We've been getting emails the last few days warning us that there may be men (gasp!) on campus this week. Now, being well-informed by a number of friendly administrators, I know that these are people here to do curriculum development for the business administration program Effat is trying to start up. So... Americans! Americans from a university! These are my kind of Americans!
Hopefully I will catch a glimpse of them. They are understandably hugely busy, and since this is their first visit here most of the time will be spent showing them Effat and Jeddah and generally being touristy. I am amused at myself for being so excited - these are people from the business world, not the fluffy liberal arts world, and they're admin, not students. But just the idea that there are Americans about warms my heart.
I've had a bit of a dilemma deciding what to do about the abaya issue. The reason all these emails have been circulated is that they want the girls to be prepared to cover up if the men come around. Do I fit into this category? I'm American, they're American, I can't imagine any of them will be surprised to see an American girl not fully covered. At the same time, I am an Effat student. So I've been wondering about this. I haven't worn my abaya to the two Western diplomats' talks, but that was mostly because I forgot. So today I carried around my abaya. I don't know if I'll do that tomorrow or not.
I understood almost all of my Arabic class today. ... well, that's kindof a lie. But I understood enough to know I wasn't missing anything terribly important. She was telling us what will be on the midterm exam. Oh, I can see studying in my future.
But not now! Now I translate a bunch of economic stuff from Arabic to English. I really enjoy this translation, although it's really hard. I'm getting a lot better, though.
I'm so happy today, for some reason. It might have to do with the fact that I took a 6 hour nap this afternoon. So much for sleeping tonight. ha ha. It also might have to do with the music. I LOVE the music.
On that wildly cheerful note, I am going to get down to business. I should have some more entertaining things to say by the end of the week, because I've been invited to a neat Islam meeting at the house of a famous architect by Ms. East-West. That should be extremely neat.
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My goodness! Reading Rachel's comment finally made me realize quite a huge number of your family is down in Louisiana! It's funny I thought Pakistan-must check with Liz, but not New Orleans...
Anyway, Rachel, if you're reading this, WYSE at Yale is half-Jewish girls, half-black girls mentoring thing with a funny anecdote.
This very protected Frosh, a virgin at the time, goes to a ghetto New Haven middle school, talks about sex and how she was a virgin, and the kids couldn't believe it. Things might be different in Palo Alto...
Anyway, have fun with the cool architect. I decided having architect acquaintances is the coolest thing in case I want to build a fabulous house (when I have the money) and I can say "my friend designed it."
-Kei
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