the vindication of boom-chic

i just returned from mute, a club on monot street. there were many notable things about this experience:
1. my first time dancing in beirut!
2. my first time at a non-latin club in about 2 1/2 years.
3. there was no cover, just the expectation that you would buy a drink, which i managed to avoid, making my tab for the night a whopping...$5. (dinner + cab rides there and back.) excellent.
4. THE BASS WAS TOLERABLE, OH MY GOD. this last one is so remarkable that it deserves further explanation.

i wouldn't say i'm a clubber by any stretch of the imagination, but i've been to a few, particularly in latin america, and a commonality everywhere i've been is excessive bass to the point of borderline giving me a heart attack and/or making my repressed alter-ego of a gay man grinding at a club in the village where you can hear the boom-chic going several blocks away come out wild and fabulous. shockingly, this was not the case at mute. perhaps it's because lebanese people have a sense of rhythm and don't need an obscene bass to latch onto, although latinos clearly do fine with rhythm, too. or maybe the dj was just more sensitive to balance. or...i don't know...the owner mandated that a serious bass would run contrary to the club's name, so the owner banned it. in any case, it was amazing. i didn't even mind the half-hour techno set. i'm excited to go out again.

two other non-tonight related things occurred today.

i finally got internet. i was starting to lose faith in the system, but now i feel better. except that i gave my friend my power cord to hold because i had a small bag and i forgot to take it back and my computer is presently dead, so i won't be able to post pictures and my first-day writing until tomorrow. alas.

i got my courses straightened out almost...i suppose 4/5 isn't bad. and i got into everything i wanted to take, which i don't understand because i don't think any of my friends did. perhaps i dropped bassil's name at some point and upon realizing that, as bassil himself so eloquently put it, he's "kind of a big deal," aub was impressed and made it happen. شكرا بسل حبيبي

here are my courses:
intermediate colloquial lebanese arabic -- no idea how i got into intermediate, but i'm ok with it because it means i have class at 9 and not 8.
ideological trends in the middle east (a graduate course)
israeli politics with a professor who is supposed to be quite intense
lebanese politics

now the 5th course...i need some advice.
i came here intending to continue my study of formal arabic, but my level is highly inconvenient for aub: the lower class is a repeat of things i've already done, but the higher class is 4 chapters above where i am in my book, which i think is an impossible gap to bridge. i could always sit in on both and see if they don't work as much as i feel like they won't, or i could take neither and instead go to a cafe everyday with my friends, an arabic newspaper, and a dictionary. i think i could get a lot out of the latter if i were really committed and did it each day.
i'm also interested in continuing my study of french, but the level i should be in conflicts with one of my other classes, so i would have to take it outside of aub at a language institute (ex. berlitz). if i did that, i wouldn't take a 5th class because i would probably have french five times each week.
or i could take neither arabic nor french and pick up some other m.e. studies class...a history or sociology, or something.
thoughts? thus far i have one vote for not taking french.

i have one more topic of discussion. i can't believe i still have this much in my head at 4am.

nizar made a few comments on my post yesterday. he corrected me in saying that there are no unlimited local calls because, as i found out later, there are. sorry about that. erratta. he also said that the recent explosion on the corniche was, in fact, reported in an arabic paper. i find that very interesting; why would an arabic paper report bombs and an english one not? and finally, he chastised me for referring to muslim and christian areas of beirut although i was never under the impression that that was wrong or uncommon. sensitive for sure...the general sentiment of the country is to rebuild in order to foster national unity and referring to areas of the capital city as strictly demarcated by religion promotes sectarian identities that may be an unfortunate and, indeed, inaccurate throwback to the war. in my interactions with lebanese people here, one person had no idea which sections of the city were, at least historically, christian and muslim, but everyone else is quite aware and i often hear many parts of the city mentioned in conjunction with their religious affiliation. demographically speaking, how religiously segregated is beirut today? and if it is wrong or offensive to describe places as christian or muslim, why doesn't everyone stop?