Expat Focus awards this blog - Recommended Website for Egypt

Close on the heels of the the last recognition this blog got, I have now received another excellent piece of news.

The Expat Focus Website has given this blog, the award of "Recommended Website for Egypt"

Their website states that:

The Expat Focus Recommended Website Award is only given to outstanding expat websites which meet the following minimum criteria:

- Usefulness: Whether it's a fact packed, well known expat portal or a small personal blog, the website provides information which others moving to or living in a foreign country would find useful.
 
- Integrity: We only recommend honest, responsible sites. We will not recommend any site which would be in breach of our own Acceptable Use Policy

- Activity: Sites which are updated frequently or have active forums.

- Free: We do not recommend sites which require paid subscriptions or membership fees.

You can see that this particular blog has been awarded here.

Again thank you so much to each and everyone of my readers.

This blog has been recognised by Global Relocation Finder

A few days ago, Elyse wrote to me, to let me know that my Whazzup Egypt Blog had been selected to be RSSed on their blog.


is a Corporate Relocation Guide created to promote an easier way for people to share more information especially pertaining to relocation.

Thank you to all my faithful readers, who help keep this blog active and me motivated :) mwah

Superior Scribbler Award

A month or so ago, Bernadette from http://escapadethroughegypt.wordpress.com/ bestowed me with my first online award for this blog, The Superior Scribbler Award.

For details of this award and its beginnings, visit the original post and blog that started it all: The Scholastic Scribe

As with all Bloggy Awards, there are rules that go with the award:

1. Each Superior Scribbler must in turn pass The Award on to five most deserving bloggy friends.
2. Each Superior Scribbler must link to the author and the name of the blog from whom he/she has received The Award.
3. Each Superior Scribbler must display The Award on his/her blog and link to the original post at The Scholastic Scribe which explains The Award.
4. Each blogger who wins The Superior Scribbler Award must visit the original post at The Scholastic Scribe and add his/her name to the Mr Linky List. That way, we’ll be able to keep up-to-date on everyone who wins This Prestigious Honor!
5. Each Superior Scribbler must post these rules to his/her blog.

Thanks Bernadette, for considering this blog worthy of the The Superior Scribbler Award. Its good to know that others enjoy my scribblings.

So, here in no particular order are five bloggers that I believe deserve some recognition:

1. Rushina at A Perfect Bite for her awesome recipes and food related writing. She doesn't blog half as often as she writes in print, but its all amazing!

2. Judy for Under the Date Palms She blogs sporadically, but is always interesting to read.

3. Surya at Howdy Neighbour, she's one tech savvy woman, now blogging for the Mobile Industry Review too.

4. Akshay at Trivial Matters who takes the most mind blowing pictures and visits the most interesting places and photoblogs them all. He has just moved to Blind Boys .org but the old blog deserves its share of recognition for the many eyars of work and pictures on it.

5. Deepti at Things That Bang writes from her heart and carries her readers along with the emotions.

Award from a fellow blogger

A Fellow blogger in Cairo, Noles Family presented this blog of mine with an award:
“This blog invests and believes, in ‘proximity’ meaning, that blogging makes us 'close'. They are all charming blogs, and the majority of them aim to show the marvels of friendship; there are persons who are not interested when we give them a prize, and then they help to cut these bows; do we want that they are cut, or that they propagate? Then let’s try to give more attention to them!”

Thank you for sharing your lives and experiences the Noles family appreciates each and every one of your blogs.

Thanks Noles Family. Its always good to know that someone is benefiting from what you blog in cyberspace :)

This Blog recognised by Culture Crossing

The good folks at http://www.culturecrossing.net/ have recognised the relevance of the posts on this blog and included it in their list of blogs for travelers/expats to Egypt.

The link is here

Whazzup Egypt blog - considered worthy of study at AUC :)

I found an extraordinarily high number of hits to my Whazzup Egypt blog from a particular site called wetpaint

On further investigation, I figured out that my Whazzup Egypt blog was one of the blogs the students of the LALT 101 course at AUC had the option to review and evaluate.

If any of the students of this course read this post, I would appreciate it if you could share your findings with me. Please, pretty please :)

Grand Snacks and Sweets, Chennai

Totally inspired by the masala (blend of spices) given to us by our Tamilian friends Lux & Moorthy, I sent a shopping list to my mom who was visiting Madras for her visa. The parcel has just reached me. YIPPEE!

Karakuzhambu paste, onion thokku, pepper rasam masala, and that tamarind thing - is it Pulikachal?

Also she has sent me a bit of sambhar and rasam powder of theirs to try out.

I don't need to cook anything other than rice for the next one month. Hahahahaha

I'm so kicked with myself. Already tasted all of them. They are awesome!

If you want to buy some yourself or get it shipped to you, the address is:
#24
2nd Main Road,
Gandhi Nagar
Adyar
Chennai - 600020

Phone: 044-24914213

Read more about Grand Snacks & Sweets in The Hindu

Online Education

Printed in This Month's CSA Magazine - OASIS visible online in plain text format at @ http://www.livinginegypt.org/Default.aspx?tabid=573

Online Education

By Karishma Pais (Kim)

Are you a trailing spouse? Have you followed your husband to Egypt because his job brought him here? Do you find you have a lot of time on your hands once your husband leaves to work, the driver takes the kids to school, the maid does the cleaning/cooking, and the gardener the gardening? Then maybe it’s the right time to get that degree you always wanted or research an area you have been interested in. Because lets face it, there’s no time like today, with the conveniences on an Expat life in Egypt, to get started in this direction.
The AUC has a School of Continuing Education (SCE) that allows you to take courses in subjects as diverse as Management and Education to English Language. The SCE provides certificate programs, non-credit term-length courses and variable-length customized courses to fulfill the continuing education needs of individuals and organizations in Egypt and the Middle East. Classes are held in the evenings twice or thrice a week in each 12 week term.
62.3% of the student population is male while 37.7% is female. 95.4% are Egyptians and 4.6% with other nationalities. The educational background of students is roughly split between secondary education (47.5%) and bachelor’s degrees (45.3%), with 7% of the population below secondary education level.
But if evening classroom sessions don’t fit into your schedule, you can always consider online education which is a type of distance learning.
Distance Education dates back to at least 1728 when an advertisement in the Boston Gazette advertised that Caleb Phillips- Teacher of the new method of Short Hand was seeking students for lessons to be sent weekly.
The University of London was the first university to offer distance learning degrees, establishing its External Program in 1858.
Electronic learning or eLearning is a term used to refer to computer-enhanced learning. The worldwide e-learning industry is estimated to be worth over 38 billion pounds according to conservative estimates. Developments in internet and multimedia technologies are the basic enablers of e-learning.
In 2006, nearly 3.5 million students participated in on-line learning at institutions of higher education in the United States. The Sloan report, based on a poll of academic leaders, says that students generally appear to be at least as satisfied with their on-line classes as they are with traditional ones. According to the same report, about two-thirds of the largest institutions have fully online programs. Online education is rapidly increasing, and even online doctoral programs have been developed at leading research universities.
When choosing an Online Degree, what you need to watch out for is Accreditation, to ensure that the program provided by the institution meets acceptable levels of quality. In the area of online education, it is especially important to avoid diploma mills that offer fake degrees at a cost. If you are looking for a valid online degree, you should make sure you obtain proof of accreditation from a regional or national/specialized accrediting body. For example, the Distance Education and Training Council (DETC) is recognized as the accrediting organization for online degrees in the USA.

How to get started:
Choose the area/topic that you are interested in studying/researching. (You could get a degree in almost anything: Archaeology, Art History, Alternative Medicine, a Teaching Degree, Law or even an MBA.)
Google for the website of the University/Institute you would like your degree from. You can start with this list if you like: http://www.elearners.com/colleges/index.asp

Then check if they offer a course to your liking.
If they do, sign up.
If they don’t, look for another institution or another course.
It’s truly that simple.

Costs vary across Universities and Courses depending on duration and topic. For instance UCLA offers a one week course in Writing for 125$ and a course on Principles of Accounting for 525$.

The good thing about online courses is that they are totally flexible.

• You decide which time of the day you plan to catch up on your course work: early morning, when the baby is napping or after you get back from work. Anyone can take these courses at any time.
• You don’t have to spend time or money on commuting to classes.
• Your geographic location is not a constraint.
• You set your own learning pace.

The potential drawbacks are that:

• You need to be self motivated to complete your work on time. It’s very easy to slack off when you are setting your own pace.
• There’s a lack of face to face interaction, everything is online in virtual classrooms. Auditory Learners may not be very comfortable with the visual medium of instruction.
• You miss out on the social aspects of classroom training and traditional classes.
• If your course requires practical sessions in laboratories, online learning is no substitute.

If after reading this article, you are considering online education, you can be assured that it will work well for you as long as you have reasonably good computer and internet skills and are self-motivated.

To get you started, here are some websites that will help guide you in the right direction with more specific information about courses.
http://www.exed.hbs.edu/
http://www.uclaextension.edu/
http://www.dmoz.org//Reference/Education/Distance_Learning/Online_Courses/
http://www.educationworld.com/OnlineDegree.shtml
http://www.elearners.com/
http://www.worldwidelearn.com/

Happy Learning!

Oasis Magazine, March 2008

I'm a Bonafide Cairene

.........According to the Daily News Egypt article by Peter Carrigan.

Peter writes a weekly column for the Daily News Egypt called "A Khwaga's Tale"

This week the extremely interesting topic he undertakes is a checklist to help you recognise if you are a Cairene.

& this very blog has been mentioned in the article as having a "Hip Name"
although there's an extra "t" in the name, which is sad for me because that would have been huge potential for more eyeballs.

The article in its entirety can be read here http://www.dailystaregypt.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=11654

Thanks Peter, glad you like the blog & its name.


Thanks Jean for pointing me in this direction.