Waheeda Ajnabiyya وحيدة أجنبية

Peer Pressure!

2008-07-19T23:43:00.001+03:00

So, my mother (like your mother, I am sure) never bought the excuse "But everyone else is doing it/has one/is allowed to!" In fact, her response was (exactly what your mother's response was): "And if all your friends jumped off a cliff, would you jump off too?" It's very hard to win an argument with your mother.

Actually, I heard someone, somewhere, defend this. Ah, yes, it was in college. We had a huge argument. Somebody or another was arguing (and believed it, too, I think) that it is okay for your 12-year-old daughter to date somebody just because "everyone else is doing it." And that it is okay because, and I paraphrase here, "You have no idea how much they might suffer in the lunch room if they don't." It was clearly extraordinarily important for this person that his/her child be popular. Without popularity, why live?

As you can probably tell, I buy this argument not at all. I was brought up to cherish my individuality and my freedom of thought, and not to let people push me around. In fact, I was more likely to do the OPPOSITE of what everyone else was doing, just so I could avoid being like everybody else. I was that kid for much of highschool - you know the one, the one who is standing in the back whining "Guys, I don't think this is such a good idea....". Only instead of whining I was generally the one saying "No. No NONONONONONONONONONO." Luckily my friends chose to continue to hang out with me, mostly because they were also brought up to cherish individuality, and they preferred to keep me around to tease me about my enormous conscience (which they named Nevada) and because I was such a scintillating, fascinating person.
Essentially, I am the last person in the world who would follow my friends off a cliff. Unless they needed saving, in which case it's possible, but that's a whole other issue.

Anyway. This post has a point, I swear. And that point is this: even I, maven of individuality and protector of the small and weak, find myself caving to peer pressure now and again. But it's a much more insidious sort of peer pressure, none of that 'dude, you are so not cool unless you own a pink Barbie watch with flashing lights'. It's the peer pressure that comes naturally from living as a minority of any sort. I now, by the way, have incredible amounts of respect for other people who have lived as a minority, and I'm much more conscious of it in my life when I'm in the States and definitely not a minority.

I'm a Christian, I'm a white kid, I'm a blond woman who stands out a mile as a foreigner. I study Islam, I study Arabic, and I am honestly, truly interested in all of this. And, to top it off, I'm the sort of person who is constantly reexamining myself and my beliefs. I can't tell you how many times I have been asked whether I am Muslim, or whether I am intending to convert, because obviously if I study Islam and move to Saudi Arabia I am clearly intending to be Muslim. No, I patiently explain, I am very interested and I find much of Islam beautiful, but I'm very happy with my religion and don't really feel the need for another one, thank you very much.

But why, then, would I be spending my time studying Islam? Clearly I must be vulnerable. So I get invited to all sorts of "Welcome to Islam!" bashes, and I get given huge numbers of informative pamphlets (because once I know enough obviously I will see the Truth). The people who know me have figured out that I am well-informed and very curious, but they've given up on converting me (or, bless their souls, they never tried in the first place).

Doth I protest too much? Yeah, that's the problem. Because although I don't feel in need of a different religion or a change in lifestyle or values (I like myself, and my values, and my religion, just fine thank you very much - even if I'm occasionally uncertain of who exactly I am and what, exactly, my values and religion are), I am still very conscious of the underlying message that my would-be converters are sending: you are not good enough until you are Muslim. You are not "right" until you are Muslim. You are not "saved" until you are Muslim. You are a deluded, hell-bound infidel demon until you are Muslim. Okay, the last might be an exaggeration (but then again, maybe not).

I suspect I'd get the same thing if I were in a conservative religious community anywhere. Unless, of course, I were willing to hide who I was and what I believed, and I've never really been a big fan of doing that. I took a class on the early history of Christianity, and you know in Rome pre-Constantine they used to force people to stomp on a picture of Jesus or else they would be killed? Even though I can't imagine that God would consider stomping on a picture to be really that bad if it saved your life, the idea of publicly renouncing your beliefs in order to fit in still feels incredibly, incredibly wrong. Although I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be brave enough to die for my beliefs, I gotta say the idea of stomping on that picture makes my stomach turn. And yet, when you're surrounded by a group of people who think differently from you (and simultaneously think, with absolute certitude, that YOU are wrong), it's really, really really really really hard not to feel pressure to conform. It weighs on you, the knowledge that everyone else thinks your moral system is corrupt and wrong. It gets to the point where you assume everybody thinks you're going to hell because it's easier than assuming the opposite and then being unpleasantly surprised. That's the worst part, for me. I find myself constantly underestimating the open-mindedness of the people around me just because I can't bear to be disappointed in them. I struggle to keep myself from doing this, but it's hard.

It's not easy to constantly be aware that you're considered freakish. I can only be thankful that there are lots of people out there, Muslim and non-Muslim, who don't consider me freakish.

It would be much easier if I were like my sister, who is pretty darn sure of who she is and what she believes (and she is NOT afraid of letting you know), but then I am not sure I'd really get as much out of the experience. But who knows. The fact of the matter is, I'm not like that. Like I said, I'm a pretty fuzzy outline in my mind, and to be honest I like that about me. I like to think I'm adaptable and willing to honestly reflect on myself in order to improve. Maybe I'm just wishy-washy. But regardless, in a community where you feel constantly judged (negatively), it's tough to keep that from affecting you as you renegotiate yourself. I think in the long run it's probably good for me ("builds character" as my father would say), and I think it makes me take a deeper look at what I really believe and why. I don't even entirely dislike the experience. It's a trial by fire, and even if it weren't a fascinating to look at the society around me, it would be fascinating to try to navigate personal relationships around the inevitable landmines that exist because of different cultural and religious values. And I've found to my delight that a lot of the time there are many fewer landmines than I think there are and, more than that, I've found a huge number of things that I truly admire about the culture and the people and the religion here, so there are things about myself that have changed positively because of the experience.

I'm rambling. All of this thought crystallized a little today because of two things. One, I found this blog (via the Daily Dish) and spent much of the day reading back through all of the archives, and two I talked to my sister about it. We are both fascinated by social experiments like this (for those who are too lazy to click the link, it's a lady who is Living Oprah - meaning, she watches Oprah daily, reads O magazine, and uses Oprah's website and is trying to create a holistic system of life by following all of Oprah's edicts on what to read, eat, how to dress, what to buy, how to think, etc.) where someone immerses themselves in a lifestyle very different from their own in order to test their own boundaries and to experience another point of view (or, in this case, to make a larger point about the unfortunately large role celebrity gurus play in our lives). That's kindof what I'm doing here, and my sister said she would be interested in joining a fundamentalist church to do something similar. But reading the Living Oprah blog, the blogger talks a lot about how she ends up feeling like she is inadequate in some huge way for not having immediately found the enlightenment and self-love that Oprah seems to expect us all to acquire easily. I completely related to that. Okay, I haven't chosen to follow Oprah's word as the Word of God, but I did choose to move to a country with a religious code different from my own. I think, where I feel the weight of the whole society here on me, our Living Oprah blogger feels the huge weight of Oprah's enormous charisma/star power/celebrity as a society of its own, a society in which everyone is well-adjusted, skinny, energetic and clutter-free.

That's all I've got. I realize this wasn't the most coherent post ever, but hey, obviously coherency is not one of my strong points. And I am, as I say, a work in progress, so I reserve the right to completely contradict myself in the future.

Del.icio.us

2008-07-11T10:14:00.002+03:00

Hello all! Update on the blog I thought I'd make you aware of. I joined Del.icio.us which is a much better way to collect bookmarks and interesting links than I currently use. My current method involves sending myself long long long gmail conversations (of 80 letters or more) filled with nothing but links. Not the most practical thing ever.

So I'll be switching over to this. The advantage is the linkroll you see down the right -- as I bookmark something in my fantastic internet journey, it appears here on my blog automatically! So, I'll be posting in my blog only the very tippy top of the coolest stuff, or if I have something particular to say about something. But if you want to see a lot of cool stuff, check out the links on the right for what I've been looking at recently.

Surfing the internet is something I have only recently truly understood. Letting yourself open a random link, because it looks interesting, and then finding another random link to open, and then another and then another, and then eventually you're somewhere and you don't know how you got there but man is it nice.

Take, for example, my discovery of the following completely amazing blog: LikeCOOL. It's a collection of nifty stuff, and it's updated all the time. Who here isn't thrilled by a constantly updated collection of nifty stuff? I know I am.

In fact, I'm so thrilled that I'm adding it to my blogroll. Yes, I said it.

Anyway, just thought I'd give you an update.

Downtown Jeddah

2008-07-01T09:51:00.013+03:00

It's been a while since I posted. Thanks to the lovely Saudi Telecom Company, our internet connection was down for a week. Actually, 9 days. Believe me, I was counting. Nowhere in the normal world would an ISP be able to keep service down for so long and still have any customers. But as we all know, this is not part of the normal world. Anyway, it was kindof interesting. For some reason our offices use a different internet connection than the residence, so my office still had connectivity. This means that I spent an ungodly amount of time in my office this past weekend.

ANYWAY, what I came here to discuss an interesting trip we went on the other day. The Ministry of Culture and Tourism in downtown Jeddah is run by a wonderful man who leads the fight to preserve and restore the old historical buildings of Jeddah. By far his biggest success is the restoration of Naseef House into a museum. One of the things he does on the side, and for which the Jeddah community is extremely grateful, is to give tours of Nassef House and the historic district. I have been lucky enough to go on this tour a few times, and it always fascinates me. Today, we were there because of some architects who were visiting us from abroad and who were naturally fascinated by the historic part of the city and the traditional architecture to be found there.

It quickly became clear that our guide was really happy to have the opportunity to ask our architect guests their opinion on something that has been vexing him for a while: the everlasting debate between restoring and preserving using traditional materials and methods, and restoring and preserving using modern materials and methods. Listening to them all talk, it sounds like it's been pretty well established that modern materials and methods don't work. They tried to protect the stained glass of the Notre Dame with plastic, and a century later the plastic had to come out as it was causing more problems than otherwise. Similarly, it sounds like they are trying to convince a French firm not to inject the walls of these houses with concrete. The idea would be to shore them up, but our guide was convinced this would be a disaster, and listening to them talk it sounds like they might be right.

Anyway, I wanted to give you an idea of what the old houses of Jeddah looked like, so here are some of my pictures.

The old houses of Jeddah were generally built about 150-100 years ago by the wealthiest families living in the region. This was before the Saudis had permanently claimed this region, but they still had influence and the families here deferred to them. Naseef House, the oldest of them, is roughly 150 years old and is also the biggest. The Naseef family is still one of the wealthiest here, and at the time they were by far the wealthiest. In fact, when the soon-to-be King of Saudi Arabia was visiting Jeddah, the Naseef family gave him the top floor of their house to stay in.

All the houses are built of coral, which I find fascinating, but makes sense given the fact that we're right on the Red Sea. So they make this sort of cement out of coral and sand, and then use wood supports to hold the "cement" in place (it obviously is not as strong as real cement). The walls get thinner as you go up, so that there's less pressure on the lower floors.

The houses have big windows, both to minimize the weight of the materials on the lower floors and to let the air circulate, and the windows are covered with a patterned wooden grate to protect the privacy of the people within. The grates are colored in a variety of ways (natural brown, green, blue) depending on the whims of the city's mayors when they were built, I think.

We saw, in addition, a mosque built 1400 years ago and renovated consistently since then. The oldest bit, the minaret, is 900 years old.

The highlight of the tour, hands down, is the end. Our guide led us up to the very top of Naseef House and, on the roof, there is a little wooden room that is open to the air. We got up there and sat down just as maghrib prayer started. Just at sunset. It was stunning. We sat up there and looked over the old city as the prayer call from a hundred mosques hit us all at the same time in a beautiful cacophony. It is easy to see how one might be inspired to prayer.

Protestantism, Catholocism, and Islam

2008-06-26T22:37:00.006+03:00

There is a very interesting parallel to be drawn, I think, between Protestantism and salafism/wahhabism on the one hand, and Catholicism/traditional sunni Islam on the other.

Catholicism and traditional Islam share a belief that religion and religious law is an enormously complicated subject that only the well-qualified are truly capable of judging. In Catholicism, only the priesthood is well-enough qualified. In Islam, the definitions are a bit fuzzier, but the religious scholars, those capable of making judgments, dedicate their lives to unraveling the complexities of the law. One scholar of the Shafi'i school responds to a question from a believer, who has made an independent judgment about a Shafi'i ruling on the basis of his independent reading of the Sunnah, and says:

[Your question] is welcome on account that it indicates a desire to live as close as possible to the Quran and Sunnah; but worrisome because it initially oversimplifies matters of considerable complexity, and subsequently develops into the passing of judgment by persons, that if truth be told, are vastly unqualified for the task.

In direct contrast, Wahhabism claims that religious judgments are obvious. If you read the foundation texts, the answers will be obvious. The education that young Saudis get here on religion is learning by rote: there is only one correct answer, and generally it is backed up by nothing more than a quote from the Qu'ran. Likewise, most of the people I talk to believe that they do completely understand their religion. There's no questioning, no time spent pondering essential questions about the soul and the meaning of the universe. There is no understanding of the complexity of the issues involved, or that Islam has always adapted to meet the needs of the reality in which it found itself.

Protestantism makes many of the same claims. Hence all of the early fights about translating the Bible so that it would be readily accessible for easy interpretation.

Many people have already drawn this parallel. The most famous may be Samuel Huntington, in his Clash of Civilizations, who makes what is perhaps the first such analogy. Steven Schwartz, in an interview with the Atlantic Monthly, makes the argument that, not only are Wahhabism and Protestantism congruent, but that Catholicism (and its Muslim parallel, traditional Islam), are preferable beliefs because, as he says:

In Islam, there has always been the argument that Wahhabism arose directly as an imitation of Protestant Christianity. And there are Wahhabis who do make this comparison. They say, "We are creating a Protestant Islam." I used to respond to this by saying to Wahhabis, "If you're looking for models from the Christian world, the Catholics are much better models." If I went to Jerry Falwell and asked him how he thinks the poetry of William Blake relates to theology, it is very doubtful he would even know what I was talking about. If I were to go to Pat Robertson and ask him what he thought of John Milton as a representative of Protestant culture, it's very doubtful he would have an intelligent comment. But I can go to a Catholic priest anywhere in the Catholic world and talk about philosophy and poetry, literature and art, because Catholicism is a whole civilization. If you want a Protestant-style Islam, fine, I can't stop you from wanting that, but Protestantism begins with John Milton and ends with Jimmy Swaggart. A Protestant-style Islam would be stripped down, with no spirituality, no sense of Islam as a civilization or a culture, no love of poetry, of mysticism, of religious philosophy, no beautiful mosques.

Steven Schwartz's view of Wahhabi Islam and of Protestantism is clearly not very positive, but even he does not think the parallel is perfect:

There is one extremely important difference, however. Protestantism did not attempt to enforce conformity. Protestantism fostered pluralism.

While I think there are certainly important issues with this parallel, I think Mr. Schwartz's example is flawed.

First of all, the original Protestantism did not at all foster pluralism. You can't even call it "Protestantism" because each individual Protestant had his own beliefs and his own flock of believers. The early Calvinists took over Geneva and exiled or killed those who disagreed and those who did not behave in "proper" fashion. There were enormous arguments between different Protestant sects, each of whom believed theirs was the only path to salvation. (Many Protestant sects still believe theirs is the only path to salvation). What Protestantism did that Catholicism failed to do was to separate religion from the heirarchy of the Church and to make each individual responsible for their own religious education.

The pluralism of Protestantism, then, came directly from the fact that it allowed and promoted an individual interpretation of religion, and it only happened over time, and largely in response to religious persecution by Catholics in Europe. Similarly, although currently Saudi Arabian religion is controlled fairly tightly by the state, there is hope that the spread of Wahhabism through petrodollars might foster the same sense of individual responsibility and individual interpretation, and might lead to a similarly pluralistic form of Islam. It might, however, require persecution similar to that the Puritans met in England, for example, in order to wind up resulting in a recognition of the value of pluralism and religious tolerance.

You could also argue that Islam did not need this sort of breakaway from authority in the first place, because in fact the hierarchy of religious scholars in Islam is only advisory; no one presumes to speak the whole truth, or to know all of the answers. In fact, traditional Islam is fairly pluralistic to start with. It is only recently that Islam began to be seen as uncompromising, and that is mostly due to the growing influence of Wahhabism. But certainly, there are similarities between the Catholic system, where priests are the only ones qualified and educated enough to speak on an issue as complicated as religion, and the traditional Islamic system that depends on men who spend their whole life becoming qualified to speak on issues that they see as incredibly complicated. Protestantism and Wahhabism, on the other hand, see religious decisions as simple ones; just look back to the original text, and the answers are there for any well-intentioned believer to see.

For an interesting discussion of this analogy, see this article.

I should mention as a postscript that most "Wahhabis" see that term as derogatory. They prefer just "Muslims". They practice, after all, the only right form of Islam. Similar to Protestants much? I think so. But for lack of a better term (unless you want to use salafi - one who goes back to the roots - or puritan, but both of those predicate a bit of knowledge of Islam and religion which I don't want to assume).

Food, Glorious Food

2008-06-26T21:36:00.003+03:00

Haha! More awesome stuff via the Daily Dish.

Creative food sculptures and photoshopped pictures of animals as food.

Divorce Cakes

2008-06-26T17:58:00.008+03:00

Tuesday we had a party for one of our colleagues who was getting married. We had a big party, and all of the married women went out of their way to rib her about married life. I guess this happens elsewhere, but I don't have enough married friends elsewhere to have seen it anywhere else. Plus, it's still mostly assumed that you're a virgin at marriage here, which means that the conversations included bawdy commentary and whatnot. I have always said that marriage is a weird sort of public ceremony; getting up in front of all of my closest friends and relatives and announcing to them, "tonight I will be having sex with this man," always seems just a tad bit ... mortifying. And here is even worse than the West, because you may never have even dated anyone before.

Weird.

But obviously that has nothing to do with divorce, and hopefully it never will. But while I was there I discovered that the latest trendy thing is Divorce Parties! You can now celebrate your divorce and your newly-regained freedom with a specially-made divorce cake!

One of my friends sent me some examples.

It seems like a lot of these have the "kill the cheating, lying bastard" theme, which leads me to believe that divorce parties are perhaps more popular among women. I suppose that makes sense. I can't really see a bunch of guys gathering around a wedding cake to celebrate the dissolution of their marriages. I can't really see a bunch of guys gathering around a wedding cake for any purpose beyond a wedding.

Women, on the other hand, really enjoy throwing parties. I cannot complain; I enjoy parties as much as the next girl. Well, I lie. I'm sure men celebrate the same things women celebrate, but I can't help but feel that there is probably more cake involved in female parties.

Anyway, divorce parties sounds like a good sort of tradition to encourage. Especially given the bitter humor displayed in these cakes. I always like a good bitter humor cake.

One of my friends told me the story of a Lebanese woman and her daughter who converted to Islam, and then her daughter also converted. These stories of conversion are fairly common here. Everybody's got at least one to tell. I don't know whether they're true or whether they're urban legends, but they're interesting. This one involved the mother being in a life-threatening situation and finding herself reciting the Ayat al-Kursi completely by accident. When she converted to Islam, her husband was really upset and their marriage fell apart: they ended up divorced. The daughter lived a life of dissolution and hedonism (as my friend put it to me, "she didn't believe in anything"). One day she fell into a completely random coma in her house. Because of her lifestyle, she hadn't made any close friends and no one came to see her and check if she were okay. After ten days of this she started reciting "Ya Rub" ('O God' in Arabic), and miraculously someone came and found her and she recovered (converting to Islam in the process).

Now for those of you who know anything about traditional Islamic Law, the rule goes that a Muslim man can marry a Christian or Jewish woman, but a Muslim woman can only marry a Muslim man. I think this comes from the general idea that the child will inherit the religion of the father.

Anyway, the mention of divorce brings up an interesting hypothetical here. Obviously, once she had converted to Islam, the mother and daughter would be expected to marry a Muslim man. But the mother already was married, and to a Christian. My question is, if they hadn't gotten divorced for other reasons, would she have been legally bound (under Islamic Law) to divorce him now that she was a Muslim but he wasn't? Divorce isn't really considered a great thing in Islam (any more than it is anywhere else) and you're really supposed to use it as a last resort. Should you stand by your husband even if he isn't Muslim, or do you dump him and go looking for a Muslim husband?

Just a thing to think about.

The UK is Ridiculous

2008-06-26T16:00:00.002+03:00

So, I just found the following story on News of the Weird - apparently the UK has started a game show designed to pit religious groups against each other. It's called Faith Off. How clever. And how TOTALLY unlikely to spread intolerance and misunderstanding. Color me skeptical. And a teensy bit appalled.

Then again, it's not like this is new. Maybe it's something in the drinking water, but the UK aired something I felt was equally inane sometime last year: Make me a Muslim. It's the wild and wacky reality TV show based on the concept that a conservative imam and a few other volunteer Muslims could take a couple of morally corrupt Westerners and improve their lives by converting them to Islam. The lucky contestants included a bitter alcohol-imbibing middle-class man, a single mother stripping to pay the bills, a gay man (this is going to be good), and some woman dating a "fallen" Muslim.

I was "fortunate" enough to see a part of this TV show one day. The highlights included telling the gay man that he was only gay because he spent too much time with women (so he was sent off to play cricket with "the boys" while the imam wandered the town showing his picture around to likely-looking young ladies in order to find him a wife) and a really awkward conversation with the woman and her Muslim boyfriend about whether they slept in the same bed ("but do you do more than sleeping?"). How do you suppose the volunteer Muslim guides justified their participation in this to themselves?

Anyway, apparently the UK is at it again. I hope I get to see an episode of Faith Off. I suspect it will be.... enlightening.

Snow Globes!

2008-06-26T12:10:00.002+03:00

I remember making a snow globe out of Fimo and a goldfish bowl for my little sister's birthday one year. I used to be such an amazing big sister....I wonder what happened?

Anyway, I was reminded happily of those days by a post on the Daily Dish which linked to another blog which linked to... well. Check it out. These snow globes were created by Walter Martin and Pamela Munoz and the results are... twisted. (They also make creepy little islands). I highly recommend going to the artists' website and looking at all of them. Here are some highlights.There will apparently be an exhibition of their work at the George Adams Gallery in New York City July 10-August 29. If anybody's in the area.... go!

Did anybody else read those amazingly creepy children's books by John Bellairs (and generally illustrated by the King of Creep Edward Gorey)? Who can honestly tell me that this doesn't remind them of that:

Check them all out. Freakin' amazing.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Barack Obama

2008-06-25T22:55:00.002+03:00

Now here's a man who speaks the language of my generation, the language of my heart:

When Mr. Wenner asked how Mr. Obama might respond to harsh attacks from Republicans, suggesting that Democrats have “cowered” in the past, Mr. Obama replied, “Yeah, I don’t do cowering.”

Rock on! Damn The Man! Free Tibet!

Via DailyKos

It's good to be sarcastic

2008-06-25T22:31:00.003+03:00

Demotivation is eternally entertaining.

Ah, makes me feel right at home.

Technorage!

2008-06-25T22:03:00.003+03:00

Sometime this year I coined a term (that probably already exists somewhere, but whatever, I'm special, I made it up too) to describe that unique form of uncontrollable rage caused by malfunctioning technology. I don't know if other people experience this the same way I do, but I find that my technology-related wailing and gnashing of teeth is much more waily and gnashy than any other sort of wailing and gnashing. In fact, I think if I ever commit homicide (or hurl a computer out of a window), it will be because of this. If road anger gets its own special name, why not technology anger?

For those of you who are going to say "well, obviously you need a new computer/cell phone/ipod," I say no. My computer/cell phone/ipod has served me well, and I will not abandon it now in its time of need. I'll just fling it about the room once in a while when it misbehaves.

To everybody out there suffering from technorage, Bill Gates feels your pain. Or at least he felt your pain. And if he's using Vista, he's probably still feeling it.

Nothing is as it seems

2008-06-25T21:21:00.006+03:00

Golly. This is an allegory, and an interesting insight into the way the internet actually works versus the way we think it works. A small taste:

A long time ago, people used signposts to get where they wanted to go. Each signpost was a little underlined phrase in blue that took you to a new place. People would wander all over the place, hopping from one place to another, looking at signposts to see where to go next. These signposts made a sort of map.

Sounds like me!

And on an entirely different subject, this is... just frightening:

Their alleged “crime” was that the graduate student had downloaded an Al-Qaeda training manual from a US government website for research purposes, as he’s writing his MA dissertation on Islamic extremism and international terrorist networks. He had then sent this to his friend in the Department of Engineering for printing. The printed material had been spotted by other staff and reported to the University authorities who passed on the information to the police.

And to add additional possibility for extreme error, they've recently upped the number of days you can be held without charge to 28. That's all well and good if you trust your government to only pick the guilty people. But it is ungodly stupid to trust your government. Particularly about something like this. Laws exist explicitly so that people don't have to trust their government.

I guess maybe it's good to see that it's not just America.

An interesting idea

2008-06-25T17:12:00.007+03:00

I spent a while browsing around today. It's amazing the sort of stuff you can find out there. It's amazing how often you find yourself becoming engrossed in something completely bizarre, that you would never find interesting if it were presented to you in any other way. So, somehow, I stumbled across this really cool idea - a wiki book! And then, because that post was so fantastical, I started reading, and I found all sorts of interesting things.

So, here's one of those interesting things. What if it were possible to view the world as it is, without trying to weigh things against one another. What do I mean by that? Well, what if you could look at something happening in the world, and take a good effect, and a bad effect, and see them both separately, without judging between them.

Or, as the author himself says, after discussing the relationship between progress and inequality:

For some reason we spend most of our time assessing which of these changes outweighs the other rather than just admitting that both stories have some truth to them. In a technological age, inequality provides one of the driving forces for innovation that generates long-run growth. In a society where basic goods are rationed by price, inequality will put more of those basic goods out of reach of the poorer ranks of society.

This would be a great skill to have, I feel: being able to see many truths at a time rather than looking for just one. I think you can extrapolate and try to apply it elsewhere as well -- why does only one thing have to be right, or better? Why can't both/all be accepted? The most obvious place to use this would be religion. Why does there only have to be one religion? Why can't there be truth in each of the varied ways that humans find to connect to God? I was trying to use an example in a conversation with a friend, and this is what I came up with: asking which religion is the right one (or even assuming that there IS only one right one) is like saying there's only one way to Makkah, and only one correct direction for prayer. But this is patently false; the Ka'aba is in a different direction from each place that you stand. If you made people face in the same direction from each place in the world, you would have some people praying towards Makkah, others towards Brazil. Instead, there is a specific direction for each location on earth. Thus each person has his or her own individual path to find and follow, and there is no single correct answer.

These two arguments seem very similar. Why does humanity always search for the Truth, the eternally applicable One Answer, rather than accepting that there are lots of true things, lots of answers, and that each of them has its own place?

And some entertaining endpoints. First, this article about the new threat to energy efficiency in Japan.

Secondly, a dude living all by himself on an island just declared independence.

Third, the awesomest apartment ever.

Finally, apparently a Pew survey found that one in five Americans who identify themselves as atheist also say they believe in God (via).

.....huh?

UPDATE: Toilets are a big thing everywhere, apparently. Who knew?

UPDATE 2: If you like the idea of what's-his-face in Forvik declaring independence, then check out the history of the six tiniest nations in the world. Apparently this isn't that unusual.

UPDATE 3: Gosh, micronations are everywhere.

Who's Got it Worse?

2008-06-21T20:12:00.001+03:00

Every time I meet someone unfamiliar with Saudi Arabia, I inevitably get some question along the lines of, "Is it hard to be a woman there?"

And, of course, the answer is "Yes." But they're asking the wrong question, because it's not just hard to be a woman here. It's hard to be anybody here, if you're not surrounded by a strong network of friends and family (and sometimes even if you are). And being single and male in Saudi is arguably harder than being single and female.

Whenever I get in a taxi and find a non-Saudi driver (which is fairly common; most of the drivers around here are South Asian), they generally start a conversation. So we talk about where they're from, and whether they have family, and what part of America I'm from, and then we get around to whether I'm Muslim. And once it becomes clear I'm an American woman, non-Muslim, here by myself, then they assume I will agree when they begin complaining about Saudi. And they do; almost every taxi driver I have spoken to hates it here. HATES it here. They are lonely, they are bored to tears, their families are back home and everyone they know here has business interests, there are no "real" friendships. And I can spend a lot of time complaining about how hard it is to get out, how hard it is to go wherever I want, how isolated I sometimes feel, but at least I have a community of ex-pats I can go to, I have a community at my job I can go to, and if I talk to strangers they do not immediately assume I am creepy. I would say ethnicity, religion and social class are all MUCH bigger determinants of how happy you are here than your gender.

But, like I said, it might even be harder for men than for women. Saudi Jeans is responsible for getting the word out that, in Saudi, single men are frequently kept out of malls by security guards, on the assumption that the only reason single men would want to be in malls is to hunt down the single women. And when they're not kept out, apparently they're sometimes charged money to enter (thanks to Saudi Jeans, here's the original Arabic article if you're interested). Again, because the single women inside are...worth it? But no, even if they pay to enter, they can't do anything that would be construed as flirting, or they risk being arrested. Women get arrested for this sort of thing too (as last year's famous Starbucks arrest proves) but it's much less common. And, as the idea of gender equality picks up steam here, women are moving more and more into the public sphere, but the private sphere hasn't become very welcoming to men. More on that below. Suffice it to say the young men particularly are getting bored. More than 60% of the Saudi population is under 25, and sometimes the young men go crazy. The same goes not just for Saudi men, but for taxi drivers and, from my experience, also the poor Marines (all five of them) who guard the American consulate here.

This is because women have a lot of power. First off, most men are a little bit afraid of us. We're mysterious, exotic, and have the power to draw them into sin. What's not to love? Plus, the dress code means that men (particularly the religious police) are likely to get flustered if they see anything other than the abaya. There are urban legends about Western women who get out of trouble by threatening to open their abaya and scaring the men away. In addition, the entire society is organized around the goal of protecting women (and their "virtue"). For a long time (I dunno whether it's still in the rulebook or not) police didn't pull over cars with women in them. When you walk into a store full of men, you frequently go to the front of the line. If there are no seats available, someone gets up to let you sit down. You get driven everywhere you want to go, dropped off and picked up at the door so you never have to walk, and people will fall all over themselves to carry things for you.

And finally, because of the restrictions on mingling with the opposite sex (and because of the nature of young men), single women are in VERY high demand. VERY high demand. If you make accidental eye contact with somebody (as happened to me once when I was in the car with Melvi), you risk having him follow you home in his car, laughing and honking and acting like a lovestruck maniac. The Washington Post and the New York Times (love from the girls' side, from the boys' side) have both done series on flirting and dating in Saudi Arabia, but the general message is this: if women want to find a boyfriend, it's pretty easy to do. I'm not going to say you'll get fantastic quality, but if I walked down the street towards the supermarket I could probably find a boyfriend before I got there. It gets downright uncomfortable sometimes; I have even gotten this sort of attention from Westerners. It's like those cartoons they used to show where the starving guy on an island looks at his companion and sees him suddenly as a giant turkey dinner. I am the turkey.

The same cannot be said for the men. You could certainly argue that all of these "advantages" that women have merely showcase the skewed, paternalistic, commodity-driven view that men hold of women here, and I'm not necessarily going to disagree. But if I have to choose between not being allowed to do anything because I might sin, and being treated like I'm an object on a pedestal because someone might sin against me, I choose the pedestal.

The situation is in some ways analogous to some of the debates going on in the US about the difficulty men have in finding their roles in society now that women can do anything men can do. Now that the concepts of gender equality are spreading here, and almost everyone here now feels that women belong in the public sphere to some degree (though obviously with protections to ensure their privacy and modesty), women are encroaching more and more on what used to be the male sphere, the public domain. But, because modesty and privacy are still considered essential for the protection of women, that means that the public sphere must adapt to permit women to enter. Many companies who want to hire women (banks and government agencies in particular) are required to completely retrofit the infrastructure to create a separate, protected place for women to work: separate bathrooms, separate elevators, separate work space. Men are required to be considerate of women and their needs in their place of work, in stores and restaurants, and other public spaces.

But men have not likewise made inroads into the private sphere. Where there are women, women's needs rule. Women can enter their male colleagues' work spaces freely; men are constrained to warn the women of their approach before entering the women's areas. Women can use predominantly male bank branches, but they also have branches specifically for women. Coffee shops (Starbucks, for example) don't really enforce the singles/family divisions, so women can sit in the male areas in malls and outside, for example, but they still have their own area if they wish it.

This whole thing is eloquently visible where I work. It's a primarily female environment, where women study and with mostly female employees. Thus, the main area of campus is free from abayas and headscarves. However, we employ maybe 20 men in the faculty and IT (there are many more maintenance men who work after hours). Those men are kept in a small, separate area, and before they leave they need to have an escort and the women in the building he is going to will be warned by email of his approach. If he is coming to the admin building, he follows a hidden tunnel to a locked door, where he waits, knocking more and more urgently, until someone on the other side finds a key to let him out (but not until everyone is properly covered).

As I hope I have made clear elsewhere, I don't feel like my freedom or my lifestyle is hugely curtailed here; somewhat curtailed, yes, but if you find a good group (or groups) then life is wonderful. I guess I mean only to make the point that gender is really not a deciding factor in whether life is good or not here. There are arguments to be made on either side, but life is not all roses for the men.

Thursday Morning Walking

2008-06-12T11:45:00.002+03:00

I woke up this morning at 7:45, got in the shower, and by the time I got out at 8:01 my ride had left without me. Frustrating. But, because I am turning over a new leaf of incredible productivity, instead of going back to bed I walked to Sarawat, the supermarket about 2km away. It took about half an hour, in the direct sunlight. So I'm a little toasty now, after walking back. But I got some necessities so I can survive another week without milk or veggies, I hope. I am so proud of myself. It's 11am and my day has just begun! I am kindof exhausted though, so we'll see how long I hold out before I take a nap.

However, I had a great walk to the store. I wore my bright blue headscarf and put my ipod up all the way (under my headscarf and abaya) so i could totally ignore everybody and everything and just stride down the street listening to The Dandy Warhols (who are arguably the best band for purposeful striding). Once I got to the store, half an hour later, I realized there was no way I was going to be able to cover my head on the way back, so I take off my headscarf, and then standing unobtrusively in the juice aisle I unbutton part of my abaya so I can get to my ipod to turn it off. But of course, some young man walks by at just that time and whistles at me. Peachy.

And on the way back, wearing my abaya but no headscarf, I got NOTICEABLY more attention. Part of it might have been that i was walking over there early, before things opened, and on the way back things were open and there were people around, but i have to believe part of it was my shocking blond hair. I passed two little children and their mother - the kids were sitting on some sort of abandoned sofa on the side of the road, and as I pass by the little girl sees me and her eyes widen. I smiled at her and she looked even more incredulous. She starts tugging on her brother's shirt saying "Shoof! Shoof!" ("Look! Look!") and pointing at me. Perhaps they've legitimately never seen a blond person before? I can't really believe that to be the case, there are too many foreigners in Jeddah. But who knows what kind of sheltered lives these kids might lead. Anyway, at least I provided the world with some entertainment. That's a good start.

The pictures are of where I live, by the way. The bit you can see from outside, anyway. The gate of the residence is on a roundabout with a giant sculpture of a book in it; it's really a beautiful sculpture, it's too bad it's so out of the way. In the picture at the top you can see two of the biggest landmarks of my part of town, as well: the NCB Bank building, which is situated right in the middle of balad, the old city, and the Khozama Palace water/observation tower (I'm not entirely sure which it is), which is situated right across the street from us in its own fabulous compound (which includes, I am told, an Olympic-size swimming pool. I live behind the gate. Fairly intimidating, no? The gate is enormous, and has a huge padlock on it, although I don't think I've ever seen the padlock locked. Maybe in the middle of the night they lock it. The gate guards are there 24/7 to let you in, though, so it's not as much like a prison as it looks. You can pretty much wander out and wander back in whenever you want, as I did this morning. It is pretty heavy, though, and squeaks like crazy, so I don't think you could sneak out very well. Pity.

Story Time!

2008-06-11T23:16:00.000+03:00

Faisal and the New Revival

I bought a beautiful, fabulous, amazing set of lovely Arabic children's books about the history of Saudi Arabia, and, in an effort to improve myself I am going to translate them here. I guarantee that my translations will not be perfect, or even almost perfect, but they will probably get the gist and, more importantly (to me) it will be really good practice! I'll post the translation along with pictures of the pages that have pictures. So that everyone can enjoy them! There are three series of ten. The first series is entitled, roughly, Faisal and the New Revival.

Book One: The Early Genius

A Perfect Cultured Masculinity

"An incomparable human, wealth did not make him vain, power did not blind him, and luxury did not seduce him. He remained a great man, with all of the noble meaning and generous feeling that this word carries. Giving virtue the first place in his life, he lived in tranquility, piety and justice. He did not smoke, drink or gamble, and did not involve himself in worldly affairs. He never had more than one woman, and he did not marry his second wife Queen Effat, with whom he shared forty years of love ending in his death, until his first wife had passed away. With his two wives he had eight sons. He represents perfect cultured masculinity."

It goes on from there, but I will continue with the story later! Needless to say, as someone familiar with Effat College, the namesake of the above-mentioned Queen Effat, the story of King Faisal is of great interest to me.

Mommy's tired, children. Goodnight!

Viva Italia!

2008-06-11T21:19:00.000+03:00

Business trips to exotic locations in Europe are just so hard, aren't they? As someone I met recently, would say, "Aw, bourgeois tragedy."

So, the last six months or more I've been totally, completely obsessed with the Democratic primary. I've been explaining it to all of my colleagues, who are young Saudi women, and now they're almost as well-versed in the delegate selection process as I am. I give free daily updates and scandal alerts. They all like Obama. Apparently, so does Europe. I'm not very surprised. And, just to share my two-cents, all of this talk about whether the Islamic countries think he's Muslim or not (and therefore whether he is an apostate by converting to Christianity and therefore whether he deserves instantaneous painful death) is totally ridiculous. People are more impressed that he might, unlike some people I can name, actually know something about Islam, and stop making embarrassing statements confusing major sects or lumping Muslims together in one happy terrorist family.

There was a lot of talk about Obama at this conference. And Hillary, of course, because it was all women's educators from women's schools. What a fascinating contest this was. And what a fascinating chapter for American reputation abroad. I'm with all of those, most recently Thomas Friedman, who have noted that Barack Obama, all by himself, just by existing, has improved American reputation immeasurably.

Anyway, I had a great time in Italy. The prettiest part was undoubtedly the cathedral in Milan. Totally gorgeous.

And here, to the left, a 700-year-old university courtyard attached to the University of Pavia. It always surprises me to realize "this thing is older than America." And it always reminds me of the Eddie Izzard quips from Dress to Kill about age and Americans. Two stick out. One, about renovating a building to the way it looked "almost fifty years ago." He then mimes passersby, in shock, gasping "No! No one was alive then!"

Or the one about Disney building Eurodisney and replicating the Disney castle. Izzard snidely remarks, out of the side of his mouth, in reference to the castle, "You better make it a little bigger... they've actually got them here." Yes, in Pavia they actually have 700-year-old Universities, who graduated people like Golgi (we all learned about his apparatus) and Mr. Voltae, after whom the Volt is named. Yes. People from the olden days.

And here, the bathroom in my hotel room which was, as you can see on the right, in the lounge. And there was no separate shower. So, in order to bathe onesself, you had to sit (or, i guess you could have stood) in the bathtub pictured here, and use the shower attached to the tub. Obviously, the room was intended for honeymooners or people with exhibitionist tendencies, and not for people used to showering in the privacy of, well.... privacy.

And, walking back from the Duomo on the last day, accompanied by two Saudi women, one of whom at least is fairly conservative, we walk into the middle of......the 2008 Milan Gay Pride Parade. There was some shock and awe. There were scantily dressed men in angel wings. It was a party! And if I needed something to cleanse my palette of Saudi Arabia, remind me that the rest of the world does exist somewhere on the outside, it's a gay pride parade. Nothing could be less Saudi.

As the parade faded into the distance, one of my colleagues turned and yelled after it, "See you in Jeddah!"

Ha.

Jeddah in Lavender

2008-06-02T20:39:00.001+03:00

Okay, so, fine, I'm a loser. So I didn't post for... God, for almost eight months. That's a whole lot of brilliant ideas, lost forever... or are they? This year has been..... ridiculous. In every sense of the word.

Anyway, I'd like to resurrect my blogging career by discussing something that has been bothering me ever since I noticed it. And I remember the day I noticed it clearly; I was driving with Dr. Annette out to the beach (love the beach) one bright and sunny day, and I was gazing out at the largely barren desert landscape, when suddenly, out of the corner of my eye.....purple.

What?

I turn my head, but it's gone too fast for me to catch it. But then there's another one, and this time I see it clearly.

Yes, folks, it's a purple dumpster. Actually, less purple and more a lovely shade of lavender. And, as you can probably tell from the background of this picture, there is no lavender naturally (or unnaturally) occurring in the cityscape of Jeddah, so this stands out fairly phenomenally.

So, now that I have noticed the first purple dumpster, I start seeing them everywhere. Everywhere. It seems the Municipality of Jeddah decided that, for some reason, their dumpsters weren't colorful, or obvious, enough. They used to be a boring shade of orange. Purple is clearly.... prettier. If that's what you're going for.

But it gets worse. Now that I am noticing this color purple, I have found that it isn't just the dumpsters. No, in fact everything even remotely related to trash removal is this same lovely lavender. That means roadside trash cans, brooms, dusters..... and the trash men. Yessir, the trash men are forced to wear a lovely lavender jumpsuit to deal with the lovely lavender dumpsters and sweep the roads with their lovely lavender sweepers. And I say "forced" because I can't imagine any man in their right minds voluntarily wearing outfits of this Easter-egg purple. It's rather a dainty color. And stands out appallingly. Now a days the garbage-related activity on the street is the first thing I notice.

Who, I ask, is responsible for choosing this color to thematically represent garbage? Who decided that garbage required its own color? And who thought it would be a good idea to have the garbage men match the garbage paraphernalia? And, as an aside, how demeaning is that? Yes, you manual laborers brought in from overseas, not only do you have to work long hours in the hot sun cleaning up garbage, but you will be forced to MATCH that garbage. We're color-coding you now, so that everyone will mark you for a garbage man, EVERYWHERE YOU GO. And it's not even a FLATTERING outfit, it's a dainty purple jumpsuit.

Because this is now the only thing I see as I drive through the streets, I have decided to make a video diary entitled "Jeddah in Lavender". When I find entertaining/unique trash-related occurrences, I will photograph them and post them here. We can play a game: "Find the Garbage"! For example:

Or how about....

Okay, so, it's not really a hard game. But as I find entertaining pictures I will post them here.

By the way, one of my friends knows guys who work at the company that was responsible for arranging to produce all of this stuff. Apparently they had a devil of a time getting metal, plastic and cloth all in the same shade of purple.

And, for that matter, can you imagine being the guy whose job it was to decide on the "new color of Jeddah garbage"?

All About Japan! (INCREDIBLY IRONIC)

2007-10-19T11:35:00.000+03:00

UPDATE: E/June08 - So, ha. I have to laugh at myself. I just found this in my draft folder from when I got back from Japan last October. An ironic way to leave a post, doncha think? Check it out:

Hello folks. I know I've done a pretty crummy job of keeping things updated. I will attempt to improve in the future.

In the meantime, I have a lot to report! I finished my first month of work, I had my first vacation, and I got to see one of my best friends for the first time in aaaaaaaages!

So now I'm back in Saudi doing laundry and attempting to unpack and I figure I should attempt to write down the fabulousness sometime before I forget it all.

Woopah!

2007-09-29T15:13:00.001+03:00

I've got my clothing, I've got an exit-reentry visa, I've got a lot of well-organized and well-labled binders and baby, I'm a-goin' to Japan!

Sorry for the total lack of communicatiano. I have been.... scottish dancing and eating curry! And iftaring at chilis! And... life is so good.

More to come.

Ramadan Kareem!

2007-09-17T15:42:00.000+03:00

Hello all. Sorry for the blogging hiatus for the last week or so. Things have been.... not busy, exactly, but distracting.

Ramadan mubarak everyone! Yes, the holy month of Ramadan started here in Saudi Arabia last Thursday. I did my very first intentional fast on Saturday (those of you who were around during the funness of my last Ramadan in Saudi will be aware that I have done plenty of unintentional fasting before) and I have to say that it's much harder to fast on purpose. Suddenly, food seems so very attractive when you tell yourself you can't have it. It's also not at all fun to get up at 4:30 to eat before dawn - but obviously not eating before dawn is even less pleasant. And I did more than this - I did the very typical Saudi thing, watching for maghrib (sunset prayer) on TV as the azan (call to prayer) was recited in Mecca and Medina, breaking my fast, and then I followed that with the VERY traditional (at least in modern times) Saudi sitcom of Tash ma Tash. And for those of you unfamiliar with this Saudi phenomenon, it's not quite a sitcom. It's more like SNL, in that the same actors play a variety of characters. Each episode presents some sort of tragicomic look at Saudi society; it's become quite scandalous in recent years, having a "Terror Academy" show last year and just yesterday airing a highly dramatized episode showing an honor killing.

This show is, of course, in Arabic, and in a very strong Saudi dialect of which I understand not a word (wala kalima, as we would say in Arabic). I can get the gist, though, from the fact that it is HUGELY overacted. I also hope to one day perhaps understand some of it, but since Saudi friends tell me there are bits even THEY don't understand, I feel like perhaps I will have to have patience.

Speaking of Saudi friends, my dear Dima (and her mother, grandmother, and the entire rest of her family) were kind enough to invite me to their Friday family gathering for iftar and dinner. I felt a little like I did going to meet the ex-Queen two years ago, because I knew I would be expected to speak some Arabic which, of course, is blatantly terrifying. But it turned out wonderfully. Granted, I didn't say much, but it's hard to break into a vernacular-language conversation occuring very fast and with a lot of overlap. But I took a lot in, and understood a fair amount of it (albeit generally scattered words only - putting the whole thing together will take a bit more time). Her whole family was extremely nice to me; one of the four-year-old (I think!) little girls brought over her English workbook (with lots of prodding from her father) to show me the vegetables and the milk and other supermarket items. I dunno if she was reading, or if she'd memorized it, but it was very impressive. If only American children could be taught second languages from this early an age. I also spoke to one of Dima's cousins, the only one in the house who remained fully covered the whole night (face, hair, etc). Her name was Basma, and it was a bit disconcerting to realize mid-conversation that I probably won't recognize her if I see her again, but she was delightful to talk to. And of course, Dima's grandmother and the other older members of the family were extremely friendly (apparently Dima's grandmother used to be an amazing seamstress! I ooze with jealousy.) although it was hard to communicate with them since my Arabic is stilted. In the future, inshallah, it will be better.

AND, um, aside from that, work is really picking up, which is fantastic because a) I hate being bored and b) I am figuring out what I'm doing. I am really digging in, and I think I may one day actually be good at this job!

Phew. That was a lot of random catching up. I have nothing of particular interest to announce, unfortunately, beyond the fact that I have recently discovered a fantastic not-quite-blog The News of the Weird, which collects fantastic and ridiculous news stories from around the world. I say it's a not-quite-blog since it's syndicated in a number of newspapers and does have a fair amount of journalistic integrity. I have been back-reading the archives because it's so entertaining. Here is, thus far, my favorite piece:

Good News / Bad News: Stevie Long, 4, was successful in scaring off two home invaders who had been holding a gun on his mother, her boyfriend, and four children; Stevie had quietly excused himself, put on his Mighty Morphin Power Ranger outfit, grabbed a plastic sword, and then burst on the scene, yelling, "Get away from my family!" The startled men fled empty-handed. The bad news is that a counselor, after talking to Stevie, said that the kid "fully believed he morphed" into the Power Ranger. (from News of the Weird, December 4, 2006)

Finally, I want to mention briefly that my littlest little sister is starting college today/tomorrow! Yay for Alice! Many congratulations to her, may life be lovely.

And on that note, I will go watch an episode of Star Trek and read Guns, Germs and Steel, my most recent book.

Farewell!

Mean People Are Awesome

2007-09-10T23:12:00.000+03:00

Regarding the following ridiculous and wonderful set of photographs:

Elisabeth: people are so weird.

Rachel: you mean ppl are AWESOME.

Elisabeth: i'm a mean person?

Elisabeth: what?

Rachel: no.

Rachel: by saying that they're weird you meant awesome

Elisabeth: ah.

...

Elisabeth: but yes.

Elisabeth: people are awesome

Elisabeth: and fabuloso

Rachel: AND fabuloso

Striding into the future!

2007-09-10T21:15:00.000+03:00

Hello all,

I am feeling hugely optimistic today about life and, above all, this fantastic place where I work. Sure, some things get done in interesting time, and some things aren't always wonderfully organized, and some things are frustrating and/or really entertaining, but this place is really an exciting place to be. We had new employee orientation today and it's not that they said anything that was particularly new, or motivating or inspiring, but I got to meet a lot of people that I remember from last time I was here and, more importantly, I got to meet and talk to a lot of the new employees (like me!). And there are some really, really fantastic people here. And everybody seems very excited about things. And some of the new Vice Deans seem extraordinarily positive and upbeat and energetic, and I think that will really push us into the future. Anything is possible!

And things are improving every day. What everybody has to remember when judging this place is that it was opened in 1999. That makes it less than a decade old. As one woman said to me once, can you imagine what it must have been like to be Yale College at under a decade old? They were Puritan ministers, all of them, concerned with converting the heathens and saving the world one well-covered sinful soul at a time. I recently watched a movie with Julie Andrews in it called "Hawaii," about a minister from Yale and his wife (he had to marry Julie Andrews kindof sight-unseen because missionaries were only allow to go abroad if they brought wives with them, so as to avoid being tempted by the local heathen women as they ran around bare-breasted). I mean, it was a very entertaining film. But at the end of the day, that's what Yale was like until.... I mean, pretty far on into its history. So this place is, comparatively, doing pretty darn well. Do you suppose Yale had a curriculum review process at the age of 8? Probably not. Do we? You bet your socks. Well, sortof.

Anyway, I know I spend a lot of time here commenting on how ridiculous everything is (I made my first recon mission into the men's wing the other day -- this was something different from discovering the hidden man across the hall from me -- and it turns out they have their own little coven in the middle of one of the academic buildings, where all of the male professors have their offices, and the man in charge of IT stuff, and all of that. A very useful location to be familiar with.). And some things ARE ridiculous. But for every ridiculous thing there is something fantastic. Like the fact that we apparently have a 93% retention rate, which is apparently something of a miracle, I am told.

Additionally, we are really pushing the envelope on women's education and women's place in the workplace, and i think few people outside of Saudi Arabia realize how much progress has been made. The mere fact that there ARE male professors is kindof amazing; men would never have been allowed to teach young women in the past (and sure, girls who want to take classes with male teachers still need to get permission from their fathers). We have the first undergraduate Architecture and the first Engineering programs EVER for women. We have opened three new majors in the space of the last five years, and we only graduated our first class in 2003.

I just want to highlight the fact that if there was ever in the world a place with nearly unlimited potential, it is here, and now. There really isn't a more exciting place a person like me could be working.

Inshallah things will continue to be fantastic!

In the meantime, something to add to the list of ridiculous things. Ramadan starts at the end of this week sometime (this is not the ridiculous thing), and during Ramadan all normally 8-4 hours are shortened to 10-3 (this is the ridiculous thing). So, in addition to having nearly two and a half weeks of vacation at the end of Ramadan for Eid and whatnot, classes barely meet and people barely work. All over the country. And NOW you know why I am concerned things which are left until Ramadan will never get done. I mean, I understand that people have very different priorities during Ramadan, and that is as it should be, but to practically shut everything down for a full month is... extreme, in my opinion. Especially because, coming at the beginning of the school year as Ramadan does this year, it makes it unfortunately very likely that classes won't really get any momentum going until AFTER Ramadan ends - which is late October! No wonder the Fall semester this year feels like it's going to be a mad-house.

That's all I have to say for the moment.

Mommy, there's a man in the closet!

2007-09-08T21:08:00.000+03:00

I have just discovered something: EC has an infestation of men. They are everywhere, hiding in the woodwork like hard-working pixies, or the shoemaker's elves.

I had always assumed that the office across the hall from mine was empty and not in use, since it was always locked and didn't have any sort of sign outside and because I never saw anybody using it. But today! Somebody came with a set of keys and opened it and stepped into an alternate universe! An alternate universe where there was a MAN sitting in the room, under lock and key, doing who knows what.

It was shocking and appalling. In all of my time at EC, I have never known that there were men hiding under my very nose.

Haraam!

Bite me, Rachel. If I wanna post again, I will

2007-09-07T23:43:00.000+03:00

I just made myself a sandwich for dinner, made of ingredients purchased at the store where I keeled over this afternoon.

And I just want to tell y'all....

This sandwich? It tastes like victory.

walk like a man

2007-09-07T22:23:00.000+03:00

so after surviving another summer of arabic eloquance and death at middlebury, i have now migrated back to the warmer, less civilized side of the country (god bless) and have set up shop in SF. unfortunately this is a rather lonely little shop bc the internship i was anticipating has been pushed back 2 weeks. just long enough to make spending a ridiculous amount of money on this rather lovely little apt totally unnecessary. however, i have managed to come to terms with this unfortunate waste of my (parent's) money. it was hard, but i am strong.

so ive been availing myself of the delights of san francisco. the plays, the museums, the transvestites.

on my way to SF i stopped in louisiana to visit relatives and one kind family friend warned me - upon hearing that i was living by myself in SF - "now rachel, you have to be very careful in SF. it's a big, dangerous city. someone might break into your apt and mistake you for a man."

....you know. bc the only reason id be in danger would be if i were i man.

....bc everyone in SF is gay.

get it?

anyway, parilee + boytoy moved out about a week ago, leaving me with a box of her stuff for me to mail. this i do not begrudge her, especially after remembering the various blowfish decorations and library books i left behind last time i left stanford. this box was a bit larger than my blowfish though. id say it was about two and a half feet long and a foot and a half tall. totally full. weighed as much as i do. this is not baby box. this is over-weight unhappily unmarried auntie box.

this morning's adventure commenced when i remembered that i should have mailed it on monday (i had been using it as a bedside table) and with a sudden burst of enthusiasm i decided to mail it immidiately. look at my dedication, parilee! i figured it would take all of 5 minutes - theres a post-office in my building - so i dont bother to change out of my pjs. in retrospect, i probably should have at least changed into some less see-through pants (white pants. black underwear. i am all class), but maalesh. i grab my purse and sort of kick/push the box out the door, into the elevator, and out into the main section of the building. lots of apologies all around as i almost run it into 3 different people. i get out into the lobby, and the floor goes from carpet to wood. shiny, slippery wood, and the box no longer wants to move as easily. after learning from the doorman that the post office is on the other side of the building (of course), i walk back over to the monster of a box, take a deep breath, and start pushing. its all physics, right? friction. and leverage. push with your legs. right. so i put my hands on the corners of the box closest to me, take a deep breath, and PUSH. the box moves all of 6 inches. my frictionless flipflops (which are, may i point out, attached to my feet) shoot out backwards about 2 feet. there's a timeless moment as the rest of me hovers about a foot above the ground, cartoon style, and then i drop. full frontal splat. awesome. i scramble up, sit on the box and quickly look around. gotta keep my dignity here. no one's laughing. ok. deep breaths. is there any other possible way of doing this? ............................no. ok. i am practical. i can do this. i do not care if i look like an idiot. i am above the opinions of others. i am going to get this damn box to the damn post office and send it. right now. so i get back up, and do it again. and again. every time i push the box my feet slide backwards about the same distance the box moves forward. so there i am. bent almost double, wearing a less-than-decent (but cute) pajama outfit, pushing (sort of) this gargantuan THING in a vaguely silk-worm-esq manner - 30 degree angle, 130 degree angle - across the front lobby. the bustling, busy lobby.

i dont think my dignity will ever recover.

luckily about 10 minutes into it a guard takes pity on my poor, belabored form, walks up, grabs the box (without even a mother may I) and carries it the rest of the way with me trotting along behind him. i must have thanked him 20 times.

of course once i get to the post office i am informed that the box is not strong enough to be shipped. so, sitting down in the middle of a california state post office in my pajamas i proceed to unpack parilee's entire life and pack it up into 3 other, smaller boxes. an hour and much attention later, ive earned twenty million friend points, the postal lady hates me and ive managed to send all three boxes. success! i rock.

more normal adventures include wandering SF, exploring the MOMA (mmmmmmmmyum), forgetting to go to jersey boys, buying a new ticket, going to jersey boys, and wearing my new cute work shoes everywhere but to work. oh and i figured out how to use my oven AND my laundry machine. i give you permission to admire me from afar.

oh! and i have the california state YOYO championship to go to tomorrow. how much do you wish you were me right now. yeah. thats what i thought.

Shop 'Til You Drop

2007-09-07T21:39:00.000+03:00

So. This is an embarrassing post, because it's an embarrassing situation. Let me just quickly say that Dima is officially my favorite person in the universe. And I am officially .... not cool.

I was so proud of myself earlier today, too. I actually managed to feed myself! I cooked noodles, put a bunch of sauce on them and voila! my first meal in my new home! I sent everybody I know giant letters about how much I rock, and how super competent I am. And then Dima, bless her soul, agreed to go shopping with me (we both had to go to Jarir and Panda so we decided to do a joint trip even though her stuff took a lot less time than mine did - she's friendly like that).

So we went to Jarir, we went to Panda and... wow. We had both forgotten that school starts TOMORROW. So everyone in the universe was out getting school supplies from Jarir and groceries from Panda. And add on top of that the fact that Ramadan starts at the end of this week and.... well, it was a madhouse. The largest quantity of Saudis I've seen in one shopping mall in a while... and that's saying something.

And I guess the combo of all of this got to me in the end because as we stood in the checkout line, after an hour of shoving our way through people and looking for groceries, I started to feel dizzy. And then I was dreaming happily...and then I was being rudely reawakened by Dima, since I had passed out on the floor. And then I was dreaming again. And then I was passed out. And then I was sitting in the makeup aisle while Dima ran to get me a couple of little bottles of orange juice, which I chugged sitting on the floor. And then... well, then I was fine, and we bought the stuff, and brought it up here, and whatnot and... here I am.

This happened once to my sister in the gold souq in Riyadh. Only she got a giant gold bracelet out of it, and I just had to pay for all of my groceries. Good times. At least the floor in the makeup aisle was cleaner than the floor of the shop in the gold souq.

A good time, overall. Especially the dreaming bits. I feel like they were interesting dreams, if only I could remember them.

So. As Dima said afterwards, "Talk about shop 'til you drop!"

Amen, sister.

Change of Plans

2007-09-06T12:31:00.000+03:00

Hi all.

I woke up at 7 so tired I could barely move, and I decided that no beach was worth this. So I begged out, and slept another five hours, and I feel GOOD. New projects for the weekend will have to be a) work stuff, b) find food (I'm responsible for my own food now!), c) .... yeah that might be it.

In very interesting news, the Arab News ran a piece yesterday (which I can't find online or I would link to it) that stated that Nepal Airlines sacrificed two goats yesterday to the Hindu sky deity. Apparently they've been having trouble with their airplanes. May their God be appeased.

UPDATE: I found this article cited on the Reuters site - Rachel found it and sent it to me. Ah, it's good to have a sister that thinks the same way you do.

Yes, that's all I've got for now. It's a lovely afternoon and I intend to enjoy it.

They Call Me THE WHITE CHICK

2007-09-05T23:24:00.000+03:00

Even though I'm tired, it is imperative that I record the ridiculousness of the evening so that I can remember it later. And it was a ridiculous evening. I really love Team Fabulous. And I think there's an excellent chance that we actually will start bowling on a weekly basis. We ended up going bowling and then going to dinner at a new restaraunt (affiliated with Pizzaria UNO) called the Chicago Grill which is kindof down the street from the bowling alley. Overall, a fantastic evening.

So we went to this place called Ice Land (two words) where they have a bowling alley. Near as I can tell, there is no reason to call it ice land. maybe there's a skating rink in there somewhere? I dunno. Anyway.... man, my typing is screwy now. The computer they put in my office is mainly Arabic, which means that the formatting in Word is all screwy and works backwards, even when you are typing in English. This means that in order to move the cursor this way -------> I have to push the button this way <-------- . So now I've gotten used to doing that and so here, on my nice English computer, I keep moving the cursor in the wrong direction. Anyhow, so we went to Ice Land. And by the way, apparently I cover my head like a pro now. Yes, Dima says she could barely tell I was a white girl. Go me! And, what's even stranger is that it no longer feels weird to have it on. I haven't gotten to the point where I feel naked without it - please, God, spare me that - but it doesn't feel bizarre any more. And I can get it to stay on pretty well, too. Yessir, I am on my way to being Saudi. And, if I do say so myself, I don't look half bad with a covered head.

So we found the bowling alley (with a sheesha bar attached) and got shoes and hiked up our abayas and went and bowled. And it was lovely. We were all quite bad, but it was a good time anyway.

The hilight in terms of entertaining comments must have been Dima. I got two gutterballs in a row, giving me a fancy zero on my scorecard, to which Dima says: "It's because you're a Christian." Thank you Dima, for that religiously tolerant point of view. Ah, it's good to know that your friends love you and are willing to keep you company in hell.

Also, we got to come up with bowling names. Dima was Dimzi (shocker), and Penny was... Penny.... and Mona was Melvi... so none of these are surprising. I suggested the Bozinator as mine, but instead they decided to name me The White Chick, and I think unfortunately that that name might stick.

Plus, we were endlessly entertained by the group of guys (two brothers and a third) who were "bowling" in the alley two down from us, who kept staring at us. Well, when I say "us" I mean "me". They were blatently staring at me. Like, STARING. Not surreptitious glances. Full-on can't-take-my-eyes-off-you staring. It was creepy. Luckily, they were young and stupid and had greasy hair, so I found it difficult to take them seriously.

I did, however, manage to secretly get a picture of them when I was pretending to take a picture of Dima (you can also see them laughing in the background of the picture of me, above, although it's not that clear).

There was also a little girl (teeny tiny) who seemed entranced by the whiteness of my skin. Apparently, I am noticable. Who knew? We spent some time sitting in chairs, as well (Penny compared the lounge area to an airport lounge, and I feel like she was pretty spot on) and hanging out, because of course it is haram to bowl during salat. When we were taking our shoes off at the end of the bowling extravaganza creepy guy came over and sat down right next to Melvi, despite the huge number of empty chairs that were available. I almost threw a very American fit and hit him in the face, but I wasn't mad so much as I was entertained, so whatever. Be creepy, creepy guy. Maybe if you stare at me long enough I'll go out with you. And then we went and hung around Toys 'R' Us for a while, playing with stuffed animals and fencing with foam swords and generally making a nuisance of ourselves (it's good to be silly) and then drove over to the restaraunt, where we had to beg to be let in because it was 'isha prayer and everything was locked, but when Dima looked pathetic and said "but the Ministry [of Preventing Vice and Promoting Virtue] will come take us away if we just stand out here!" they let us in the back and we got to sit down, cackling. And eat and drink and be merry. As one does.

Also, I am sortof a teeny bit learning my way around! Like, I know now three things that are on the same road with Ice Land, PLUS I accurately identified al-Andalus street and knew that there was a Panda on the other side of the ship roundabout. Heck, I practically know this city like the back of my hand already.

Future plans, however, include stealing a map of Jeddah from Dima and posting important landmarks all over it (namely malls and roundabouts and restaraunts) so that I can find my way around when the girls and their lovely drivers aren't there to drive me around. And Dima's driver Ramadan blatantly laughed at me today when I was singing "I will survive" loudly (and probably obnoxiously) in the parking lot of the Chicago Grill while we waited for Melvi's driver to show up. I think he finds me entertaining. Which is good. I like to endear myself to the people who are capable of transporting me.

Tomorrow we're off to the beach! Me and Dr. Annette, and some of the other staff here in the residence. It should be a good time... if I can avoid getting burned as thoroughly as I did this time of year LAST time I was in Jeddah; my face swelled up so that I looked like some kind of lobster-colored caveman. It was quite attractive. I hope to avoid that look this year. But I have to get up really early to get there (8:30 - who gets up at 8:30 to go to the BEACH?) so I'm off to bed now. Although to be fair I'll probably get to the beach and take a nap in the sun.

I was talking to Dr. Annette today about travel plans. That woman has gone EVERYWHERE. She is my travel guru. This past summer she and a bunch of highschool friends walked a couple of days from the border of Portugal into Spain to a pilgrimage site that has been around since the Middle Ages. Dr. Annette, her friends, and a stream of pilgrims, all wandering down a dusty road in southern Spain. How cool! I seriously want to do this sometime. Anybody with me? That's it for now. Off to bed.

Day Two: still kicking, like a kicking rockstar!

2007-09-03T07:21:00.000+03:00

I don't have much ridiculousness to report yet from the work end. There's a ton of stuff I have to do, but I feel like that's a good thing, since I spend eight hours (or more) a day doing it. So, yes. Work is satisfactory. What is MORE satisfactory is the overall way I spent yesterday. Here is my schedule.

7am - wake up (sortof)
7:15am - wake up again
7:30am - wake up for real, put on clothing
8:00am - work begins (it's bad news, don't you think, that I am already pushing the limits of how late I can get up, and it's only my third day?)
4:00pm - work ends. Stuff happened in between, but none of it is worth commenting on here.
5:00pm - I go out!
7:00pm - I come home
7:30pm - I go out again!
11:30pm - I come home

LOOK at me. I am so BUSY. and FANCY. and COOL.

Okay, so let me tell you about my excursions. The first was a landmark event - the first time in my more-than-five-years in Saudi that I went out of the house alone. Obviously, I had a driver, but the important element is that when I got to the mall, I got out alone, I went in alone, and I did my shopping alone! Last time I was here as a student I was required to bring a maid with me whenever I left the dorm, and before that when I was here with the family I can't imagine why I would have gone out without a family member or a friend... so! I am finally a free and independent woman. Doing my own shopping, buying some books and laundry detergent AND A SIM CARD. OH YEAH BABY. I have a cell phone. It is such a relief. Not having a cell phone made me feel like I was missing a limb. In Saudi, the cell phone is, in fact, a limb, and without it.... I arrived three days ago, and yet whenever I tell people I don't have a mobile they look at me like I've just told them I didn't bring any clothing with me. Yes folks, not only am I going to work naked, but I am doing it WITHOUT A CELL PHONE. The horrors!

Of course, for the first hour or two of owning this SIM card it wasn't working, and I was throwing myself hither and yon in frustration, wailing and gnashing my teeth. But then Penny, darling lovely Penny, touched it with her magic fingers and suddenly it worked. Ah, the joys.

So after my adventurous single-woman excursion, Mona picked me up for a Team Fabulous dinner at Caspar & Gambini's, the neat modern restaraunt that I enjoyed so much last time I was here. I had mint with lime (yum!) for the first time this trip (I will have to learn how to make it) and met one of Penny's friends, Lamees, who seems fantastic. I'm making new friends already!

Also, for reasons I cannot reveal, I may be required to go to Hyderabad, India this summer. Who? Oh yeah. That would be me. Ha! Writhe in jealousy, you wanna-be awesome people! I am the real deal! I'm so awesome I get to go to India over the summer! here will be an event. And I am going to be the weird white girl who dresses in a sari and makes a fool of herself for her friend's entertainment. There was some discussion that pole dancing might be involved, but I think that before I go that far I should probably take some pole dancing lessons. After all, if I'm going to be a shameless American hussy, I should at least do it with style. It would be really embarrassing to be an awkward shameless American hussy.

Anyone know of pole dancing classes in Saudi Arabia?

There are a ton of other plans in the works which are all very exciting. Suffice it to say my sister was jealous of me yesterday. And this is the sister who spent last year in Cairo smoking shisha and being awesome. She's jealous of ME. Ha!

Okay, off to work! Hopefully I will get some time to sit around and be bored this afternoon, maybe do some laundry, take a nap, etc. Being fabulously popular and busy takes its toll on a girl after a while.

Bwahahahahahah!

I am Employable!

2007-09-02T00:31:00.001+03:00

Hey there blog fans, something amazing happened today. I began my employment, which implies that I am employable. Can we say ego boost?

Of course, since this is Saudi Arabia, nothing is simple or to be taken for granted, so of course my first day was full of its own joyful ridiculousness.

They sent me to go get pictures taken and blood drawn. Of course, nobody bothered to tell ME this was where they were sending me - instead, they talked about it in Arabic all around me, so that I vaguely had some idea of what was going on, and then they sent me out with a driver who didn't speak much English, and I guess I was just supposed to assume he knew what he was doing. Luckily, he did. Thank goodness for trustworthy, competent drivers. Where would we be without them?

Not that it was clear to me in the beginning that he was competent or trustworthy. He took me to a supermarket first. "Okay," I think to myself, "he probably has an errand to run or something." But he motions me out of the car. Or, I think he motions me out of the car - it was pretty unclear exactly what he was trying to communicate to me, but I got out of the car anyway and followed him in. We walk towards the fruit. "Ah," I think, "I'm an idiot - he only wanted to buy himself something to eat. I shouldn't have come in." But we move further back, into the vegetable oil section (since it's near Ramadan every single supermarket in the universe is selling vegetable oil by the gallon. I, myself, bought a full 4 litres the other day because it was the SMALLEST QUANTITY AVAILABLE). And then through the vegetable oil section into the non-food section. "Okay..." I think, "We're here to buy.... a microwave. Clothing for his children. A tent for camping...." And then, in the midst of my confusion, we arrive in the back corner of the store where a teeeeeeny tiny little camera shop has been cleverly hidden. And in this teeeeeny tiny little camera shop there is a man who doesn't speak, and his camera and computer and a printer. So he takes a picture of me, downloads it onto his camera and starts... airbrushing my face. "It's okay," I say, "I am just using this for my igama, it's not necessary for you to touch it up." And the picture on the screen is gigantic, you can practically see my pores from where I'm standing all the way across the room, and the driver is standing there, and you can tell that he thinks it's really awkward that this guy is scrutinizing my enormous digital face right in front of me. And I agree. Awkward. The guy finally looks up from my nose and forehead in order to tell me he has to fix my face because of the pimples. Pimples! Well, I'll be. He knows at least one word. And thanks, dude, for talking about my acne (which, by the way, is not that bad, thank you very much) in front of my random driver and... I mean, come on, just print the stupid pictures, I don't want to stand here looking at my giant face any longer!

So, that was a good time.

And then on to the blood-letting. I went to a Bangladeshi clinic where the woman at reception spoke some language which was neither Bengali nor English but some incomprehensible amalgam of the two, and directed me to give her my igama repeatedly, which I repeatedly said I didn't yet have, explaining that this was why i needed the blood tests. And after lots of wrangling I got sent upstairs to room number 8 where my blood was drawn unceremoniously. But I was impressed by the amount I was not afraid of getting random diseases from dirty needles. Everything seemed a lot less sterile than I am used to, but not so much as to be actually dangerous.

SO, yes. All was good on my first day. Of course, not much got actually accomplished, but at least I'm on my way. Striding forward.

Money, Money, Money

2007-08-31T16:07:00.000+03:00

Must be funny... in a rich man's world.

Note: You can tell that Saudi is a cash culture because at an ATM you have the option of taking out anywhere up to about SR5000, which is more than $1000. Gotta love it. You buy your CAR with cash here.

Exciting!

2007-08-31T14:05:00.000+03:00

Elisabeth here. Posting from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

I had to wait a day to post this because I was too tired to infuse a post with all of the enthusiasm it deserved. I have arrived! Let me repeat that:

I HAVE ARRIVED!

I'm also hungry. One moment while I fetch myself some leftover chicken...

...

Yum. Anyway, so, I arrived in Jeddah last night, at the airport. I was exhausted, because my BMI flight over was less than fantastic. So those blankets that they wrap in plastic and give to you? Yeah, not actually clean. In fact, my pillow was disgusting also. Both my blanket and my pillow were covered in crustiness and... well, it was totally gross. They gave me new blankets and pillows when I complained, but it's not like I trusted the plastic wrapping to guarantee cleanliness any more. And I didn't have any free seats next to me, so I had to sit up the whole time. You can tell I'm getting spoiled when I complain about having to sit up the whole time.

I did, however, finish a fantastic fantastic book. Waiting for Snow in Havana by Carlos Eire. Who happens to have been my professor for Reformation Europe last year. He is a great lecturer, extremely entertaining, and his writing is FANTASTIC. Highly recommended. Very, very interesting.

I just opened the curtain on my window and guess what? NO BARS! And not even fogged out! I have a giant window that looks right out onto the fabulousness of Effat's back yard! Now I can REALLY tell I'm staff rather than student!

I am so easily distracted. I wanted to tell you about my chicken but it would ruin the surprise.

SO, I get off the mostly-uncomfortable BMI flight (and my neck is killing me, by the way. Whiplash! Yay!) and into the Jeddah airport, where everything goes fine until the guy at passport control asks me "You have baber?"

Huh? I mean, I get that he's asking for a paper. But... well, I'm carrying many papers, and none of them were specifically designated as "papers for the passport guy". So I say no, I don't have the baber, and he sends me over somewhere else. I start to panic, but in a quiet way.

Luckily, after giving another guy my passport and him staring at it for a "buttock-clenching" fifteen minutes (I got this phrase off of BBC's Planet Earth, and I am now very fond of it) he stamped it and waved me through. And then there I was, in the baggage claim area, waiting for some random Samir to identify himself to me and take me away. Now, I can probably get in a cab and be okay on my own, thank God, but it's much easier to go through customs if you have a man there with you, because the security guards hardly ever stop somebody with an official-looking helper-person. And this was particularly important for me, since I had a load of DVDs and a couple of books that I would really rather not have taken away from me...

As luck would have it, my British SIM card would let me make calls in Saudi, for some exhorbitant price, so I called Samir. And, in the 15 seconds of air time that my three quid bought me, we established that he was standing right next to me. Phew.

So, we find my bag, blah blah blah, boringness, and I am totally zoned out, thanking God it was this easy, as we walk out of customs. And then I hear a loud cough. And another one. And I look around, and I have just walked past a giant sign that says

LIZ

And next to it another one which says "Alizabet Bosley. Efat Tugz". And behind it, Penny and Melvi and Dima! Team Fabulous came to meet me at the airport! Well, everything was happy after that. Of course, I had my own EC car to take me here, so I came here, and they followed me, stopping off for Al-Beik on the way! So now you know the secret of how I come to have chicken in my fridge! I had Team Fabulous and Al-Beik my first day here! It was like a dream come true! I think somebody took a picture of me, looking rapturous, as I bit into my chicken sandwich for the first time in a year and that sweet taste of garlic filled my mouth.

And then, of course, they stayed much too late in my new residence and poor Dima got locked in, which meant we had to wake up Mrs. Inaam to let her out. Yes! Mrs. Inaam! I bet she loves me already!

Woohaha. Causing trouble in the big city already. I am such a rebel.

Speaking of residences, the room is really sweet. Two levels - bed on top, bathroom, kitchenette, and seating area downstairs. And an air conditioner with a remote control. I am so high tech!

Aaaaaand... yeah, that's about it. The most exciting thing to happen post- al-Beik was the discovery that my phones DO have a number, and now I know what it is, so anybody who wants to call my land line, let me know and I will give you the numero. Of course, with luck, I will never be in my room. Not that it isn't lovely. And! Free internet! Ah, how things have advanced while I was away!

This afternoon will involve my first foray into Jeddah proper, as we go find a Panda of some sort so that I can buy shampoo, and toothpaste, and some food, and some laundry detergent. All of the essentials.

So, now that you are all up-to-date, I am going to get back to unpacking my tiny 20kg suitcase which has to last me the three weeks until I get my iqama and can claim my shipment of everything I own. And maybe write down a list of things I have to do. I love lists!

The end.

Ahoy, ye sandy seas!

2007-08-16T16:18:00.000+03:00

As everyone in my family is well aware, we have a problem. We are addicted to the Middle East. And, since Rachel left Cairo last year, the family presence in the region has been sadly.... diminished. Thus I am taking one for the team and returning.

Three things I am excited about:

1) bilingual business cards
2) tupperware
3) frequent flyer miles

(4) going to the Amazon. one day.)

Shut up. I'm allowed to have four things if I want.

aaaaaaaaaaand im leaving

2007-05-30T13:34:00.000+03:00

a friend of mine asked - in complete seriousness im sure - for a final report on all things accomplished in egpyt. boredom overcame my original idea to send him the script from cleopatra, and the list can be found below. you can make up your own mind as to how much is true. and there are def parts in there that you shouldnt even bother trying to understand. my tendancy to have running inside jokes with myself can get away from me at times.

Things accomplished in cairo:

Learned to cook eggs
Married 3 egyptian men. Divorced 1. Had nothing to do with the mysterious disappearances of the other 2.

Worked 7 hours total

Spent so much time at marriot pool there is now a drink named after me

Attempted 1 military coup

Bribed 2 guards

Was thrown out of 1 govt institution as result of failed bribe

Was arrested at 1 jordanian border checkpoint

Learned 3 arabic curse words

Learned 4 arabic words total

Amended the constitution – with connie’s permission – to allow study abroad American female students to inherit presidency from Mubarak in place of mubarak’s son

Imprisoned 8 members of muslim brotherhood

Had 5 conversations with cab drivers concerning universal hatred of pres. bush

Had 1 conversation with cab driver concerning American culture = premarital sex

Attempted to bargain 19876 times

Succeeded at bargaining 0 times

Discovered the art of cutting mangos (YES)

Called internet company 56879 times over period of 3 months. Was issued 1 restraining order after supposedly “threatening” said internet company operator

Discovered the label I should be shooting for is not “hipster” but “stoner”

Developed ‘glare of death’ – only to be used on level 10 creepy Egyptian dudes

Declared war on 1 zionist entity (necessary when staying in egypt)

Rejected 6 attempted converstions to islam

Seriously offended 5 pious muslims

Was subject of 1 unnecessary mass email to dorm list concerning Hispanics (hah)

Was charged but never convicted with burying 1 evil RA – with a bit more silicone then is natural if you know what I mean – alive under pyramids

Converted 1 egyptian to American consumerism = devil worship

Participated in 1 riot

Spent 4 weekends camping in desert

Rolled down 11 sand dunes (awesome)

Fell down 5 (trickly little devils)

Ruined 1 ipod

Killed 1 computer battery (bloody...macs...)

Traveled to 1 malarial infected region

Took 0 doses of malaria medication

Was checked into 1 egyptian hospital

Smoked 1356 shishas

Was informed only prostitutes go to favorite shisha café

Disregarded above information

Was propositioned 11 times

Accepted 1 proposition in exchange for private jet

Crashed 1 private jet in sahara desert

Ate 1 pilot after crashing private jet in sahara without food (tastes like chicken)

Died 1 tragic death

A random something.

2007-05-12T09:05:00.000+03:00

ملء السنابل ينحنين تواضعا والفرغات رؤوسهن عوالى
"The wheat greans that are full (of wheat) bend down
And those that are empty, their heads are high."

I got this from a friend today and thought it was lovely (and appropriate to so so so many people).

Also, I am officially done with college. Assuming I didn't fail any of the things I just turned in, I'll be all graduated within three weeks. And then it's off to the real world with me (or as "real" as you can really call Saudi Arabia).

Foreign types with the hookah pipes say - Walk Like an Egyptian

2007-05-10T14:26:00.000+03:00

my taxi driver this morning was entertaining. i flag him down and lean in the windown - "gama'at amrikia?" he nods his head and i jump in as the car behind us gets bored with waiting and leans on their horn. "shukran" i tell the taxi driver - i am always polite. he nods his head and turns his music up. and starts singing along. loudly. this only lasts for a few minutes though before he turns the music back down and starts singing his own, special little song. "bonjour papa bonjour mama!" he yells. then later "jackie chan!" this is, mind you, what i caught. totally didnt understand most of it. he is also steering the car with his knee most of the time as he gestures wildly at the other cars and motions to imaginary figures in the seat next to him.

i tell you this not because this is very unusual - while this taxi driver might have come across as a bit less mentally competant than your average egyptian, he is by no means unique among taxi drivers. ive had taxi drivers drive me to the wrong side of the city, on purpose. theyve insulted me and asked me to marry them, marry their sons. one tried to discuss pre-marital sex in america with me, and then ended the conversation with a proposition. theyve run into things and ppl and down the wrong side of the road, usually at speeds i try not to think about. but this is egypt - no one is totally sane here. i recently met a friend of a friend who was visiting egypt for a conference i (sort of) attended and she made an observation that i think will communicate the general feel of cairo fairly well. being in egypt is very much like being the only sober person at a party where every single person is on LSD. and totally hammered. if you stay at the party long enough, and partake in the entertainment, the party will begin to make more sense to you. but there's no way youll ever catch up to them - theyve had waay too much of a head start.

Hey sweet annie, dont take it so bad

2007-05-10T13:55:00.000+03:00

you know that summers coming soon
though {CAIRO} is choking under salt and dirty sand
and it seems the sun is hiding from the moon
your daddy told you when you were a girl the kind of things that come to those who wait
so give it a rest girl, take a deep breath girl...

not too deep though. less than a month to go! ok ive passed the nostalgic phase and i have entered the GET ME OUT OF HERE phase. not that im not planning on attending that rooftop shisha partay tonight. sweeeeeeeeeeet.

so i live on this island in the nile called zamalek. its one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in cairo so, i mean, it tries at least. at life. and other things. it sort of failed last week though when someone managed to cut off electricity to the ENTIRE ISLAND. and guess where i was at the time. i was in an elevator. between floors. with 2 egyptian guys. there i am just minding my own business - ive got my headphones in, listening to the kinks or something and doing my best to ignore the two other ppl im crammed into this 2 foot wide elevator with when suddenly: total darkness. and the elevator stops moving. and that lovely cairo summer heat hits us. now elevators in egypt dont have doors so we knew by the concrete wall where the door to a floor should have been that we were between floors. and i understood from a conversation one of the egyptian dudes had via cell phone that the electricity was out on the entire island, and that it could last for 2 and a half - 3 hrs. i am briefly hysterical at the thought of spending that much quality time with the other elevator occupants. one of the egyptian guys informed us authoritatively that we would run out of air shortly (which was total bull - i doubt even the places in egypt that are SUPPOSED to be airtight actually are) but it was enough to get the other dude panicking. after listening to him hyperventilating for about 3 minutes, i put my headphones back in and tried not to make comparisons to coffins, or think about whether egyptian elevators required electricity to stay up. it took us about an hour to get in contact with the building management - they dont have emergency elevator phones in egypt. and the bowabs hadnt bothered to check the elevators when the electricity went out, instead deciding to congregate on the bottom floor and have lunch. but we did eventually manage to get out when i got a friend to inform them of our predicament and they manually lowered the elevator enough for us to squeeze out onto the 17th floor. definately a bad day to wear a skirt. in my quest to find someone to let building management know that there were ppl suffocating in an elevator 18 floors up i called about 10 of my friends.

me: hey hey how are you doing
friend/potential rescuer: good good whatsup
me: well... im ok. you arent, by any chance, near my building are you?
friend: ummm no im at school/work/the zoo/another country
me: riiiiiiiiight...so you arent going to be near the building anytime soon, are you?
friend: no... why? ...is that someone crying in the background?
me: yeah well im sort of trapped. in an elevator. with 2 strange egyptian men. its dark and about 100 degrees... and no one knows we're here. you know, bc zamalek has lost electricity. i dont suppose there's a coup going on or anything, is there?
friend: i dont know... i could check i guess.

unfortunately no coup... no explanation either. ah well such is cairo. i suppose im lucky they could figure out how to move the elevator sans electricity instead of just saying "ma'alesh" and leaving us in there. this was followed, of course, with me having to walk down 17 flights of stairs. bitches.

Apathesia

2007-04-30T15:22:00.000+03:00

is that a word? hmmm i dont care. why? because i am feeling, well, apathetic. this is very strange for me... but i currently seem to be apathetic about pretty much everything. politics. what country im in. what language im speaking. guys. friends. who i hang out with. what we do. whether i do anything. even what music im listening to! well, within limits of course. im not going to be listening to beyonce anytime soon... paradoxically, i actually have motivation to do school work and read those interesting books i could never quite get up the energy to read. i dont know how i feel about this new state of being - mainly because i cant quite get up the energy to care. as a result of this new motivation i am actually getting rather excited about middlebury this summer. hmm. im doing my school work and dont really care about my tan............ the pollution in cairo must finally be affecting my brain. tragic.

oh, there is one thing i am faaaaaaaar from apathetic about. get ready. get excited. ALICE IS COMING TO STANFORD. hold on class of 2011. 2011. blech. i can barely say it. not that i can really say anything with this 'class of 2009' label i keep dodging. its all very unfortunate. anyway im kind of ridiculously excited about my younger sister being at the same college as me for TWO YEARS i cant wait to be the "cool (slightly corrupting?) older sister" i know i was destined to be. no really. so next year is going to be sweet. immidiate family! on my side of the country! (in the SAME country!) will the wonders never cease.

sooooooo yeah life is good, if a little low key. no emotional drama. whats with that? not that i live a very drama-filled life normally or anything. but i usually have, well, feelings on different subjects, she says being deliberately vague.

ah well.

oh! wait i have a good story that definately provoked some feelings. soooo i have a group of guy friends i hang out with from time to time and one of them had a party a while back where he met a girl friend of mine. we'll call them... ahmad and sara, ok? going for the generic here. anyway ahmad meets sara and decides that she's cute, whatever - wants to see her again, wants her to come out with us, wants to have her children, etc. i convey this msg to sara like the good friend i am, and she expresses a certain amount of...distaste for the idea. apparently this 'my chemical romance' was not meant to be. i hesitate to convey this msg back to ahamd, however, bc of the awkward reactions he has had to similar situations in the past.

ahmad: well, did you ask her?
me: yeah...
ahmad: sweet when are we getting together
me: well, here's the thing... she's not really interested
ahmad: you told me she didnt have a boyfriend
me: yeah...
ahmad: so whats the problem?
me: she's just not interested. in you.
ahmad: i..dont...understand...

ah sweet self-confidence... so anyway i put off discussing the matter with him, figuring sara and i were leaving soon anyway so i could preserve the sweet memory he had of sara by just not having them see each other ever again. good plan? well mumkin not. ahmad was a bit more persistant than i expected him to be - it got to the point where he was calling me up preeetty regularly wondering why we werent hanging out with sara. and again at this point it was too late for me to make up some ficticious boy friend bc im good friends with sara and it would be a little weird for her to have a bf i just happened not to know about for the last 4 weeks/ had forgotten to mention. sooooooooo anyway (this is all quite a build-up and i apologize) i was in a cab with another friend of mine and somehow this topic came up and i explained my entire predicament to her, in full. you know, i didnt want to hurt ahmad's feelings but dammit sara just did NOT find him attractive, but it had been so long that i really didnt have any excuse not to do SOMETHING, etc. about 3 min after we had moved on to a diff subject my phone beeps at me - txt msg received. i take it out. speak of the devil! its a msg from ahmad himself. a little confusing though... it reads "interesting conversation. check your phone". "whatever could he mean by this?" rachel asks in confusion. then, a lightbulb of comprehension goes off. no! its impossible... but she has to check anyway. yes! somehow, as a result of some still undiscovered event, my phone had CALLED ahmad JUST AS WE WERE HAVING THAT CONVERSATION. and ahmad heard THE WHOLE THING. now, i never lock my phone, so admittedly the phone does random things by itself sometimes. but, i mean, HOW did this happen. ahmad (remember, not his real name!) is not the first name in my phone book. he was also not the last person i called or the last person who called me or the first on any possible list my phone could have accidently opened to by itself. soooooooo basically god decided to step in and solve my mushkalla for me, in the most honest way possible. now ahmad knows EXACTLY what sara thinks of him. he also knows exactly what i think of him. luckily i like him (thank god) so i didnt say anything too harsh. i mean, there was a word or two i might have edited out has i known he was going to HEAR the whole thing, but honestly who predicts these things? but yeah... definately spent a few hours there torn between being hugely amused at the whole situation and dying of embarassment.

so, i still have the capacity to feel, is basically the moral of this story.

oh and dont worry we're still friends. because i know you were all really worried about that. but come on. awkward situation much?

getting deep

2007-04-26T00:19:00.000+03:00

so im leaving cairo in a little over a month and ive started looking at things in a 'soon all of this will be but a distant memory' sort of light. suddenly everything is rosy! well, sort of... i mean, we ARE still talking cairo here. im reminded of my very last time ice skating before my family moved to saudi way the hell back when - i remember putting on my ice skates and very deliberately and with great ceremony stepping out onto the ice with the full knowledge that it would be the last time in a long time. (riyadh has one ice skating rink and its men-only. obviously the site of a woman in ice skates would be too much for your average saudi guy to handle.) i reeeeeally liked ice skating, so my last skate was very dramatic. saying goodbye to the ice and all that. the best metaphore i could come up with at the time - as a 5th grader - was the typical comparison to flying, but i have to say that 10 years later i havent found a metaphore thats much better. of course we're talking flying not in the tiny-bird-frantically-pumping-to-stay-aloft sort of flying but in the im-an-ignorant-land-animal-who-knows-nothing-about-flying sort of flying. ice skating... dude ice skating was FUN. but anyway i feel like everything i do in cairo now is really deliberate. im actually paying attention (unusual for me) so as to be able to describe it to ppl back home. although most of cairo is pretty much indescribable. aaand thats not necessarily a compliment. but dammit im going to MISS cairo. yeah i very much have a love-hate relationship with this crowded, polluted city full of obnoxious men and with the general efficiency of a toaster oven feeding the entire NFL, but it sure as hell has aspects to it i have never found - nor anticipate finding - anywhere else in the world. and trust me, ive looked. so it looks like ill be back here eventually - inshallah for CASA. lets all cross our fingers, shall we?

ok it is now 11:39pm and i am giving up my previous plan of going to the gym and heading home to dance around in my room a bit (thats for you libby) and then crawl into bed and finish my musharraf book. the excitement of my life overwhelms me at times... but hey whatever floats your boat. and my boat is currently floating on the barenaked ladies, a soft pillow and pakistan's war on terror. bite me.

Phooey

2007-04-23T15:01:00.000+03:00

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

i just wrote a blog. and then bc my DAMN COMPUTER is broken and can no longer function unless its plugged into the wall, of course i knocked the plug out. losing everything i had just written. DEATH. there is a vast mac conspiracy to DRIVE ME INSANE. and i bet the egyptian govt is in on it.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

so. i am certainly not going to re-type all of that. suffice to say there was some deep thought. and some not-so deep thought. and a political rant, which was a first. obviously it was not meant to be. god is telling me something.

anyway shout out to anybody who made my younger sister's admit weekend at stanford entertaining.

so today is 'international day' at AUC. spare me. the saudi tent brought a camel onto campus. i think thats rather presumptuous of them... i mean, saudi is certainly not the only country that has camels. there's also a horse and carriage which a) is really random b) how did they even get that on campus? i feel like they would have to disassemble it just to fit it through the gate and c) the entire courtyard is covered by stairs so unless that is a very special horse, that carriage has about a 3 foot radius to move around in. but no big deal. the norwegian tent had waffles. and the american tent tent set the iraqi tent on fire. kidding kidding just kidding.

generally, life is still continuing as far as i know. i suppose there's always the possbility that im in a continuous loop of what is the last day of my life bc my mind refuses to accept death. star trek anyone? anyone? but assuming that this is not actually the case, cairo is still standing. im reading about 5 books at once because when you dont have internet in your apt you need to be REALLY dedicated to find enough ways to procrastinate. and so far so good on the malaria front. thought maybe i had it last thursday but it turns out that i just had to let athena out of my head.

ok im bored of blogging now. sry youre only getting appreciate about a quarter of the actual effort that went into this blog, try not to be too bummed about it. aaaaaaaand im off to lunch. maasalama

A Triumphant Return!

2007-04-15T06:00:00.000+03:00

Hello there blogland. It's been nearly a year since I last had anything interesting enough to say to merit a post. Life in an American university is certainly not a bad experience, but it doesn't provide the day-to-day excitement of life in Saudi Arabia. Mostly, my year has been spent getting ready to graduate and wishing, desperately, that I had already done so.

And now I have exciting news to announce: next year I will be returning from whence I came. Yes, the prodigal daughter is going back to Saudi Arabia, this time as an employee, to be "Coordinator of International Partnerships." I am really, really excited.

More to come.

So please be kind if i'm a mess. Cigarettes and Chocolate milk

2007-04-10T14:37:00.000+03:00

cigarettes and chocolate milk - these are just a couple of my cravings. everything it seems i like is a little bit stronger a little bit thicker a little bit harmful for me.

speaking of rufus wainwright i rode a motorcycle for the first time yesterday! and i know i know donorcycles straight from the devil 103% chance of fatality etcetc but dude it was FUN. motorcycles are sort of the thai version of taxis so we took one from the pier to the bus station. to be honest it was incredibly painful - my shoulders were virtually skinless by backpack strap at the end of the ride. but the pedels vibrate so your feet get all tingly and the wind is in your face and a number of other cliches about freedom and adrenaline and i know ill never buy a motorcycle but i might look upon the idiots riding around on them with a bit more understanding from now on... and mumkin in the far distant future when im feeling particularly mohawk and tatoo-esk... you never know. i bet a red motorcycle would go splendidly with those red heels i bought over break.

anyway so yesterday after a long day of traveling we...wait for it... got a massage. at the hilton. and it was, of course, maahvelous darling but around the time the woman started exfoliating my armpit i almost ruined it. i mean, i had managed to keep my cool through the little plastic underwear (i swear they looked like diapers) they gave us to put on. i even managed not to smile when the woman tried to help me dry off after the shower. but the exfoliation of the armpit was the last straw. there i was - butt naked on the massage table - totally unable to stop laughing. and this wasnt giggles. we're talking belly laugh here. im sure i was disturbing the peace or whatever. and everytime i managed to stop id immidiately think of WHY i was laughing and start all over again. i mean, it tickled so for sure that didnt help. but i am obviously far from sophisticated enough to be able to keep a straight face when a small asian woman is exfoliating. my. armpit. my urbane exterior was cracked, irreparably. im sure she had no more respect for me. EYE lost respect for me. i need to work on my maturity level here. i have far overestimated myself and i shall have to write to my highschool class and let them know that they might have misjudged who to dub 'most sophisticated'.

this will not, of course, keep me from going back tomorrow. you know i always say when you cant do something once, try try again! so i must, for the good of my character, go get another massage. after all im doing the masseuse a favor too. can you imagine their normal customers at a hilton in bangkok? yick. skeezy old white men. yick. remind me never to become a masseuse.

ps

2007-04-07T16:14:00.000+03:00

woops and forgot to mention. my sister is a god. alice got in bloody EVERYWHERE so for those of you of the correct opinion, you are welcome to write to her and encourage her to go to stanford. for those of you with any other opinion, you are welcome to go stuff yourselves.

there is a very cute little thai boy staring at me. i dont really know how to respond to that. ok. i smiled at him. dammit he's coming over here. i have to remember: no encouragement! they never go away. reminds me of another subsection of humans.... stop CALLING im not even on the same side of the country as you anymore! right. oh dear im attracting a whole crowd of them. back to the bungalow! mumkin a midnight swim?

wouldnt you like to know

2007-04-07T15:21:00.000+03:00

why do guys insist on having facial hair? i ask you, honestly. the curly mustaches, the perfectly trimmed beards, the not-so-perfectly trimmed beards, the partial beards that they obviously trim every morning into perfectly geometric shapes on their chins, the SIDE-BURNS oh god the side-burns. this is a public service announcement. you might think you look good. you might think youre being edgy and would fit right in with the art-nouveau crowd wearing all black and smoking cigarettes in a basement cafe that only those "in the know" go to. but trust me. from a girl who knows these sorts of things, (my past life was spent in just that sort of cafe before i got bored and genetically engineered the camel), you dont. oh, and it definately does not mask your weak chin. we can still see it! really. in fact, the hideous little hairs sprouting out of it just serve to draw MORE attention to it. so just stop trying. in fact, you should really revel in your ugliness. take advantage of what god gave you. go stop traffic or something. be the before picture in the before/after plastic surgery commercials. marry a chinless girl and have chinless children. or better yet, marry a chinless girl and dont have ANY children. stop the chinlessness!

anyway, on that note i apologize for being a blog failure. i do mean to write here. i write blogs in my head all the time. but then i tend to me a bit too lazy to actually write them. plus, i dropped my boring islamic law lecture, so i have no forcibly-free, (well, 'free') time to blog. but i will try to be better in the future.

currently i am in thailand. it is my spring break and going to iran didnt work out for a number of reasons the main one being that the iranian govt is being spiteful and kidnapping british soldiers and generally throwing tantrums that involve not giving americans visas. i mean, the american govt picks on everybody. so its your turn? get over it. aaanyway when we realized iran wasnt going to work out martine and i sat down for lunch and basically said something along the lines of

rachel: so what do you want to do then?
martine: i dunno. go somewhere else?
rachel: where?
martine: india?
rachel: south africa?
martine: kazakstan?
rachel: cambodia?
martine: thailand?
rachel: thailand.

so we bought tickets to thailand that afternoon and here we are. and we have 2 full weeks which is sort of sweet. of course it also means missing a week of school but what are taking years off for, after all. and my teachers understand. sort of. but we've been here for about a week and have spent a bit of time in bangkok getting lost and buying useless souvenirs, a bit of time in the south crisping ourselves senseless on the beach, and quite a bit of time traveling. but ive always liked the feel of going very fast over narrow, winding roads so im ok with that. (am i being serious? am i being sarcastic? wouldnt you like to know) most lately, we went to ranong (which is a city on the myanmar border - burma? what are we calling it these days? how i do love to be PC - and is quite possibly the ugliest place ive been, well, ever). we had an...interesting experience where our thai taxi driver sort of decided we should eat dinner with his family, so we did. after turning down whiskey, beer, and a number of types of drugs, and almost turning down "light" which i assumed was yet another sort of drug until it became clear they actually meant "rice" - silly me - we headed back to our ghetto hotel and martine proceeded to get a lovely little case of food poisoning. thats what we get for fraternizing with the locals.

today we made our way out to an island off the coast. lonely planet had described it as "off the beaten path" so we figured, hey. we live in cairo! we're hardcore! we shouldnt be doing what the NORMAL tourists do. we're going to go "off the beaten path"! well, when they say off the beaten path they mean OFF the beaten path. like, you cant even see the path from here. THERE IS NO PATH. instead, there are bungalows. these bungalows have beds. that is all. and we spent about 2 hour wandering the island in hopes of finding something a bit more...luxerious. a flushing toilet? maybe a fan. i mean, come on. is a fan so much to ask for in 100 degree heat? oh yes. yes it is. we are spoiled spoiled first worlders who have no right to ask for such frivolous amenities. for shame. i mean, the bungalows dont have ELECTRICITY. (notice the irony of me complaining about this via the internet. of course, this is probably the only computer on the island. and we have our own tiiiny little satelite up on the beach. adorable) oh, and english? yeah none of that either. how do we get off the island? god only knows. swim? oh, and martine and i finally make our way to the bungalow, collapse on the bed (after untucking the mosquito net, which we then promptly tucked back in, sort of interfering with our much-needed collapse) and look up to see the world's BIGGEST spider sitting up on the wall, watching us. we're talking like, the size of my hand here. and it lurked. and lurked. and is still lurking for all i know. martine went back to lie down so it has probably eaten her. oh oh oh and i forgot the best part! malaria. oh yes. apparently this area is quite malaria friendly. and we dont have mosquito repellant, never mind anti-malaria medication. but no big deal. i mean, what could possibly be a better reason not to turn in my 2000 word paper (due 24 hrs after i get back in cairo) than having MALARIA? am i right?

but yes. we made it hear safely. and will inshallah leave here safely tomorrow. morning. actually i probably wouldnt mind staying here a bit longer (i mean, its goorgeous. i just spent about an hour hanging out on the beach watching the sun set and listening to the shins. arent i emo. and hey, i can be hardcore. i have a backpack. im backpacking! im cool. ha.) but martine is still feeling off from the food poisoning so she doesnt want to stay here any longer than absolutely necessary. so we're heading up to hua hin tomorrow and we'll hang out there for a few days. where they have air conditioning. ah air conditioning... and fewer spiders. and more prostitutes, according to lonely planet, but hopefully they wont be lurking above our beds. did anyone ELSE know thailand is the sex-capital of the world? mumkin i should have done a bit more research...

...and the government creates more drama...

2007-03-01T15:40:00.000+03:00

soooo i dont know how much all of y'all (my texan side coming out) know about my state dept internship... experience. but there has been a rather interesting update.

i originally applied to an internship at the american embassy in beirut for this summer back in nov when everyone and their pet hamster was applying for the embassy internships. i didnt hear anything back and, comforting myself with the thought of the total lack of time and effort on my part that went into the application - always a good excuse - i forgot about it. so i was not expecting the email i received in late january from the state dept congratulating me on the internship i received at the "school of languages, foreign service institute, dept of state". have you heard of it? i havent heard of it. no one has bloody well heard of it. but it was at the state dept so, despite the fact that i hadnt applied for it, i - generously - decided to hear the lady out. i write her back a "hey nice to hear from you what are you talking about" email and dont hear back from her for about 3 weeks. at this point id written her 2 more emails and had decided that i must have hallucinated the first email and some woman at the state dept thought she had a new stalker. buuuuuuut eventually she writes back apologizing for the delay and the total incompetence of beaurocracy in general and wants to get to know me, be my friend, etc. so, still totally confused as to what this internship was, where it would take place, what the school of foreing languages was or did or whether not not it actually existed, i wrote her back a loong email pretty much asking her all these questions plus a "and btw how did you get my application in the first place?" ps. oh and a "does this mean i didnt get the internship i ACTUALLY applied to?". i felt pretty justified in my total ignorance and im afraid that might have come through pretty clearly in the email... but again that was ok bc, i mean really, THEY had contacted ME, right?

so this morning i check my email again and - quite exciting - i have an email from her in my inbox. her email went somewhere along the lines of "um... you DID apply to this internship... you checked foreign language institute as your second choice... you suck." oh and "there are plenty of ppl who DO want this internship so if you dont, let me know so we can select another candidate". ooooooooooooooooooooooh sweet humiliation i have the brains and tact of a camel in heat how the HELL should i respond to that??? and do camels go into heat anyway? deathdeathdeathdeath talk about great first impressions. i havent even met the woman and already she knows that a) i applied to an internship i know nothing about and didnt bother to research b) i am totally incompetent bc i couldnt even find the institute's website, which she ever-so-kindly sent me the link to to clear up my confusion and c) i have the iq of a caterpillar.

so yeah i should write back to her... luckily i was planning on doing middlebury anyway. hopefully she wont add any sort of 'warning: due to suspicion of total stupidity and inability to spell, this girl should not be let within 5 miles of the state dept' to my permanent file. which already includes, no doubt, 'lived in saudi arabia + lived in cairo + visited west bank, iran, syria and lebanon + owns 2 passports for 'educational' purposes + liberal tendancies = possible terrorist. thats me; another day, another chance to burn bridges. whatever. ill spend 9 weeks in a hole in vermont being eaten by misquittos and swimming in humidity and ill be HAPPY about it. masquittos. mesquittos? hears hoping no one important ever reads my blog.

moving on... so im sitting in the AUC courtyard having finally registered my computer on the network. well, "registered". i illegally got the password from a friend who had illegally gotten the password from a friend... but it amounts to the same thing. so instead of going home after my class i have chosen to seclude myself with my computer, and sooth the sores of my aim-withdrawal by soaking myself in gmail, facebook, and blogger.com.

plans for this weekend include my roommate's norwegian class tonight = 15 college kids + unnecessary norwegian vocabulary + duty free alcohol. following this there will be house parties, dancing and creepy taxi drivers, in that order. tomorrow my roommates and i will be joining a group of ex-pats who apparently go running the desert every friday afternoon, and then go out drinking afterwards. how had i not heard of these ppl before? i can feel the spiritual connection. i also have grand plans to start writing my paper for the class with j.b. who is, btw, a god. i want to be him when i grow up. sans mustache. seriously my class with him is awesome. maybe im just seminar-deprived, but i can actually feel that class shock my brain out of its cairo-coma. god bless.

good news for all of you ppl out there is im really enjoying being back in cairo! none of that what-the-hell-am-i-doing-here-when-i-could-be-at-stanford depression i expected. so i wont be coming back for spring quarter unless something goes horribly wrong. :( sry darlings. i do miss you all! but cairo is... well... i mean come on im going to iran for spring break. woot. assuming, that is, that israel manages to restrain itself. can a zebra change its stripes? is a frog's bottom waterproof? these are the important questions we must all ponder.

ok the sun has dissappeared so im going to retreat back to zamalek. mumkin go to the gym? mumkin take a nap? how well do you ppl know me? ok im off. muah.

The Productivity of Boredom - Welcome Back!

2007-02-27T00:17:00.000+03:00

So im sitting in Islamic law class bored out of my mind and I thought, what does one do when one is bored in class? You update your blog! Kids, don’t try this at home.

This class will seriously be the death of me- my teacher is this tiny arab man who sits in a chair at the front of the class room – legs too short to reach the floor – and profounds on the evolution of Islamic law. He waves his arms and pauses at inappropriate moments for three – count that three hours. And mind you the very name of this class made me drool and im thrilled to be taking it but… but. and of course you have the requisite guy-everyone-imagines-taking-out-back-and-shooting in the class. This one’s like 3 feet tall with this abnormally small head. It really makes me want to squoosh it for some reason, monty python style. Except his face looks like someone else got to him first - All of his features have been placed maybe an inch or 2 too close to his chin –his non-existent chin - leaving a wide expanse of forehead that develops startlingly large wrinkles just above his eyebrows anytime he talks. Which is ALL THE TIME. I want to pull his stupid blue baseball cap down over his face and chuck him out the window. And I swear to god he’s wearing a toupe. I spend most of the class coming up with devious ways in which I could accidentally arrange for a giant hook -out of those toy vending machines. the ones that are impossible to beat? seriously its all a scam- to come out of the sky and pluck it off his head. And if its real hair then he would end up dangling from a giant hook protruding from the sky which would be almost as entertaining. I haven’t found a giant hook. but ill keep you updated.

Anyway sorry about the 4 month blog hiatus. Blogs are like hygiene. They don’t exist without routine. Am I wrong? Am I wrong? … Maybe hygiene was a poor choice of comparison since I would prefer to keep my friends. Exercise also works. But, well, so I spent the weekend in the desert being hardcore and bedoin-like. Now, one does not shower in the desert. In fact, one doesn’t really do much of anything in the desert beyond the occasional cleaning of one’s fingernails when one feels the need to demonstrate boredom. The art of demonstrating boredom is important even in bedoin culture. So hygiene seemed particularly relevant.

But I get ahead of myself. So… since my last blog. To do a total recap, I went to Sweden over eid holiday in october to visit mathilda and spent the 10 days I was there feeling very short and brunette. We watched grease, etc.
While I was in Sweden the youths of Egypt decided to rise up in large groups and exert their rights to grope unprotected females, and the Egyptian government decided to let them. Who needs personal responsibility when your society quite rightly lets you blame your actions on immoral females provoking uncontrollable lusts through inappropriate hip-movements? Seriously the American govt should really look into this. My world makes so much more sense now.
Sooo November meant I could dress modestly and not melt. Good times. Eight of us took a trip to Jordan over a long weekend. Very long story ask me about it sometime im too lazy to write it here. Winnie! visited in December. Official shout-out to her for braving terrorists and camels to come see her dear friend Rachel. Almost directly following that I went to Jerusalem with joey (exams were between the two but theyre sort of a formality at AUC. As is homework. And classes in general) and it was there at the holy of holies that I came to the conclusion that god doesn’t really exist. And decided to be a religious studies major. yay irony. Then I went home and quickly remembered why I had moved to Egypt as my toes turned blue in my cute shoes. And visited Stanford and developed intimate relations with parilee’s couch.

So now im back. Ive changed apts and im living in zamalek, an island on the nile. Im on the 21st floor of a building on the main street in a beautiful apt owned by the guy who writes nancy g___’s song lyrics (yes, he is my neighbor). The view is unbelievable – it actually gives the impression that cairo is an attractive city. My flatmates are both Norwegian with the adorable accents we all secretly wish we had. Damn yankee parents. We have weekly Norwegian lessons with a group of friends that involve Sweden-bashing and alcohol. We also go through about 10 eggs a day. Protein, yes. Also advantagious in that ive learned how to use my stove. Ill find me a husband yet!

Oh! And im going to iran over spring break. HOW COOL IS THAT. Although apparently Israel is negotiating with the US for a clear air-way over iraq in case they decide to bomb iran. As martine would say “wtf. Jesus in a bucket” which I think adequately describes my feelings on the matter. Hopefully they’ll hold off until after april 12th. Book recommendation: “We Are Iran” by…um… ill get back to you on that. It’s a collection of Iranian blogs. Absolutely splendiferous. Why aren’t I taking farsi again? Ill put that down on my list of things to do. After Hebrew. And before plumbing. Actually maybe before Hebrew. Iran rocks.

Anyway. Its half an hour before this lecture is supposed to end. Do you think I can leave now? Decisions decisions… it’s a small class so I wont be able to slip out without everyone noticing. But they’ll just assume I have something important to do. Ha. Like I ever have anything important to do. Yay Egypt. Oh god Stanford is going to eat me when I get back.

an amputated thanksgiving

2006-11-27T15:16:00.000+03:00

i just found this piece of an old post i never got around to publishing. im too lazy to finish it but i figured id publish it anyway... yeah.

hello all - hope all of your thanksgivings were as splendiferous as mine was.

so i just finished writing a gender studies paper that is, miraculously, without thesis. and for a paper without a thesis, it took me waaaaay too long to write.

i was trying to come up with a metaphore for my thesis-less paper but the only one i could come up with was a headless baby and thats a bit morbid, yes? so i didnt include it. look at my restraint.

anyway so i spent thanksgiving weekend in roma with a bunch of my highschool friends who are studying in europa this semester. (the intelligent ones go home after a semester. and yet... i stay. what have i discovered about myself from this if-then statement.) we are so cosmopolitan. no really. but it was a lot of fun. evan told us stories about st. petersburg that made cairo seem tame. owen got mugged. the riedel's provided obscene amounts of alcohol. good times. rome, btw, is gorgeous. and clean. and orderly. i miss the first world. although owen pretty much calling italy a third world country/cess pitt from hell by the time we left. lots of pigeons. owen called them "flying rats". i think owen was bitter. (dont worry we understand).

anyway i flew in wednesday afternoon and, with the help of VERY exact directions from owen, managed to make my way from the airport to the train station. the old guy sitting across from me on the train kept making awkward eye-contact with me though. swear to god if i hadnt decided to take a "nap" he would have spent the entire train ride staring into the windows of my soul. and then asked me out to dinner. to his villa in florence. where he would show me his world class art collection and teach me italian. too bad he was so old.

anyway so i fled the italian santa clause, dodged this greasy italian guy (surprise!) who literally rushed me when i made a coo-ing noise at his cute dog (apparently italian guys use the dog trick too - first i learn not to make eye contact with strange men. then i learn not to make eye contact with strange dogs) and found myself outside of the train station. now, owen had very specific instructions here. there is a taxi stand directly in front of the train station. i am to go stand in line, and wait for a taxi. so, i go stand in line. this line was like 20 ppl long, and there was not a single taxi in sight. this confused me. actually, it confused everyone in line. we all stared awkwardly at each other for about 5 minutes, and then i decided to take matters into my own hands. the adventurous rachel strikes out into the city of rome. she doesnt speak the language. she doesnt know where she's going. but she's confident it will all work out for the best.

and it did! i eventually found a taxi. after berating myself soundly.

sensible rachel: what the hell are you doing. go back to the train station.
adventurous rachel: no! i dont want to wait in line for an hour when i can just go out and find a taxi on my own
sr: rachel. you dont speak the language. its 9pm. youre dragging a suitcase. where are you going?
ar: i think i see some lights down there... i bet thats a big street. come on. have a little faith
sr: how stupid will you feel when you get killed off on a dirty street in downtown rome bc you were too impatient to wait for a taxi. your tombstone will read: survived the middle east. couldnt survive her own stupidity
ar: be a little more optomistic dear. yours will read: death by boredom

swear to god those are my parents. ive been brainwashed. anyway it did work out - i found a taxi a few blocks down, and when i drove back past the train station on the way to my hotel, i waved at all the poor shmucks still waiting in the taxi line.

oh and the receptionist at my hotel was this big, bald, white guy who was absolutely adorable, didnt speak a word of english and was wearing this leather jacket that said "PHAT FARM" across the back. by far my favorite person in rome.

Excuse me please, one more drink.

2006-11-15T16:47:00.000+03:00

Could you make it strong cause I dont need to think...no no one broke my heart and as far as I know my grace is not gone but ive been listening to that song pretty much non-stop for 3 days now. who knew dave mathews band was any good?

ok i havent given up on my blog. its just i want to update it aaall the way, which is quite an intimidating task since now we're talking about a month of caironian excitement. but, i have decided ill do a more current blog entry and save the full update for later. just to get something down. feed the ravenous hounds.

so today is wednesday...always a good day, wednesday. im over the hump in the week and i only have one class left before the weekend. and my dad is flying in tomorrow! this is post visiting jordan and riyadh, and pre his visits to hong kong and japan. i honestly am of the opinion that he's either a CIA operative or some sort of international arms dealer. maybe i should keep his weekend jaunt in cairo this weekend on the DL. wouldnt want any of the massive amounts of enemies he's sure to have tracking him down to my humble abode. and trust me, it is HUMBLE. we've pretty much given up on the whole presentable-aspect of things. and one of the ceiling light fictures has decided to unscrew and is now dangling from the ceiling by some wires. is this unsafe?

but yeah. i have big plans but i wont share any of them with you in case they dont go through. wouldnt want to get your hopes up. ive been trying to decide just how honest a look at cairo-life i should give him. does he really need to know how many times a day i almost die? i now fully understand the "insha'alla" concept. when youre in a position where you miss being run over by inches on a fairly regular basis, it just takes too much energy do the life-flashing-before-your-eyes thing. you just have to shrug and say, you know what. if god wants me to die, ill die. and there's nothing i can do about it. or rather, if the great spagetti monster wants me to die. wouldnt want to be politically incorrect here. this chain of thought feels familiar. if ive already shared this epiphany with you, my apologies. obviously its on my mind a lot.

so life here is progressing normally. my friend has a new boytoy who has - god bless him - good looking friends. i really think thats the duty of the guys my friends date. i mean, theyre not doing anything for me, are they? but they need to somehow pay me back not only for their monopolization of my friend's time and the inordinant amount of gushing i have to listen to on my friend's part, but i also need some compensation for training my friends so well in the first place. none of them had any manners before i got to them. really.

so last night i was persuaded to go out with my friend and said boytoy and HIS friends. this was the second time id hung out with them - i mainly go as moral support for my friend although i dont think she really needs me anymore. sniff. my little girl, all grown up. at this point i think she and her boy are keeping themselves busy by trying to set me up with one of his friends. why do couples try to do this? such a strange form of entertainment... i guess theyre trying to spread the wealth. or fill awkward silences. i dont hold it against them. but what they dont seem to understand is that there is a scientifically proven limit on the number of happy couples there can be in the world at one time, and i think cairo just hit its quota. and, as predicted, i was unfortunately disapointed last night in the friends dept. her boy has one particularly noticable friend. tall. black. and gorgeous, of course. ok who am i kidding they all look like that. apparently he's stumbled into the sudanese community in cairo? but this one has an english accent which is just icing on the cake. and we were dancing together and whatnot and this boy, his dance style... well i wont go into it in too much detail. suffice to say i spent most of the time dodging thrusting hips. and i mean literally leading him around the dance floor as i backed away and he followed. some guys cannot take a hint. it was actually a rather amusing competition of sorts. anyway, he left me less than enthralled and vivedly reminded me of a certain - ahem - someone who was also ridiculously goodlooking and severely lacking in just about everything else. we shall see if im being too judgemental. me? judgemental? no.

this exciting evening kept me out until about 2:30am when i stumbled back to my apt only to discover that i didnt have a key. and i hadnt brought my cellphone with me in the first place. i really need a keeper. so i spent about 20 minutes ringing the doorbell and pounding on the door and was seriously considering heading back to the club and imposing on one of the boytoy's friends for the night when one of my other roommates came home and let me in. i dont like this girl, but at that moment she ranked right up there with karl rove. then i checked email, listened to my older sister talk about how perfect her bf is for about ten minutes (not that he isnt. it just wasnt the best timing on her part), and then went to bed. and woke up at 7am for my 8am three-hr arabic class. yes i did not plan this very well. but it was an interesting evening so i forgive myself. oh AND i managed to give a successful presentation on the death penalty first thing in class. in arabic. what.

ok im off to a study partay with a few friends. and then maybe my first american movie since august? mumkin? how sweet would that be.

Mommy, when i grow up i want to make beds. in egypt. ill make a fortune.

2006-10-19T14:01:00.000+03:00

so i know i havent posted in a while. laziness, when forcibly mixed with production, does not a blog make. but to give you a tidbit from the excitement of cairo life, i have pasted part of a conversation i had with libby last night. enjoy.

oh and preceding this conversation was a brief dialogue about my computer. and the horribly strange sounds it was making. i quite honestly thought it was going to blow up. so i was in the midst of closing all applications and getting frantic advice from my sister when i realized that in fact these horrible noises were not the suicide cries of a desperate appliance, but were, instead, my itunes. playing a song. WHAT IS MUSIC COMING TO. and, more importantly, why is this music on my computer? (for those of you wondering, the song was by wilco. dear wilco, you suck.)

Rachel: im really sort of embarrassed now
amylyveon: go hide
amylyveon: under the bed
Rachel: no itll fall on me
Rachel: have i told you its breaking on a regular basis now?
Rachel: about once a night
amylyveon: noooooo
amylyveon: your life is so amusing
Rachel: haha yes i am rather amused
Rachel: except at 2am
Rachel: when my bed breaks
Rachel: actually im lying
Rachel: i tend to find it rather amusing then too
amylyveon: hahahah
Rachel: but its LOUD when it breaks
amylyveon: why don't you just leave it broken?
Rachel: and really uncomfortable to continue lying in
Rachel: which is what lazy ppl tend to do
Rachel: when theyre woken by their mattress falling through a hole in their bed
Rachel: and forcing their body into unnatural positions
amylyveon: ah
amylyveon: well that explains it
amylyveon: how do you fix it?
Rachel: oh have i not explained the layout of this master piece of contruction?
amylyveon: no
amylyveon: i haven't heard much about your bed
Rachel: ah the bed...
Rachel: so my bed is the extra bed
Rachel: and i guess its sort of the egyptian version of the portable bed
Rachel: "portable"
amylyveon: hahaha
Rachel: so the idea, i guess, was that instead of having the normal flat wooden board on the bed frame
Rachel: that the mattress lies on?
Rachel: instead you save time and energy and...wood? and have wooden planks instead
amylyveon: yeah
Rachel: genius, what?
amylyveon: wait
amylyveon: like, four wooden planks across the bed
Rachel: no there are about 10 of them
amylyveon: okay
Rachel: however
Rachel: there is a small problem
Rachel: these wooden planks that are supposed to lie across the bed
amylyveon: and that's all holding the mattress up so far.
Rachel: none of them are really...well....the right length
Rachel: so
Rachel: the ones in the middle arent long enough
Rachel: to fit across the bed frame
Rachel: and the ones at the end of the bed are too long
Rachel: (i think the bed frame might be crooked, but thats just my conspiracy theory)
amylyveon: hahahah
Rachel: so, the wooden planks in the middle are veeery precariously balanced on the veeeeery edges of the bed frame
Rachel: and any small movements of the planks tend to send them clattering to the floor
Rachel: loudly
Rachel: and they are quickly followed by the mattress, and, by extention, me
amylyveon: can you switch the planks so the too-little ones are at the foot and the too-big ones are at the head or something?
Rachel: you are so clever
Rachel: but no
Rachel: ive tried
Rachel: thus the conspiracy theory
amylyveon: huh
Rachel: yes
Rachel: i have another conspiracy theory
Rachel: i think this is the egyptian government's way of making sure us american whores stay chaste while in egypt
amylyveon: hahahaha
Rachel: because trust me this bed would NOT survive long under more...demanding circumstances
amylyveon: haha
amylyveon: that's really amusing

... (insert witty conversation here) ...and for my sister's benefit:

Rachel: i was considering posting this conversation on my blog to explain the bed situation
Rachel: i think i might have to censor that part
amylyveon: hahahahahah
amylyveon: yeah
amylyveon: you might
amylyveon: actually
amylyveon: you should censor it but not take out the bit where we're talking about you censoring it
Rachel: just make ppl wonder?
Rachel: thats not very friendly, now is it
Rachel: but its a rather good idea

so we'll let you wonder what part of the conversation you all missed.

Oh Sweet Misery and a Rump

2006-10-07T14:23:00.000+03:00

so i have now had my first really truly authentic egyptian experience: food poisoning! yes, as a result of an unpeeled cucumber, i spent a good 12 hours trying to regurgitate my small intestine. on the up side this then gave me a legitimate excuse to skip classes, and sleep for about 48 hours straight. oh the simple pleasures of a guilt-free conscience.

this was actually a good thing for me. no, really. if laziness had not conquered practicality in my lunch preparation, i would be in luxor this weekend. oh, the horrors! you think, and i agree. why? because, you see, i dont really sleep in egypt. now to those of you who know me from college, this may sound positively unrachel-like. and again i whole-heartedly agree because a happy rachel is a rachel who is just waking up at 1pm after 9 hours of sweet, sweet dreams. unfortunately, everything in egypt is conspiring to give me an average of 5 hours of sleep a night, making me a very unhappy rachel. despite all this, when my enthusiastic friends said this monday "yay! a long weekend! lets spend all of wednesday night on an 8 hour train ride (2nd class of course, without beds) going down to luxor, and then spend saturday night on an 8 hour train ride back, getting home just in time to go to class sunday morning!" my reaction was, "oh dear lord i am too exhausted to chew and i have more work than god, but that sounds like a brilliant idea!" because everything in egypt has a certain once-in-a-lifetime aura to it which makes it very hard to voluntarily sequester onceself in ones apartment for the weekend for the sole purpose of sleeping, no matter how tempting this may be. thus, even as i pondered taping my arabic flashcards to the inside of the toilet bowl as a way of multi-tasking, i was also secretly celebrating my anticipated guilt-free weekend of luxorlessness.

so now it is saturday and ive probably watched a grand total of 5 movies in the past 2 days, read one very poorly written book, and slept enough to make up christine's sleep debt, nevermind mine. now i must actually, tragically, work.

but because that sounds like such an unpleasant idea, first i will update you on what i did last weekend.

lets see... thursday night. happy hour at the american embassy! the marines thew a party. awesome. we attended for two reasons: 1) we heard there would be free drinks. this was a lie. more, the actual selection of drinks was not spectacular. 2) i mean, men in uniform. come on. but again, we were disapointed as not only were they not in uniform, they werent very attractive either. it was horribly disillusioning. i, in my friendliness, agreed to get together with one of them later, something that i also managed to dodge as a result of the food poisoning (so many silver linings!) although his incessant text msging means that ill probably have to reschedule for next weekend. my life is so hard.

post-marine happy hour we went to the british social club for their tex-mex night of marguarita madness. my title. they probably would have gotten more guests if theyd put me in charge of advertising. however, it was awesome. the british club is almost entirely middle aged, well, british people. our crowd of 20 or so college students showing up was quite a shock to their system. in a good way. really. but they played old music and we all danced like our parents. to top it off we were all sexually harassed by this one very drunk, very old, very british man. momteza. although the food was late, and since we were all starving we had a game of steal-the-peanut-bowl from the bar going for a while. i was quite good at it. until i was caught. awkward.

we went to khan al-khalili again on saturday looking for this tent market michelle had heard about. we didnt find it, but wondering around khan al-khalili is always entertaining. there was one very greasy shopkeeper who took a liking to a friend i was with. while i wondered into a nearby shop, he forced his phone number upon her, as well as a a brief photo-opp. when i came and found her, he exclaimed

greasy shop guy: you! you are gamilla (gamilla=beautiful)
me: thank you very much
g.s.g: but! you are not gamilla oawy (gamilla oawy = very beautiful)

he turns to my friend and, i assume, repeats something he had said many times already.

g.s.g: YOU are gamilla oawy

she shudders a little. i should mention at this point that my friend could perhaps be described as a bit more... well endowed than i am. the shopkeeper turns back to me

g.s.g: do you want to know why you are not gamilla oawy?
me: oh yes good sir. please share.

that is, actually, pretty much what i said. they never get the sarcasm.

g.s.g: you are too tall. too skinny. you are not REAL WOMAN.

ouch? in naguib mahfouz's "palace walk" there's a breakfast scene between the mother and her two daughters:

"For all of them, food, in addition to its nutritional value, ultimately served an aesthetic goal, because it was the natural foundation for becoming well rounded. They ate deliberately and painstakingly. They did their very best to chew their food thoroughly. They did not even slow down when they were full. They kept on eating until they were stuffed..."

There's another bit of the book where one of the sons is lusting after an opera singer:

"She draped the black cloth around her skillfully to reveal the details of her body's featurs and articulations. It especially highlighted her full, gleaming rump. Then she sat down at the rear of the wagon. Under the pressure of her weight, her buttocks were compressed and ballooned out to the right and left, making a fine cushion."

I love that. Full, gleaming rump. Obviously, if i want to be fully accepted into egyptian culture, I need to get me one o' those.

Proud to be an American

2006-09-28T12:50:00.000+03:00

so this is really random but my dad forwarded this to me a few days ago, and as he pointed out, a true patriotic american would try to get the message out there.

MARK YOUR CALENDAR FOR SATURDAY

AS YOU MAY ALREADY KNOW, IT IS A SIN FOR A TALIBAN
OR AL QUAEDA MALE TO SEE
ANY WOMAN,
OTHER THAN HIS WIFE, NAKED AND THAT HE MUST COMMIT
SUICIDE IF HE DOES.

SO THIS SATURDAY AT 4 P.M. EASTERN TIME ALL
AMERICAN WOMEN ARE ASKED TO:

WALK OUT OF THEIR HOUSES COMPLETELY NAKED TO HELP
WEED OUT ANY NEIGHBORHOOD TERRORISTS.
CIRCLING YOUR BLOCK FOR ONE HOUR IS RECOMMENDED
FOR THIS ANTI-TERRORIST EFFORT.

ALL MEN ARE TO POSITION THEMSELVES IN LAWN CHAIRS
IN FRONT OF THEIR HOUSE TO PROVE THEY ARE NOT
TALIBAN OR AL QUAEDA,
AND TO DEMONSTRATE THAT THEY THINK IT'S OKAY TO
SEE NUDE WOMEN
OTHER THAN THEIR WIVES AND TO SHOW SUPPORT FOR ALL
AMERICAN WOMEN.

AND SINCE THE TALIBAN AND AL QUEDA ALSO DO NOT
APPROVE OF ALCOHOL,
A COLD 6-PACK AT YOUR SIDE IS FURTHER PROOF OF
YOUR ANTI-TERRORIST
SENTIMENT.
FOR GOOD MEASURE, HAVE VARIOUS PORK PRODUCTS
COOKING ON YOUR BBQ GRILL.

THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT APPRECIATES YOUR EFFORTS
TO ROOT OUT TERRORISTS
AND APPLAUDS YOUR PARTICIPATION IN THIS
ANTI-TERRORIST ACTIVITY.

GOD BLESS AMERICA.

Part 2 - playing catch-up. (mango mania)

2006-09-28T12:45:00.000+03:00

so im rapidly becoming addicted to mangos. theyre SO GOOD. how did i miss them back in the states? i feel like ive spent my whole life deprived and must now make up for that deprivation by eating them every. single. day. and the mango JUICE. omgoodness. filled with mango goodness. thick and smooth with yummy mango chunks... mmmmmmmmm. the actual eating of a mango is quite the process though. first, one must buy the mango. off the street they cost about, you know, 75 piasters. which is about 15 cents. of course these are the homegrown ones. the imported ones (which im sure contain many lovely hormones making them bigger and, therefore, better) are about 4 pounds. (for the record, this is like 3 hrs of work with the average egyptian's salary of 1.5 pounds/hr. and we whine about minimum wage.) so once you buy the mangos you must peel them. this is harder than it sounds. especially when you dont own a peeler and the smallest sharp knife you own is about a foot long and looks like its straight out of the 'psycho' shower scene. inshaallah i will come back to the states with all my fingers. at least if i do manage to amputate a finger ill have a story to tell. about cairo. and mangos. maybe ill add some ninjas just to keep the blood pumping.

anyway once its peeled you get to the hard part. you see, mangos have pits. big pits. evil evil pits that are shaped like an obese woman with lots of unsightly lumps that dont fit into her clothes very well. so i am totally incapable of cutting the meat off the pit in the nice, edible little strips i crave. instead i cut into it, make it about an inch then hit a lump and have to swerve, ending up with a pathetic little Morsel of Mango Meat on my plate. (alliteration. i should write a poem.) very unsatisfying. all this was done with the psycho knife, mind you. so i spend FOREVER mutilating the mango in a futile attempt to avoid making a mess, get about half the potentially edible stuff off, and then give up and just gnaw on the pit. to be honest, thats probably my favorite part. by the time im finished with that not only are my hands covered in mango juice, but so is my face, and usually most of my shirt. i look like a toddler let loose in a candy store. this is also the most frustrating part because post-gnawing it is revealed to me - as all those of you who have ever eaten a mango already know - that the pit is less than lumpy. it is, in fact, quite the opposite of lumpy. so all the hacking and swearing and losing of the fingers was TOTALLY unnecessary. despite this however, i exercise my reasonable human being-ness and resist chucking the damn pit out the window. i place it gently in the trash, and then after washing my face and hands, i put the rest of the mango (a pathetically small amount) on a plate, get a fork, and walk into the living room to finish the rest of the fruit in an extremely civilized fashion. which takes about 30 seconds.

ah well. such is life in cairo.

so yesterday i found a new hero. he's this long beanpole of a black guy (i almost typed 'african american'. ha.) i saw him riding a bike yesterday. now, just riding a bike in cairo in itself is something worthy of admiration. those streets are a death trap for anyone not encased in a few hundred pounds of steel. perhaps even for those who are encased. traffic accidents are the second most common form of death in cairo. have i mentioned this before? its sort of constantly brought to mind. anyway, so he was riding a bike. but he wasnt JUST riding a bike. he was riding a bike while balancing a long wooden plank on his head. id say it was about 4 ft long and 2ft wide. just kinda hangin out up there. and balanced on top of THAT was a whole pile of mouth-watering pita bread. i mean, ive seen ppl with these boards balanced on their heads before - ppl here seem to consider using their hands to carry things a bit too much work - but while riding a bike??? and here i was impressed with myself and my ability to talk on a phone while biking around stanford. oh but that wasnt all he was doing. while i watched, he biked up against moving traffic, and wove his way across the street. he almost died maybe 5 times. it was amazing. and he didnt drop a single pita. straight out of cirque du soleil. normal cairo antics.

yesterday when i walked back from class i found a fruit vendor in front of my apartment. he had a cart stacked high with different types of fruits, pulled by a donkey. and he was this grey-haired, wrinkled little old man in a blue robe and a white hat. classic. guess what i bought from him. mmmmmmmmmmyum.

oh and ive made a break through in anthropology. i have discovered why egyptians are always holding on to each other. linking arms, holding hands, piggy back rides. not really. this is actually a really interesting subject - when you see middle aged men walking down the street holding hands with each other, dont you have to wonder what theyre thinking? its just something that would never occur to a man in the states. im trying to picture my dad strolling down the street holding hands with mr. gibbons or someone... lol. right. never gonna happen. anyway, i was crossing a street last night with a few ppl. we were doing it frogger style - there was no crossing guard available to stop traffic - and as a car barreled past us, the wind ruffling my clothes, all four of us, at the same time, grabbed the hands of the person next to us. and held on. tightly. thats when the answer came to me - egyptians are all holding hands with each other because theyre scared of dying. all the bloody time. its the only possible explanation. and i dont blame them - it is totally impossible to predict where those cars are going to go. if they werent all muslim i would hypothesize that every driver in egypt is just permanently drunk. i bet the longer i stay here, the more i will come to realize the true precariousness of my situation - ie being alive - and will start holding on to ppl more often. ill keep you updated.

oh right so i was going to talk about my trip to alexandria. alexandria is... beautiful. it is not, however, the sparkling white city of so many ppl's imaginations. i got this really cool picture out my hotel window (9th floor) of the rooftops of alexandria; picture roofs as far as you can see covered in junk and satelites. and then the mediterranean. its a really sweet picture. unfortunately its on my phone and i cant figure out how to send it to myself, or i might post it. anyway, alexandria is basically cairo with less traffic, less people, and a goooooorgeous view. my trip to alexandria actually made me realize how beautiful cairo is - and i have a metaphore. wait for it... cairo is like a junk shop. a dark little hole-in-the-wall shop with a sketchy owner. when you first glance in it, all you can see is the disorganization and dirt - an overwhelming mess. however, when you actually go inside and bother looking around, there are some really cool things in there that you could easily have missed if you didnt bother looking closer. so parden my profundity but basically cairo, at first glance, is really really hot. and loud. and pretty much a mess with crazy traffic and no littering laws and people hissing at you. but when you actually look at the buildings and the smaller, day-to-day scenes that you start to notice after youve gotten over your original shock, its a really cool place. honest. just hold in there.

oh right so alexandria. we smoked hooka (really STRONG - cough - hooka) and drank mango juice with a view of the sea. i bought fake, really unattractive, fendi glasses after we tried on about a million other fake designer brands. all really unfortunate looking. i was sort of guilted into buying them, and i was totally overcharged. payed 9 whole dollars. cringe. we got lost in downtown and tried some fried chick peas off the street. very. very. salty. we got harassed by a really nasty taxi driver, which was a first in terms of true nastiness. i thought of reprimanding him on behalf of the egyptian goverment but thought better of it. and this really friendly egyptian guy and his brother bought me some jewelry saying "no no this is egypt. in egypt women do not pay. men pay". i could get to like this place. we visited the library and its goorgeous (although inaugerated in 2003? wtf) the architecture is really funky - i like. i also bought some prints of sketches done by a guy named shadi abdul alsalam who's work is being displayed in a gallery inside the library. he does drawing of egyptian cultural scenes. my favorite is of a belly dancer. yummy. decorations for my new home. and i really seriously considered getting my dad a nail-clipper that came in a mummy case. the actually clip represented the shriveled little body of a dead egyptian king. it was so ridiculous i almost felt obligated to buy it. maybe next time.

Part 1 -playing catch-up

2006-09-26T14:41:00.000+03:00

Ramadan Mubarak! and happy saudi national day. to those of you who care.

so sorry about the lack of bloggingness. zee life een zee cairo ees zee hectic de temps en temps. but exciting. oh yes. always exciting.

sooo what have i been doing with this exciting life...

last friday i was an actor in a propaganda campaign funded by the egytian govt.

yeah you heard me right. totally random, somewhat sketch (ok who am i kidding, completely sketch) but ridiculous amounts of fun. how did i get involved in this? so i went out to dinner with a friend of mine and we were walking through downtown back to her apartment when this random guy walks up to us and starts talking to me. now, in egypt this is not unusual. what WAS unusual however was the fact that he was white, and that he wasnt coming on to me. i was intrigued (/trapped since we were already walking and he was just walking next to us) so i listened. he proceded to tell me that he was looking for some ppl to be extras in a commercial, and he thought i would fit the part. i, of course, being the girl my mother raised me to be, immediately assumed he was a fake and would probably drag me off into the dessert to be hung by my toenails from the ceiling of some cave and be head-butted by camels. i mean, honestly, how cliched is the "hey im a PROFESSIONAL and in my PROFESSIONAL opinion i think if you came with me to a secluded place and took off all your clothes, my PROFESSIONAL pictures/movies/modern artistic impressions of you would easily cause your non-existant career as an international superstar to take off". plus he looked kind of sketch - his front tooth was chipped and he had this slow way of talking (which i later discovered was a canadian accent. go figure) that had a slightly creepy tone to it. oh and his name was nova. such a porn-star name. who names their kids that? but im not judging. anyway, before i could drive him away with my mad tae kwan do skills, he mentioned that he was the guy who had planned this tourist trip into the dessert that a bunch of my friends had gone on. since this now put him in the category of someone who had taken small innocent ppl to an unknown destination and had resisted the camel head-butting, i became less suspicious, and more interested, and besides, being an extra in an egyptian commercial? who gets to do that. plus he specified i would get to keep my clothes on, which was very generous of him, i thought. so he took my phone number and said he'd call me later that night to verify that i should, in fact, come. oh, and did i mention that it was happening the next day? this was actually probably the only reason i did it - my spontaneous actions tend to be those of a person with a much lower IQ than my planned actions. this makes me unique and special.

anyway i went home and checked him out - called up my friends who had gone on the dessert trip to verify that this nova character with the chipped front tooth actually existed and had made an impression on ppl that connoted something other than a recruiter for the eastern european sex-trade. this is when i found out that a friend of a friend was also doing it and that settled the matter. i was not going to pass up the chance to be an extra in a commercial in egypt, even if it meant getting up at 4:30am, catching a cab to zamalek, and skipping all my classes that day. especially if it meant skipping all my classes that day.

so that is exactly what i did - on 4 hrs of sleep i was out trying to catch a cab. the trying was actually unnecessary. cairo truly is the epidome of the city that never sleeps - 4am might as well have been 4pm and i probably could have caught a cab if id been hiding behind a bush wearing that really unattractive camoflage outfit that evan wanted to buy so very long ago. i was dropped off in front of the auc dorm - another reason i felt ok about it all: we were meeting in front of the dorms so i was picturing a huge group of auc kids doing the commercial. in reality i was the only auc kid there; my friend of a friend didnt even show. no big. the ppl who did show up were really interesting. i suppose it takes a special person to a) be in cairo and b) let a random guy on the street convince you to be in a commercial. lets see... we had an australian guy who was taking a few years off from college and, having spent a while rampaging through south-east asia, was now living in cairo with the plan of buying a motorbike and driving it up to syria. cool, what? oh the restrictions of being female... and there was a german guy who was in egypt for a tennis tournament, 2 american girls, one who was a nurse who wants a job at the world health organization and another who was a yoga instructor in daha (who had left daha because "something happened" and now cant go back there...drama) and another american guy who had just gotten into cairo 5 days ago and had a job at an environmental sustainability firm (they have those in cairo?)...and then there was me. the little auc student. they were all really cool though - just meeting all of them was worth the 22 hrs straight i then proceeded to spend shooting the commercial.

the commercial itself was hilarious. none of us really knew what we were doing, but we were all pretty surprised when they dressed us all in clothing straight out of the 1970s. i was in the most normal of the outfits - hair parted down the middle, little flowered band around my head hippie-style, huge aviators, a halter top and these SUPER flared, fitted jeans with a monster belt and some really junky jewelry. so fashionable. the rest of the outfits were hilarious though - we had beads and fringe, mini-skirts and big hair, and lots and lots of neon flaurel prints. all of the guys were wearing these really tight, flared pants with these high-heeled shoes that came to a point at the toe. so sexy. and these outfits were not restricted to the westerners i mentioned up above. they had all these egytian actors to set the scene. picture middle-aged egytian men with those i-would-look-pregnant-if-i-was-female bellies in bright blue tiiiight flared pants and a fitted purple, collared shirt patterned with daisies. yeah. it was a sight to see. they put side-burns on everyone too. and handle-bar mustaches. it was beautiful.

so the idea behind the commercial was make egyptians treat tourists nicely. apparently they have problems getting repeat-tourists because people come here and, you know, some creepy taxi driver grabs their ass. or their wife's ass, i suppose. or someone grabs their arm and physically drags them into a shop yelling "pretty price for pretty lady!" and then wont let them leave until they buy something. who would have thought that would make a bad impression? so the plot line of the commercial was something along the lines of 1970s: good shop guy vs bad shop guy. 2006: good shop guy is rich, bad shop guy is in a hole. the egyptian govt is bribing egyptians to be nice to tourists, and im helping. i figure its my way of making a difference.

overall it was a pretty sweet experience. the director bonded with me. the producer asked me to marry him. and, as you may have noticed from earlier, they kept us there for 22 hrs straight. no big. i drank a lot of mango juice. oh and they paired me with the german tourist for most of the shots (yes i did have one speaking part - we werent actually extras; they didnt have any real actors there) and he was really nice/good looking, but unfortunately didnt speak english very well. so all of my clever little comments went unappreciated. and trust me, i had a LOT of comments to make on this situation. sigh. i am so abused.

ok this was very long. but another one will come shortly featuring, dum dum dum duuuuum, my trip to alexandria. get excited.

I remember when, I remember, I remember when I lost my mind

2006-09-18T14:42:00.000+03:00

how does "ms. bosley" sound. professor bosley? i guess i cant really pull that off without a degree... oustetha bosley. perfect. :) why, you may ask, am i pondering this? because, my dear, you are talking to (well, reading the blog of) a real live professional changing the lives of young ppl everywhere TEACHER. sort of. im teaching an english language class at a school in coptic cairo! how cool is that. how much would you LOVE to be my student. soaking up my wisdom with eager little ears... merrit and i are duel teaching 2 classes a week, mainly of university age students who have a very basic grasp of english. there's this english proficiency test that a lot of jobs in egypt require that you pass, and so we're teaching level 8 out of 16. its a volunteer position bc the school is run by a church. coptic, obviously. they dont really train you at all but they provide the text books so...we'll be creative. and how hard can it be. honestly. right?

in other news i applied to officially become a student - as opposed to a tourist - in egypt today. very exciting. turned in my passport and everything. it was kind of ridiculous; the office of student business or whatever was located in room 423 in the main campus building. there are 4 floors to the building. sounds like a pretty straight-forward room to find, right? oh no. egyptians like to play vith your mind. (yes i spelled it like that on purpose. its the accent. jaffar anyone? anyone?) i walk up to the fourth floor, and of course the 400s end at 420. why wouuld they make it that easy. now there are 2 wings to the building, so i walk back down to the first floor and take the OTHER set of stairs up to the OTHER fourth floor. but these rooms start at 430. at this point i had begun to tear out my hair and spit at passersby. i finally find someone who i can get directions from, and they send me outside, across a courtyard to another segment of the building which is, apparently, only accessible by fire-escape. now why didnt EYE think to climb the shady-looking stairs up the side of the building? how foolish of me. the office itself was un-labled and about 9 ft square. oh misr, how i do love thee.

oh and i saw a fantastic movie this weekend! - ismuhu the yacoubian building. i dont know if its out in the states... its this 3 hr long movie based off a book written by Alaa Al Aswany that has some really fascinating commentary on contemporary egyptian society and govt. def see it if you can find it. it just came out here so it might take it a while to make its way across the atlantic... a main character is that guy from "terrorism and kababs" - hilarious movie i saw at middlebury. he's normally a comic actor i guess... this movie didnt really lean in that direction although he did slip u a few times, which apparently was not entirely faithful to the novel. which i must read. immidiately. it was esp cool bc it takes place in cairo and i recognized a bunch of the places, and thus felt superior to all future viewers of the movie. i was like, "i ate there last night!" and "that's where that riot because of the naked girl happened!" yeah dont ask.

life is going pretty well on a whole still, although egypt is beginning to wear on me. everything is so much harder to do here... i think my neighbor's comment yesterday exemplifies what ppl go through here:

"the plumber was supposed to come yesterday at 4pm, so he's not THAT late by Egyptian standards"

frustration. and it is really hot outside. and people NEVER STOP BEEPING THEIR DAMN HORNS. its like a whole other way of communicating - they dont use them out of anger like they do in the states so much... its more just a friendly reminder to the other cars that, yes, theyre still there. sort of a "im coming up next to you where there isnt a lane but no big" or "im going to make this totally illegal turn across trafic, so despite the fact that i know that all laws of physics say you shouldnt be able to stop in time, im beeping to encourage you to try at least" or to pedestrians "i suggest dodging. now." or theyll just be sitting in traffic and theyll decide that they dont really want to be sitting there anymore, so theyll beep. which will encourage all of the cars around them to beep. a whole medley of beeping. now in the states this would be foolish because likelihood is, if the traffic is stopped, there's a reason it's stopped and beeping wont do anything other than piss off the ppl around you. in egypt however, because there are no stop lights (or rather, there are no stoplights that anyone pays any attention to), there are actual policemen controlling traffic flow. the beeps are drivers way of telling the policemen that they think theyve been stopped for long enough. and the policemen listen - probably because there is always the danger that the policemen are next in the line of traffic controls the drivers will stop paying attention to, and the traffic here will degenerate into total chaos. but that would just give egypt more personality, right?

so i guess my "honeymoon stage" is over. bummer. and now, according to the international student services office, my feelings towards egypt will degenerate into loathing for everything egyptian and/or non-american. something to look forward to? hopefully i wont swing that far. i just need a treadmill. treadmills cure all ills.

ok now i have class for 4 hrs. yay! look at my positive attitude.

Oh the irony...

2006-09-13T13:49:00.000+03:00

so if i have one issue with cairo (and i do. in fact i have more than one issue. but lets not get into that now), its gotta be this: i have work. work? you ask

ok before i go on with this id like to point out how awkward that sentence is. really, the question mark should go after the word "work". however, when i say that sentence, the voice inflection comes at the end of the sentence. hm. dilemma. moving on...

work you ask? what is this thing called work? now i totally understand where youre coming from bc that is EXACTLY what i said - and i am equally confused. to be honest, i dont think ive had actual real day-to-day work since...well...(if this was a conversation there would be an awkward pause here because i literally cant remember when the last time was. it couldnt have been highschool...could it?) anyway suffice to say im used to having mamoth papers or presentations, which allow for relaxation during a procrastination period, followed by a frantic day/few days/mumkin a week of actual necessary work. now at middlebury i did have hw due everyday, but the hw was easy enough that i could squeeze the natural pattern, ie total lack of brain function for most of the day after class followed by a reluctant semi-focused period when the hw got done, into the single day where i wouldnt actually have to start work until 11pm. and even after that id still be in bed by a reasonable hour. i know. mad skills, right? cairo, however, seems determined to disrupt my natural student behavior. i have arabic hw every.single.day. and more, bc i have chosen the masochistic route once again, the hw is actually difficult (read: impossible, and will continue to be impossible until i catch up the 5 chapters i am behind) and when i start it at 11pm, i am unable to get my required 8hrs of sleep. oh no. as has been proven the last couple of nights, starting hw at 11pm when you have 8am class leaves you 5 hrs of sleep tops, and makes you a generally bitter person.

so, with the help of my well-honed powers of perception, i have come to the realization that this is part of auc's conspiracy to suck the fun out the lives of young americans everywhere. and its working! bc i have started (and this is horrible) readjusting my schedule to allow more time for work. i know i know. im so ashamed. but how ironic is it that its going to take auc to teach me time management skills. oh stanford. how i do miss thee.

anyway...so today was exciting. 8am three hour arabic class. pain. we had to bring in pictures to practice using a certain grammatical structure, and i brought in my 10th grade prom picture of me and taha. random, what? taha was, still is i suppose, this gorgeous pakistani boy....-dreamy sigh-. havent talked to him in a while. we made quite an attractive couple though i must say...following this i went to sign up to take a trip to alexandria next weekend (yes my life is ridiculously awesome) but when i got there and tried to pay the $54 fee to go on the trip - this includes the hotel room, food and transportation btw. third world countries are fun - i reach into my purse to get out my wallet and dum dum dummm my wallet isnt there. i am absolutely certain the level of panic i experienced upon this discovery cost me at least 6 days my life. god had originally planned that i would die on a wednesday. now, unfortunately, im going to die on the thursday before that. watch that friday be the day they discover that dinosaurs never actually went extinct and instead have been living in caves underground, maliciously controlling the oil supply. "ha! they think theyve run out of oil. look at them squirm."

anyway it turns out my wallet fell out of my bag in my arabic class. i found it lying on the floor in the empty classroom, waheeda. thank god i stopped to check in the classroom before heading back to the apartment - i doubt it would have stayed lonely for long and some very lucky janitor would have found himself with a bit extra spending money as well as my credit cards, drivers licence and all 3 of my auc student ids which would have taken bloody FOREVER to replace. so yes. al-humdilallah i managed to avoid this particular catastrophe. althogh i would have gotten to have one of those hysterical scenes where someone has to throw a glass of cold water at me.... ive never gotten one of those. oh well maybe next time.

so post-wallet recovery i finally got around to going to check out this potential gym membership they apparently have at the ramses hilton here. ive been avoiding it bc, despite the hotel being within sight of the university, it is impossible to walk there without getting run over. scientifically proven to be impossible. so i need to take a taxi and id never gotten a taxi by myself before and i was kind of scared... but after the terror of losing my wallet, the fear of being raped and sold into the eastern european sex trade seemed petty in comparison. of course my taxi driver once again didnt really seem to know where he was going beyond being sure that he should not be going in the direction i could have sworn the ramses hilton was in... no big. i sort of sat back and figured that getting lost in cairo by yourself was just one of those experiences every girl should have. i did eventually get dropped off at a hilton... im not sure it was the right one. their membership didnt include use of their pool which is a must though, and i dont know if i can pass as a guest for a full year. youd think someone would get suspicious. here's hoping all white ppl look alike. anyway i had lunch by myself in a restaurant near the hilton and the waiters were really nice to me... they were probably hoping id take one of them home or something. and then i got jipped by a goorgeous taxi driver on the way home. but i forgave, because im willing to spend an extra dollar to buy that smile. wow. maybe i was a creepy old man in my past life.

and tonight we're doing greek food in a rooftop restaurant with the guys (apparently we have a "the guys" now?) and then our supposedly-weekly falucca boat ride. and then no class till 3pm tomorrow... things are looking up.

ps- the good witch of the north by everclear. that is all.

I bet there's rich folks eatin in a fancy dining car...

2006-09-12T11:35:00.000+03:00

i need to find that car in cairo. that is my quest.

I SAW ABEER TODAY!!! (for those of you not insane enough to have locked yourself in middlebury all summer, she was my teacher. my adorable egyptian teacher :) ) but yes. i saw her today when i was walking down the stairs from my arabic class and she looks exactly the same. -hum of happiness- not that she should have changed in the past two weeks or anything...but middlebury feels like forever ago. my goodness where does the time go. im getting old.

speaking of, my arabic class is going to EAT MY LIFE. my teacher is this tiny little egyptian lady who really is probably the least intimidating woman ive ever met. however, she is very organized, and organization by itself can be a very frightening thing, especially when she is carefully organizing out your. entire. life. and i am SO behind in this class - 350 vocab words + grammer - so i definately anticipate my edible little life disappearing for the next little while. more likely, my sleep with disappear. damn you xtine for making that an option; before you i would have sacrificed everything from schoolwork to my pet hamster (its a hypothetical hamster ppl calm down) before i gave up sleep. now its just another way i waste time. ill sleep when im dead. ha. right. if i have options of what to do when im dead, i doubt ill choose sleep. unless the alternative is burning in the firey depths of hell.

soo yeah...i went on a falucca boat ride wednesday night! falucca boat rides are, well, boat rides. on the nile, specifically. it was a good time. cheap wine, funny people. they overcharged us, we undertipped them. the usual. we might make it a weekly event. lets see how long we can go before someone falls in.

thursday night we (dum da da dummmmmmmm) had guys in our apt for the first time. i know arent you excited? im actually excited for our guards. oh have i not mentioned them yet? we have guards. theyre not really here for our safety... well, not our physical safety anyway. moral safety perhaps. they are in charge of visitors - we have "male-visiting hours" between 4pm and 1am. they have to check in. we have to leave the door open. theyre only allowed into our front room, never into the back rooms. and the guards do check. oooh yes. but i understand, right? its hard work keeping us loose american women in check. although honestly the 4pm thing confuses me - i mean, ok. keep us chaste by making sure the guys dont spend the night. but before 4pm what exactly do they think we're doing? ill leave that up to you to decide.

as for the weekend... we went out. smoked a lot of hooka (ps cantalope hooka = gods gift to...me, i suppose), made drunken idiots out of ourselves at least once because, i mean, one must keep up appearances. lets just say -insert culturally diverse story here- and leave it at that, shall we?

so the one main problem with this lovely apartement arrangement is the whole food situation. and i dont mean 'whole foods' like the store. i dream about whole foods. my 'prince charming sweeps me off my feet' fantasy has been replaced by images of costco. mmm brand name products. grocery stores around here ... yeah. at least there are fixed prices. we think. now whether the fixed prices for idiot westerners are three times the fixed prices for normal egyptians is something id rather not think about. either way i could probably afford to buy most of these grocery stores in their entirety without my parents noticing a significant dent in the bank account. which is not, by the way, reassuring. the average store around here consists of a tiny hole-in-the-wall room with a few cartons of unrefrigerated juice, a box or two of cereal and fruit that you really want to buy but which you know eating would involve dying a painful death. oh and there are always a few random things that were obviously imported about 30 years ago and are still waiting to be bought. theyll sit in those straight-from-america boxes with mold growing on the corners on the top shelf in the store and remind you of the lovely consumer-based life of which you are now deprived. i saw an easy-bake oven once. that was fun. the stores are dark and probably look more dirty than they are, but the dark smears on the floor can only be ignored for so long. and the men working in them always feel the need to comment on what you're buying. or just comment on you. either way i miss the steril anonymity of american stores - who am i kidding: of american LIFE . i dont WANT ppl caring who i am or what i buy. dammit. i want to be ignored in a hygenic environment. is that so much to ask?

there is one grocery store called alpha mart on zamalek that at least tries. its sort of like the cairo version of walmart. meaning it sells more food than you would normally find in an american kitchen as well as the occasional household item including such necessities as champagne glasses and lacost shirts. so why is this grocery store not sufficient? well in theory it is - its going to have to be - but its a decent distance away and because we are shopping for 6 girls the amount of food we have to buy when we go, even if we only go once a week or something, is quite a lot. so it sort of turns into an extravaganza of shopping with a couple of shopping carts piled to the point of disaster (which i have experienced. twice.) and then of course none of us really know how to cook so we want to buy lots of things we can eat without preperation, or with as little preperation as possible. sadly enough, the american microwave dinner has not yet made it to egypt. i bemone its absense on a regular basis. not that i have a microwave. oh no that would be much too easy. so my general point is: we never have any food in the apartment. we order in. a lot. but what it boils down to is that in a pathetic attempt to feed myself lunch i just tried to cook 4 frozen fish-sticks (the only thing left in the refrigerator) and instead managed to spray myself with boiling oil, drop all the fish-sticks on the floor, and almost burn the building down. who knew that spatulas were so hard?

ok im going to go be productive. and listen to johnny cash. wish me luck.

The Wall of Shame

2006-09-08T22:25:00.000+03:00

its friday morning(ish), depending on your definition of morning, and its my only day without 8am classes. woot. i only have class in the afternoon. life is good. although im sort of disapointed in myself - i set my alarm for 2:30pm but i woke up on my own around 11:30. wtf dude. that was barely 9 hrs of sleep.

so the first day i walked back to my apt from class i was walking with my roommate mara. just after we had left the university campus we passed this sketchy looking egyptian dude who did the whole mutter-things-under-his-breath act as i walked by. i couldnt hear most of it but it was something about how edible i was. mmmm american girls yummmy. parilee would understand. anyway, i ignored him bc i havent quite gotten up the courage to do anything ese yet, but he took this as an invitation to walk up next to us and say "welcome to egypt". now this is one of those stock phrases that every egyptian in egypt knows how to say. its either this or "you are very beautiful" that i get from virtually all but the absolute most creepy guys out there, who usually have something muuch more interesting to share with you. you have to understand though that despite the fact that this phrase does not look sketch on paper, the tone of voice and the WAY guys say it basically implies that theyre welcoming us into egypt because they expect us to be having sex with them very shortly. at this particular point in time i was tired and irritated so i actually spoke to him, and told him to 'go away'. to my surprise he actually spoke english, and again took me telling him to go away as an invitation to strike up a conversation. obviously my subtlety hadnt survived the culture gap.

creepy egyptian guy: hello? hello! where are you from? (thick thick accent)
me: pennsylvania (i tend to be automatically honest. again, blame it on my mother.)
ceg: where?
me: amreeka
ceg: ooh that very nice very nice! i have many friends from america!

we keep walking, avoiding making eye-contact with the guy. this does not disuade him. probably, he gets this from all americans he approaches and has decided its part of our culture. we eventually establish that mara and i are students at auc and we live in garden city - you might think this was a foolish amount of information to give him, but considering where he found us and what we were walking towards, it was pretty self-evident. but then he asks us what our names are and thats crossing the line a bit (although i dont know why this is so much more personal than knowing where we LIVE. i need to get my priorities straight) before i can come up with a suitable answer though, mara jumps in.

mara: my name is charlotte.
ceg: sharlote?
mara: yeah. and this is brigitta (gesturing towards me)

this was beautifully done, btw. i mean, mara even rolled the 'r'. perfect

ceg: breegeeta? this is spanish name?
mara: no i think her parents just liked it. but everyone calls her birdie.
me: (whisper to mara) birdie??
ceg: yes this is much better name. (looks at me) you look like birdie (nods approvingly)

i look like a birdie? i dont know how i feel about that.

ceg: my name is muhammad. (surprise surprise, right?) muhammad abdul somethingorother. but you can call me jordan.

well thank you muhammad, i appreciate you taking a totally random western name to make it easier for us simple americans. from now on im going to introduce myself as "rachel. but you can call me fatimah"

muhammad, or rather, jordan, then proceded to walk with us. and walk with us. and walk with us. until finally we had reached the street that we live on at which point mara and i turned around and very obviously said, 'well thank you very much for walking with us jordan. nice to meet you.' and started to walk away. this was not what jordan wanted.

jordan: wait you have cellphones?
me: no we havent bought them yet. (blatent lie but honestly what do you want from us)
jordan: you have house phone?
me: yes but we dont know that number yet. sorry.

i think jordan might at this point have picked up on our less-than-eager attitude towards giving him, well, anything. as a result he decided to reassure us.

jordan: i am very respectable man. i have card. (every bloody person in egypt has a card. they love giving out cards) here. have card!

he gives us both a card. we thank him politely.

jordan: will you call me tomorrow?
mara: ...dont get your hopes up.
jordan: will you meet me tomorrow at auc for coffee? 5 o'clock?
mara: probably not. you can always give it a shot though. bye!

mara and i walk off down the street. (you might have noticed i did not contribute much to this conversation. i was almost crying i was laughing so hard. i think the egyptian guy might have thought i was retarded or something)

mara: is he following us?
me: (do a really awkward glance over my shoulder.) yes. yes he is.
mara: awesome
jordan: (having been seen, he gives up his less-than-subtle stalking and runs up to us) i just, i just dont want to miss this chance!
me: ummm
jordan: you do not have cellphones?
me: no
jordan: please to meet tomorrow for coffee!
mara: sure. right. bye

awkward?

so we taped his card to our wall and started our "wall of shame". good times in cairo.

Part 3 - 8am? oh please like the world actually exists at 8am.

2006-09-05T16:34:00.000+03:00

ok third and final part and then ill be totally caught up to where i should be. sweet. look how dedicated i am to this.

youre welcome

sooooooo today was my first day of school. unfortunately i was without a loving mommy to see me off, but the way i was stumbling around the apt, i probably couldnt see straight enough to appreciate her anyway. 8am fushah. faantastic. i actually left early with merrit to get coffee before class, although what i really needed was a direct injection of caffine to the system. what i got instead was a iced frappe or something equally useless with a "shot" of coconut flavoring. it was so sweet i could actually feel my teeth disintigrating.

i got to class on time only bc i had the good fortune of running into the provost himself, who was kind enough to walk me to my class. awkward? it was lucky i ran into him though. while my simple mind had assumed i could just walk up the main staircase to the fourth floor to find room 409 in the main building, the actual route made far more sense. we climbed up to the second floor, then instead of continuing on up the stairs we took an abrupt turn to the right, turned a corner and followed a winding corridor down to the end of the building. there we took a flight of stairs up to the fourth floor (somewhere along the winding corridor, the second floor had mysteriously transformed into the 3rd floor) and from there we walked to the other side of the building, went out onto the roof, and finally came upon my classroom. the provost got lost once - apparently one of the staircases moved. hogwarts much? only less cool and magical and more just ridiculous. nice view from the roof though.

my arabic class was awesome. god bless middlebury - despite being 5 chapters behind where i should be, im still ahead of the other kids in terms of general comfort with the language. so i managed to avoid making a total fool of myself in class, although i did ask my teacher what verb وقت was. i thought it was a past tense first person.. lol. my bad. she was like... wokt? time? and i crawled under my desk and died. i can only imagine where i would have been placed without middlebury. arabic negative 2 and a half.

from there i went to the bookstore which has - YES! - fiction books!! which made my life. i was absolutely terrified cairo would be like riyadh with one english language bookstore and i would be stuck reading christopher pike the entire time i was here, and return to stanford retarded. no comments on that, thank you. the bookstore even had a fantasy section. i quite literally did a little dance in the store in front of the fiction bookcase which quite entertained of a bunch of nearby eyptian kids, adding yet another facet to the american stereotype. i bought "miramar" by naguib mahfouz in honor of his funeral. im sure he'd be flattered. im really excited about reading it... i wanted the first book in the cairo trilogy too but i couldnt find it so i think im borrowing it from a friend. such ambition. we'll see what i actually end up reading.

and then i had the spendid good fortune of running into annie (friend from middlebury) so we had lunch and bonded and then did lots of paper work together... such good productive little children. and then i came home and...wait for it...slept through my next class. my mechanical engineering side came out when i apparently re-set the clock itself instead of setting the alarm. im impressed. are you impressed? im impressed.

but no big deal everything is chaos now anyway and nothing ever happens on the first day of class. right. just keep telling yourself that rachel. but tonight my master plan is to sit down and teach myself a chapter out of el-kitab 2 in a feeble attempt to catch up to where i should be. seeing how often i actual follow through with my master plans im kind of excited to see what is actual going to happen tonight...

arent you?

Part 2

2006-09-05T16:04:00.000+03:00

there was this guy in the registration office today who i want to be my friend. he was this blond haired white kid, but other than that he had nothing in common with anyone id ever met before. his hair was a work of art. he had greased it back against his head, and it was so well-slicked, you could actually see the comb marks in it. his entire head of hair was flat against his skull except the very bottom where he had a collar of little curls - the sort of curls you would find on an expensive french dog, id say - around his neck and around under his ears. his outfit was equally interesting: he was wearing a light blue polo. now this was not baby blue my girlfriend picked this out for me im not afraid to show my feminine side light blue, this was im wearing this color bc it was the only one left in the store and nobody else would buy it light blue. no wait im giving him too much credit. he definately went out and bought this color on purpose. thought went into this outfit. this was im a MAN light blue. im a PLAYA light blue. girls melt at my FEET light blue. and to match it he had pale, fitted jeans that were just metro enough to show that he thought he looked damn good in them. to top off the outfit he was wearing a pair of aviators. indoors. i watched him walk back and forth across the office a few times, and the first time he disapeared into the depths of the office, he came back with his collar popped. i can totally see him glancing at himself in a mirror, checking his teeth, fixing his hair, and noticing with horror that his collar had come un-popped. he quickly remedies the situation and then acts cool. dont worry my dear. i was the only one that noticed your brief moment of shame. i bet you havent been able to find anyone to starch your collars in cairo, have you? aww miskina. i feel your pain. afterall without a popped collar who are you? nobody, thats who. nobody.

so yeah i registered for classes yesterday. it was a success in that yes, i am now taking classes. more, they are classes that i am interested in. im taking fushah (classical arabic), amiyah (colloquial arabic), international relations in islam and gender studies in islam. and i am riDIculously excited. i used to fantasize about classes like this at stanford. going to stanford was sort of like dating a guy bc he had such a great rep only to discover that while he might be a great kisser, and he while he might have the money to take you out to entertaining places, he's totally lacking in the personality department and makes you laugh only by accident. so while you might have fun with his friends and appreciate the trips to hawaii, you're going to end up dumping him to take a year in egypt and date a local taxi cab driver. (i am a taxi driver in calcutta)

i apologize if you didnt get that reference, but you should really look into that bc youre missing out.

quick side note: i am madly in love with stanford and have never considered transfering despite my frustration with the lack of classes in my area of interest. besides, all the cool kids go to stanford.

anyway so my classes are amazing. however, i have an 8am four days a week. coming from a girl who's earliest class was 1:15pm last quarter, this SUCKS. mostly bc, despite my dire need for sleep, i think i may be somewhat unable to make myself go to sleep at a reasonable hour. case in point: last night. now i had planned to go to sleep at 10pm or something since i had gotten virtually no sleep the night before and i wanted to be somewhat awake for arabic class. instead, i went out with a bunch of ppl to a hooka bar and didnt get home until 2am. my time management skills leave something to be desired. the hooka bar was fun though - its called "scream" but despite that shadiness it was actually rather nice. you just have to ignore the cave-like decour. cantalope hooka = yum. they also had this delishess mango juice that was more like a smoothy with actual chunks of mango in it. for any girls out there, quick sidenote - do NOT order this drink on a first date. very difficult to drink with sophistication as a result of the mango strings. may have caused my nickname to change from sassy to sloppy. will keep you updated.

Part 1 - Blog Tawil: you do not need to fear the camel

2006-09-05T12:09:00.000+03:00

did you know living in cairo is like smoking 3 cigarettes a day for the entire time youre here? no anti-pollution laws, lots of sand, i can hear my lungs caving in now.

anyway i figured id split this blog up into 2 parts since itll probably be pretty long as i havent written in a few days and i tend to ramble... ill try to stick to the highlights- i dont want to bore you and im lying in a kind of uncomfortable position on my couch right now.

soooooooo orientation at the red sea. i repeat: god loves me. we were staying at el-goona (no im sure thats not how you actually spell it but im also sure i dont care enough to go look it up so if youre that curious email me) its this spot on the red sea on the egypt side about 5 hr south of cairo by car. we were staying the movenpick hotel and, let me tell you, i have been to some nice places in my life and this definately rivaled most of them. the place was GORGEOUS - the architecture the blue blue (very clear, surprisingly) sea that swear to god looked exactly like the sea out of the very last scene of the little mermaid when the sea is soo sparkly and you assumed that the artists were making it look unrealistically beautiful? oh no. one of them had visited the red sea on a good day. (and dont diss the little mermaid references. yeah i know what youre thinking) the sky that was exactly the same color blue as the sky in riyadh. the clear, cloudless, breathtaking true sky-blue that doesnt happen on the east coast. ever. and this wonderful cool breeze blowing in off the water...mmmm yum. of course i burnt myself to a crisp in an effort to gain a beautiful tan which no one will be able to appreciate. itll be a race to see which gets me first - the skin cancer or the lung cancer. lets place bets. woot.

the organization of the trip was classic. they had us leaving at 2am, riding a bus all night and arriving at 9am the next morning. perhaps a conspiracy to make sure we were too tired to get into trouble? or they probably just didnt want to pay for the extra night at the hotel. either way it didnt matter all that much - you dont need that much energy to fall asleep in the sun. so we all met up at 1:30am outside of the campus gate. and of course they had to shuffel the lot of us (all 350 of us) in and out of the university main campus a few times and then herd us all into a tennis court before splitting us up into groups which were organized alphabetically. by first name. i was in p through r and there were 3 rachels in my group (surprise surprise) along with like 5 variations on phillip, this is also the room system they used so 3 out of the 4 sarahs were rooming together and i was with one of the other rachels... at least it made it easy to remember your roommates names. i think our last names are just too much trouble for auc to bother with. one of my friends who isnt officially in the study abroad program (she's at the arabic language institute, an affiliated prg) argued her way onto the trip. when she was finalizing the arrangements over the phone the man (muhammad, of course) asked her what her last name was and she was like "P-A-" and he cuts her off and says "you will be michelle ali". awkward silence. "umm, ok?" and thats what they called her for the rest of the trip.

the hotel was beautifully westernized. or rather, "europeanized" as the egyptians would say. no decency necessary whatsoever. indecency encouraged. maybe they think americans bond better with their clothes off.

they could be right.

either way it was a lovely break from the stifling amount of modestly required in cairo. covering my shoulders is such a burden. i am so abused. and the hotel was just FUN. although they made you pay for all liquids which was kind of weird - free water with dinner? psh. but the food was delish and it was fantastic to be able to eat fresh fruit without anticipating face time with the toilet bowl a few hours down the line. i ate pears! mmmmmmmm pears. you ppl dont appreciate pears the way you should.

oh and i made a conquest- best part of the trip hands down: there was this guy with a camel at the beach saturday. he was giving ppl rides for a fee on what was, btw, the absolute cleanest camel i had ever seen. virtually shining. the amount of time that guy must spend cleaning his camel.. i dont even want to think about it. but anyway, so a few of my friends wander over the get rides and pet the camel. im not a huge camel person, and ive seen how far they can spit so i was hanging back a bit and the camel guy comes up to me. he was goodlooking if you like arab guys - which i do - but this was probably the second most awkward conversation ever:

camel guy: (thick arabic accent) would you like to pet my camel?

ok i just want to point out there that that would make an awesome pickup line, just in general. i recommend it to all guys out there. use it in the bars. girls will fall over themselves

me: no thank you
camel guy: are you afraid of my camel? you do not need to fear the camel
me: no im not scared i just...dont want to
camel guy: (looks deeply into my eyes and pauses for a few seconds) you are first real woman i have seen in long time
me: (astonished)
camel guy: your eyes so beautiful
me: (laughs. nervously.)
camel guy: your smile lights up the beach!
me: um. thank you. (walks quickly away)

it was awesome. and was quickly followed 20 min later by what was definately the most awkward conversation ever - when i was sitting with some friends for lunch, he comes and finds me again. leading his camel.

camel guy: (to the girl sitting next to me) do you know how lucky you are to sit next to such beautiful flower?
friend: (looks at me. looks back at the camel guy. looks at me again.)
camel guy: her eyes are like sky. i could swim in those eyes. i see the whole world in her eyes!
me: (at this point ive sort of turned away, buried my head in my hands, and almost sufocated in an effort to keep from laughing in his face. maybe my mother just raised me well, but i felt like it would be rude not to be somewhat impressed with his proclamations)
camel guy: (to me) why do you turn away? a woman like you should not be shy (the camel chews a bit on his shirt)
me: (frantic whisper to my friend - "what should i do??? make him go away!" i mean, yeah, it was hilarious. but i was also totally embarrassed and i had NO idea what to do. he had me cornered)
camel guy: (still waxing poetic. i think it was about my mouth now. and dolphins? did he mention dolphins?)
friend: (to camel man) please stop
camel guy: i cannot! if my mouth stops, my heart stops.

i mean, honestly, who IS this guy?

friend: (to me) tell him you have a boyfriend!
me: (oooh good idea) thank you very much sir but i have a boyfriend (no seriously look how well my mother raised me)
camel guy: oh he is luckiest man in world! if i see him, i give him one hundred camels!
-awkward pause. he wanders off-

im not entirely sure what he expected me to do in reaction to his stunningly original compliments... buy a camel ride? either way, he pretty much made my day. in retrospect it probably would have been funnier if i had played along...except he might have thrown me over his camel and ridden off into the desert and that would have been less funny.

oh i also went go-carting with some friends. SO much fun i dont know why i havent done it before. although apparently its a bit different in egypt... perhaps the lack of safety regulations makes the difference? either way i guess the go-carts went a LOT faster. and we didnt wear seat belts. but we were wearing these mamoth helmets which im sure made up for it. i went around 10pm saturday night with some ppl on a whim...didnt exactly dress for it. the cars are really low-to-the-ground and you put your feet in pedals on either side of the steering wheel. one quick recommendation from a girl who has experience: DONT wear a skirt. i definately gave the go-cart guys a bit of a show and the only way i could really fix my skirt so it didnt blind me while i was driving or, more importantly, get me arrested, was something sort of along the lines of a loin cloth arrangement. so picture this: giant black astronaut helmet, cute coach purse, bright red loincloth. hot. no wonder the rest of the world thinks americans are weird.

anyway it was amAZing such an adrenaline rush i was on i high for the rest of the night. and the track was sweet - lots of really tight turns that are impossible to do at full speed but you do it anyway bc we all have a bit of a death wish, dont we? or at least the ppl studying abroad in cairo do. the trick to really enjoying yourself is to expect to drive full speed into the side of the track, and be okay with that. because you know if god wills it you'll crash no matter how fast youre going so you might as well have fun getting there... but i only lost control of my car once when i took at turn a leetle bit too quickly and skidded. i did like a 180 or something. now with my mad skills i WOULD have been fine, but unfortunately the girl i had just passed - thus the need to get around the turn quickly - slammed into me and the go-cart ate my leg. i have a bruise thats bigger than a bread basket on the inside of my thigh - it didnt even have my skirt ot protect it. looks like my caironian husband is already beating me.

umm from go-carting i met up with another group of ppl at an irish pub. you know, bc when in rome... right. drunk on the red sea at an irish pub -

friend: oreed vodka katheeer fee drink-ee. katheeeeeeeeer (makes hand gestures accordingly)
waiter: laughs. (thinks: stupid drunken americans)

(rough translation -
friend:i want a lot of vodka. a LOT of vodka. get me trashed. go.
waiter: i think you guys understood that part)

there is also a rather amusing story involving the beach at 2am and a couple of drunken guys who decided to go skinny dipping. it was totally black out but they were trying to describe who they were to me.

drunken boys: we have 6-packs
me: awesome.
drunken boys: no seriously. feel!

and it was true. they did. very nice ones in fact. 2 thumbs up to that. of course i have no idea what their faces look like but ill keep my eyes out for the nice abs...

oh and ive been nicknamed "sassy" by a group of guys here. wtf? im sort of ashamed.

2006-09-01T00:54:00.000+03:00

and im back again striving to keep up the daily bloggingness.

so i just found out auc offers scuba diving. how frickin amazing would that be. and we'd do field trips and stuff... my life is so sweet. i must have been really good in a past life. or slipped god a few piasters in the waiting room.

i bought fresh flowers today with my roommate for our dining room table. they are gorgeous. and they cost $3, significantly adding to their appeal. the flower guy was really cute too in a sort of scared way - i think michelle (roommate. tall. thin. gorgeous. i seem to collect them) and i made him really nervous. but he gave us each a free rose which is cute, if unoriginal, so he's on my good list. we think we mightl go back there every week. fresh flowers... i am so domestic. mumkin my soccer mom future shining through? ha. right.

aanyway so guess what i did tonight. no nevermind you will never guess. unless you are like my older sister who read my aim away msg, completely ruining the surprise. very inconsiderate of her. i went to my very first...wait for it...BOY BAND CONCERT. yesss. think n-sync then subtract the dancing, add in decent music and then make them arab. presto! you have WAMA. each letter stands for one of their names. isnt that adorable? just smile and nod.

so the concert was in the cairo opera house and to get their we took the metro. which, by the way, i did not know existed. but not only does it exist, its actually really clean and relatively sketch-free. relatively because, i mean, there are men there. but they have a women's only car so we didnt have to find out whether the good, muslim men would be able to resist us scandelous american girls in close quarters. and the opera house itself was soo nice. very riyadh-esk. lots of lighting. concrete. fountains. although there were a few ancient-egyptian statues that would have been unexpected in saudi arabia. when we first go there we were actually worried we were at the wrong place bc it gave off a classy-sort of feeling, and ive never really associated n-sync with a classy atmosphere. fortunately, however, we were wrong. we paid all of $4 to get in. i heart egypt.

i guess the most interesting aspect of this concert was the fact that there was pretty much an even mix of girls and boys there. the pop music in the united states tends to target only one gender. in fact, pop musicians tend to really only attract the stereotypical screaming, pre-pubescent girls to their concerts (with the possible exception of a certain friend of mine (coughtherussiancough) who kept going far past that age.) the guys that actually listen to pop music tend to lock themselves in their closets, turn down the volume, and jump at small noises. i have a friend who made a mix where r kelly's remix to ignition was the first song, and some backstreet boys song was the second. we'd be driving along blasting the r kelly with the windows down, and then when the backstreet boy song came on he'd roll up the windows and turn down the volume. a guilty pleasure. but the guys at this concert, who were all between the ages of about 13 up to 25, were totally unashamedly worshiping WAMA. the whole stadium ended up standing on top of their chairs, and the guys were up there right along with the girls, screaming, jumping up and down, almost killing themselves, no big deal. i think its because homosexuality is so off the radar here just because it is SO taboo, that guys dont have to worry about the stigma that might come with listening to pop music in the states. you go egyptian boys! you be proud of liking that pop music. and i wont ask what goes on at the after-parties.

so today we had an all-day on-campus orientation in preparation for our 3 day off campus orientation which starts tonight at 1:30am. we're going to the red sea. raise your hand if your school has ever had its orientation at the red sea. yeah. i win. it was a kind of funny experience. first of all, it was the first sort-of success that auc has had with organization. clap. clap. clap. what was REALLY amusing though was the attitude taken by the administration. the woman in charge has been the woman registering auc kids for classes. (oh sry for those of you not middle east-obsessed auc = american university of cairo) and the ONLY thing i have heard about her - i havent registered yet - is how much of a total bitch she has been to all of the students. very unaccomadating, very into public humiliation. basically what ive gotten from ppl is that she's generally not a very nice person who probably deserves to burn in hell for all eternity but will probably end up with the requisite 79 virgins instead. her attitude mutated for this orientation though and she talked for a really long time about how she loves the students and she hopes we'll come to her with any problems and how she has chocolates on her desk and her lobby is air conditioned and do we want to sit on her lap? (that last bit was my own addition. come on. honestly. that would just be weird.) but there is no way in hell this woman thinks any of the students have any feelings for her beyond the natural hatred they feel after she crushed their dreams when she denied them the classes they wanted. devil woman. so my conclusion is that no one is that oblivious and therefore she must have a really ironic sense of humor. maybe i like her anyway? ill hold off judgement until monday when i find out that the only class left with any opennings is basket weaving. basket weaving at auc. hey, its a story.

and i also have a story about the "beverages" we are and are not allowed to bring on this orientation trip and the pre-gaming we actually did for the bus ride (yes we are lame i know. but we have fun so shut up) but that all will have to wait until after i get back from this awesome spend-all-day-getting-skin-cancer-hopefully-wont-get-blown-up-by-terrorists orientation trip. will update on when i get back my dears!

You're just going to have to trust me.

2006-08-30T02:20:00.000+03:00

ok so since i actually got scolded for not posting yesterday, i am now writing a blog despite the fact that its 2:15am and i am le tired jiddon. or rather, giddon i suppose.

where to begin where to begin. i suppose that is the danger in not writing everyday. everything oozes together in my mind to create one great mushy memory of heat and cute clothes. what did i do the last 2 days? ok hold on im trying to remember.

ah yes. so yesterday i slept in until 2:30 in the afternoon. it was glorious. not setting an alarm is a truly liberating experience. even if it does mean skipping the tour of your new college campus. psh. people who actually know their way around live incredibly boring lives.

oh i fell down the stairs btw. did i mention this to you? there are these marble spiral stairs in one of the campus buildings. swear to god the steps arent actually parallel to the ground. they slope downwards, which means walking down them in flipflops (read: cute but frictionless) can be an adventure. basically, i managed to slide down about 20 stairs, choosing, of course, to wait just until there are enough people around to cause true humiliation. my sophisticated veneer barely survived. barely. it probably was not helped by the fact that i was wearing a skirt. by the time i reached the bottom of the stairs i did not pass anyone's but perhaps the french's test of modesty. i had a similar experience at breakfast earlier this summer. it didnt involve stairs but i ended up in about the same position. i need to either stop falling over or to re-think my clothing choices.

oh. and i also managed to shatter a window in my apartment. and i mean SHATTER, as in there is no more glass in the window frame except for one lonely little fin-shaped shard at the bottom. and i exploded a juice carton at the grocery store. well, it exploded by itself, with a little help from gravity and one of my elbows. awkward. i dont think ive done much for the less-than-flattering american stereotype just yet. still working on it.

anyway i had my first clubbing-in-cairo experience last night. woot. we went to the odeon palace hotel. very chic. its this roof-top bar, with a goorgeous view of cairo. it took us a while to get there since our taxi driver didn't know where it was and, of course, spoke no english. not that we knew where it was either, so i dont know whether english would have helped but somehow it lends a certain feeling of comfort. he pulled up at another hotel and i understood enough of the conversation to warn the other girls in the car that yes, as expected, he had lied to us when he said he knew where he was going and no, the other hotel guy didnt know where it was either but he recommended just driving into downtown and asking people on the streets for directions. which i guess i didnt really have a problem with except i probably would have prefered just to stay ignorant and make the logical assumption that our taxi driver, as a man who makes his living off driving people around the city, might actually know his way around the city.

but we made it there eventually and spent just enough time in the lobby of the hotel waiting for the other girls to arrive to make the hotel staff reeally nervous. although this didnt stop them from adjusting their security camera to point at us instead of the door. the actual bar itself was really nice, blah blah blah. we had to tip a guy to get toilet paper for the bathroom, but i suppose you win some you lose some. we tried "stella" which is the "beer of egypt" according to the billboards. i really dont know how much that says. and we had apple sheesha and felt very middle eastern. the liquour in the turkish coffee was a nice combo also. soo we just sort of hung out and had girls-that-live-in-apts bonding time. which is always helped along by alcohol. and ridiculous picture taking, many of which will hopefully soon be posted on facebook for all of our viewing pleasure. oh, and some of the other girls knocked over their sheesha and almost set the building on fire. but it WASNT ME. and i was rather proud of that.

oh and i was describing one of my friends - i wont say who - to one of the other girls when i had another one of my memory leaks. they asked for his name and i was completely unable to give it to them! nope. had no earthly idea what it was. i could picture his face in my head. could remember every time id hung out with him. and could not, for the life of me, remember his name. this was a guy i lived in the same dorm with for an ENTIRE YEAR. yeah. and this isnt the first time this has happened to me. its like sometimes the little nerve endings that store information in my brain are just a tad bit slippery or something. or every once in a while one of the connectors will morph from puzzle-piece form to tiny woman holding on to only the hand of a really fat man dangling off a cliff. and theyve both been hiking all day. in cairo. and she never liked him that much anyway. and its almost easier for her to just...let go.

or maybe im just going prematurely demented.

or maybe thats what dementia IS - when the nerve endings in your brain change from cute little children being frantically held on to by their loving mothers (the puzzle pieces) to fat unattractive men who would be doing the world a disservice if they reproduced.

i think i might just be tired.

but basically what im trying to say is we had a lot of fun clubbing. and we left the hotel at some hour in the morning (nothing too late wouldnt want to traumatize the caironians) and created a huge scene just by walking down the street. it was ridiculous; literally every man (and there were only men out at this hour) on the street turned, stared, and catcalled at us IN UNiSON as we walked down the street. it was almost like a musical - i expected dancing and was disapointed. and then we went home and played jenga. another good bonding game. and ate trailmix. and i must say it was overall a fantastic way to finish the evening.

so that was yesterday. and i am much too tired to write too much about what i did today so i will give you only the highlight: we watched 8 episodes of season 1 of 24. in a row. and it was beautiful. i dont think ive ever screamed at the characters of a fictional story so much in my life. and i tend to interact with my television characters (and book characters, and movie characters, much to the dismay of the other ppl in the movie theatre. specifically my mother.), so thats saying something.

ok i am exhausted and not seeing entirely straight. planning on sleeping in tomorrow. and then cleaning the bathroom with our NEW CLEANING SUPPLIES. which was a whole different adventure. which you guys will probably never hear about. so come up with something exciting for me, would you? awesome.

Well now that you mention it an Egyptian husband does sound rather appealing...

2006-08-27T16:14:00.000+03:00

Hello again! wow 2 blogs in 2 days. rachel must be bored, you think. but i say ha! rachel is in cairo! and boredom in cairo is about as likely as peace in the middle east.
...too much too soon? ill try to contain myself.

soo my first full day in cairo. rachel strides fearlessly out into the city. well, sort of. i had company - two girls next door were also taking the placement test and were planning to get coffee beforehand, so i of course invited half the hallway and a whole group of us took off towards the university this morning. safety in large numbers. yes.

ive been trying to pinpoint the exact differences between cities in the states and cities in the middle east. on first glance, the exotic-? (exoticness? exoticity? right) the exotic feel of the city is kind of overwhelming. but one specific difference i noticed today was the number of people, specifically men, in the streets of the city. and, i mean, you'll get people in the streets of cities in the US, but most of them are GOING places. places to be people to meet and whatnot. the majority of the people here, however, really dont seem to be doing anything. theyre just, you know, hangin out. men will literally just have pulled a plastic chair up next to the road and just be sitting there. its like people watching is a national past time. and while normally i wouldnt have a problem with this, here the people theyre watching is ME. and they dont just watch. oh no. they comment. the whistle. they hiss. they propose marriage. and its all fun and games until someone gets hit by a car bc they were too busy staring at my scandalously bare arms to pay attention. not that thats happened. but im just saying

anyway so we went for coffee and by the time we finished our 10 min walk to the university i had just about passed out from heat exhaustion and couldnt manage anything more than a bottle of water. oh, and the man in the cafe and i have a less than successful conversation.

man: (in reeeeally accented english) for here or to go?
me: pardon? (in my very proper little accent that always seems to pop up when i have no idea whats going on)
man: for here or to go?!
me: im sorry i dont speak arabic
man: (getting frustrated) la la la for here or to go???
me: im SORRY you dont have to get mad at me but i DONT SPEAK.....

at this point what he had said had finally worked its way through my thick skull and i announce "we're staying!". of course the man has given up on me at this point, and i say it uselessly to his back and then wander off to find a table. for someone who's spent SO MUCH TIME in other countries surrounded by people with accents as thick as the cloud of dust that hovers over cairo, devouring our happiness, and men's manners, you'd think my comprehension skills would be at a slightly higher level.

did you notice that metaphore? yeah. i thought you did.

ps its not really devouring my happiness. it just makes everything a little hazy. and it isnt very friendly to my clothes. but its ok, theyre used to it because of my ACTIVE LIFESTYLE. what.

anyway so i took my arabic placement test and they put me in arabic 211 which is awesome...except the class starts 5 chapters ahead of where i left off. and at 60 vocab words per chapter plus grammer... pain. but its either that or 201 which only meets 5 hrs a week instead of 10 and only covers like 8 chapters in the entire semester. decisions decisions. just how willing am i to torture myself? ha. stupid question.

so i was the first person to leave the placement test. nothing new there. i got bored of trying to understand passages that were, well, incomprehensible. and post placement test i was a goodgirl and did all my paperwork etc. ps i totally didnt need any of the receipts and whatnot that they had told us we NEEDED to bring on. pain. of. death. typical. oh, and i cant register for classes until sept. 4 which means i probably am going to end up taking like econ or something equally ridiculous. (lol sry cat) i wonder if i could switch to all arabic if i dont get into the classes i want? oh the possibilities. but the classes offered are sooooooooooooooooo cool im ridiculously excited and why doesnt stanford offer anything even half as cool? for a college rated 2nd in the world by newsweek, i must say i am disapointed.

so after paperwork and whatnot one of my many roommates and i went with some girls i picked up (yes i pulled the "hey pretty lady want to go for a ride" line) to a really truly authentic egyptian bazaar! oh the excitement. so this pretty much sums up my experience:

desperate shop man: (heavy accent, but understandable) hello! ahlan! please come into my shop! special price just for you!
rachel: no thank you (i am very polite at all times)
d.s.m.: do you want discount?
rachel: no thank you
d.s.m.: do you want half off? everything half off just for you
rachel: no thank you (at this point i was walking away bc there is only so long you can actually listen to these ppl. in fact i had really given him a lot more time than he deserved - most of the time you just have to ignore them or they will grab you by the hair and drag you into their shop and force-feed you discounts)
d.s.m.: DO YOU WANT EGYPTIAN HUSBAND??

now you'd think that there would be an awkward silence after this in the bazaar, but no. this is normal.

oh and i was supposed to have dinner with a friend tonight but she DITCHED me so im having dinner with my roommates but in my quest to have dinner with my plan A i experienced my first solo-walk through downtown cairo. lets just put it this way, i was even honked at by the guy driving the pizza hut moped. i mean honestly, how low have you sunk when even the pizza hut guy thinks he has the right to honk at you? or is that an elitest attitude. well i also got asked "kem touride?" by a pre-pubescent egyptian boy which translates to "how much do you want?" no, despite my incredible beauty and obvious class, i am not a prostitute.

and on that note.

I'm on my own, I'm on my way

2006-08-26T21:34:00.001+03:00

ok so maybe cairo isnt quite utopia parkway but dammit its close enough.

so yeah. ive decided, after much heartfelt deliberation, to start a blog. get excited.

this blog was actually started by my older sister when she was living in jeddah last year so she might be posting from time to time. but i have confidence that you all will not be overly confused - the name of the person writing is at the end of the blog. my blog will be slightly different from libby's, for those of you who have read both. she was a bit more...intellectual in her observations then i will be. do not read this blog if you are looking for deep thoughts. i have none that i could broadcast without feeling like a pretentious git. this will be something more along the lines of a cross between a mass email and a record of what ive been doing for my own amusement. but i do it for love of mes amis who, surprisingly enough, seem to care enough about what im doing with my life to give my blog a place in their procrastination schedules. read email, check. read aim away msgs, check. stalk ppl on facebook, check. aaand read rachel's blog, check! beautiful.

sooo where to begin. i arrived in cairo (for those of you not in the know im taking a year off and spending it in cairo. thats in egypt.) at 4:45pm this afternoon - with a 7 hr time difference to the east coast. those on the west coast can do their own mental math. i went through paris and after the amount of time and effort my parents put into preparing me to miss my transfer flight in paris, i was almost disapointed when i had absolutely no trouble getting to my plane on time. life is so cruel. but i slept. a lot. and pretended i knew french for most of the trip which worked pretty well unless the ppl expected me to respond to them.

stewardess: -incomprehensible frenchy babble-
rachel: -smiles. nods. feels ridiculously sophisticated. considers buying a cigarette just to complete the image-
stewardess: -pauses and looks on expectantly-
rachel: -continues to smile until pause reaches awkward length-
stewardess: -more frenchy babble, presumably along the lines of, "whats wrong with you woman! answer the damn question!"-
rachel: -finally realizes the stewardess wants an answer. looks around frantically. makes rolling dive for the exit-

cairo is beauuutiful. looks suspiciously like riyadh. less dry. very hot. it has that same chaotic feel to it, like nobody really knows quite what theyre doing, but theyre doing it anyway bc also, nobody really cares. and i understood arabic at the airport!!! -patpat patpat- of course, despite understanding it, i didnt speak any of it. nope. not a word. when i had to get my luggage i went looking for a cart, and found a bunch but there was this official-ish looking guy sitting in a desk next to them so i wasnt sure whether or not i had to rent the cart, or if i could just take it. and i didnt really want to start out my cairo experience by being wrestled to the ground by the poor cart owner whose children would go dinner-less tonight bc the stingy american female stole his cart. (and i was sure he would call me "imrah" in his stories. "al-imrah al-amrikia al-stingia") and so, to avoid said situation, i went to talk to the cart guy. of course he didnt speak english. so he called over his friend, who also didnt understand my question. so he called over another guy, who also didnt understand my question. no big deal. we were all enjoying the absurdity of the situation blah blah blah, total incomprehension on both sides. mind you, i know how to say "to rent" in arabic. i fact, i know EXACTLY how to say "do i need to rent this?" admittedly i dont know the word for cart, but i feel like i could have gotten around that one. now you may ask, why then did i not simply ask in arabic? i have a theory. maybe thats how middlebury keeps ppl coming back. along with brainwashing us to kill world leaders at certain times as was the general consensus of students actually at middlebury, they also brainwash us so we cant actual use any of the arabic we know. we can just repeat things over and over in english at a gradually increasing volume until we give up and walk away in disgust left with nothing but the constant fear of angry cart owners hanging over us. it is a conspiracy.

moving on...i am now sitting in my apartment, which is quite nice actually. view of the nile from the window :) if you have a webcam i can give you a virtual tour if you im me and i like you enough. nice big living room, kitchen, 2 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. and did i mention one of the girls actually arranged some fashion "101 sex tricks to try before you die" magazines on the livingroom table? cute. one problem - there are 6 girls, 5 beds. and i was the last one to get here so i am, at least for now, bedless. maybe ill buy a blowup mattress and set it up in the corner, ghetto-style. actually the bed isnt so much the issue as the clothing space... but i will manage. somehow. inshaallah. -cue dramatic music- on my way to the apt my driver says, "now we are crossing al-whatever street and after that we will reach Garden City (where my apt is). Inshaallah". i was like..yes i will commense prayer immediately in the hopes that god will not move the district before we get there. awesome.

ok children i feel like i have droned on for long enough. im listening to architecture in helsinki. and i think i might sleep on the couch. miss you all muchly-

2006-06-09T21:54:00.000+03:00

Why do we call a sport football if we play it with our hands?

Dereliction of Duty

2006-05-01T01:11:00.000+03:00

You know what, true to my amazing powers of perception and prediction, I am loving my life. I find I have a lot less to say when I am happy. I also find I have a lot less to say now that I'm getting used to it and things no longer seem quite as bizarre as they once did. For example, I have begun a fun, if somewhat strange, tradition of religious banter with some of my closer friends. They say I'm a kafir, I say at least the rest of my family will be in hell with me. And then they go off and pray. Ah, it's a good life.

Seriously, though, it's harder and harder to come up with hard-hitting insightful comments when I'm getting used to the place. Granted, there are things which still drive me mad, but they're so old it seems sad to complain about them more. Of course, Team Fabulous has certainly noticed that whenever I break free of my prison I tend to be hyperactive and extremely happy for at least an hour.

I guess my main concern these days is that, if Effat really wants to have more girls like me come stay with them and study here, they're going to have to shape up in some respects. Like with the mobility issue.

That's all I've got for now. As usual, I am up too late and unable to sleep. But I'm sure that will be fixed soon enough.

Only five weeks left. I'm already really unhappy about it.... ah well. These things all have to end eventually.

Luckily, Team Fabulous will mostly be in London all together, so that'll be a trip.

Alright, off to bed/work.

A Thought

2006-04-10T16:20:00.000+03:00

I was reading DhimmiWatch today (I like this site, not because of the attitude, but because they do an excellent job collecting interesting articles from all over the world about Muslims in Western societies) and I found in it a comment on the arrest of the Saudi journalist I mentioned earlier. If you look at the Arab News article (which you can't, because they won't publish it online any more -- booo) and then look at the article they've got on DhimmiWatch, you can see where point of view becomes incredibly important in journalism. Obviously, I do not approve of arresting people on heresy charges, and on death threats and whatnot. Obviously, I do not think that this man should be punished for anything he said relating to Islam. However, the man does (according to the Arab News, at least) have a lawyer, and his case is going to trial not in the Ministry of the Interior but in a local court, thanks to his lawyer's efforts. You have to keep in mind that Saudi Arabia does have some sort of legal system, even if everyone believes its laws to be outdated. And a lot of people, including the man himself, have spoken out against his arrest.

Of course, that doesn't make it okay to have a law against apostasy, but come on, what do you expect? Guys, one generation ago our parents were fighting wars against the "Godless commies" and, to hear my grandfather talk about it, the atheists still have something nefarious going on. We're still fighting battles against homophobia in the more liberal areas, and in the less liberal areas white supremicists and male chauvanists still frequently have a lot of power. Being "godless" or "unchristian" is still, in some parts of the United States, not acceptable. My little sister spent her Thanksgiving helping feed Katerina victims in Mississippi, and she stayed in a convent with a bunch of nuns who tried desperately to get her see the light. My Louisiana relatives are not pleased that I'm not a regular church-goer.

Keep in mind that "the West" hasn't got it all figured out. Life is a bundle of paradoxes. The belief that it is morally right for everyone to have the right to create their own morals is troubling in and of itself -- what if people decide to create a moral system which denies people the right to choose? None of the answers are black and white and although it may seem like a balance has been reached in the West, that's a misconception. The balances are shifting all the time. Islam obviously throws something of a wrench into the gears, but as an inherently optimistic person I'd like to say I think eventually a new balance will be found.

Religion obviously complicates this. Christianity and Judaism been dealing with all of the paradoxes for centuries and centuries. Islam has too. Obviously, in comparison to the current mainstream manifestations of Christianity and Judaism, Islam is on the whole more conservative. And it is obviously also true that most Muslim countries are ruled by semi-repressive or all-out repressive regimes and are denied many things which we "Westerners" consider basic human rights. And one of those things is the right to choose our own religion.

But we have to keep in mind the goal, here. In my mind, this is not a moral issue but a practical one with moral aspects. The idea is to live together without us all having to kill each other. There is nothing black-and-white about any of these issues. As with most religions, you can largely find what you're looking for in Islam. Of course Islam isn't accepting or tolerant if all you're looking for is the intolerant bits. If we were to interpret religions at their most literal and conservative, then very few religions would come across looking moderate or accepting. Even Hinduism, at its most literal, involves a lot of fasting and sitting in the forest living off of berries and avoiding women who are at their "unclean" time of month. And no religion, at base, really wants to accept the idea that other religions could also be correct.

So, since in that direction lies only dissention, I say we have no choice but to go another path. It is NOT blind to emphasize the aspects of Islam which are tolerant and peaceful: it is hopeful. It is not going to happen immediately, but with time more and more people may come to see it the way these hopefuls do, and may choose to interpret the Qu'ran and hadith in a fashion more conducive to neighborliness than to discord. It would be just as wrong for the West to squash Islam, and the right of Muslims to believe in their religion, as it is for Saudi Arabia to arrest this journalist for apostasy.

So how shall we approach it? Shall we be alarmist and spend our time pointing out all of the things that seem to point to an impending Muslim takeover of the universe? Or shall we recognize that Islam has a growing influence in the world and do our best to recalibrate our own balances in order to fit that in?

Now, that said, I am not trying to justify a mitigation or reconsideration of "Western" values. There are some things I consider absolutely integral to ANYBODY living peacefully together. By this I mean freedom of speech and belief primarily, although I'm sure if I were pressed there'd be other things. Without freedom of speech, there is no way that two societies or cultures with different beliefs can ever communicate in an atmosphere of peace. But it took a long time for that idea to gain widespread acceptance, and there are places in the West where the battles are still being fought. Any strict morality of Right and Wrong does not really lend itself to freedoms of speech and belief, but given time and a lot of effort a balance between the two can be found. It's THAT we should be focusing on, not on the failures of the moment.

I think the fallacy that the people at DhimmiWatch are falling under is one which the Islamists themselves would be happy to agree with: The idea that the Islam practiced today in the conservative regimes is the one, true, eternal Islam sent down by God in the Quran and obvious to all who have eyes to see and read it. This is false. If there IS a one, true, eternal Islam then God's the only one who knows what it is. Islam has been changing since Muhammad, and at times it has been more tolerant, and at times it has been less tolerant (much like the history of other major ideologies and religions). Even DURING the time of Muhammad it changed, as God added verses that dealt with the immediate concerns of the fledgling Medinan community. Obviously, there are some things which will tend to remain constant over time: the basics of belief, the five pillars, the shahada. But how scholars interpret the Qu'ran and the hadith has always been changeable.

I'm not trying to say that pointing out problems in the Muslim world is useless; obviously, in order to correct a problem, one must first address it. But to come to judgement regarding whether Islam is inherently a tolerant or peaceful religion, particularly if your judgement is that it is neither tolerant nor peaceful, is useless and harmful. What, then, are our options? World war? Wipe out the Muslims once and for all in one enormous crusade? Ignore them and hope they'll go away? Kick them out of our countries and refuse to sell them goods? Like it or not, Islam is one of the major world religions, and one way or another we have to learn to live with each other.

And, as my pal Jesus always liked to say, before you point out the splinter in someone else's eye, you'd better remove the log from your own.

Some interesting news

2006-04-10T13:25:00.000+03:00

So, I hate to say but the Arab News has stopped letting people link to their articles online - they must be losing money. In any case, I still get the print edition down in the dining hall fairly often, and today there were a couple of interesting articles. First off, I don't know if anybody noticed earlier this year, but the first women EVER were elected to the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce this year. Quite a big deal here. But today I read that the same isn't going to be allowed in Mecca and Medina's Chamber of Commerce - the four women who tried to run were disqualified for not "fulfilling the requirements" whatever that means.

And, in another somewhat disturbing article, a man from Hail who has worked as a journalist for many years was arrested on suspicion of forsaking Islam, based on some comments he made on the internet four years ago. Apparently he was also threatened at the time and his car was vandalized. He filed a complaint with the police and they asked him to come in and clear up some things related to his complaint. When he went in, they arrested him.

Now, I don't know what he said online, so I can't say whether or not he has "forsaken Islam", but I have to say I'm disturbed by the idea that somebody can be persecuted for anything related to religious choice.

Of course, if you've got the right religion going, why would you want to let anybody pass up the chance to get to heaven?

Sigh. Religion is full of paradox. But Islam even says you shouldn't coerce people who don't want to join Islam, and you would have thought that should apply equally well to people who choose to leave Islam.

Anyway, those are my tidbits for the day. It's another slow Monday.

In Comparison...

2006-04-08T20:09:00.000+03:00

I'm going to work on keeping my frequency of post up. This isn't going to be very useful if I never write anything, is it?

So I am back in Saudi and studying with the goal of getting a lot better at Arabic by the time I leave. And actually it's worked fairly well so far. I'm taking nothing but two translation classes, and I have one of the profs helping me once a week to improve my speaking. Or at least to force myself to speak a little.

In addition I've been working about an hour a half a day in the admin building learning all sorts of useful things about the way an office runs and talking to interesting people about Saudi Arabia and their impressions. I'm working for the Director of Accreditation, who is a new lady, from Texas, who's got some interesting perceptions on how Effat functions and knows a lot about how a school OUGHT to function. It's been great.

And this last weekend I went and hung out with family friends from Riyadh who were visiting with their 11mo. old baby who is ADORABLE. So i got some good beaching in. And I realized, while I was explaining some of my observations from living here, that I really have learned an amazing amount from my stay. Nothing helps you realize that like talking to people who aren't a part of it. Going back to the States will probably jar loose thousands of other things I don't even realize I know.

So anyway that's what I'm going to do right now: think and party. It's a good life.

Still at L&T

2006-03-30T16:21:00.000+03:00

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

2006-03-30T14:01:00.000+03:00

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

2006-03-13T11:43:00.000+03:00

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

2006-03-11T23:01:00.000+03:00

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)

2006-03-11T10:20:00.000+03:00

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.

Visa Update

2006-02-21T21:19:00.000+03:00

Hello friends and family. I'm in the states now. I came for a vacation, figuring three weeks would HAVE to be enough to get me a visa, but apparently I was wrong. I'm now a week behind schedule, and no good news on my visa is forthcoming. Goody goody.

Just thought I'd let you all know. I am TRYING to come back. I just don't know if I can.

Grr in general.

Peace out.

Away away away

2006-01-12T12:01:00.000+03:00

hello delightful friends, fans, family, and assorted random people. I just want to warn you all that to make my stretch of silence even longer, I'm going to go live with Dr. Doom for the next week or so and be entertained by her and her obsession with anime. Should be an excellent week, but I will be incommunicado.

Follow-ups to... well... follow.

Ciao!

Reading Lists

2006-01-07T20:09:00.000+03:00

I've been doing very little the last couple of days, but I've gotten some embroidery in, some reading in, and a lot of thinking. I tend to vascillate a lot on things like religion. I grew up with such an atmosphere of cultural relativism, and the prevailing politically correct view that if it has anything to do with religion then you have to accept it and not try to criticize it or use rational thought on it.

Ibn Warraq, in his Why I am Not a Muslim makes a bunch of good points which I don't entirely agree with. I'm glad other people have very strong opinions because if they didn't I wouldn't be able to feel so good about being in the middle on all of these issues. There's no point in mediating unless there are people strongly articulating all points of view. But I think it's a book that needed to be written, I'm glad it was, and I'm even more glad I'm reading it. And I don't disagree with everything he says. I'm not done with it yet so I can't make any sort of official statement, but I'm sure I'll mention thoughts as they come up.

Arguments are so much more fun with people who disagree with you. Of course, they have to be people you can reason with, otherwise arguing becomes a frustrating exercise much like bashing your head against the wall. But somebody who likes to reason, and who also believes something completely different from you, will spark an amazing conversation. About pretty much anything. D and I were discussing this out at brunch today because we realized we agree on lots of things.

Either that, or I'm too careful in what I say. I really do watch myself fairly carefully. Around everyone except my family, I think.

Aramco Pictures Have Arrived!

2006-01-04T23:39:00.000+03:00

Vacation is here, hip hip hooray! I spent today sleeping, reading, and embroidering. And listening to music, of course. I feel that this was an excellent use of my time. Now, to shower, listen to some more music, perhaps embroider further and watch some TV.

But first, I'm just had to post one of the pictures from Aramco. I have a bundle, but I figure this one of me and Dima at breakfast is just too good to pass up.

Don't I look like a good Saudi girl?

Happy 2006!

2006-01-03T22:12:00.000+03:00

Happy New Years, everybody. It's 2006. That's frightening. Why, I still consider 1995 to be a futuristic year, and here we are 11 years later. I mean, okay, I was 11 in 1995, but back then 11 was an old, old age to be. I was practically all grown up. Here I am, nearly 22, and I feel younger and more inexperienced than I did back in the days where I still talked about myself, in all seriousness, as a "big girl" who shouldn't have to play with the "little girls".

First, a couple of interesting tidbits that you probably are already up-to-date on, but if you're not, you need to be.

Stupidity, in its most entertaining form. I'm not sure what this kid thought he was doing. Or rather, I am sure what he thought he was doing, and I remain astonished that anybody could ever actually think of doing that. I guess I'm not as adventurous or wild-spirited as I thought I was. It reminds me of my father's campaign to have me go to Iraq in highschool so that I could write a college essay entitled "I was a human shield for Saddam Hussein". Shoulda done it. CNN might have made me famous.

And, victory! Or, partial victory. But this is just a continuation of the royal family's tendency to move forward via pretending not to move forward. They never actually passed a law making phones legal in the country, they just made sure that the first things those phones were used for was Qu'ranic recitation. Same thing with television. And women's education, as I have learned to my great interest, started out almost the same way. Girls were only allowed to go if their respective male relatives permitted it. Of course, once Queen Effat got involved, it became cool and trendy to get your girls educated, and here we are today. Give it a generation and the same thing will probably happen with driving.

I had a fantastic new years, as I hope all of you did as well. I love that particular night. Wait breathlessly until midnight, scream with joy, and for once in our stupid fast-paced goal oriented lives everybody celebrates, for a few seconds, that we've all been alive another year and we're still here to celebrate. And then it's January 1st, and you haven't made any mistakes yet, and everything is rosy and beautiful. How can you be unhappy in the beginning?

And I had a great new years. We all went over to Dr. Doom's house and watched movies and laughed and listened to music and played Uno and generally had a fabulous time. And then did the Xena yell to celebrate the new year. The Xena yell is the one all the Arab women know how to do, and do it at weddings and to warn that men are coming and all. By some strange luck, I managed to pick a group of Arab girls who were total failures at this yell. But hey, it was fun to try. We didn't sound that bad, to my untrained ear. But someone who knew what they were talking about probably would have cringed.

And then we ate cheesecake and toasted each other with bubbly peach stuff. More fabulousness.

Of course, this resulted in us all skipping classes the next day, but really, you should be focusing on the important things on January 1st. I came home and danced. Almost all day. Well, I slept a little too. And read. But mostly dancing. I feel that it was a day well spent.

Basically, even though all of my plans got ruined and I couldn't go home to spend New Years with my family and friends there, I had a great set of holidays with a bunch of fantastic girls. They wouldn't let me sit in my room and cry hysterically, which is what I was tempted to do. Instead, they dragged me out and forced me to have fun. It was terrible.

And now, finally, classes are over and it's vacation time. With GREAT amounts of luck, I may yet get to go home. But what is more likely is that I will stay here. And I guess I will live with that. I will spend a bit of time at Dr. Doom's house. I will go out and shop and do something entertaining on a regular basis, hopefully. I will study for my exams, I will read, I will embroider, I will listen to music. I will generally relax and get myself back in gear so that I am enthusiastic about next semester. And when my visa comes, I will take a vacation and see some people I need to see, recharge my batteries, and come back totally thrilled with everything even more than I already am.

I am extremely glad I chose to stay the full year here. I knew that it would take me about a semester to get really comfortable here, and I was pretty much right on target. So this semester has been spent getting comfortable, getting happy, and generally making myself feel at home. Now I have friends, I am less scared about making a total fool of myself in Arabic, and I can focus my wants more. Next semester, I will be more active outside of school, work more with Mrs. West, if I can, work on my senior thesis, and LEARN ARABIC. These are my plans. Also, of course, party wildly with the fantastic girls that I have found.

And, just to whet your appetites, there are a few interesting things coming up. First, I will receive, hopefully, a bunch of pictures from Aramco (remember that?) so I can post some of them here. And secondly, I have the lyrics to a soon-to-be-famous rap song (if you can call it that) produced by Dr. Doom Productions.

But now, the music is calling.

Goodnight, moon. Good morning, Vietnam!

What I mean by that is HAPPY 2006 EVERYONE! May it be the best year any of us have ever had!

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

2005-12-26T21:50:00.000+03:00

Good news and bad news, everybody.

The good news, I found out today that women aren't allowed to visit graveyards in Saudi. Thank goodness. So noisy and irritating. They'd either wake the dead or seduce them. Better to keep them out altogether.

The bad news, thanks to Saudi fantasticness, I was called at 8am and told that I had an hour to decide if I wanted to leave on vacation after all, knowing that what with the visa process I almost certainly wouldn't be able to come back on time. Yay!

So now I'm staying here indefinitely.

No, seriously. The REAL good news is that thanks to some very nice people and an excellent nap I am no longer crying hysterically and dehydrating myself further. Now i'm making plans as to how much time to spend on my Arabic presentation.

Ciao everyone. Enjoy your family time. Sorry I'm not coming home.

But you never know. Perhaps there will be a miracle of some sort.

Merry Christmas!!

2005-12-25T02:11:00.000+03:00

Hello everybody, life's been busy and lazy over the last couple of weeks, but now it's crunch time. Thursday night I fly out of here, headed home for New Years.

But that's not the exciting thing. The exciting thing is that for the first time ever I'm celebrating Christmas far away from my family and everything, but that people here have conspired to make it fabulous. I've baked two batches of cookies, with two different batches of girls, and I've got christmas lights and christmas music. What more could I want? You should have seen the four of us today dancing around in the dark with the sparkling lights. Instead of being upset I was laughing hysterically. And that was only Christmas Eve! I've also had one dinner-party already, and another one is in the offing for tomorrow. None of this is very conducive to work, but you know, it's Christmas. You can't work on Christmas. So now it's 2:16 am, and I am sitting here dancing to some pop Christmas songs, talking to my lovely mother, and trying to think of how I will spend the rest of my evening.

Life is looking up. Of course, even though it's Christmas, I have class in 6 hours, but I can't take that too seriously.

It's fabulous how strange things turn out well, isn't it? We might even dress mona up as Santa Claus, although I think none of us have bright red clothing.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everybody! Enjoy it!

Bahth Party

2005-12-14T21:22:00.000+03:00

Wow. There's always so much to say. It's particularly bad when I've been out of commission for the last couple of weeks. But I like to think perhaps now I can be slightly more pro-active, at least until the term ends.

So my most recent project has been the creation, over the past two weeks, of my first ever arabic research paper, or bahth. Obviously, what I turned in was pretty pathetic, and took a heck of a lot of time, but I am proud that I managed to create something 8 pages long, in Arabic which, while full of mistakes, was at least Arabic and not gibberish. I found it really frustrating to discover that I really can't put together complex thoughts yet. I also can't create any sort of subtlety or nuance in my writing. So I have to stick to the textbook-style simple sentence, declarative active verbs, kindof like I was writing a story. A badly written story. But I have to start somewhere, right?

So I turned it in today, and I'll just have to hope she takes pity on me for not actually speaking Arabic. I also realized, as I was talking to her (haltingly) today, that I am capable of carrying on a conversation with people, if they are patient enough. Or if they don't speak English.

On that note, I love people. I have been very fond of my friends over the past two weeks... well, everybody else too. Everyone I've talked to has offered to help me. S2 and D spent hours and hours going over my paper with me, helping me correct it and at least make it grammatically correct. The last three pages, hehe, may be slightly lacking in the grammar department, but my introduction is dynamite. And the girls down the hall offered to help, and everybody gave me so much encouragement. Everybody is great.

Speaking of great, D and S2 (Dr. Doom) and Mona and I were in my room after school one day, and we got out Pictionary and started to play. I haven't laughed that hard in years, I think. The four of us sat on the floor crying with laughter for practically three hours. It was fabulous. I could try to describe it, but suffice it to say none of us are very talented artists, except for S2, and so what we came up with was... unorthodox, to say the least.

Also, Mrs. West gave me a bag full of Christmas music and some Christmas lights today, so I can decorate and get in the Holiday spirit!

Basically, the world is treating me well at the moment. Of course, last night was the first time in two weeks I've actually slept through the night. I'm not sure if that had to do with the fact that my sleeping habits are totally messed up, or whether it was stress or what, but it felt great. And I have great friends.

Of course, because I've been wholly distracted the past two weeks, I've been totally ignoring my other classes, and I completely forgot that I had a meeting with Ms. East-West today. So I feel pretty bad about that. I seem to be more easily stressed out here by work, since the actual quantity of work I have is clearly less than what I am used to. I am going to guess it has something to do with the fact that I don't have as much opportunity to release that stress in creative ways, but I think maybe that just means I'm not creative enough. I have this sneaking suspicion that if I were a normal Saudi girl I would be releasing that stress in any number of not-entirely-legal ways, but I appear to be more conservative than many of them in terms of the behavior that makes me comfortable here. There is, for example, no way on earth I'm going to go to a party with a bunch of guys I have seen once in my life, with no obvious quick exit strategy, and just assume everybody will treat me well. I also have no desire to drink illegally, or run screaming through the streets. There is at least one crazy girl I know who really demonstrates the worst judgement in the world when it comes to what behavior is appropriate, and I am going to have to watch out that she doesn't get me in trouble.

I have all sorts of interesting comments to make on things, but I think this will have to do for now. I think it is becoming clear to me that more and more I feel like this place is home. I haven't quite gotten there yet - one of the Ablas told Mona she wasn't allowed in here during the school day, so that's a little unfortunate, but overall I am feeling very much at peace with my surroundings. Of course, I also have boatloads of stunningly insightful observations of life here, but I prefer to bask in the normalcy I am feeling at the moment, and make insightful comments later.

And on that note, my fabulous Christmas music is calling me. As is my reading. And my laundry. I still have mountains of stuff I ought to do. In fact, I have so many mountains I've actually created a list of things to do. Which was bad, because I didn't list my meeting, which I subsequently forgot. Sigh.

Oh, I have so much to do.

But who doesn't?

Binat Arriyadh

2005-12-14T00:33:00.000+03:00

Check this out! The economist mentions not only the election of women into the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce (yes, this is a big deal, it's the first time women have gotten to be involved in an election and run and vote and everything), but they mention a book, Girls of Riyadh, that I really want to read. D suggested it to me. I wonder if it's in English.

I will post over the weekend. Promise.

apologies

2005-12-11T03:11:00.000+03:00

Hello faithful blog-fans. Sorry I have been so remiss in my updating. There will be something interesting soon, I promise. Hilights include:

1) Exploration of the total lack of historical education of Saudis
2) First Arabic Paper experiences
3) General comments on end-of-semester crunches

And much, much more.

And now, to sleep.

Malika al-Bing Bong (Queen of Ping Pong)

2005-11-30T14:23:00.000+03:00

I participated these last two days in a ping pong tournament held at Effat... all women, of course. It was great. I have gotten to know, and really like, all the girls who we played against from King Abdulaziz University (all three of them) and also their coach, and I've also gotten to really like the girls on my team. There were a couple of highschools there as well who were very talented. It was a new experience for me, as they really played it up and had people cheering and screaming on the sidelines - not huge numbers, but still, it was just a ping pong match. I, of course, got hugely nervous, and messed up a bunch of times, but it was great all the way around. A good experience. And hopefully I'll play more this next semester, since I won't have smushed my toe with a ping pong table. That really ruined my season.

Mona was there cheering me on, with D today, and I got a really nifty shirt. So even though I lost badly to the King Abdulaziz girls, I think I came out ahead.

Nafla, this really sweet girl who lives in the dorm with me, got up and read (sang) a bit of the Qu'ran which was just beautiful. It was apparently the first time she'd ever read the Qu'ran in public, but she did fabulously. And we had a huge ornate awards ceremony to follow that. And pictures galore. I hope I can get my hands on some of those pictures.

And THEN, I went to get converted. One of my friends from outside Effat had arranged for me to go meet with a political science professor who is, on the side, extremely knowledgeable about both Islam and Christianity, and Judaism to some extent as well. Of course, all of this from a Muslim perspective. So we got together, and talked for three hours about God, and the purpose of life, and whether or not Islam is right for America. And I really like this man. I thought he was a little sketchy the first time I met him, since he told me he could get me into Mecca if I only admitted to believing in God, but since then I've decided either he's a really good used-car salesman, or he's not as sketchy as I originally believed. On the other hand, I think he did a fabulous job turning the conversation away from the points I wanted to make... I will have to prepare better for the next time I see him. But he said some very interesting things that will really make me think. He didn't change my mind about anything, but he did an excellent job presenting Islam in a very non-frightening way, and connecting it to the 'big picture' of God and the rest of the universe. Of course, none of this convinces me that Islam is "The Truth", but at the same time I think there's an excellent possibility that Islam, like Christianity, Judaism, Bhuddism, Hinduism, and every other philosophy of life, all are so popular because they manage to tap into something universal in humanity, either God or a force of nature one could easily describe as God.

Remind me that I have another Aramco post coming. D and I had some FABULOUS conversations (she was my roommate at the hotel in Dahran, and one of the reasons I got so little sleep was because she and discovered we had a lot in common in terms of philosophy of life).

But for now, it's Wednesday night and I'm either going to party, or sleep. These are the only things one should ever do on the first night of weekend.

Thank Allah it's Wednesday!

'Men are Mean'

2005-11-30T13:54:00.000+03:00

I have a lot of other things to talk about, but what happened today in my Parenting for Muslims class warrants a post now rather than later. My professor was talking about the way in which modern psychology differs from Islam. She says that modern psychology says that letting out your anger is healthier mentally, but that Islam says suppressing your anger is better. She then went on to give her own personal example of how suppressing your anger results in good rather than bad. Her example was as follows:

A while ago, her sister-in-law decided to help her husband find a second wife. The sister-in-law had apparently decided that our prof wasn't a good enough wife and that the husband deserved another, better one. Needless to say, our professor was mad about this. And because they're family, she knew that she would have to see her sister-in-law at some point. So she did the martyr-like thing, and spent the next few weeks convincing herself not to be angry and to control herself when they finally did meet. So, as expected, they eventually got together for a family event, and when our prof and her sister-in-law were left alone together the sister-in-law began saying terrible things to our prof, telling her all about the beautiful women they were looking at for her (our prof's) husband to marry, and when our professor controlled herself the sister-in-law just got more abusive. Our professor said nothing. And eventually, the whole thing blew over and our professor's husband did not, in fact, take a second wife. So the moral of the story is, keep your temper. It's the Islamic thing to do.

What surprised the class was that her anger was directed at her sister-in-law rather than her husband. We asked her "So your husband agreed to take a second wife?" and she said "yes, but he didn't." We said "That's horrible!" and she replied "Men are mean. That's why there is paradise for mothers. Men are always mean. If they get the chance, they will all take second wives."

Great lesson for the future wives in the class. It's good to know the genders are communicating so well. Ha.

ARAMCO: Energy For the World

2005-11-28T18:45:00.000+03:00

Having just returned to my room, let my hair down (literally) and let it all hang out (figuratively), I figure I should get down as many of my impressions of this trip as I can while they're still fresh in my memory. And, surprisingly, I've even got some energy to do that, although I'm totally exhausted. They had us keeping very bizarre and un-college-like hours, and even two days of that took its toll on me.

Anyway, the background of the trip is this: Aramco invited Effat, or more accurately about 60 of its students and staff supervisors, to their head offices in Dahran to tour and meet some executives and get a feeling for the company, with the general future aim of creating some sort of lasting relationship that would permit the Effat graduates to be funnelled into the Aramco world. It's too bad Saudi Aramco doesn't hire Americans; it seemed like a great place to work. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I don't know how much of Aramco's history you all are familiar with, so I'll give a basic background as I now understand it. It's been, I think, well accepted that Aramco as a company has been integral in the political and (obviously) economic development of Saudi Arabia. Originally created as the California Arabian Standard Oil Company (Casco), it began as a division of the company that is Chevron today. They were granted oil concessions in 1933, and for a long time they hunted around without hitting paydirt. They'd found oil in Bahrain, and so they expected to find some in the Eastern Provinces, but they were continuously thwarted. They, at the very end of the line, one of their prospectors (so the myth goes) was sitting dejectedly on a hill by one of the oil wells (Well #7, now known as Prosperity Well) and was gazing out to Bahrain thinking about how unfair life is. What he noticed, something any Arab in the oil business could tell you today, is that Bahrain is significantly lower than the Eastern Province (the tectonic plate they're both part of slopes downwards almost continuously from the edge of the Red Sea near where I am now). He managed to convince his skeptical leaders to put in just a little more money and dig down a little further in Well #7, and obviously they found what they were looking for.

From there Aramco got progressively bigger and, as time passed, became more and more controlled by Saudi Arabia and less by the American companies originally responsible. By the late 70's the Saudi government held complete control. In 1984 the Minister of Oil also became the first Saudi CEO of Aramco, and since then the company has been run almost exclusively by Saudis and now hires almost exclusively Saudis for their Dahran offices.

One of the things I found particularly interesting about Aramco was the way that they've imbued the company with a culture that is different from typical Saudi stereotypes, and kindof seems like a throwback to the early days of IBM, with people living a life like Leave it to Beaver in Southern California, and with a sort of family-loyalty-employee committment attitude that is very early-corporate-America. I had an interesting argument with some of the other girls about whether or not they have a moral imperative to provide that sort of support and financial commitment to society outside of Aramco or not. Certainly, Aramco has always seen it to be in their best interest to help build the human potential of the country, since it is from the youth of Saudi Arabia that they draw their fresh meat, but they definitely aren't playing as big a role today as they did in the early days, when the living standards in the Eastern Province were uncontestedly the best in the country.

The other thing I was honestly impressed by was how much everybody seemed to like working there. I mean, yes, they weren't about to show Effat students people who were unhappy, but they did a very good job giving us the impression that Aramco takes care of them and in return they give their hearts and souls to The Company.

Anyway, I'll describe more of what went on later, when I get access to the pictures. I'm also losing steam on the enthusiasm. I do want to say, however, that traveling with people is a fantastic way to get to know them better, and that definitely happened here. I met some wonderful people from Aramco who offered to help me, and most importantly I really got to know the girls who were with me and the professors. I even know more names now, which is great. And I was more 'one of the gang' this trip than I am normally. And I think a lot of people got to know me better as well.

Ther ewas a girl who had her camera encrusted with pink rhinestones, though. THAT was interesting. There was a lot of childishness - the girls couldn't stay quiet, the men insisted on reminding us to go to the bathroom, the teachers continuously had to tell us to be nice to each other and to be polite and quiet and everything. And they kindof had to. But it reminded me a lot of trips I took in middle school, and NOT of trips one takes in college. But it is Saudi Arabia, and the fact that sixty girls are now really interested in getting jobs at Aramco is clearly a step in the right direction. In fact, we met a Vice President of Saudi Aramco Affairs, and he said that Saudi Arabia had to start employing its women, because at the moment it was like a boxer with one hand tied behind his back. Just that such a metaphor was used makes me have hope.

That's all I have energy for at the moment. More details to follow....

Happy Thanksgiving!

2005-11-25T17:17:00.000+03:00

Well, it's not really Turkey Day without turkeys, or mashed potatoes, or family. But hey, I can have fun all the same. In fact, I didn't even spend the whole day in the dorm - yes, I have friends! And I went out with one of them yesterday. We got coffee, we had dinner, we wandered about looking for things to buy. Ah, shopping - the primary source of fun for women in Saudi Arabia.

Anyway, I have a few interesting things to say. First off, I'm hearing ridiculous amounts of weird gossip I am going to share with you all simply because it's the sort of thing you read in Princess but I, for one, never expected to find it here. There are two different stories, and both of them are kindof bizarre. The first, really terrible in every way, describes a girl who just got married for the second time. Her first husband abused her, and her second began doing the same right after they were married at the insistance of her family. She's now trying to get out of the country, but may have to leave her child here. Horrific all the way around. The second told me about her mother, who is probably going to divorce her father fairly soon because he just got married for the second time to their Indonesian maid. It sounds like the nationality of the maid is maybe more insulting than the second marriage on its own.

Anyway, there you have a few of the less fantastic things going on.

I also recently had an amazing talk with one of the girls down the hall who told me about her hopes and dreams and the way her parents affect her choices. She feels a bit trapped here, I think, as her mother has essentially chosen her path in life for her, down to the fact that she will probably be married in the next year. She said she doesn't even want to marry a Saudi, but apparently Saudi women need the permission of the government to marry a non-Saudi, and that would be tough to get even if her parents agreed, which they won't.

I think there are plenty of Saudi women who are treated well by those around them, and who feel empowered and just as able (if not more) to influence their world for the good as their peers in the States, but women here really don't have the legal and societal protection that women in the States have. The whole policy of total privacy within the home means that if the man chooses to abuse the women it's much more difficult for her to get help. On the other hand, as one of the girls mentioned to me, women here really are treated like princesses in many ways, as they don't have any financial responsibility for themselves or their children in any way. In fact, I heard an excellent argument explaining the societal taboo on extramarital and premarital affairs. If a child is born out of wedlock, there is nothing forcing the father to acknowledge it, and in Saudi society it is still the exclusive duty of the father to provide for mother and children. Without the official bond of marriage, there is nothing forcing the father to live up to those obligations. A woman is therefore financially much better protected if she waits till marriage. In fact, a married woman should, in Islam and Saudi society, never have to work unless she wants to. Any money she makes is hers alone, to spend as she likes on shoes or travel or anything. Her food, her housing, and all of her children's needs will be provided for by the husband, regardless of how much money she makes.

Obviously, Saudi society has taken separation of the sexes to the extent that men and women really do move in entirely different circles, and the women's circles very rarely intersect with the 'real world' as Westerners see it, because they're never responsible for paying the bills or buying the food or making sure their kids have enough money to go to the best schools. They focus more on the idealistic aspects of life, the NGO work and the volunteer positions, or alternatively on the frivolous things - clothing, fashion, avoiding boredom. The women who work do so because they want to change things, or they are too bored and want something to do during the day. As a side note, I should say that most of the women at Effat are there because they have a mission to provide good education to women, and are dedicated to that mission.

It's an interesting world, a bit like being a professional student. Obviously, I fit right in.

I'm not trying to imply that the work the women do is any less important than that of the men. In fact, in many ways I think it's more important, because while the men are out there working to earn money for their families, the women are campaigning for the right to drive, the right to learn, the right for freedom of speech.

I hear the screeching of tires outside. Again and again. Either somebody's racing around the turnaround right outside, or there's a high-speed car chase involving three or four different cars going on.

Goody.

Anyway, I'm writing here mostly as an excellent way to avoid what I need to do as far as work and all goes. I'm off to Aramco for the next three days, and that means there are things that simply must get accomplished today. And because, since yesterday was thanksgiving, I felt I ought to spend a bit of time in contemplation.

In that vein, I would like to say I am thankful. I am thankful to be an American, although I understand that I would feel differently, perhaps, if I weren't one. I am thankful to have this opportunity to see a completely different nearly hidden world. I am thankful to have patient people around me who are willing to listen to, and correct, my misunderstandings and misapprehensions. I am grateful to be aware of the dangers involved in making judgements - I hope I protect myself from them. I am thankful mostly for my friends and family back home who are there for me.

And now to work.

Wish me luck.

The Importance of Being Energetic

2005-11-22T23:31:00.000+03:00

I have been preoccupied recently and thus I've been paying far too little attention to the blogging aspect of my extremely exciting life. Don't let this give you the impression that nothing has happened.

I've been doing a lot of thinking recently, and I'm sure most of my thoughts have been both insightful and fascinating, but unfortunately I didn't write them down and so they have gone the way of late-night dreams and the names of my highschool classmates. Some highlights occur below:

- So many of these 'girls' have children! The number of women who take off for maternity leave and get the professors to postpone their exams is just insane!
(And they still tend to dress the way 13-year-olds dress in the states - rhinestones and platform shoes)

- Remembering names which are unfamiliar is really, really hard. I've had to 'trick' these girls (whose names I should really know by now) into putting their cell phone numbers and their names into my phone, so I can go over them later and memorize them.

- Professors tend to give in to student demands a lot more than they do in the states, and the girls tend to make silly demands. For instance, the last three days in a row in two of my classes professors have had to bribe the students into working at all by promising that they'd get out early.

- Cell phones are the only reliable method of communication. Without one I would be doomed to wander the corridors aimlessly forever, never knowing what is happening or where anybody is. Nobody checks their school email and nobody posts things in a central location. In fact, there really IS no central communication. And despite this, people seem to know how to get to things through word of mouth... everyone but me. I remain the least well-informed person on the campus. But at least now people recognize the problem.

- I still haven't figured out how people do the research for their research projects here. Remind me to do that....

- People are nice. I enjoy them. The girls are nice, too, although it's kindof tough to connect with a lot of them still. But at least they're warming up to me and I can actually have conversations now.

So those are just a few of the many things occuring to me regularly. Now on to the more prosaic aspect of my blog. I'm still insanely busy, although I've been putting off actually doing anything to rectify that situation. Instead, I went to a Western-produced version of "The Importance of Being Earnest" with a bunch of the professors and admin, and it was great. The actors were hilarious, the group was clearly enjoying itself, and it was generally wonderful to get out and do something normal. When your life is totally abnormal, normalcy is like a breath of fresh air.

By the way: Pride. Effat was on CNN the other day, although not mentioned by name, when Nick Roberts had a segment on how women can now officially study engineering in Saudi Arabia. That's right: Effat is the only school offering an engineering degree to women. And D is one of two students in that degree! Yessir, I know one of the first two engineering students in the kingdom! I am going to be famous one day!

Or... she is. But I'm going to take total credit.

I've also managed to land myself a paying job (!!!) working for Mrs. West on this accreditation stuff, although I should probably start actually doing something useful for her before I start patting myself on the back. And what interests me as much is the fact that more and more Saudi girls have been coming up to me asking for help with their English. I figure I'll give lessons in return for making them listen to me mangling Arabic, and we'll see how that works for all of us.

So, while my life is still busier than I can handle, that's clearly an improvement over the first bit of time where I sat around doing nothing. At least now I can safely and happily say I won't get bored. And with luck I'm now involved in some really really interesting things. Other things to keep your eyes out for on these pages include future plans for thesis researching (I've had some ideas) and the journalism club (no ideas yet, but I'm gonna start whipping these girls into action soon) and the ping pong championship (more practice tomorrow at 10am - the coach expects me to win, and as such has been getting me to practice every free moment).

So that's about it for now. I think sleep may be in order.

Another .... Wow

2005-11-19T19:50:00.000+03:00

This movie almost makes me cry even from the trailer. If you want to talk controversial...

The War Within

Make sure you read the interview with the writers. All of it. Particularly the bit at the end about shooting in Grand Central Station with the National Guardsmen.

I can't wait to see it. Although I think I will have to be careful who I go with.

Comedy or Travesty?

2005-11-16T17:35:00.000+03:00

Kei sent me this link today, asking me whether I thought this was a good or a bad idea. I think it's the sort of thing that will either be really good, or really really bad. But, as I've said before to people who disagree strongly with me, I think it's important that anything be open to comedic interpretation. Thus, I am completely in favor of this movie being made. But I may not be in favor of the movie itself. Does this make sense?

The Mosquitos Ate My Family

2005-11-16T06:27:00.000+03:00

Luckily, my family is nowhere near Jeddah right now, or I'm sure the mosquitos would have eaten them. Unfortunately, I, myself, am in Jeddah, and I'm being eaten piece by agonizing piece. Originally I thought there was only one mosquito in my room, because it kept buzzing at me just as I was about to go to sleep. That's kindof like asserting that there is only one family of deer in America because that's all you see in your back yard. Yes, there are colonies of mosquitos, apparently, with hungry children, and I'm the only one on the menu. What's even more bizarre and disturbing, they somehow manage to get under the covers. I resorted to wearing a long-sleeved t-shirt to bed so as to protect my arms better, since they'd eaten me up to the elbow on both arms, and I always wear long pants to bed (although I still got a bunch of bites on my knees - who knows how). Despite that, the mosquitos are doing their best, and today I woke up with two (count them!) bites on the BOTTOM OF MY FOOT. Does anyone have any idea how uncomfortable this is? I almost wish I could just stay unconscious so as to avoid the misery. I can't scratch without tickling myself, either, which is frustrating.

So now, because the mosquitos have invaded my private sanctuary, I've gotta be on the lookout for things like West Nile Virus and what have you. Maybe I should get insect repellent? It seems awfully sad to have to put some on to go to bed...

Moving on to slightly less immediately important topics, I had a bizarre exchange with Abla I yesterday as I was about to walk up the stairs to my room (Remember that earlier post I had about how people insist on taking the elevator even if it's only one flight of stairs up? Keep that in mind here):

Abla I (as I go to head up the stairs): Come, Elisabeth, the elevator.
Elisabeth: No it's okay I like the stairs.
Abla I (pointing to the elevator and smiling): Look, it's here. Come.
Elisabeth: No, it's okay, I like the stairs. It's just one floor.
Abla I (smiling an indulgent smile): Are you afraid?

I wonder if her misconceptions about me have to do with the fact that I act shy, or whether she doesn't think America has elevators.

Also, I have a comment to add to yesterday's post about the disorganization of everything. I should add that Effat doesn't get any advance warning when guests show up either, so they have kindof the same problem I do except that it's worse for them. This would be like Liz Cheney showing up on my doorstep while I'm walking around in a towel. Which luckily, she didn't do. Also, apparently at the last minute a prince came along, and because of his schedule things got pushed even farther out of wack. I wonder if this is a common problem - if, for example, colleges in the states are just as badly informed about when, for example, the Chinese President is showing up - or whether this is uniquely Saudi. It certainly seems more obvious here.

Anyway, yesterday Team Fabulous went to Toys R Us. Well, D and Mona and I did. And to Chili's, also, where we laughed about a bunch of stuff that I don't remember any more. There was at least one good comment made about how they're so much younger than me, I will babysit and mash peas for them, to which Mona repied that I was the toothless old one and they should be mashing peas for me. We've agreed to mash peas for each other. Anyway, today we will officially inaugurate the pick-up-stix (remember them!??! I'm so excited!) and foursquare and Twister. Look at us, making plans and then carrying through.

We also decided that S2's special super power is that of Evil Geniusness, and her new superhero name is Dr. Doom. We haven't told her this yet. We also established that Mona/Melvianna/Andrew's proper title is Andrew Lightwood the Third, Queen of Confusement.

D still doesn't have a name yet. Nor do I, although D suggested the Namer of Names and I kindof like that since it seems to be what I'm doing.

I also tried to take a stand yesterday when Abla I wanted to know all the details of my excursion, but my heroic stand took the form of being deliberately vague. I feel like a bit of a worm.

Man, I feel like the mosquitos bit THROUGH my callouses!

On a slightly less frivolous note, I took my Arabic exam yesterday. Ouch. Ouch is all I have to say. She seemed (Mrs. S) so very sad to see me leave things empty. I think if I'd studied more I could have done better, so I haven't given up complete hope on me. The other fabulous thing was that there was no question in my mind what the test was asking for from me. I just didn't know some of the answers. For example, when the question asks (in approximate english) for an "expression" which fulfills a bunch of criteria, what are they looking for? The question like this that got me the most was "What is the expression that, standing alone, doesn't mean anything, and needs something added to it?" (this is very approximate translation). Now, I wasn't really sure. Incomplete sentence? We talked about complete and incomplete sentences. She came over and repeated the question to me in an effort to make me understand, and ended up kindof giving me the answer by saying something like "come on, there are three sorts of words, Ism and Fa'il and ......" at which point obviously the answer became clear - harf, which acts as prepositions and whatnot, and yes, has no meaning by itself. But how was I to know that it was asking for one of the three sorts of words? Are they called "expressions"?

Anyway, that was the sort of confusion I faced. Even my dictionary couldn't help me there. If I'd done a better job studying I probably would have remembered more of the specific terminology. But life continues, and next time I'll know which parts of the notes and information I really need to just memorize.

Or, like, another question: "What factors does Jahiliyyah poetry depend on?" Followed by two blank spaces. What on earth does she mean by "factors"? Does she mean lifestyle and politics and economy (as I later found out she probably did)? Does she mean literary style and skill of the poet and inventive ideas and strong emotion? Does she mean war and love and different topics of poetry? And in order to explain this to me, when I had left the answer blank, she said something like, "When you travel, and you see beautiful surroundings, can you write poetry about this? Yes!" Again, if I'd memorized this heading on the notes I would have known what to answer, but instead I sat there saying "gee, I know I've seen that somewhere, now if I could only remember what came after it..."

So, anyway, it's all very interesting. I am like a small child trying to wield a tree as a hammer. I generally understand the basic gist of what's going on, but trying to get nuance is just ... wow.

I have a couple of interesting sites for everybody, none of which have anything to do with the Middle East or, really, anything academic. First is this site one of my fabulous friends sent to me (this is for you, maman). There's a story that goes with this, but I'll leave that for another time. Suffice it to say, my mother and I have long maintained that all teenage boys are turkeys. Most non-teenage ones as well. In fact, most males. I once heard someone claim this made me a man-hater, but we say it with love. In fact, most turkeys are better friends of mine than the women I know. My response to the man-hater accusation was "does it count if I hate women more?" So now there's at least one person out there who thinks I hate everyone. Not true. Turkeys are fabulous beasties, as I think this site will prove. And for those of my friends who hold the mistaken idea that they are no longer turkeys once they turn 20, I would just like to laugh at them briefly.

hahahaha.

Okay. So today's schedule looks to be one of exams and meetings, followed by more exams and meetings. Ah! The journalism club may be gasping to life! There are now four members, and I have their names and phone numbers so they can't escape from me. I'm meeting with one other today, too, so we're up to a handful! With luck, this will mean that the magazine exists. Parenting for Muslims is today, and on a normal Wednesday I'd have ping pong in the afternoon, but I think the sports lady is gone until Saturday. At least, that is, I think, what the guard said to us (in Arabic) when we went to ask.

I love being continuously uncertain what's going on. I'm like an adrenaline junky, but more afraid.

More fabulous things to announce! Isn't it great when I have so much to say I forget half of it?

This morning I have a meeting with Mrs. West to talk about some of the stuff I am going to do for her. Mostly so she can explain to me what it is I'm doing, because I'm a little unclear on how to translate some of the fuzzier academic-speak they use.

And, most exciting of all, I may get to travel in the coming month and a half. (I still have to make reservations to get out of here for Hajj). Apparently Effat is chartering a plane to take 40 girls to the Aramco compound in Dahran to look around and get shown around for three days. This would be EXTREMELY exciting to go on, since I've obviously read a lot about Aramco's place in Saudi history and society. It's a really interesting company - I'll do more research and inform y'all better whenI get a chance.

Secondly, it sounds like there may be a Saudi college fair (which is interesting in itself) in Dahran which I may get to go to as an assistant/student and talk to students and other schools and stuff.

Also, Ms. East-West sounded enthusiastic about my staying for the next term, so I think I'll start making plans for that!

With so many things going on, how can a girl get a chance to sleep? Well, the easy answer to this is that I went to bed at 9 yesterday. But wait! My day wasn't over! At about 10:30 there was a knock on my door and it was one of the girls from upstairs (I should stop saying 'girls' - this one had a son, for example) who was looking for help with her English writing! Yessssss! And she asked me why I wasn't upstairs more often. So when I get a chance to sit down and breathe I am absolutely going to go upstairs and explore more, and meet some more people.

I feel like there are four or five other things going on right now, but I'm afraid my shower is warm and it is time for me to get clean.

Adios!

A Note on Saudi Organizational Skills

2005-11-14T17:07:00.000+03:00

So, literally as I was sitting writing my previous post about the dirty plumber, Liz Cheney arrived and began talking. I should have expected it simply because nobody told me about it, but unfortunately I haven't adapted properly. I wasn't on campus because I didn't have class until 11am, so I missed what everybody who was on campus discovered - that she came early. Did anyone think of calling me? not until 10:30. Apparently they were even talking about me and I wasn't there. And then, to make it better, nobody told me there would be tons of men around, so I didn't bring my abaya, and then had to rush back to my dorm to find it. So I caught the last 7 minutes of her talk, and didn't get to ask any questions. I did get to shake her hand and briefly say hi, so that was impressive, I guess, but I didn't get a good feel for how she thinks or anything, and I didn't get to talk to her, so I was a little upset about that.

Pissy is probably a better word. I was downright pissy about that. Why is there no way of informing people? Everybody knows I live right here. It's absurd to think I would hang around on campus when I don't have class just in case something happens that I'm not going to be informed about. And, because I was afraid something like this would happen, I was even checking email obsessively, but noooooo... nobody thought to send an email. This school, as I was telling Mona, "has terrible organization" when it comes to information distribution, an assertion to which she replied, "oh, so you think it has organization?" A cogent point. I stand corrected.

So I was a little disappointed, but I survived. This would have really irritated me earlier this year, but now I take it in stride. Patience, young grasshopper, all good things in time.

And in more positive news, I spent a lot of time today feeling like I belonged here. First, I brought my essay to Mrs. S and she seemed pleased with my results and I may actually have a hope of doing well tomorrow, not just of passing.

Second, D and I went swimming for about an hour and chatted, and then she came along to translation because her teacher for her class didn't show and she was bored. Third, Mona was over reviewing for the Arabic exam with me, and D was here getting some stuff she left pre-swimming, so I had three different people in my room hanging out! It was almost like a party!

AND, we're definitely on for tomorrow's Toys R Us shopping adventure.

Will the fun never end??

An interesting thought - it must be awfully strange for people like Mona, Arabs by birth and by family, and who consider Arabic their native language, who still feel more comfortable in English. We were talking about her Arabic classes today, and how she can generally remember the Arabic only if she thinks about it in English first. She learns the information in English and that helps her remember the Arabic. She also said she has trouble because she talks and writes as though she's translating directly from English, even though she's generally not thinking about it that way. It must be very weird to feel more comfortable in a language you don't think of as 'yours'.

Now that my busy busy social life is momentarily at a lull, I can focus on the Arabic material, and nap. I think perhaps the Nap, with a capital N, is more significant at the moment, since I can feel a headache starting. I filched a Pepsi for later (caffeine is sometimes very useful) and so if I sleep until dinner I can see possibly getting three or four hours of studying in before I collapse for good. And three or four hours of studying Arabic should give me SOME idea what's going on. And I already know much of it. I'm also tempted to go searching for the Girls Down the Hall since I haven't seen any of them but one since we all got back, and i want them to know I'm not a total loser. Also, I want to try out my cool Arabic skills on them. I've started saying things like "keefik?" (how are you?) and "feyn inti?" (where are you?) and "keyfa kana eidik?" (how was your eid?) INSTEAD of the English versions, so even though they're extremely simplistic and easy phrases, it's good to see that I'm slowly becoming acclimatized to the language and now occasionally even use it naturally without sounding like a total moron.

And people are starting to understand all of that and to help me a lot - some people by talking to me in Arabic, some people by letting me talk to them. And generally if I think of a phrase I want to say, I'll ask a couple of people to help me with it. And most of them are willing to correct me in a way which isn't snotty. There's one girl in particular in my Parenting for Muslims class who is really really fantastic. If only I knew her name...

Ah, me, it is so difficult when you finally get a life....

First Rule of Saudi Arabia

2005-11-14T09:44:00.000+03:00

Expect the unexpected.

Turning off the electricity in the middle of the morning, and of course the internet is also affected? Of course!
Strange people walking down the street wrapped in plastic? Naturally! (Yes, I actually saw this over the summer in Riyadh)

Strange men walking into your room at 8am to take apart the shower? Well, I wouldn't have thought so.... but why not? This is Saudi Arabia! Anything goes!

I found it particularly amusing in that I was still in my pjs and CLEARLY not prepared to have visitors. At least I was showered - I have no desire to go back in there now. The man, in typical plumber fashion, had huge boots and smeared dirt and dirty water all over my bathroom floor. Then, to top it off, he smeled HORRENDOUS. I didn't notice this at the time because he was studiously avoiding my gaze and since I was in my pyjamas that was just fine with me - I sat on my bed and did work and prayed he'd be gone by the time I needed to get dressed. And he was - it was fairly painless. Apparently my shower was leaking downstairs. So they literally removed the whole head and pipes and all and put new stuff on. But then when he was gone, and I tried to go into the bathroom to brush my teeth and all, I was hit by this wave of nauseating stench. Now, I like sweat as much as the next person, but this was too much. I can't even enter my bathroom. Hopefully, with the air conditioning still functioning (for the moment) it will have aired out a little by the time I need to head out.

What particularly entertains me about this morning's episode is that nobody warned me, and people thought it was fine to knock on my door at 8am. If I weren't so jet-lagged I would absolutely have been asleep, and what would they have done then? Plus, isn't there supposed to be something against strange men hanging out in the rooms of strange partially dressed women? I mean, in terms of supervision, one of the ablas was there... but is that really all they're worried about? What about propriety? What about the fact that I was undressed? What about privacy??

Privacy is a myth.

Sooooooo now it's 10, I finally got all of my work done, and I've got another 45 minutes to hang about excitedly before I wander over to confront Liz Cheney with my no-nonsense liberal attitude. Go America! And then I'll go talk to Mrs. S of Arabic fame and hope that my five sentences on women in Jahiliyyah makes at least a little sense. Post-classes, Team Fabulous is playing ping pong and then swimming, so that should be good, and then lovely Mona may help me study for the Arabic, if she's really nice.

New-Half-Semester Resolution: Read more current affairs. Keep updated. Being in Saudi Arabia is no excuse.

And on that lovely note, here is something disturbing from the Arab News - what do you suppose this chemistry teacher actually did to get him sued by his own students and sentenced to 50 lashes every week for the next 15 weeks? But if people are suing professors at Stanford because of bad grades, who knows what sort of crazy students might sue a teacher for 'mocking' Islam. Kids these days - think they own the world.

I feel pretty, oh so pretty.....

2005-11-13T19:46:00.000+03:00

Hey there li'l cowboys, hang on for the emotional ride of your lifetime!

I exaggerate, as always.

Picture me, demure (ha!) little American girl, sitting attentively in Arabic class oh so many days in a row. I listen hard, and occasionally I even understand what's going on. Scratch that, mostly I understand what's going on, and occasionaly I can even answer questions, particularly when it comes to grammar (can I get a high five!). Then I go home and, when I am not busy being a professional lazy bum (something I got quite good at in the past two months, although I like to blame it on depression and culture shock and say it will be gone now), I sit with my Arabic notes and translate what she has said. Thankfully, we have a couple of books and other written resources (like the lecture notes) that I can work off of, because of course I don't write fast enough to really catch much of what she says on paper.

So, what we have here is a mildly diligent certainly eager-to-learn student of language who starts off with an incredible handicap (ie I don't speak it).

Fast-forward to our quiz/fake test. This was intended to be a practice for the midterm. I went in, I took it without dictionary or aides of any kind, and as you may remember I was rather proud of myself for understanding all the questions and being able to answer some of them. Yes, folks, I took an Arabic test Arab-style and still managed to answer some questions. I thought this was quite the victory, and patted myself on the back quite vigorously.

Fast-forward to today. Mrs. S, our Arabic teacher, says she has the tests and we can come to her office later to get them back. She then pulls me aside after class to say (I think) "Why didn't you ever come to see me? Did they teach you to write in Arabic? I want you to get a better grade! You should be asking me for help!" I was, needless to say, rather deflated, and I agreed brokenly that I would come see her later that afternoon to get my test and talk it over with her. Remember, this woman speaks no English (which is actually great for me in terms of making me try to speak, but terrible in terms of Fear Factor).

So I spent the next hour and a bit hyperventilating. Was all of that semi-coherent Arabic that I had thought I'd written merely complete gibberish? Were all of the things I thought I understood in fact about something completely different? Had I gotten something appalling like a zero!?! Worse, had I accidentally managed to convince Mrs. S that I had excellent Arabic skills, and she was now appalled and betrayed to discover that I had been leading her on and should never have been in the Arabic for Native Speakers class in the first place?!!?!

You can see how it went. I even called a friend in London, woke him up in the middle of the night, and begged him to tell me I wasn't stupid. Thankfully, he did.

Mona eventually got tired of me sitting at the table like a possessed Energizer Bunny with no self esteem, ranting about how of COURSE I can't speak Arabic but I had thought she understood that and could I really have done that badly and in any case how am I going to explain things to her when I can't speak Arabic and I only sound like a demented infant and don't even know the proper words and I hate thinking I did okay and then discovering I did miserably and I'm really here to learn the Arabic but I'm just an idiot and it's impossible and why can't it just all be in French, that would be so much easier, because French at least makes vague sense and I can babble more convincingly and at least sound like I'm almost functioning at normal speed whereas with Arabic I just stare at people and say "uhhhhhhhhhhh" a lot.

Breathe here.

By the way, I'm giving Team Fabulous special super powers. I have no idea what they are yet, except that Mona is the gender-confused forest fairy Melvianna/Andrew. This makes sense if you accept that every time I try to speak Arabic to her I mix up the genders and say something masculine. She finally got tired of it and started calling herself Andrew, and at that point I finally got it figured out and started using feminine.

Anyway, so Mona agreed to come with me to act as buffer and translator, and wanted to see her own grade anywho, so we wandered over, me still ranting. It's amazing how much babbling I can do without breathing - perhaps I could turn it into a money-making talent somehow. Join the circus. The amazing breathless wonder. Listen to her Rant on the State of the World until she Turns Blue!

Aaaaaaand long story short, we discovered to my joy and disbelief that I had, in fact, PASSED my Arabic test, even by normal standards! Yes, I got a D, but it was a HIGH D (67.5%, I am proud to say). And this without any external aids beyond my own fabulous cerebrum! And she sounded a lot less shocked and dismayed when I actually showed up. She explained to me how it was clear I understood what the questions were asking but I wasn't good at expressing myself in Arabic. I agreed wholeheartedly. After all, I could talk about Jahiliyyah for hours in English, it's the translation and the description that escape my miraculous abilities.

So she gave me some pointers, and I'm going in tomorrow to get her to help me with writing. She's also said I can use my dictionary and even take extra time if I want on the midterm on Tuesday. This is very kind of her.

So now here it is, 8pm, and I have an Arabic exam to study for, but I feel much less fear. Maybe I'll even ask her to meet with me once a week or something for extra help. I have proven I can simulate a stupid Arabic student, and I have nowhere to go but up!

Oh, but I am tired.

No sleep for the intellectual!

Rockin' in the Cradle of Islam

2005-11-12T15:22:00.000+03:00

Day two of my new policy - Project BE HAPPY - seems to be going swimmingly. What's better, I now have a Team. Yes, a Team. I will call us Team Fabulous, although I think the members of said team might think I was nuts were I to actually suggest it. Let us say that this team consists of D, S1 and S2, Mona, and myself. The Fabulous Five, let us say. No, I prefer Team Fabulous. Anywho, these are all mildly disgruntled freshman who are bored to tears and want something entertaining to do with their lives. Also, they are all people I have gotten to know fairly well because some of them are in my classes and some of them are just nice. So it would also be safe to say that Team Fabulous comprises the best of my Effat friends.

To make a long story short, we are tired of being trampled upon by the cares of the world, and we have decided to fight back. What this means is that we spent lunch today coming up with lists and lists of plans to make our lives more entertaining. At least half of them will probably even happen one day. I also taught them to make paper cranes. That was exciting. Anyway, possible entertainment for Team Fabulous includes the following:

1) Games - Twister Tuesdays is our current favorite plan, if we can get our hands on a version of Twister. Card games also a big hit, and if we can find some sidewalk chalk and a bouncy ball at least S1 and I are eager to create a foursquare court.

2) Crafts - Origami is always fun, but we also want to paint the entire cafeteria (I doubt they'll let us do it but hey, anything's possible) and perhaps create tshirts or something equally crafty. S2 is REALLY UNHAPPY with the idea of crafts and artsy stuff of all sorts, so we may forego these plans.

3) Swimming - all of us are interested. We already have a swimming date for Monday. We could make this a tradition!

4) Outings - this is my favorite idea. D and S1, at least, have access to transportation, and D even lives close to Effat and is willing to give me rides places. We could have a weekly coffee outing! Or go out for lunch sometimes! Or go shopping! I think we might go out soon to acquire Twister and sidewalk chalk and other materials for further entertainment.

5) Movies - there is apparently a huge projector screen someplace. I'm not sure who's allowed to use it, but it can't hurt to ask. They're all into horror. Eep. But at least I have a lot of laps to sit in.

6) Parties - The ideas include sock-hops with S1's boom box, cookie-making extravaganzas (or baking parties of all types), pot-lucky dinner parties, and the list goes on.

Anyway, obviously we couldn't do much today, although I did establish that if there are board games at Effat nobody knows where they are. And D suggested perhaps a Tuesday outing and that sounds mighty good to me. I'm looking forward to hunting down a Twister set.

So I'm not the only one bored and lacking motivation. Me and my Team will go far, and things will happen which are fun. That's my prediction.

Of course, at the moment I have Homework with a capital H and EXAMS to study for. Tuesday is Arabic. ... death in a box.... and I have other exams coming up which I haven't paid much attention to. I think it's only Arabic and Parenting for Muslims that I have this week, so I can afford to concentrate on my linguistic failings.

OH! And Liz Cheney, Dick's daughter, is coming on Monday.... she's apparently something of a big wig in the State Department. I'll have to google her and also try to find out exactly when she's coming and what she's doing here, but I don't want to miss that! It should be quite interesting!

And more entertainment - my efforts to singlehandedly construct a Journalism club continue. I'm giving people one last chance to show up to a meeting and then I'm sending out all-purpose requests for submissions from everybody, and Mona and I will just have to create the damned thing ourselves.

And my final project, the one that Mrs. West gave me, is sitting on a shelf. I'll have to go talk to her about it, because I really am entertained by the concept but I'm getting really bogged down in the details and the fact that I really don't have any idea how things function in an educational institution. Creating a list of 'things to do' is tough when you have no idea what sorts of things one could, hypothetically, do.

Look at all the optimism! It's practically oozing from my pores!