Still at L&T

So I'm still at the Learning and Technology (L&T) conference/symposium and it's the very end of the day, and the very end of the symposium. There is a forum thingy going on up on stage, and I'm sitting with mona posting instead. And right now there's at least one lady who is angry and argumentative and really making things very difficult. It's funny listening to her. I kindof want to kill her. Or beat her over the head with the microphone. Publicly. Right now.

Now! Now!

At least everyone else seems unhappy with her also.

They're getting more and more testy on stage. And they took the lady's microphone away and she's still ranting. Loudly. Without amplification. If only I could think of a good question to ask...

Mona is playing her stupid tribe game again. She's getting killed by people who scream things like "Aaaah.... spanky" as she dies.

Dr. Annette is lobbying for iPods for the faculty. You know she liked the presentation on Duke's iPod policies.

So everybody at this symposium seems to be a fan of technology, although there was one speaker yesterday who said we were becoming its slaves. And Dr. Ghazi (one of my favorite people ever) said yesterday that he thinks regulation and censorship is not the answer... rather, one must teach responsibility and maturity to those who will be using the materials. Don't censor the internship, instead teach people to tell the difference between good websites and bad websites. To hear a friendly, intelligent Saudi man say this made me really happy. Happy Happy.

The admin (Mrs. West and Ms. East-West both) are completely exhausted. I can't blame them. Heck, EYE am tired (to write it the way Rachel always does) and I know that I haven't been working at all compared to them. They both have to have those semi-masochistic personalities that leads one to suffer intensely for periods of time and enjoy it.... and then collapse for periods of time to recover. Reminds me of the Middle School musical days of my life.... our tyrranical director wouldn't let us eat or sleep or leave the school until we had finished a scene/song/dance to his satisfaction.

You know what disgusts me the most? There are mosquitos everywhere. I mean EVERYWHERE. They're all bloated with somebody's blood and floating around like little red pincushions. I want to pop them all. Except I don't want blood all over me. It's a dilemma. But not a huge deal, since I can't catch them anyway -- I've been trying all weekend, and so far I've only gotten one. But that's one less mosquito who can live to bite me again. I can't believe I finally have a mosquito-free dorm room, so I get out of my dorm room and walk into a swamp. Irony. Perhaps when I'm well-covered (as a proper Saudi woman should be) the mosquitos won't be able to get to me. Perhaps there ARE advantages to the full-covering system.

Advantages to the abaya/tarha system:

1) Modesty/Decency/Religion
2) Shade
3) Protection from mosquitos
4) Warmth in the cold dark desert nights
5) Camouflage (at night)
6) Anonymity when robbing banks or participating in other criminal activities
7) Fashion (looking like you come out of Harry Potter or the Lord of the Rings)

Damn it. Mona tells me mosquitos are particularly attracted to black. I guess that means #3 is out.

Okay time to go. Ciao!

L&T

Hey all.
I'm sitting here with D at the Learning and Technology conference. This blog isn't working overly well right now, but I'm hoping that it will be in the future. In the meantime, if you can see this.......

hi!

Islamic Calvinism

Hey! Interesting article from BBC News today. Seems central Turkey is pulling a very Protestant-reminiscent work ethic reform. Next to come: education.

Off to class.

Al-Jazeera

Because I'm such a very studious person, I'm sitting here in my jet-laggedness watching al-Jazeera's presentation on the death of Milosevic. I notice two things. First of all, Al-Jazeera looks and sounds like a Western news station much more than most Arabic news that I've seen. Secondly, they pronounce Serbian names in a much more Serbian fashion than I think we do in English.

My roommate always used to claim that the Japanese pronounce foreign words in a way closer to the original pronunciation, and thus that American pronunciations were wrong. I wonder whether that's actually true, and I wonder where Arabic fits in the scale of remaining true to native pronunciations.

رجعت اخيراً (I finally came back)

Hey everybody. I realize I was seriously remiss in my blogging duties recently but here's the basic story: I went home, knowing that I was in danger of not having a visa to get back, but wanting to visit people and figuring I wouldn't enjoy myself here if I stayed. And I think it was a good decision, even though it turned out the way it did. And how did it turn out? Well, six weeks later I am back here in Saudi, and Mona and D tell me I really only missed two weeks of school. So, not a bad deal. I am working on registering as we speak, and hopefully by the end of the day I will officially be a student here again. Or, by tomorrow anyway. The way things are going, I think I'm going to take two classes, both Translation, in an attempt to get my Arabic writing up to snuff. I'm also going to hugely abuse all of my professors and try to get them all to correct things I write and translate. And talk to me.

A little surprisingly, I find I am really really happy to be back. Everyone is happy to see me, I passed Arabic last semester (with a D+!!) and I think I should be pretty easily able to find people to help me learn Arabic, if I can just keep up my energy. And I really need to. But the word on the street is that this semester will be a good one. Life is looking up. Also, I can dance in my room still.

SO..... that's about all for now. I'll try to keep more up-to-date.

Over and out.