Weeknotes 2024W43

Prepared to go home

In exactly one week, I will be on a train to the capital with all of my stuff to finish my Peace Corps service. That’s pretty much all that was on my mind this week.

Part of the process is taking my last language test to see how proficient I am in the local language. It’s a roughly 30-minute verbal interview. The tester asks for a self-introduction then uses those topics as probes to test you further. For example, I said I liked reading books so one of the questions was “Tell me about a book you read recently that you really liked.” To my own surprise, I was able to summarize Childhood’s End pretty well even though I didn’t know the word for “aliens.”

I came to Morocco knowing absolutely nothing about Arabic. In three months of intensive study, I tested at Intermediate Low (on the ACTFL oral proficiency scale.) Three months after that, through self-directed learning, I was at Intermediate High. Nine months after that, I was still at Intermediate High. This time, I felt really good about it. I think I’ll be squarely in the Advanced category which has been a goal of mine since the beginning.

On a more boring note, I did some logistical things. I cancelled my WiFi with some help from the guy at the Orange store. He told me what number to call and what buttons to push a week ago but it wasn’t working for me. The automated voice speaks in either French or Standard Arabic, neither of which I understand. So, he called for me and got me on the line with a human that I could talk to and we figured it out.

Lastly, I figured out what I’m doing with my stuff I’m leaving here. Another volunteer is replacing me a month after I leave and I wanted to leave him what little stuff I had. My landlord is letting me store my stuff in the apartment. The next volunteer is welcome to move in and use the stuff or find somewhere else and start from scratch. I’m sure there’s a better, more fair way of doing it but I decided I was going to reduce headache for myself.

Bits and Bobs

• There is a moussem in town this week. It’s much bigger (and louder) than the one last year but I’m glad it’s not during summer. There is even a big stage in the center of town with live music at night. This little town is developing!
• Started reading There Is No Good Card for This by Kelsey Crowe and Emily McDowell after hearing about it from McDowell on a podcast. Pretty great so far.
• Finished reading Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke and posted my notes. Excellent science fiction book.

Links

• Building a successful mechanical engineering career through Oregon State: Wyatt Weaver’s journey by Steve Frandzel. My friend Wyatt is inspiring and rigorous in achieving his goals. He’s incredibly kind too, on top of all of his work and side projects.
• A graphical explainer for ranked-choice voting by Reuters. How ranched choice voting works. I remember reading about this method in high school and I’m glad to hear that some states have actually implemented it!
• SimpleBits type foundry. Really cool fonts with a simple license and actually attainable prices. Hubano and Cartridge look awesome.
• The Long Game: Clea Kolster’s Mission to Solve Climate Change on Good Work with Barrett Brooks podcast. This episode got me excited about engineering, specifically about energy generation and storage. Everything we do requires energy. Could it come from fission or converting waste biomass?
• Smarter than ‘Ctrl+F’: Linking Directly to Web Page Content by Ahmad Alfy. You can link directly to text with https://example.com#:~:text=some%20text%20here.

Created: 2024-10-27

Last modified: 2024-10-27