Below are the 18 most recent journal entries recorded in lelandinqatar's LiveJournal:

Sunday, March 20th, 2005
7:21 pm	Listen Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time. I went in to the hospital to get my stitches looked at. The background is a story for another day. Everything was back to business as usual. Traffic was its terrible self. Nothing has really changed. My dad and I swung by the site where The Doha Players used to stand. The lot is now merely rubble. Interestingly, the building's neighbors are all still standing. So it goes. As we drove home from the site, I reflected on the events. The past 24 hours have been stressful and confusing and frustrating and depressing. I feel like a sanctuary has been violated; Doha is--at least, was--the safest place I could imagine. This is a rude awakening, even if it's just an isolated incident. I never want to live through this again. I can't even begin to fathom what it's like to live through the threat of this every day in places like Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq--to name a few. In the face of what can unquestionably be called evil, what can one say? Standing in my driveway, I was lost in thought, when a little bird standing in the window spoke up. He asked, "Pooteeweet?" (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, March 19th, 2005
11:55 pm	Loud blast in Qatari capital Doha read this: http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/0BDACDA4-241C-40CD-A216-066F004D3665.htm google news also has some articles, though no new details to be found: http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&tab=wn&ie=UTF-8&ncl=http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/0BDACDA4-241C-40CD-A216-066F004D3665.htm you now know as much as i do about what's going on here. my family and i are all okay, praise god. we were right next door to the theater tonight for a choir concert, and left the area less than 30 minutes before the reports say the explosion occurred. my current reactions? 1. the current police line is that this was a "gas line explosion," but there are various rumors of a car bombing. i hope with every fiber of my being that the police line is correct, because doha is a quiet place. 2. wednesday morning, i met with a guy [ed. note: i've decided to leave out his name just in case it matters] who works for the College of the North Atlantic, and he invited me to see him in the Doha Players' production of the Shakespearean play Twelfth Night which was running thursday night through sunday night--including tonight at the time the explosion occurred. i was planning on going tomorrow night to see the play. i really hope he's all right now, but i'll have no way of knowing for a while yet. 3. i continue to believe that doha is an inherently safe place, but this does rattle things up a bit. many people are likely to jump to conclusions that this was an act of terrorism, especially given that the site was a british school and theater with a primarily western audience. however, i have never ever seen any evidence of stuff like that here, and i have no reason to believe that anything like that could happen. most important thing? we're just trying to stay calm. the university's official communications tree has been activated to check in with everyone and keep everyone chill. there's nothing we can do now, and there's no evidence that we'll need to do anything at all. i'll update when i know more. please just know that i'm all right, and keep everyone you know calm about this. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, March 12th, 2005
3:36 pm	Other week's events Yet another reason this has been an interesting week, as a consequence of the Grand Opening. The Big Men in Ties in the Administrative Wing decided that my dad really shouldn't be hauling around trustees and other Big Men in an old, beat up Range Rover, so they went out and rented him a boring black Ford sedan. Result? I got exclusive access to the truck, meaning that I was no longer tied to the dean's schedule. No more coming into the office at 8:00 for Leland! What's interesting is that, starting at 8:30 (I think), the local english-language radio station has a daily special on Islam, focusing on the acts and utterances of the Prophet (may peace be upon him). Day 1: Caught the very tail end of the program, covering sacrifices that day. Didn't really follow it closely, but I think that the essence of what they were saying was that in Islam, a sacrifice is not a method of atonement. Instead, it is a way of saying "Just as I expect this animal that I own to give its life at my will, I will gladly give my life to Allah, if He wills it." I'm not sure if I'm understanding right or not. Anyone who reads this and has a better understanding of the Qur'an than I do (cough cough Qatar cough cough), I'm hoping you'll weigh in on it. Day 2: "At that time, Joe bin Billy Bob placed food in front of the Prophet, may peace be upon him. The Prophet, may peace be upon him, began to reach for the food, when BillyJoSue bint Jake told the Prophet, may peace be upon him, that he was about the eat the flesh of a lizard. The Prophet, may peace be upon him, withdrew his hands, and said 'You may eat of the flesh of a lizard, for it is lawful to do so. I, however, will not eat of the flesh of the lizard, for I do not think I will have a liking for it." Okay, that's definitely different from Christianity. When I sit down at a table, I don't go, "Gee, did Jesus eat pancakes or not? Oh no! He probably didn't... Does that mean pancakes are unlawful? Am I a bad person if I eat pancakes? Aaaah!" It must have sucked to be the Prophet (may peace be upon him), in that every bloody thing he did was recorded and taken as law for how to live. Or maybe he just liked the attention. Day 3: "At that time, a man came to the Prophet, may peace be upon him, and told him of a dream he had had. Then the Prophet, may peace be upon him, said 'Do not let the devil's vain trickery disturb you, for dreams are how he troubles us.' Then he said, 'However, if I appear in your dreams, it is not the devil's work, for he cannot mimic me. Instead, anyone who sees me in his dream will indeed see me in the real world.' This was narrated by Joe, who heard it from Bob and from Jim, and Bob heard it from Mark who heard it from John who was there." Two points: 1: All Hadiths (anecdotes of the doings of the Prophet, may peace--oh screw it) are like this, carefully tracing how they are decended. Important, I suppose, but you can hear 15 different tellings of the same story, and they will differ only on one or two seemingly trivial words, but these are apparently major points of contention. 2: Wow, does it sound like the Prophet had an extreme sense of self-worth? :0P EDITOR'S NOTE: All names in the stories have been changed to protect the witnesses, and because I simply forgot them. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
3:15 pm	This has been an interesting week, to say the least. Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar celebrated its Grand Opening--5 months after starting classes. But what do I know? I'm just the resident lab helper monkey; I let the administrative people do the scheduling. As a consequence of the Grand Opening, we had lots of people from Pittsburgh here for the week. As in more Pittsburgh people than Qatar staff, faculty, and students combined. There were some very cool Pittsburgh campus students here, which was a great opportunity to meet some folks I'll have to track down on campus this fall, as well as many of the upper administrators and 76+ trustees. Now, you have to understand how one becomes a trustee of the university. You've got to be smart, generous, and filthy rich. We had all the trustees at my house for dinner the other night, and I can't even begin to imagine what the combined net worth of everyone present was. I'd believe it if the number exceeded a quarter billion dollars. Intimidating? Oh yes. But it gets better. Thursday night, we had the Big Party. The Big Men in Ties who sit in the Administrative Wing got a massive tent and had it pitched on the site where the Carnegie Mellon building will sit. When I say tent, I mean a TENT. AC, astoundingly good A/V equipment, persian rugs, Ritz-catering, the works. Very cool. The invite list for the Party included over 700 people. All the Pittsburgh army was there, as well as the Qatar campus people, plus business people from around Qatar. Even more wealth was present in the tent. What made the night so interesting, though, was the handshakes. As I walked into the dining area, I found myself right behind the Japanese ambassador. Before I even knew what I was doing, I had already opened my big mouth. "Mr. Ambassador. Hi, I'm Leland Thorpe. I wanted to thank you for the wonderful Noh theater presentation." Fortunately, he is a very gracious person and treated me very kindly. Quite a wonderful dude. As I walked away, I realized whom I had just introduced myself to, and shaken hands with. Maybe a little bit of gall there? The night only got more interesting, however, when my mom introduced me to Her Highness Sheika Mozah bint Nasser al Missned. I still can't quite wrap my head around that one. More amazing, she allowed me to shake her hand. Interesting night, indeed. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, February 25th, 2005
1:16 am	A Critical Mass This here is something I've been chewing on for a while, and was finally precipitated by my friend's entry here. I wasn't sure if this whole "living in the Middle East" thing would be a life changing event when I signed up to tag along, though I did think I would come away with an improved understanding of this region. However, I do believe that my life now has a direction and a focus. This all started with a conversation with one of my coworkers here (Gloria Khoury, for those in the know), who lived in Beirut through the Lebanese Civil War of 1975-1991. First, I was shocked, frightened, and made physically ill to realize that I had never even heard of this war, even though it lasted into my lifetime. I do have vague memories of the first gulf war, so I would expect that I would also have heard of this war. However, I am a product of 12 years of half-assed American public education (no, I'm not bitter...) and have little concept of the world we live in. After I got over my shock, I began to understand what my coworker was telling me about the present scenario, and felt that I could not idly sit by. The Middle East, as you all know, is far from an ideal place. However, it also has great potential and I believe that it can turn itself around as a region. The question still stands, "what can I, a single teenager, do to help?" It is thus that I unveil my newest project. My goal is to help my peers--high school and college students--to make a difference in the world. There are many areas that need help, spread all over the world, and there are presumably equally many opportunities to give aid. What we need is a central way of learning about crisis areas, opportunities to help out, and actions we can take. Given this, I present to you A Critical Mass. I plan to have a website dedicated to this project that will serve as a centralized forum for discussing crises worldwide, dispensing information about things we can do to help out, and encouraging new solutions and approaches to current problems. This will not be dedicated solely to the Middle East--though that is my personal passion--but instead is meant to cover issues worldwide, including those in our own backyards. If you can weigh in, offer any advice, please please do so! The best thing would be to contact me at CriticalMass DOT Leland AT gmail DOT com. Especially cool would be if you can prepare an article to go up there, or refer me to a friend/colleague who could do so. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 23rd, 2005
11:24 pm	Qatar, how I love your boringness... Your friendly neighbors are doing absurd things, while you stay quiet and dull. Okay, The Doha Debates tonight was cool, talking about whether or not the Road Map to Peace is dead, but still. Why can't you be like those kooky Emiratis and their hotel slash tennis court? (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, December 16th, 2004
11:48 am	redirect manual redirect to the update at my other journal. (Comment on this)
Monday, December 6th, 2004
9:14 pm	The Noble Qur'an Well, that Qatar person is at it again, making me feel lazy and ignorant. This time she's not only read the Qur'an, but she even posted an amazing article about it. If you've got the time, give it a gander. http://www.livejournal.com/users/qatar/33909.html I think I'll follow suit and give the Qur'an a go at some point here. Seems really interesting. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, December 4th, 2004
10:55 pm	Holy Water, Batman! So, I'm going to be lazy and link to my friend's journal: http://www.livejournal.com/users/qatar/32048.html She's working for CMUQ too, and we actually shared a bottle of said zamzam water. Verdict? Nada. It's just water. Some people claim that there's a higher concentration of calcium in it, which I could buy. But it really didn't taste all that special. Chalk one up to religious mysticism. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, November 28th, 2004
9:35 pm	coming attractions I've decided to post the titles of articles that i'm planning on posting sometime here. I figure that if I put them up here, those of you who read this will yell at me and that'll motivate me to write the entries. Coming Atrractions To Oman! Ramadan and Beyond To Kenya! Holy Water, Batman Hidy-Hoe, Neighbor Ali Now, may the email abuse begin! (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, October 1st, 2004
1:59 pm	this is not an update on my life here in qatar. this is a pointer to my other blog, where i have posted a must-read that i found online. http://www.livejournal.com/~lelandt (Comment on this)
Monday, September 6th, 2004
10:08 pm	Part Deux Haircut, part two. This time, I wanted to try something totally different, totally bizarre, and the results came out exactly as I had expected. And now the verdict is out on whether or not I'll learn to like it. Here, see for yourself (and check out a few more pictures I promised). http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/lelandt/files/qatpics.html My apologies, that'll probably load really slowly, even after I did chop down the image files with the gimp (http://www.gimp.org -- yay open source!) (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, September 5th, 2004
10:05 pm	Oh wow! Another update! I suppose I owe a confession, for I didn't write this one. My mom was putting together a letter to send to her friends and family, and I snagged myself a (digital) copy of it. So, without further ado, let me present The 10 Worst and Best Things About Living in Doha, Qatar. by Leslie Thorpe 1) Worst: Driving - They have these things called Round-abouts where you are supposed to be able to change the direction you are driving by doing this little dance in a circle with about 50 other cars all going way faster than you are comfortable with and weaving back and forth from the inner circle to the outer one... And then the streets rarely have signs, and sometimes the sign is where they are going to and not actually what they are named, and they sometimes change names in the middle of a road. And people give directions by what used to be in a certain place, or by a round-about, usually a statue in the middle, but sometimes by a building near it, and sometimes by a description like the Sloped Round-about, or there is even one referred to as the Stinky Round-about, though no one can tell my why. Best: Driving: They have these things called Round-abouts that are so efficient once you get the hang of them...it is sort of like timing your entry into a jump rope being swung by two people. You time your entry and exit with all the other moving cars and it works. And stop lights are, like, SO inefficient! You actually have to sit still for minutes on end waiting for your turn to move. And, being from Pittsburgh, having streets twist, turn, and change names is not really an issue. Big difference is that as (petrol) here is about 65 cents a gallon & at a full serve station. 2) Worst: Weather - It is HOT! and humid. Did you know that when it is 120 degrees and 90% humidity your skin temperature is cooler than the dew point and when you walk outside the humidity in the air immediately condenses on your skin? and pool water and the ocean are the temperature of bath water....kind of hard to go for a refreshing swim. Best: Weather - They actually run out of ways to describe how sunny it is...check the web site...sunny, abundant sun, mostly sunny....no need to worry about rain ruining a picnic...and when it is snowing in North America, it will be gorgeous here! 3) Worst: Food - No Pork. No bacon, no ham, no pepperoni for pizzas, no sausage....and almost every restaurant seems to have about the same menu, whether they call themselves Persian, Lebanese, or Middle Eastern, though we hear tell there is a Japanese restaurant, and most serve Chicken Shawarma, though we have yet to try it as the most common phrase we hear is "no shawarma". And grocery shopping is no picnic either, what with having to do triple conversions...Arabic to English, Riyals to dollars, and Kilograms to Pounds... it is an exhausting and time consuming undertaking. Best: Food - Houmus, Stuffed vine leaves, and Baba Ganouj to die for! And the grocery stores stock the most incredible selection of fresh fruits and vegetables, not to mention rice, lentils, pita bread and spices for pennies. 4) Worst: Social interactions - Though almost everyone in the service industry speaks some English, most of it is heavily accented and it requires patience and fortitude to carry on the simplest of conversations such as "where would I look for yeast?". And you can't help but feel like a 4 year old again with all these mysterious squiggles on the signs that everyone else seems to be able to make sense of , but to you look like, well, squiggles. Even buying a cell phone and getting a number is enough to reduce you to feeling like an imbecile, especially when your customer service representative has the personality of a board. Best: Social interactions - Doha is a melting pot of nationalities and cultures. Everyone we have met has been friendly and open and gracious (except the aforementioned costumer service representative). We count among our friends people from almost any nation you can name, and many local Qataris, who are always ready to answer dumb questions about culture and life. And they come with a great sense of humor...there was a teleconference with students at CMU-Pgh during which one Pgh student asked a Qatari student what life was like here, and the student answered that every morning they get up in their tent, and jump into the well at the oasis, and then get on their camel and ride to school. Absolutely none of it true, but they had fun poking at the stereotypes. One night recently we were at a friends house for kapsa, typical Qatari lamb and rice meal eaten with your hands while sitting on the floor, and I said I wanted to learn how to make the rice and the wife said she would teach me, and then gave me a box of mixed spices with which to season the rice (and then laughed at me when I said I would probably fix a cup of rice for our family & another Qatari friend told me that she probably laughed because, for a Qatari, a cup of rice was such a miniscule amount that she couldn't even imagine cooking that little). 5) Worst: Water - There is no such thing as cold tap water...if we need to wash something in cool water we get up very early and the water that has been in the cistern overnight is only lukewarm so we consider that good enough. And we have to filter all our drinking water, so there is constant flow of, and search for, bottled water to drink and cook with. Best: Water - There is an abundant supply of hot water...like I never worry about enough for a huge tub full! Those of you who know me well can imagine how heavenly that is! Bottled drinking water is ridiculously cheap...I have 5 gallon bottles delivered once a week to my door for about $2 a bottle, and 1.5 liter bottles of water at the store run about 30 cents. Eat your heart out America! And we filter water through our fridge, so we have an abundant supply of ice and drinking water downstairs from filters that only cost about $15. 6) Worst: Hired Help - I never know exactly when the cleaning company is going to show up and after being surprised in my pj's a couple times, have learned to lock my bedroom door while I am dressing. And they don't speak English, so I am getting good at miming. And there is something disconcerting about looking out the window to see a man wandering around inside your yard...who turns out to the be the pool cleaner. Best: Hired Help - The cleaners come for a few hours twice a week and clean the entire house...I am unbelievably thankful that I do not have to sweep, mop, and wax all of the marble and tile floors in this house, not to mention the 7 bathrooms that they clean. Or the nearly 30 windows they wash! And when I go to the mall there are people wandering around in the parking garage asking if I want my car washed for $2.50 while I shop. It doesn't get any more convenient than that. Chuck actually encourages me to go to the mall (without him, of course) when my car is dusty...which it is a lot...this IS the desert after all! 7) Worst: Housing - There are about 10 different ways things can go wrong with our water supply...at least we thought there were 10 til this past weekend when we found out there was an 11th way which we still don't understand, but the net result was that we had no water for the laundry room. It seems to have fixed itself as mysteriously as it broke....and this house is so big and echoy and we have to keep telling the kids to come into the same room and actually look at us or we can't hear or understand anything they are saying. And the phone will ring 4 or 5 times before we can get from one end of the upstairs to the other to answer it by which time the person calling has often given up...so I bought more phones, but apparently you actually have to pay for every phone you have in the house...even though the line is already "live"...and having no street name and no house number makes it extremely hard to tell people how to find this place...in fact I just had to interrupt this message to go lead the guy who is making our drapes in to our house after he got helplessly lost trying to find it from my directions...and No, my directions were not bad! And we have somewhere in the neighborhood of a couple hundred light bulbs in this house...replacing them is getting to be a full time occupation. Best: Housing - We have this lovely two story house, with a pool (with water the temperature of bath water) to live in which is airy, well air conditioned and big enough to have 60 of our best friends over for dinner and not feel like we were falling over each other! 8) Worst: Construction - Without warning roads will be closed for some undeterminable repair (someone told us they keep digging up and repairing the same stretch of road and no one seems to understand why), or they will close a round-about at will...the one right by Education City (where CMU is located) is particularly prone to being closed as the Emir passes that way on his way from his house to his office and they close all the roads when he is moving around. And we have only one neighbor we know of as all the other houses are under construction, which makes for a really dusty area, which leads us back to our fearless house cleaners! And there really are parts of the city that you cannot get to from here as they have not finished the connecting roads yet. Best: Construction - This is going to be an amazing town when it grows up. Everywhere you look there are buildings going up, malls being expanded, houses being built....And with a little (ok, a lot) water, it is possible to make the desert bloom. This will be an even more wonderful place to live in a few years. 9) Worst: Wildlife - Monster cockroaches. Need I say more? and the other day the final straw for Hannah was a teeny little scorpion running across the floor...this after a vary large cockroach crawled across her foot in the shower....do you think the bugs know she, of all of us, hates them with a perfect hatred? We had a pest control company come in and spray the house and that made our house smell like bug spray, coincidentally!), but we have seen very few dead bugs inside, however they lifted the sewer covers and sprayed down them and turned our driveway into a cockroach graveyard. Best: Wildlife - no flies (well, I saw one), no mosquitoes (like, where would they breed? did I mention this is the desert?) no carpenter ants...maybe a by product of very little wood.... We have some dull looking birds living in our roof that make nice little chirping sounds all day long and so we are not totally forlorn...and there are stray cats all over that are so skinny that they look like a good sized rat could take them out....Chuck has FORBIDDEN me to feed them, and though I did find a very hungry looking one hanging around one of my (pitiful) trees yesterday I am resisting the urge to tame one. 10) Worst: Living in a foreign culture - Everything is work...from grocery shopping, to going out for dinner, to putting gas in the car. Some days you just want to curl up and stay in the house and not have to deal with anything anymore. Best: Living in a foreign culture - Everyday is an adventure. Yesterday Chuck and I were driving along and a Toyota truck turned in front of us with a camel (yes, a live one) strapped into the bed! It was the funniest thing to see him swaying his head and looking around as the truck went around the round-abouts....and wouldn't you know? we didn't have our camera. Hannah turned to me last week and said "I just realized! when people ask me where I went to high school, I will be able to say I graduated from the American School of Doha, Qatar!" Her band is going to Oman in Oct, Volleyball (if she makes the team) is going to Lebanon, cross country plans to go to Athens in Feb, and Model UN wants to go to China....now that is a different lifestyle! My apologies for any missing edits, because I'm too lazy to do a careful proofread of it. But overall, that pretty much sums up life here. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, September 4th, 2004
10:01 pm	The Ritz, the Gulf, and the Golf Gee, it's been a while since I've updated, and many of you have yelled at me. Sorry. Trouble is, I haven't updated in so long that there are too many things to write about, both in terms of my memory and your attention span. I'll try my best to put up here what I can. The Ritz We've had a couple official Carnegie Mellon dinners here, both of which were catered by the Ritz. It was a bit disconcerting to realize that the Ritz-Carlton of Doha had invaded my house and set up shop. Especially when you walk down the stairs in your own house, and the downstairs suddenly resembles a fancy, private dining room for your party. Even worse was the three waiters, who stood at attention and attended to your every wish and desire. I had to dress up to eat in my own house. At least the food was unbelievably good, and I can't complain about the service (especially the not having to clean up part). The Gulf My sister and I got to go swimming in the gulf yesterday. That was quite awesome. It's a beautiful color to look at, for starters, and the water is absurdly salty and very warm. Made for an interesting swim. I'm still waiting for a chance to watch a moon-rise over the gulf. I figure that should be one of the most beautiful sights of my life. The Golf The big ship that had all our stuff finally arrived! I now have my handful of books, which is quite wonderful, and my frisbees! I'm so pumped that they finally got here, and that I can now begin my true mission here. There's an empty lot behind our house, that's just untouched sand, so my dad and I went out there to hit some golf balls and throw some frisbees. This was a BYOG affair, with my dad carrying his little astroturf mat out so that we could hit the balls off of it. Much fun. Pictures to follow. And in other news... Let's see... what else do I need to post about? We went rug shopping a while ago. 'Twas much fun. We hunted around in the souqs, until we came to THE carpet store. It was a tiny little room jam-packed with rugs, and run by an Indian family. After poking around for a while, we found the ones we wanted, and my dad went to work. It was clear that he was enjoying himself, haggling for cheap prices. Let's just say that (sniff sniff) there's a whole Indian family that won't be able to eat for a week, because they gave us such a good deal on our carpets. Have I mentioned that weekends here are Friday-Saturday? It still messes me up to realize that everybody's got a case of the Sundays, Tuesday is the hump day, and it's Thank Allah It's Thursday. I have yet to get used to the fact that we go to church on Fridays now. This weekend, which I guess is Labor Day, is even weirder, to realize that everyone in the states has the next two days off in a row. Lucky you. Oh! The students are here, and actually have been for quite a while. They're an awesome group, no Westerners among 'em. It was fun to play chess against a guy named Fahat, while chatting with Muhammed. And next summer, Nasser and his cousin will be visiting me in Pittsburgh. That'll be quite awesome. It was interesting, because all week Nasser and Muhammed were wearing their traditional clothing (thobe and gutra), but then on Thursday we went bowling and they were just wearing jeans and t-shirts. Totally threw me for a loop, but very neat to see. Until next time. (Comment on this)
Thursday, August 12th, 2004
9:19 pm	getting a hair cut I just got my hair cut by some Indian guy who didn't speak a word of English. 'Twas fun. I showed him that I wanted him to take off about an inch or an inch and a half, but now I pretty much have a buzz cut. He started by cutting the sides really short, leaving the top, front, and back all long, and then cut the top and front. For a short while I had an outrageous mullet, until I asked him to make the back shorter. Then he went through with a straight blade and shaved around my hair line, which felt pretty good, and finished it all off with a very vigorous head massage. All in all, a very neat experience for only 15 Qatar Rials (about 4 US Dollars). (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, August 10th, 2004
5:19 pm	growing accustomed I've had the opportunity to talk with some people back in the States, and it's brought about an interesting revelation. I'm ashamed to say that I've started taking life here for granted, and that what is truly every day and mundane here is still very foreign, compared to what I lived in the U.S. For example: it only just hit me today that I had an amazing experience the other day. We were sitting in one of the four(!) Starbucks in City Center Mall, and I was watching the world walk by. Literally, every corner of the world was represented in the faces and the languages and the clothes of the people passing me. Hordes of Bangladeshi janitors, Korean clerks behind the counter of the coffee shop, Irani drivers advertising for their company, American and European and Indian shoppers, and of course men and women from everywhere around the Middle East, each sporting his or her traditional garb. On any given day, you can hear half a dozen languages that carry you to distant and amazing parts of the world. My keyboard has English and Arabic letters on it. Today, we had to get blood work and X-rays for our residency visas, which was an interesting experience. Again with the diversity and the sheer variety in languages and faces. It's interesting to watch people communicate across language barriers, especially to see just how much can be said with gestures. The clinic for the blood work was in a trailer, kind of dirty inside, small and cramped, and jammed full of smelly men from every corner of the world--an interesting place, and not the first one I would choose to have blood drawn. I hope that, as we get more settled, we'll have the opportunity to go and find some really, truly foreign expereinces, such as yummy arabic food. Mmm... hooray for yumminess! Until next time. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, August 7th, 2004
9:22 am	home (or something like it)! I'm home! Or, at least, at my new home. The flights out here were very uneventful, save for a few run-ins with security. At first, they wouldn't even let us check in. I assume that's a combination of the heightened security alert (Don't let me get started ranting about that one) and the travel advisory telling Americans to stay out of Bahrain (nor that one). So they had to call up the Qatar embassy in Washington, D.C., and get permission for us to go. After getting past that, we had to deal with being "randomly" selected for advanced security screening (Mind the rant, this time). All nine of us travelling to the Middle East on one-way tickets with heavy and very stuffed bags were pulled aside. Yes, clearly random. Despite a little stress, I still managed to sleep most of the way here, which was most excellent. Pittsburgh to Chicago to London to Bahrain to Doha. I think it was about 28 hours door to door. I've got my room all set up here, and I'm getting accustomed to the house. There are still a few bugs to be worked out, but otherwise everything's good. It's really nice to have the pool here. The major problem we've had so far is just dealing with how bright it gets here. We're so far east in this timezone that the sun rises around 4:30. I've been awake by 6:45 every morning so far. The first morning (I think that was Thursday?), I woke up at 5 AM, and decided to go for a run around 6. After 11 minutes I was tired of drowning in the heat and humidity that I called it quits. At 6 AM. I'm a little ashamed to say that, so far, we've had dinner in a Mexican restaurant, lunch in a Burger King, and another lunch in Fudruckers. No Middle East cuisine yet, but I guess it's all right. We've got 9 more months to explore this new culture. Last night we bought my mom a car at the Used Car Souq, an open-air market where you go and haggle over prices, sweat like crazy in the heat (even at 8 PM), and here lots and lots of Arabic. I definitely need to learn this language. I miss everyone back in the States, but I'm also really enjoying this place. I just can't wait to really start exploring this place. As I had predicted, the sunsets here are awesome. I wish that I could share them with my friends; I'll have to try to get some pictures soon. Keep it real, back in the states. Until my next update, ma'a salaami. (Comment on this)
Monday, July 5th, 2004
12:07 am	pretrip thinking This is my diary of life in Qatar. I want to record my thoughts and experiences while living in one of the most important and interesting regions of the world, both for the sake of preserving them for myself and publishing them for my friends. This is my first entry, and it may be one of only a few written in the United States before we leave. Things are really starting to come together quickly now. It's beginning to become intimadating, the thought that I will be moving to an (almost) entirely alien world. Though I am the type of person who scoffs at travellers who seek an American lifestyle while overseas, I know that I am comforted by the thought that I will not be cut off from the culture I have grown up in. Even in a region so rich in its own culture, I'm certain that I will take refuge in a cheap McDonald's cheeseburger at least a couple times. But at the same time I am really excited to experience something so different from the grey medium of the Hampton bubble. Though I know I will miss this place, I have a perhaps overly-naive belief that Qatar will represent a whole new life for me. I want to come home from this trip changed, touched to my core by a "brave new world that has such people in it." I think that this is inevitable, that it is impossible to go to such a strikingly foreign land and not return fundamentally different. I suppose the burden is on me, to make of it what I wish. My biggest fear of travelling to Qatar is that I may be the only 18 year-old person. I know that this is somewhat irrational, given the presence of major American universities there, but it still bothers me. Again, I think that I have to decide for myself the level to which I want to socialize. The build-up to the trip is driving me crazy, but I think that once we have settled into our new life, things will be much more manageable. Until then, I'll just have to continue plodding on through my life, preparing to drop everything here for an entirely new life overseas. (2 Comments |Comment on this)