Aw, Man!

Check out my Jordan pics here :)

The Ugly in Beauty

Guys, I have lots of cool pictures to show you. I just filled up a memory card but can't upload the pictures because my hard drive is already overflowing with pictures. *irritation* This weekend I rode the metro and took some pictures that I hope to get up soon. Tonight I went to a really awesome drum concert (I'll come to this when I post about it, but for now I just need to say: I ♥ Atsu).

But I'll begin at last week, when I went to Abu Dhabi and visited the Shiekh Zayed mosque. Sheikh Zayed is sort of the UAE's version of George Washington. Or was. He died in 2004, just a few months after we moved here and so we got a week off and I took a trip to Oman. But that's a story for another day. Today I am telling the one about how he got a HUGE mosque named in his honor. His tomb is there, too, and there is always someone there--round the clock--reciting the Quran. I would have taken a picture but it wasn't allowed.

See the No Photography sign? Bahahahaha!

I'm hilarious.
So, I've been hearing about this mosque for years. It was only done last year (I think?) but they've been building it for several. It's very detailed. And I finally got to see it.

*cheers*

I realize only now that this is just not a great shot. This is like, a third of the mosque. I'll have to dig around and see if I took a picture of the whole thing. But still, domes! Cool!

This is right above the entrance. See what I mean about detail? Bricks! And carvings and, well, you'll just have to see what else.

This is the inside. It's really enormous. And the whole floor is covered in this carpet:

I think it's the largest in the world. It took over a thousand women several years to make. Oh look, I have stumbled upon information: there's a brief bit here and a newspaper article here. Also, a wikipedia entry! And it was really silly of me to guess that it was the largest in the world. I mean, OF COURSE it is the largest in the world. Go to all this trouble to build a gorgeous mosque in honor of the UAE's George Washington and not even achieve a world record? Unacceptable. Unthinkable!

So, enormous interior--40,000 worshippers enormous. World's largest (most gorgeous?) carpet. All topped off by this incredible ceiling:

I'm sorry, did I say incredible? I MEANT HIDEOUS:

So obscene. Why couldn't they have done something more like this:

Actually, it's really the dome interior I like. The chandelier only looks good because it doesn't look like this:

Ack!Ack! Avert your eyes!! It's the world's most hideous chandelier!

The mosque has hundreds of columns, all (nicely) decorated with (lovely) inlaid stone flowers:

And those hideous gold palm things. Ekh.

Despite its HIDEOUS chandeliers and those weird palm things, the mosque is glorious.

oooooo...

aaaaahh....

So there you have it. Sort of. You really need to see it in person to get the full effect.
Stay tuned for Ats♥♥♥♥♥

Wordless Rambling

Quick! Pretend it's still mid-September!

**I tried posting this weeks ago but the links went awry. Gar.**

Today the sky was blue, which is a big change from the previous months' beige. It was also pleasant to be outside, which is a big change from the previous months'...well, this:





It's so muggy that just walking outside fogs the lens.

Last week, Mom and I made it to Festival City (hello, peanut butter cup perfection) and on the way we encountered the following:



See the red symbol on the back window? I thought it looked like some sinister intergalactic warcraft. Mom thought it looked like bosoms. It's neither, and that's why the interpretations--especially hers--were so funny.

We went to Mall of the Emirates so I could (finally!) see the 6th Harry Potter movie. This may be why the Basilisk is this year's hot item.





This was one of the movie posters.


Take note of the censorship. Someone did a bang-up job with that marker!


The Burj, looking very done:


It isn't, but even in its unfinished state it is the world's tallest building.

The Parable of the Parking Spot

You know when you're really in a hurry for something? You dash like mad out the door to make up for the five minutes it took you to find the gloves that were in your pocket the whole time and then you have to heat up the car because of course this job interview has to be in Utah, which means that it may only be September, but winter--like the sale of Christmas decorations--sure as hell ain't going to wait till December. So you're late, it's cold, the roads are slushy where they're not icy, and then TRAX has to go and block the freaking intersection. And then you have to find a parking spot because the interview is downtown and God himself would be hard-pressed to find a spot on this day. So you park and walk-jog the three blocks from the (scalpers! at the) parking garage and you make it to the interview five minutes late because the five minutes you made up through good traffic light karma were lost to one-way streets and illegal left turns. Curse you, TRAX!

(Do you know where I'm going with this?)

Because this is Utah, the next day is bright and sunny. You're downtown again and just happen to pass your future place of employment and there! Right there! Is a parking space. A parking space! Right there, downtown. On a day when you have no interview to make, when you're not running late, when you have no one to impress. Right there in front of your building.

Guys, studying is my parking spot!!

Now that I'm out of school, I am *awesome*. Awesome!


I used to stay up till 3 doing homework.

I used to stay up past 3 surfing YouTube and Facebook.

I used to stay up past 3 and hope that I would sleep through my alarm so I wouldn't have to go to class.

I procrastinated papers.

And blew off deadlines.

And turned in papers that didn't meet the minimum number of pages required.

(And still got As. Boo Yaw.)

I skipped class to work. (Hello, Paycheck!)

I skipped class to read.

I skipped class just because.

I daydreamed instead of taking notes.

With the exception of two courses, I never did any reading.

I never contributed to class discussions.

I was, by all accounts, a terrible student.

And that's just college.



You get it, right?

Now that I don't need good grades--don't even have the option of grades!--or recommendations or credits or sleep, I am disciplined. (Disciplined!)

I go to bed at a reasonable hour (it's been 1 AM lately).

I wake up while it's still morning.

And then I study.

I read.

I take notes.

I ask questions, and then write them down.

I jot down ideas and color code topics.

I don't allow myself to get distracted by YouTube or season 5 of Grey's Anatomy.

I have a stack of books related to Arabic and job-hunting and human trafficking, and another tower of recreational reading books.

I haven't even touched the tower. Which is a BIG DEAL because it includes Eclipse. And Eclipse means Jacob. Jacooooob!

And yesterday, I made rolls! Fluffy, delicious dinner rolls.


Being out of school is the greatest thing that has ever happened to me. Productivity ROCKS!

As do I.

Obviously.

And now it is 12:51 AM and I am going to bed. To bed!

YESSSSSSS.

The Luxury of Laziness, or, Why I Love The Internet

I'm cleaning up my (ancient, crammed-with-files) computer and have come across all sorts of writing I've done in and out of class. This one was written July 12 when I was, quite evidently, in a very sour mood. I'm posting it because I think it's funny. Just keep in mind that while I really do loooove having internet available to me 24/7, the only time I ever used the internet as much as this would have you believe was as a student with a big paper to write. Also, I loooove to exaggeraaaaate.

And finally, I do not employ profanities so liberally except in writing. Although, that day may have been an exception.

*****

I wrote this yesterday and apparently I was in quite a sour mood. That might be because I had just returned from a wonderful weekend in the amazing land of Syria. Or it might be that the computer lab closed at 1 instead of 3 and so I had to go all the way back home to get my computer so I could check email and facebook and the goingson of the outside world. I did, however, have the chance to glance at my bank account which showed a $20 ATM fee. I came back to school with my laptop but the *cussword* wireless is a piece of *cussword* and I couldn’t do anything with it anyway. Oh, and before I even went to use the internet I was telling some of the people I traveled with about the ATM fee and how they now owed me some bucks since I withdrew the money to cover the entire cost of our stay at the hostel and one of my fellow students butted in and told me to ‘let it go.’ Um, Bull*cussword* I’m going to ‘let it go’. I sure don’t have have 20 USD to put down for a *cussword* ATM fee. Why the *cussword* are you in my business anyway? I sure don’t remember you riding with us in the taxi that overcharged us or withdrawing money from the ATM that slapped me with the fee. Tell me to let it go! GRRR! This place is so stupid!

It’s not, really (yes it is). I actually had a really good day and eventually did find a place with FREE wi-fi and no facebook block. It wasn’t fast enough to download the TAL podcast or to upload any pictures, but I surfed the New York Times AND alJazeera. I also went to the grocery store and understood every word the grocer said to me. All three of them, but HEY. Small victories and all that. Also, he thought I was Russian and pretty much everyone else thinks I’m German or French. I’m not sure what to think of that.

SO, even though it sounds like I’m having a terrible time in Jordan and like I would rather be back in 8AM Intro to Economics than this stupid place, it is not really case. I’m just having trouble adjusting to all this character-building. Being poor is just so hard!

But otherwise, life is good.
****
Gah. I hate that I can no longer afford luxuries like INTERNET and DONUTS and LAZINESS. It’s terrible! Absolutely dreadful. I don’t recommend it—don’t even even try it. Not even for two months. Especially not for two months.

But who even knew laziness was a luxury? Who even knew that there would come a time that I would not have high-speed internet available to use the second I thought to check facebook? WHO KNEW? And why did they not tell me! And whyyyyy is it soooo haaaarddd?

I hate not surfing the New York Times Most Popular articles.
I hate not being able to check my GoogleReader every 8 and a ½ minutes, and not being able to check my email every 2.
I hate not being able to have Facebook open between my Reader and my NYT columns.
I hate not being able to compose blog entries right there on Blogger. Or emails right there on Gmail.
I hate having to walk two blocks to a grocery store with no Ice cream, Lettuce, or Naked.
I hate that when it comes time to wash my clothes, I have to plug in the machine, fill it—bucket by bucket—with water, wait for it to finish, put in the spin cycle and then still have to wait overnight for my clothes to dry because apparently no one invented the Dryer!
I hate not having a Brita pitcher. Pitcher, I miss yooooooou!!
I hate not being able to waste time on YouTube.
I hate not having time to waste.
I hate my morning class on Sunday and Monday.
I hate teachers who reteach useless things. USELESS, I say!
I hate that all the people honk at me as they drive by.
I hate the dry heat.
I hate the hills.
I hate the smell of moth balls and cannot figure out why the hell my building smells like them.
I hate taking taxis everywhere.
I hate that I live so far away from everywhere.
I hate that the exchange rate makes everything 43% more expensive.
I hate that I don’t have a way of generating income.
I hate not being able to wash my face and dishes in hot water—or even lukewarm.
I hate that I can’t check out books from the university library.
I hate that no one can check out books from the university library.
I hate that I can’t check out books from the university library.
I hate the university library calls itself a library when it is so clearly NOT.
I hate when stores don’t have change.
I hate when cab drivers don’t have change.
I hate that everyone in Jordan wants change even though the monetary system in Jordan does not lend itself to so much change.
I hate that the internet connection everywhere is too slow to upload pictures.
I hate that the university wireless connection doesn’t load facebook.
I hate not having 24-hour access to facebook.
I hate not getting the This American Life podcast downloaded directly to iTunes every week.
I hate that there isn’t an internet connection in this COUNTRY fast enough to download it.
I hate that Amman is so lame.
There’s not even a beach!

Grrrrrrrr.

PS I’d just like to say for the record that I never bought donuts. In fact, I would often scold my roommates for buying them because while the guilt of buying AND eating a donut was sufficient to keep me from indulging, free donuts on my kitchen table were not to be passed up. And that donut shop across the street from the university with the buy 2 get 1 free deal is just a ten-minute walk, and there aren’t even any hills.
********
So there you have it. Me on a bad day in Amman. I'd like to add that I'm not sure about the library thing. There were very few books in the collection and none I was interested in checking out, so I never knew for sure if there was a No Check-Out policy (though there probably was. Stupid place.). But it was what I heard from several of my fellow students.

It's a Small, Small World

For starters, one of my professors from the U moved to the Emirates to teach at a university here. I found this out through Facebook.

The funniest part is not that two U of U people ended up in the Emirates because, as we determined in the last post, lots of Utahns end up here.

What's really funny is the post that came up today, about this professor and one of my AUS professors.
But first, some crucial backstory.

My first semester at the U I took a course called Comparative Politics of the Middle East. One of the required textbooks was this truly wretched book--let me see if I can find it...Hah! Even better. Found the email I sent to my teacher. Dated November 29, 2007:

And since this may be the only chance I get to say this: Roskin and Coyle should not have a written a textbook. Specifically that textbook. Okay, their informal language makes it a much more interesting read than, say, that of Beverly Milton-Edwards. But Milton-Edwards is accurate and objective. Roskin and Coyle are uninformed and, on more than one occasion, blatantly biased. Their information about Islam and Middle Eastern culture is just horrible. Horrible! I think your students ought to be informed of this before putting down 60 precious dollars on a book of misinformation. I took the liberty of putting a warning label on the cover page of mine and marking the worst parts (I'm selling it back to the bookstore).
This is the book. Don't ever buy it. If you see anyone reading it, tell them to send it back. The history bits are great, but the cultural bits are just so offensively off. Do you hear me Roskin and Coyle?? Your book SUCKS.

[In case you're interested, this is how my teacher responded:
I completely agree with you on the quality of the Roskin/Coyle textbook. I will not use it in any of my future classes. It was my mistake for not having taken a closer look at it before assigning it to this class.

Hah! Take that, Roskin and Coyle!]
So bad book, blah blah blah. And by blah blah blah, I mean that I was so irritated by this book and the seemingly willful ignorance of its authors, that I wrote several long emails to my parents detailing my beef with the book, quoting sections of it and pointing out all the reasons which made these authors completely unqualified to be authoring this textbook.

My parents know many people at the university (not of Utah) and attend social gatherings of all sorts, and at one of these gatherings they struck up a conversation with one of my former professors. Of course, I was brought into the conversation because he knew me and this was my first semester away at college. Also, because I had been sending long rants about how biased this textbook is and Can you believe they said this?? and this prof is particularly interested in the perception of the Muslim/Arab world by Westerners. He emailed me about it shortly after their conversation and asked to know more about the book. When I came out for Christmas, I brought the book with me, complete with underlining and marginalia. I couldn't sell it back to the bookstore because my teacher wasn't using it again, so I just set it on this professor's desk and said, Good Riddance!!

Tonight, nearly two years after parting ways with the book, I read this message on facebook:

Guess who I have been hanging out with in the last couple of weeks. He is Associate Professor of Arabic, previously at AUS, now at AUD. Does [professor's name] ring a bell? Shall I just say" Textbook complaint". This world is very small .

Yes. Yes it is.