June 23, 2018.  Today was all about embracing electronics.  Sometimes an embrace is a warm hug, but just as often it is a knock-down-drag-out.  Today was both.  First, the warm hug came when one of the teachers enabled a virtual Arabic keyboard on my Blackberry!!!  One of the others had tried, with no luck, but now!  Now I can translate anything, anywhere!  Game changer for cafeteria conversation.  Which, by the way, I have decided is where all the learning takes place here.  No more skipping meals to get my homework done.  Homework optional, dinner conversation, not.  But after breakfast, things headed south.  I lost my study group (when I got demoted), where we worked on the audio-visual exercises together.  So, I loaded my DVD this morning, prepared to start my drills.  This required my older laptop (they don’t put DVDs on the new ones).  What do you mean it can’t find the DVD?  Nice.  So, I need to break my Arabic pledge and head to the nearest Best Buy.  Two trips (and six hours) later, I am the proud owner of not only a new DVD player, but also a pair of wire-less, noise-canceling, Google-talking, Bose, headphones.  The second trip resulted in a working set-up.  Now I can listen to Arabic anytime, anywhere.  By the way, everyone is firm that Google translate is not good.  The “ap” of choice (Sharon, as promised) is Reverso.  It not only translates but gives you the word in many contexts so you can see if your translation makes sense.  Game on baby!