A few pictures from way back when

September 29, 2008 at 9:34 pm (Qatar)

The semester feels like it’s winding down.. Eid break (fall break) signifies the end of half of the fall semester.

I can see the glimpses of what people call “burnout”. Not that this job is hard by any means, but I can see how constantly doing the same things day in and day out in a foreign environment grates on people.

Playing a couple hours of squash every night has been eating up my free time. I’ve been playing with some random faculty members that live in my compound, and random pickup basketball whenever I’m at school. In essence… I almost feel like I’m back in Cornell.

I’ve constantly been moving around, being active, as I felt that simply doing nothing in this country would be a wasted opportunity. As a result, I haven’t had much quiet downtime to myself, doing nothing, other than when I’m sleeping. I think going to Cyprus will be a welcome break for me.. but I feel like I won’t get much rest there.

I miss Cornell and California.

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Sealine Pictures + Old Pictures Stolen from Others

September 17, 2008 at 7:51 pm (Qatar)

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Getting into a fixed schedule

September 5, 2008 at 3:11 pm (Qatar, Uncategorized)

Having been in Doha for a month or so, I have managed to maintain some sort of a fixed schedule. Not necessarily in a grind, but I’ve been figuring out ways to spend my time in a orderly fashion.

6:00am – 6:45am Wakeup to the Call to Prayer echoing in the distance

7:20am – Rush out the door to get to school before 8am. I drive really fast.

8am – 3:30pm Lectures, Recitations, Office Hours, General Horsing around

4pm – 6pm Workout/Swim/Basketball/Squash/Scuba diving lessons?

Dinner sometime here

Tutoring sometime here/Hanging out with TAs/Going out into the city

I’ve been two churches so far, an American church (I call in American because people there are white) and a Korean chuch. The American church took about 1.5 hours of my life total on the Friday, a typical one hour service church, and I just spent about 6 hours of my life for the Korean church. This involved the extremely long drive, the waiting, long service with twenty or so formal prayers and announcements, awkward orientation for newcomers, and basically running away from the “Youth” (I add ” ” because this is basically for anyone under 30) meeting afterward to go home. The pluses were the Korean food and the familiar faces of fellow Koreans.

So I don’t know where I’m going next week, but there are few more churches (including another Korean one, perhaps they split?) in Doha.

Oh yea, I’m going to learn how to scuba dive and a get a PADI Open Water certification! Whoo hoo! Ever since I went this summer to Nice, I’ve always wanted to get some sort of formal training. And I can swim decently, so this should not be hard. I’ve been learning (getting destroyed) by Frank Smith, the general chem prof who loaned Cyrus, another TA, and I squash rackets to practise. From my own professor’s comments, I’m beginning to suspect that Frank does this every year to bright-eyed overconfident TAs to put them in their places. Despite his age, he still whoops us younguns.. in fact he recently offered to buy us dinner if we ever took a game from him.

Well, I’m going to go eat soon and go to the local souq, market, to get my housemate Pete Swift some linen pants!

Toodles!

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