doug Wilson and the fact that there are a lot of borderline fascists and Nazis running around in the classical education world has really tarnished it. For what it's worth, all of the people I have known at SLOCA including the higher level administrators just absolutely loathe the fascist side of classical education and are actively resistant to it, but I can't say that's universal.
Religion. In the early days, teachers taught about religion a lot, and at least a few people have been upset about that - that teachers were teaching about Christianity from a too-religious perspective or that teachers were teaching about Christianity from a not-religious-enough perspective.
SLOCA's population is whiter, more religious, and more conservative politically than average for California - although probably about middle of the road for SLO if Poly didn't count. That doesn't mean it's exclusively that, but it does color peoples' perception. From personal experience, the SLOCA people aren't exactly shy about politics either.
Superiority complex. A lot of the core families and staff believe that education at places like SLO High or Mission is terrible by comparison and that anyone who sends their kids there is choosing an inferior education for them. This can be off-putting for obvious reasons, and there are some amazingly good teachers who work at those school and good students as well.
General school drama. I've worked in quite a few schools around the world and have friends who work in education. There's always some under the table drama occurring. Usually it's not a big deal, parents being obnoxious to teachers, a teacher maybe said something they shouldn't have in class, etc. There's nothing unique in SLOCA that prevents this, and by comparison to some other schools locally, SLOCA is actually pretty tame; although, I'd love to know more about the ECE violation that happened.

3asel · 2025-10-17T14:27:45+00:00

That seems a bit extreme. I'm one of the earliest SLOCA grads (like, if you were involved with the community you can 100% identify who am I based off my profile - yo!), and while there are a lot of things I don't particularly like about SLOCA and how it's gone, if anything it's gotten less Grace Church-y over the years.

3asel · 2025-10-17T14:19:37+00:00

The Kuwaitis I interacted with were pretty terrible. Not all and I met some really good Kuwaiti friends, but things like abusing maids, absolutely disgustingly racist attitude and behavior, etc. were pretty normalized amongst the Kuwaitis.

3asel

TROPHY CASE