Moving On

It's already my last day in Amman, even though it seems like I just arrived yesterday. It was another fruitful trip and I'm slowly making progress with the University of Jordan. Huge universities like UJ have tremendous potential for my program, but they also take a lot longer to turn as compared to small schools like Champlain or Al Akhawayn - it's like trying to turn a huge pleasure cruiser on the ocean as compared to a small car on dry land. We're running GMs in several literature classes and are moving closer to potentially embedding the GMs in a new course entitled Intro to Cross-Cultural Interactions (which would be a great fit - as I always say, you shouldn't hammer the GMs into a course just to say you've done it - if it fits and benefits the course, then they should go there - we'll be running GMs in a couple of the Cross-Cultural courses as an experiment). My friends Inas, Laza, Sane and Deema were once again remarkably supportive. I received a lovely gift from Inas.

ACOR was quarky, as usual. There are several students here from West Point who are spending the semester studying Arabic across the street at UJ. Great kids. I haven't been called sir so often since I taught in India. The faculty members are artists and visiting Fulbright scholars and folks doing more serious research - and then me promoting the GMs. On an earlier trip my friends Bob, Rob, Char and Ann took to calling me the RA of ACOR, and as a veteran I guess that's a good designation. Last night I gave my usual tour of local ice cream and schwarma establishments last night (and the schwarma was wonderful, per usual, and the guy who runs the stand was very excited to see me again - and why not, much as with Homer and the hot dog salesman who followed him to the funeral, I'm putting his kids through college). I talked to Barbara, who is the director here at ACOR, and asked her if I now held the world record for most stays at ACOR (six), but she says I'm not even close, which is a testament to the place. Barbara is also heading out the door today to go to the US for a presentation at a conference on ACOR. The assistant director, Chris Tuttle, will also be taking off for the US in a week or so to defend his disseration - and then make a trip up to his home state of Vermont (we might catch lunch in Burlington when he's in town). If the name Tuttle in Vermont sounds familiar then it should, he is Fred's son. A very small world.

Today at 2:00 the driver comes to take me to the Amman airport to catch my 4:30 flight to Dubai. Then a night in a hotel in Dubai, and Wednesday I have meetings at the Dubai campus of Zayed University. At the end of the day I catch the bus to Abu Dhabi where I'll be bunking at Zayed Professor Kate O'Neill's place (Kate went to South Burlington high school - again, a very small world). On Thursday I have meetings at the Abu Dhabi campus of Zayed University, then back to Kate's place. Then on Friday I'm catching a ride back into Dubai with Kate and her husband, who are going to town for some event and are staying at a downtown hotel, so I'm bumming a ride with them, and then trying to sneak onto the hotel shuttle back to the airport for a late night flight to Muscat, Oman (where I'll be sleeping on the couch of Champlain online professor Johanna Nel). See, it is a luxurious, exciting life - staying at $30 a night establishments in Amman and sleeping on the couch of friends in Abu Dhabi and Muscat.