Beirut Day 45 – August 7, 2009

Graduation was at 9 this morning and went well. Some of the other classes had things to present such as a video in the style of American Idol and one class sang a song by the well-known and beloved Lebanese singer Fairouz accompanied by one of their teachers on the viola and two other students on piano and guitar. Then each class was called up and given their certificates and an AUB mug. After the ceremony there was a brunch provided by the program on the upper level of the cafeteria and most of my class sat together. Suleiman, Sarah, Jessica and I lingered and talked to our teacher Hussein and then made plans to meet later.

Afterward I went to the AUB bookstore to buy some t-shirts and was actually able to exchange the mug I’d gotten at graduation for one of the same type but in a color I liked better. Then I went back to my room to relax and read some.

I met Sarah and Jessica at the Concorde movie theatre where we were going to meet Hussein to see The Hangover. We sat in Dunkin Donuts for a while since the movie started later than we originally thought. The movie was entertaining and once again my eye kept being drawn to the French subtitles even though the movie was in English and my English is, of course, infinitely better than my French.

We started walking back to AUB since Hussein had to go to the teacher’s dinner at 7, but ‘walking back to AUB’ turned into ‘sitting at a café for almost 2 hours chatting’ which was really nice. We ranged over a variety of topics and there was also a lot of humor and laughing involved. I think it’s a good ending to the program.