First Day of New Semester

A few things crossed our minds:

• It is too hot.
• We are now entitled to mock and laugh at the sanafer.
• We seem to be Popular Penelope, with a good number of people ecstatically greeting us and inquiring about our summer with a genuineness that would make our mothers weep.
• Fuddrucking hell, it is too hot.
• Tis the season of strikes. Not students this time, but the Registration Office.
• Our self-imposed week long ban from campus has come to an end.
• Semester countdown has already begun.
• We're melting. Body, fat, and bones.
• We like making lists.

Friday was the rapture for many people. It's the first time in Ramallah that temperatures reached 45 degrees Celsius. That is a skin-flaying 113 degrees Fahrenheit. Where are we, Riyadh? Good lord. We need to think up quick and easy solutions to survive this heat hernia. Either we pull down the rafters for the windows and succumb to total darkness spent by sleeping curled up in the refrigerator, or we put a gun to our head.

What are sanafer? No, they're not the cute little blue smurfs whose existence have no meaning.

Our own specialized urban dictionary speaks of a type of people:

Sanafer /sanaf{shwa}r/ noun, pl (esp Palestine) a group of humans undertaking their first year in an educational institution, so-called by the intimidating and older student mockers. Singular sanfoor (masculine) sanfoora (feminine). Remotely known as freshmen in other parts of the world.

How fun is it watching those poor souls tentatively walking up to a classroom and finding out that it's the wrong one and then dashing to the other building only to give up, throw their hands in the air, and wail abrasively? Very. A great source of entertainment, no matter how sick-minded we sound. Taking pleasure and thriving at their misfortunes/blank brave faces is great. Our eyes can expertly zero in on a sanfoor/a based on either their loneliness (Birzeit allows for packs only, or you're not cool..kinda like middle school!), their clothes (way too overdressed or way too under-dressed), and by that look in their eyes, not dissimilar to that of a cornered rabbit surrounded by wolves. The more annoying ones have the nerve to ask you where a classroom is, which automatically gets them a beating in some corner. Life is good for the bullies--fresh material!

So of course we're stuck and fuming about our schedules which couldn't have been more ugly, but some time before the end of the semester we'll find time not to complain and possibly eat cake with ice cream. Or something. Here's to 2010/2011!