Open Doors

And just another picture of downtown San'a.  I was wandering through the streets snapping pictures of doors.  I'm sure that there are deep psychological reasons why doors, and for that matter bridges, fascinate me, and eventually I'll include a post devoted to them (the doors, not the roots of my own subconscious hell).  Beyond the psychoanalytical door that it will open into my tortured psyche, I can also tell you that I just really loved the very distinctive knockers.  I looked for one to buy at the various markets in the souq, but, not surprisingly, they were all attached to doors, as they doubtless had been for centuries.  Anyway, as I was snapping away this gentleman came up and asked if I wanted to take his picture next to the door.  Well, he didn't really know that much English, so the conversation was carried out mainly through sign language.  Often overseas, most notably in India or Egypt, when I've been in similar situations it was the precursor to a request from some tout for me to pay a fee for the right to have taken their picture (even if they initiated the exchange).  This just felt different, and it was.  I've made the point before that I thought the Yemenis were the nicest people I had ever met overseas, and this was just another example.  Apparently he just saw that I was taking pictures and thought that I needed some help.  After I took the picture, and showed it to him, he just smiled, waved and went on his merry way.  A silly story, but just another example to show how often the doors are open, even for Americans in the Middle East.

It Ain't Easy Seeing Green

Blame this posting on Andy Burkhardt.  He sent me that lovely picture of Vermont and now he has me craving green.  The Emiratis, bless them, do try really hard (probably too hard) to promote pretty flowering vegetation, but, well, we are in the desert.  It's hot - 114 the other day - and only going to get hotter, and drier.  Over the weekend we had our first sandstorm in around a month and a half.  All of this brought me back to verdant Zanzibar, so here's a picture of a walkway through the mangrove swamp.

We'll return to the swamp later for a discussion of popobowas and voodoo midgets.

Inertia

Here's a really interesting article by Sean O'Driscoll in the Abu Dhabi 7 Days.  It brings up some really insightful and important points in regards to employment and perception among young Emiratis.  What jumped out to me was the thought that maybe the Emiratis, much like the Americans, are a victim of their own success.  In the fall semester I constantly tweaked my students with the notion that the US is actually the 8th emirate, or that maybe the UAE is the 51st state.  In all sorts of odd ways we are more alike than most folks would ever imagine.

Wages Are Not Enough To Get Youth Working:

Young people in UAE demand big bucks for private sector jobs

Working for a firm in the private sector would be "stupid" and expats "cannot be trusted."  Just some of the views of Emiratis interviewed in a new study into the attitudes of young UAE nationals towards working in the private sector. Young people like these male graduates represent a big bottleneck in the UAE economy, according to the study.

Ninety-eight per cent of Emiratis have government jobs and the pay and working conditions are so good that few want to work for private companies.  It is, according to the new study by researchers from the Business and Economics facility of UAE University in Al Ain, almost impossible for private companies to match the pay of government jobs.

This is a problem the UAE government has been seeking to correct for some time.  A few months ago, it held a jobs fair in Abu Dhabi in an attempt to wean Emiratis off the massive and costsly government sector.  Not only is it a big drain on the public purse, it's also stifling the UAE's ability to compete - where are the Steve Jobs and Bill Gates of the UAE going to come from if Emiratis are far happier in comfortable government jobs?

The UAE University research, funded by the Emirates Foundation, found that young Emiratis had huge salary expections and their view of what they should earn in companies was "unrealistic at best."  Thirty percent of them expect a salary of Dhs 25,000 (gs - $6806 per month; $81,672 per year) or more, while another 10 per cent expect a whopping Dhs 35,000 (gs - $9259 per month; $114,348 per year) to Dhs 50,000 (gs - $13,612 per month; $163,344 per year) per month.

The survey of 30 Emirati men and 30 Emirati women aged 18 to 23 (average age 21) found that they had "uncompromising" views on working for private companies, which one young woman said would be "signing my death warrant" because of the longer working hours and lower pay than in government jobs.

The authors recommend a better balance between government and private sector wages to encourage young Emiratis to try working for private companies.

One male graduate quizzed in the study said he thought it was his right to have a well-paid job.  He said, "We are a rich country - thank God - and the government pays well because it can afford to do so.  "It is our right as nationals to have jobs that pay so well."

So what do Emiratis think of the research?  Is it fair and do they want to change the system?  "It's true and there needs to be change for boys," says Amina Al Suwaidi who has one boy and one girl, both under the age of five.  "The boys need to be pushed into the private sector and come up with new things, new ideas.  But for my daughter, like all mothers here, I want her to have a good company job so she will not be under pressure and can look after her own children." 

So the report is accurate?  "Yes, it is time for change, but not for the girls," she said.  "They need more time off and more stability so that their children are not raised by maids.  But for the boys, it is time to take over and learn new things.  Change there can only be a good thing."

Thinking of Vermont

I'm really enjoying the work I'm doing for Zayed University and the time I've spent here in the UAE, but I'd also be lying if I said that I'm not getting homesick for Vermont.  It was made even worse (better) by an email and picture that my friend Andy sent me this weekend.  Here's a picture that he snapped from the top of Buck Mountain during a hike he took with the excellent Heidi.  That view is very representative of Vermont, and also just about the complete antithesis of Abu Dhabi.  I'm down to less than three months until I fly out. and I can't wait to get back.

The view from Buck Mountain, and a hike I need to take as soon as I get back.

Zanzibar Slave Monument

I'll have more to say about my visit to the remains of the old Zanzibar slave market later on.  In the meantime I just wanted to post a couple pictures that I took of the slave monument outside the remaining holding cells.  It's very simple, but it's one of the most moving monuments I've ever seen.  At the time, I was really saddened by the fact that there was actually some trash inside the monument itself.  Because it's located on the grounds of a church, and because of the sombre nature of the subject, the monument itself almost felt sacred and thus the trash defiled it.  Thinking back on it, however, maybe the trash was more appropriate.  A spotless, glossy monument would have "sanitized" the slave trade, and Zanzibar's role in it, and that might have been a greater defilement.

Minaret

Over the years I'd hate to think of how many pictures I've taken of mosques.  Mainly I love their simplicity, although some of definitely more ornate than others.  Here's a picture of a minaret at the little mosque across the street from my hotel in San'a.  I guess I'm posting it because it gives a clear sense of the building material of ancient San'a, but also because it's so rare to get a shot looking down at a minaret.  In the old days a muezzin would have stood in the minaret and called the faithful to worship.  As you can see, while the muezzin is still live, his voice is now augmented by loud speakers.  Since there are so many mosques in most Islamic cities, and slightly different perceptions of when the five calls to prayer are supposed to get started (which may be caused by nothing more than simple variations in clocks), they usually end up starting at different times and the sound builds and rolls across the city.  The popular perception is that all life stops in the Middle East when the call to prayer begins, but more often than not the normal flow of life continues on uninterrupted (at least externally).  As we've discussed before, this is also impacted by country, city vs countryside, time of day, and day of the week.  I've included a link to a video of a recording of the call to prayer that I often show my students, partially because it is beautiful and partially because it includes some great pictures.  You can shut it off around half-way through, however, because the music starts, which is pretty but also obviously not authentic to the actual experience.

Bilqis

Here's a, sadly blurry, picture of a painting that hung in my hotel room in San'a.  Now, this may seem like an odd choice for a conservative Islamic country, but not if you know that subject of the painting.  This is the legendary Queen of Sheba, of Old Testament, New Testament (sort of), Quranic and Ethiopian folklore fame.  While the stories surrounding her vary, they agree in that she is historically tied to Solomon; although that ranges from some measure of infatuation between monarchs that is told in the Old Testament version to the Quranic sura telling of how she accepted monotheism after meeting Solomon.  In the Old Testament she doesn't even have a name other than the Queen of Sheba, but in the Arabic tradition she's known as Bilqis (pronounced something like Belkees).  Actually, and not surprisingly, we don't really know a lot about her, even down to the actual location of her kingdom.  Most people know of the Ethiopian connection, and that the Ethiopian royal family claimed its descent from her union with Solomon.  What is less well known is that the Yemenis make a similar claim, and one which I think has recently gained more historical credence.  Allegedly her state was centered around the Yemeni city of Mareb, which is often described as somewhere between "otherworldly" and "spooky", and not someplace that Americans could really visit today.  This, of course, makes me want to go all the more.

"I found there a woman ruling over them and provided with every requisite; and she has a magnificent throne."
Quran 27: 23

Yemenis

The BBC brought news of another terrible suicide bombing in San'a, Yemen, which saddened me greatly.  I have this running conversation with my great friend Trish about the identity of the nicest people in the world.  Not surprisingly, our choices are shaped by the countries we've visited.  For years I've championed the Indians, whereas she promoted the Tanzanians.  Recently we've reached a meeting of the minds of sorts and decided that maybe it's the Jordanians.  However, after my visit a couple of weeks ago to San'a I think I may have settled on the Yemenis.  My good friend Jyoti one time described the Omanis as God's children, which is a description that I may borrow for the Yemenis.  I've just never visited a place where the people were so kind (I'll have to recount the story of women I met having lunch in a San'a restaurant another time).  People would just stop me in the street to talk, and not the usual touts that made walking around in Nairobi or Cairo or Mumbai such a pain at times.  And when I told them that I was from the US (I never try to hide my national identity overseas like some Americans - I mean, really, they only make this size one place) they seemed genuinely happy that I had come to visit them.  Through a series of events, which I will recount later, I ended up getting a tour of a caravanesai from a tour guide, but he didn't ask for anything - and refused the money I offered - because he said he enjoyed himself and he didn't feel that he had done enough work to have earned it.  Many of the children would just yell "I love you" as I walked by.  I came across a couple boys, probably around ten years old, and one of them asked me, "where you from?"  I said America, and asked him "where you from?"  He was stunned by the question momentarily, until his friend doubled over on the ground laughing, and then he smiled so brightly.  They are all in my thoughts.

Be safe.

Impeccable Sense of Direction

Now, as anyone who has traveled with me can testify, I have a faulty if not outright laughable sense of direction.  Normally, if I say right, then your best bet is left - and a sharp left at that.  So you can imagine the challenge that a place like the old city of San'a would provide.  Again, that is one of the reasons why I had chosen the Burj Al Salam Hotel in the first place, figuring that since it was the tallest building in the old city I would be able to spot it.  Of course, there are so many tall buildings that close in around you that my plan went out the window in a hurry.  At one point I spotted a very distinctive door and knew with complete certainty that a simple right turn would lead me back to my hotel.  The rest was utterly predictable.



"Ah, yes, I know where I am now. A quick right turn and I am on my way."

"Doh!"



Boxing Day

It's time again for another trip to Haddins Gym for my weekly Kettlebell abuse.  So far I've survived two of them, and last week wasn't as brutal as the week before, which makes me think that I'm getting used to it - but maybe it was just a light week and we'll get pounded into submission again today.  While I decided to not attempt the month-long Primal exercise program (discretion being the better part of valor), I have added another session: boxing.  And, as compared to kettlehell, boxing was actually a lot of fun.  Don't get me wrong, it was really tiring, but what a great stress reducer.  Mainly I just paired up with my good friend Laura (we're the last of the Remnants remaining), the mastermind behind the Haddins Gym experiment, to swap jabs, hooks and uppercuts, and try not to break any noses.  My experience is that the best way to survive, and prosper, overseas is to set up a routine and get out and about. However, as is typical of the UAE, I'm mainly getting out and about with the ex-pat community.  It's been estimated that by 2020 the Emiratis themselves will only comprise around ten percent of the UAE's population, so that's a more challenging group with which to interact.  One of the great things about teaching at Zayed is that is has given me the opportunity to get to know many Emiratis, and especially the female students, that would be imposible for most ex-pats.  That said, working out at Haddins Gym adds another surreal wrinkle to the generally surreal nature of life in the UAE.

Old Friends, and Wonderful Ones

I just wanted to post a picture that my friend Janan sent me.  Here are four of my close friends from my Atlanta days, teaching at Georgia Perimeter College.  I spent nine years in Georgia and really enjoyed my time there.  GPC was a great place to teach, and I really miss the South.  It's hard to believe that I've now spent more time in Vermont.  I was really blessed with wonderful friends there, who I still miss all these years later.  For some reason the picture is determined to sit on its side, but I'll go ahead and post it anyway until I figure out how to fix it.

Jean, Maralyn, Janan and Jim.

Chameleon

Just another picture to show how effortlessly and completely I blend into my surroundings overseas.  Here I am haggling with a merchant in San'a.  I'm the one on the right.

Sana'a Street Scenes

And just a few quick pictures that I snapped while walking through the labyrinth that is the old city in San'a.  I love the architecture, which I've often seen described as gingerbread, and I'll include some pictures that do justice to that description later.  In the end I think I took dozens of pictures of doors alone, so that will end up being another post in and of itself.  Keep in mind that the city is thousands of years old, and most of the buildings in the old city are centuries old, if not a thousand years old.  It's sometimes described as the city with the first skyscrapers because you have all of these six or seven story mud and brick buildings, which somehow manage to remain standings.  The Burj Al Salam Hotel where I stayed used to be a house which was eventually rehabbed into a hotel.  The streets, some only six feet wide, wind around and veer off in all sorts of odd angles.  A wonder place to get lost, repeatedly.  So, today just a few random pictures to give a glimpse into the old city.

I love all the odd angles on this building.

It was a Friday morning so the shops were still closed.

If it seems like that door is only three feet tall, it's because it is.

Kettlehell

One of the best ways to meet people and get a sense of the lay of the land in a foreign country is to join a local gym or at least take some classes.  Although, in the UAE, so far it has just meant that I've met more ex-pats.  After reading about this tortuous month long exercise called Primal Training offered by Haddins Gym at the Zayed Sports City, I decided to check out the facility.  The Sports City itself is huge and features all sorts of facilities, including an ice hockey rink and a bowling alley.  The gym is nice, although I don't know if I'm ready to sign up for the Primal Training (which is an hour every morning at 6:30 for four weeks - it cost 1000 dirhams, but if you attend all the sessions it ends up being free).  The pro side is that I could use a change in my workout routine - the con side is that I'm a 52 year old man with a bad hip.  That said, I did decide to take advantage of some of their classes.  Last week for the first time I showed up for the hour-long kettlebell session, which thoroughly and definitively kicked my butt.  For around three days afterwards I was walking around so awkwardly and painfully that people I don't even know at the university were stopping to ask me if I wanted them to call someone.  Nevertheless, I returned yesterday for another session, and am not quite as miserable today.  Essentially, the kettlebell sessions are all sorts of ways to lift or throw around different weights of kettlebells.  It's definitely a good workout.  Now, on Wednesday - boxing training.  And that certainly has disaster written all over it.  Still, the folks at the gym are really nice (even as they are torturing me) and it is a great workout.  The kettlebells don't look that evil, and the entrance to the gym is the same one that you use to reach the male prayer room, but it is a wicked workout.

And So It Began

As I'll try and demonstrate later. somehow, the old city of San'a is a confusing maze of streets, shops, mosques and squares.  Considering that San'a is often considered to be the oldest city in the world, this shouldn't be all that surprising.  According to legend it was founded by Noah's son Shem.  At the very least it is thousands of years old.  It's much like the old medina in Fez, Morocco, except arguably more convoluted, mainly because the buildings are tall enough to block your line of sight.  One of the reasons why I had chosen the Burj Al Salam (which is a first rate hotel, by the way) is that it is the tallest building in the old city, and thus I thought it might be easy to spot (yes, I'm just that naive).  Actually, the maze-like quality of the place is quite liberating because there's no pressure to remember your way - you can't remember your way (unless you're born there, I suspect).  So you just march off into the maze and know that you'll be magnificently lost in five minutes (at most).  I just picked out an old gentleman (pictured below) and followed where he led me.  I figured this was as good an approach as any.

Sana'a

I am way too busy to even begin to go into this adventure at the moment, but I wanted to post a quick picture anyway.  Here's the view out of my window this past Friday morning, looking out from room 601 of the Burj Al Salam Hotel onto the beauty and chaos of the old city of Sana'a, Yemen.  Why did I ignore the US State Department, the remonstrances of a couple close friends, and general common sense by heading off for Yemen?  Well, I'll get into the planning for the trip later, but suffice it to say that I did due diligence and planned a very safe trip - plus, I'm pretty suspicious of anything the State Department would say anyway (grin).  The trip was great and Sana'a is absolutely amazing, and I can't wait to head back.

Meaningful Books: 2007

And one last quick posting before I get back to work.  Thinking about Winesburg, Ohio made me think about a Meaningful Books talk that I gave back home at Champlain in 2007 (was it really five years ago?).  The series was the brain child of my brilliant friend Sarah Cohen, who also inspired this blog, come to think of it.  Sarah is getting ready to head off for a wonderful opportunity in California, and I don't Champlain will ever be the same (I know I won't).  On a related note, she was finally dragooned into giving her own Meaningful Books talk, for which I need to include a link.  It was very touching, and not simply because we share many of the same books.

Anyway, here's the list I came up with.  I thought it would be a good idea to post it before I completely forgot about it and the link died a natural death.  We just introduced the books and talked about what we loved about them.  I think I have the distinction of having the most painfully pretentious list (not surprisingly).  If nothing else I guess this qualifies as another history document.  I wonder how different that list would have been in 1987 or 1997 - and how different will it be in 2017?

Zhu Xi, Reflections on Things at Hand

James George Frazer, The Golden Bough

Junichiro Tanizaki, Some Prefer Nettles

Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio

Paul Fusell, The Great War and Modern Memory

Yukio Mishima, The Sea of Fertility cycle (Spring Snow, Runaway Horses, The Temple of Dawn, The Decay of the Angel)

Sei Shonagon, The Pillow Book

Valmiki, Ramayana

Brooks Hansen, The Chess Garden

Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death

Robert Graves, Goodbye to All That

Julian Barnes,  Flaubert's Parrot

Herodotus, Histories

Basho, Narrow Road to the Deep North

Charles Maturin, Melmoth the Wanderer

J.R.R. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings trilogy

Songs: Helpless

"Dream, comfort, memory, despair"

While I am not a walking music encyclopedia like my friends David Kelley or Mike Kelly or Gary Beatrice or my ex-wife Brenda, music has still been remarkably important to me. So, if you would ask me a question such as "what is your all-time favorite song?" (and guys tend to ask questions like that) it should be a really tough question. There are so many songs over the years that have meant so much to me. That said, it's actually a very easy answer: Neil Young's Helpless. Of course, the obvious question is, why? Well, it is a hauntingly beautiful song with an elegaic poignancy that still makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck decades after I first heard it. And the line "dream, comfort, memory, despair" forms a perfect lifecycle, and I always thought if I ever wrote an autobiography or a more personal novel those would be four sections of the work. Beyond that, however, I think I immediately fell in love with the song because it was the first one that I remember thinking was so clearly an adult song; that is, it dealt with more profound issues, and just made me feel different than the other songs on the radio.

And now the strange connection. In my mind I always link Young's Helpless with Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio, and specifically the chapter entitled "Adventures." Part of the connection relates to the fact that I discovered both of them at about the same age, but they are also linked because they marked the beginning of a more introspective period in my life (which I guess I never left, and which I hope I never do). Like listening to Helpless for the first time, when I picked up Winesburg, Ohio I came face to face with a more mature art form that demanded that I think about life and which had no interest in providing simple answers. I've always considered Winesburg, Ohio to be the greatest American novel (although I'm probably alone in that belief) because it is both a great novel by an American writer, but also because it sheds light on the American experience.

I'm including the last few paragraphs from the "Adventure" chapter. Every chapter in the book deals with a different person in the town, and it adds up to give you a sense of the town, and, as Sanford would remind us, America. In this chapter Alice Hindman, who had loved Ned Currie and waited patiently for him to return to Winesburg, has an "adventure" that really moved me the first time I read it - and it ends with one of my all-time favorite last lines.

"During the early fall of her twenty-seventh year a passionate restlessness took possession of Alice. She could not bear to be in the company of the drug clerk, and when, in the evening, he came to walk with her she sent him away. Her mind became intensely active and when, weary from the long hours of standing behind the counter in the store, she went home and crawled into bed, she could not sleep. With staring eyes she looked into the darkness. Her imagination, like a child awakened from long sleep, played about the room. Deep within her there was something that would not be cheated by phantasies and that demanded some definite answer from life.

Alice took a pillow into her arms and held it tightly against her breasts. Getting out of bed, she arranged a blanket so that in the darkness it looked like a form lying between the sheets and, kneeling beside the bed, she caressed it, whispering words over and over, like a refrain. “Why doesn’t something happen? Why am I left here alone?” she muttered. Although she sometimes thought of Ned Currie, she no longer depended on him. Her desire had grown vague. She did not want Ned Currie or any other man. She wanted to be loved, to have something answer the call that was growing louder and louder within her.

And then one night when it rained Alice had an adventure. It frightened and confused her. She had come home from the store at nine and found the house empty. Bush Milton had gone off to town and her mother to the house of a neighbor. Alice went upstairs to her room and undressed in the darkness. For a moment she stood by the window hearing the rain beat against the glass and then a strange desire took possession of her. Without stopping to think of what she intended to do, she ran downstairs through the dark house and out into the rain. As she stood on the little grass plot before the house and felt the cold rain on her body a mad desire to run naked through the streets took possession of her.

She thought that the rain would have some creative and wonderful effect on her body. Not for years had she felt so full of youth and courage. She wanted to leap and run, to cry out, to find some other lonely human and embrace him. On the brick sidewalk before the house a man stumbled homeward. Alice started to run. A wild, desperate mood took possession of her. “What do I care who it is. He is alone, and I will go to him,” she thought; and then without stopping to consider the possible result of her madness, called softly. “Wait!” she cried. “Don’t go away. Whoever you are, you must wait.”

The man on the sidewalk stopped and stood listening. He was an old man and somewhat deaf. Putting his hand to his mouth, he shouted. “What? What say?” he called.

Alice dropped to the ground and lay trembling. She was so frightened at the thought of what she had done that when the man had gone on his way she did not dare get to her feet, but crawled on hands and knees through the grass to the house. When she got to her own room she bolted the door and drew her dressing table across the doorway. Her body shook as with a chill and her hands trembled so that she had difficulty getting into her nightdress. When she got into bed she buried her face in the pillow and wept brokenheartedly. “What is the matter with me? I will do something dreadful if I am not careful,” she thought, and turning her face to the wall, began trying to force herself to face bravely the fact that many people must live and die alone, even in Winesburg."

And, yes, sadly, many of us do live and die alone, even in Winesburg. I just remember being deeply moved by that line, much as with the "memory, despair" passage from Helpless, and how it made me want to read more and think more deeply about more important issues. I've included a link to his lovely live version from the 1971 Live in Massey Hall collection that he released a couple years ago. As much as I loved his other early releases such as the one with Crazy Horse at the Filmore East (and few things are better than Danny Whitten era Crazy Horse) I think I love that live album even more because it's an amazing history document. He's out on the road writing the songs (and the songs are so new that in this live version the words are actually different than they would be on Harvest) that would make him a mega-star, and also begin his love/hate relationship with fame. So, give it a lesson, and pick up a copy of Winesburg, Ohio.

Bowling Alone?

And I'm not talking about Robert Putnam's book (although I am trying to build the original article that led to his book into our reworked Global Awareness sequence here at Zayed). While visiting the Zayed Sports City (more on that later) I came across this bowling alley (complete with the very western and requisite video game machines and pizza emporium). So, I have located venues for bowling and darts and pool. Now, if I can just find a venue for minature golf I'm going to push to relocate the Gentlemen of Excellence Four Sport Triathlon to Abu Dhabi for 2013. It's already bigger than the World Cup or the Olympics, so why shouldn't it move around as well?

Different Views

I haven't posted anything about Jordan in a while, which is strange because it's just about my favorite place on the planet. Here's an odd picture I snapped after climbing up on the narrow edge at the top of a wall (doing my best not to fall off) to get a closer look at the elephant carved into the column of a temple in Petra. In the distance you can see people heading towards the restaurant at the end of the valley. At least some of them will then begin the long climb up to see the Monastery. It's humbling to think of how many generations of visitors that elephant has watched parade in front of him. Maybe that's all we need to do to get out of a funk - just take a different look at things, especially if it means challenging ourselves to do so. Sometimes I think that my biggest problem with living in the UAE is that it's just too easy, and that my brain will atrophy if I stay. Or maybe I'm just happy and I'm too stupid to realize it. Life doesn't have to be sturm und drang, does it?

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“We can never know what to want, because, living only one life, we can neither compare it with our previous lives nor perfect it in our lives to come.” Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being I am always amused when one of my students, with obvious agitation, complains that they still don't know what they want to do with their lives. Well, maybe it's not quite accurate to say amused, because, truth be told, I usually feel exactly the same frustration. There are times when I feel that fifty-two years into this sojourn I've left as lasting a path as my little friend did on the beach in Salalah, Oman. Whenever I'm in a mood such as this I'm always drawn back to Milan Kundera. While reading his extraordinary The Book of Laughter and Forgetting I was introduced to one of my favorite words, litost, a Czech word that translates out as something like "indefinable longing." This mood may just be a result of the passing years, and I've certainly reached the age wherein men go in search of the greater questions; although, to be fair, I've been chasing these answers around since I first read Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio (which deserves a posting of its own) for the first time almost forty years ago. Intellectually, I can dissect my personal and professional lives and make a compelling argument to myself that I've made a difference, but, as the great Canadian philosopher reminds us, "we are only what we feel," and I'm in one of those places where I feel like I haven't accomplished a lot. It's probably just a passing blue mood, which will doubtless fade away as a rain cloud in Abu Dhabi. Maybe I just need an adventure - "Watson, the atlas!" (And before Sarah Cohen scolds me, I do know that the line I'm paraphrasing is not actually from a Doyle story)

Another Thursday

And if it's another Thursday then that means another ice cream treat for the amazing administrative assistants, and the crew has now grown to Aya, Salwa and Roma. Thanks, girls, for making my life so easy - and fun.