Jet Lag's a---well, you know.

The past few days are hazy.

In fact, last night was the first night I didn't pass out on the couch. I haven't even been eating dinner I've been so tired. The tug of some whacky circadian rhythms have had me out by 7 PM each night, tossing and turning through the wee morning hours, and out of bed by 7 AM.

The heat is stifling. I've woken up several times during the night with a sore throat, chapped lips, and a lovely sheen of sweat, especially around my hairline. Ah, long hair in summer.

I can't remember much, but I've been taking lots of pictures. Here's what I gather I've been up to:

Sahara Mall with my Mom to see Up.
We stopped at the food court.
I took pictures of the train at Adventureland.



Malls in the Emirates are not just for shopping. In fact, I think shopping is really just a bonus. Malls are really a big air-conditioned refuge for kids to eat and play.



Hence the mini roller coaster:


Another day, I had lunch with my very first college roommate. We happened to walk past the Deans List board (yes, so few students actually make Deans List that all the names fit effortlessly on one board).
Commentary was scribbled in all over the place, but this was our favorite comment:

Diana's name is circled--presumably by Diana herself--and an arrow points to this note:
Yay!! =) Note: 3.92 =p (hate me)
Another arrow appears at the top and draws the reader's attention to yet another message written, we can only presume, by an indignant engineering student. It reads:
LoL ur CAS !!!11! ur 4.0 is Engineering's 2.0 loL
It's a gem, this one. First with the typo-exclamation points, and then with the butchered English and finally with the presumption that Diana's near 4.0 humanities GPA (CAS=College of Arts and Sciences) is hardly worth a scoff over there in COE (College of Engineering). Really? COE is SO MUCH HARDER than CAS that it has rendered you entirely inept at English? Well, next time you want to LoL at a CAS(!!!11!) student, I'd like to see you write a dozen 8-15 page research papers--properly spelt, cited and punctuated, and without resorting to plagiarism. Then we can have a nice little chat about GPAs.

*ahem*

At some point I went grocery shopping. This can also be done at the mall. At any mall. Seriously.
I find this to be a particularly interesting food:

The sun, the moon, the whole sky looks different over here. I think it's all the dust in the atmosphere.
Whatever it is, it makes for some cool pictures:

I didn't shoot it in Black and White, nor did I edit it later. That's just how it looks.

This was just yesterday, so it just happens to be fresh in my memory. One of my former professors took me out to dinner to celebrate my completion of college. We passed this house along the way:

I like the blue glass.

And this one, too:

I have a thing for ridiculously spacious homes. (More to come.)

We decided to dine in Sharjah, even though half of the restaurants in Sharjah failed their food inspections. Heh.
It's just that we'd heard such good things about Qanat al-Qasba, and it did not disappoint.
Her daughter really enjoyed the dancing fountains:

While I found the ferris wheel (Eye of the Emirates) particularly photogenic: