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Today the students who wanted to enroll in non-beginner language classes had to take placement tests to determine their level of proficiency. I took the Arabic test and boy was it rough!

I took two semesters of Arabic at ISU and did very well in both classes. I worked, almost to the point of obsession, doing extra homework and extra lab hours to become as proficient as possible. I would go out of the way to strike up an Arabic conversation with anyone I came across who happened to know the language. I set a goal this summer to memorize the fifty most common Arab verbs and really did commit twenty five or thirty to memory.

So imagine my horror when today I overturned the stapled packet of paper on my desk and found that I was hopelessly lost from the very beginning. I flipped through the pages, looking for something I could handle, but I just didn't have a handle on it. The only part I was really comfortable with was the writing part at the end. I ended up leaving large portions of the test blank. If I got higher than a thirty five percent it was only by the grace of Allah.

I could not help feeling a tinge of hatred for the fluent bastards who stood up and turned their tests in after five minutes. I, on the other hand, burned the entire two hours--not because the extra time was of much use to me, but because I hoped make a statement. I wanted the teachers to know that I wasn't going down without a fight.

After the written exam came the oral exam. I spent five minutes talking to an Arabic professor, doing everything I could to keep the conversation from hitting the language barrier, like a game of verbal tennis. There were a few points where I got stuck, such as when he asked me to describe the weather in Idaho as compared to Ifrane and for the life of me I could not produce words for a single meteorological phenomenon.

At the end; the teacher said I had done well under the circumstances, but said I would probably end up in Beginner II instead of Intermediate. The teacher, seeing my disappointment, hastened to reassure me the Beginner II course would be plenty rigorous and would mend some of the blind spots in my vocabulary. He also mentioned I might still have a chance to go to a higher level depending on how I did in the Beginner’s course.

I have been trying to think positively about this whole situation. I suppose no matter where they put me I will come away knowing more than I did when I came. And that’s something, isn’t it?