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Looking outside my window, I see we are in the middle of a presidential election here in Egypt. There are signs for candidates on everything. Their smiling faces photo-shopped over images of construction and a prosperous Egypt. Posters that look almost home-made plastered on cars, bill boards, flying over the each square and fountain at each round-a-bout.
The polling is finished and a runoff between the top two contenders is sure... but not before some of the candidates challenge the first polling with irregularities and whatnot.
Oh it's complicated, but maybe not that complicated. And it is changing. The revolution hasn't made it all better yet, but it's changed the country. It seems people are starting to understand that it's going to take some time, but they are still impatient. One of the more outspoken Egyptian bloggers seems to have a pretty good idea about what's going on here... here's a link to his latest rant (definitely worth the read).
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If you were outside looking into my window, you'd see that in the next three weeks we're leaving Cairo. We're off to the next adventure. There will be a short pause between family installations, but this little home we've known is gettin' stuffed into boxes as we speak.
I'm not sad this time. I don't have the nostalgia of having worked or invested much emotionally here - which is funny because it's been one of the most emotional times of my life (having a baby and all).
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They say babies change fast, but this is ridiculous! In the past week my new baby son has learned to crawl, to sit up from laying or fall down to sitting, and to pull up to standing and cruise around. I've enjoyed watching him discover gravity and friction and gyroscopes.
And he got his first two teeth.
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In other news, which is not a change: I am entering the Foundling Review's Pachas 50 word short story contest again. (That's the writing contest in which I got honorable mention in last year.)
I'd been told that my writing has good imagery, but needs to be worked more. So, since the first Pachas contest, I've chosen another number (i.e. not 50) and am re-writing several old poems I had written. I find the word limit (not more, not less) is fitting to force me to whittle down and shape some of my pieces and make them better. I've also done away with the line breaks on some. I must not be good at line breaks yet because I think that they often come across as pretentious.
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