It looks like a full day of classes 9-2 Mon-Thurs and Sat, Colloquial, Grammar and Composition, Reading, and Aural Comprehension. A conspiracy is brewing among the Non-Achiever types to do as little work as possible. I don’t know where I stand on that…later in a crowded coffee house, drinking tea and ignoring the racket of dominoes and backgammon pieces being slapped against marble table tops, I forgot what I am doing here.
-Letter Home, September 29, 1978
Maybe in September I didn’t know whether I stood with or against the Non-Achiever types in my Arabic class, but by Halloween I certainly did. On any given night you could find me not with Hans Wehr open on a quiet desk but with a glass of tea on a coffee house marble table, enjoying the racket in fact. Dowsha, they call it, which Wehr defines as Din, Noise, Clamor, Uproar, Hubbub, and Hullabaloo.
