November 6, 2008 at 7:13 am (Qatar)
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Throwback to the good ole’ days…
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SNEs Controller + Question Mark Box + Super Mario
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A partnership.. She hits me, and I give her mushrooms
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Conquering a land far to the East.. not really relevant
Three of us decided to dress up for October 30th.
After some discussion, we had agreed on a Super Mario theme earlier in the week. A number of ideas ran through my head- Luigi? Mushroom? Toad? The big flying bullet?
Then it him me. Why not be original? Google searches had netted me images of countless Marios and Princess Peaches, but few objects from the game. I decided to be the golden Question Mark Box that Mario apparently headbutts? (I thought he just hit it with his fist) and gets goodies from.
Getting a cardboard box was indeed a hassle- like everything else in Qatar, I was given the roundaround by eight different people at the mall. In the storeroom of Carrefour, I managed to corner an employee and he was forced to grudgingly hand over a box as I pointed at the countless stacks of boxes right behind him- he couldn’t even try to deny that any such empty boxes existed! I grabbed some orange spray paint, colored markers, string, and scratch paper to create, lo and behold, a Question Mark box that I wore over my shoulders.
Atsuko came as Super Mario, Becca came as the classic SNES controller, and I was the Q-Box. I had made little shelves in my box to hold candy, a cardboard mushroom, star, feather, candy for the kids, and speakers that blasted out my Super Mario songs I found on the net. We held a little skit for the second-years after their physics lecture… I hooked up the room mic and played the theme songs, as Becca “controlled” Atsuko by pressing buttons. When I was headbutted, I threw goodies into the air- when I threw a star, I hit the Starman song, and Atsuko ran around the room, knocking people over (okay, she didn’t really hit anyone). A great success. We celebrated the said success by eating candy and taking a walk outside- Super Mario, the SNES controller, and the Question Mark Box.
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November 1, 2008 at 1:24 pm (Cyprus)
Tomb of the Kings
On the way to the airport, we made a stop to the Tombs of the Kings in Paphos.. However, the signs here state that are no actual members of the royalty buried here, just government officials. Perhaps the Cyprus Tourism Board thought the title was much more appealing with the word Kings.
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October 29, 2008 at 9:28 am (Uncategorized)
My Monday Mornings...
So, unlike the Western work week, I start work here on Sundays and get Friday and Saturday off. So Thursday is a fun day, and Sundays usually are hard. However, Mondays tend to be chill for me as I don’t have lecture to attend, and students rarely bother me at this time. So instead of getting here right on time to make my 8am lecture, I saunter in sometime around 8-9ish am. However, that doesn’t mean I’m not entirely immune to any possible glares from my bosses. So I decided to take a bit of a roundabout way… and the comic shown is almost exactly accurate. Besides, the men’s bathroom is along the long route so I can do my business or wash hands if needed.
The comic was taken from phdcomics.com, a grad student from Stanford. It’s pretty funny, and we posted some of the comics that relate to our job as TAs on our door.
This happened to me and Atsuko
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October 25, 2008 at 4:16 pm (Cyprus)
We went snorkeling in this pristine cove!
Roland doing his thing into Aphrodite's Bath. Probably the first one to have a go there since the Goddess of Beauty herself.
On a trail near Aphrodite's Bath
We bought snorkels and took off in our sweet Daewoo hatchback to the Northwestern coast of Cyprus,
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October 23, 2008 at 12:52 pm (Cyprus, Uncategorized)
So the next day the five of us in Cyprus made our way to the mountainous Troodos region for a nice long hike. We stopped by one of the many wineries along the way to taste some nice wine and take in the views. The wineries happened to be on a short cliff above a large sprawling valley that was home to the grape vines. We tasted the decently-okay wine (for free!) and had some of these long cylindrical wax-textured snacks, unique to the area, that were made of wine grape residues, sugar, and almonds in the center. Not bad, actually. Tasted like sweet wax.
- Looking over a valley used for growing grapes
- I got caught trying to pick a pomegranate from the Winery trees. A winer yelled at me and I had to run away.
Made of grape residue, sugar, and almonds, these local snacks do look and feel like wax candles
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October 16, 2008 at 7:16 am (Uncategorized)
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October 13, 2008 at 7:24 pm (Cyprus)
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Beautiful little cove…. We drove on a dirt road to get here
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Gorgeous setting
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Blue water, bluer sky
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This was apparently a baller neighborhood back in the day
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The inner child peeks out..
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Dan, Kate, Lauren
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What if they got married to some Turkish prince and I never saw them again?
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Chefs Dan, Roland, and Chefess? Lauren
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Pour that wine!
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No females? We had nothing to do…
The following day, we made our way to the beach. We went off-roading with our rental Opel along a series of turns and bends on an elevated coast line, much like in California. In fact, the entire area seemed like a mixture of California and Australian outback nature… with us driving on the left side.
The cove we entered had little areas that were shielded with wire- turtle nesting areas that we were to avoid. Unfortunately, we did not see any little turtles poke out of their shells and shuffle over to the water. the water was blue, but happened to be extremely salty and full of seaweed/kelp. Swimming was a bit difficult for this reason, even with goggles. We spent most of our time tanning, reading, and eating our snacks. I tooka solo venture over to one end of the cove, where the sand was overrun with large and small rocks of unsually purple shades. Sitting on one of the bigger boulders, surrounded with water on all sides and the breeze running into my face, I watched the sunset make its way across the skyline.
The dinner we made at home included some sort of calamari, garlic, salt, butter, and pasta. It was delicious, especially topped with a tomatoe salad and some decent wine. However, the salad “dressing” we bought was thick, white, and I thought was okay until someone said it smelled like restrooms.
Eventually, we dropped off the girls at the airport, and then went to meet up with Ben and his girlfriend from New York.
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October 12, 2008 at 12:27 am (Cyprus)
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Gorgeous blue sky, perfectly shaped clouds
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Kate Monster, Dan, Lauren
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Just off the neck of a highway…
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Inspiration for Snow White’s Castle
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There are goats below
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Lauren’s funny face looks like the mouse from the movie!
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Camera shot of a camera shot
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Dwarfed by the rocks
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Cheese!
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Things were still sharp…
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Only the queen doesn’t need sunglasses
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Under the Cross….
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My camera lacks in night vision…
Cyprus, the island of Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love and Beauty, and Patron Goddess of Ladies-of-the-Night everywhere. The island itself is rife with relatively recent turmoil, with land ownership and sovereignty issues unresolved between nearby Greece and Turkey. The Greece-Cypriots dominate the Southern part, and outnumber the Turkish-Cypriots 4 to 1 million people. With the recent admittance of Cyprus into the European Union, only Turkey recognizes the Northern Turkish State of Cyprus as an independent nation. On a lighter note, I got to use Euros, and the Euro is much cheaper than it was when I was in Europe this past summer. Hot damn the greenbacks are making a comeback! Dan has been reading about the modern history of this nation, and trust me, it is twisted stuff. There is a Green Line that divides the country, and only recently have there been compromises and agreements been made between the two “governments”. However, things are still very tense, with armed guards evident, and crossing borders was a pretty big hassle. For example, the northern government doesn’t mark the ONE entrance to the North because they want to deter people from the South from entering. There was even an “insurance” we had to pay for our automobile to cross the border. We drove a pretty sweet Opel Zafira minivan… I got the back back seat, the trunk seat because it would only comfortably fit five. Since it was a manual, only Dan could drive, Roland was our chief Navigator in the front, and I couldn’t ask a girl to sit in the trunk so… it (usually) fell upon me and my sense of gentility.
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October 3, 2008 at 12:18 pm (Qatar)
Gulf Air 1
- JaeSung 0
I’m rooted in Doha, Qatar for another day.
I found out last minute at the airport, that the first leg of my flight was delayed, preventing me from being able to catch the connection leg. I was too pooped to even argue about a voucher or discount and sluggishly requested a rebooking.
Gulf Airlines 1, Jason 0.
Having stayed up all night to pack/chat/watch the Vice presidential debates, I am in a half-dazed slump, watching soccer and playing facebook poker. I am much too tired to do anything, but way too anxious to fall asleep. Plus, with all the tea and coffee I drank, my body’s too wired on caffeine.
I think I’ll get a haircut.
UPDATE- I didn’t get a haircut.
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September 29, 2008 at 9:34 pm (Qatar)
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We buried Cyrus
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Notice his little black curly braids..
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Jellyfish suck and are everywhere along the beaches in the summer
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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