Remnants of the British Empire

Since I've mentioned them several times, I thought I'd go ahead and post pictures of my fellow ZU professors who are living out here on Yas Island at the Radisson Blu. Tony, whose picture is at the top, is British. Liane, second, is from New Zealand. Peter is another Brit. And then we have Tatja, who is from Serbia, but we've overlooked that as members of the British diaspora. They are really a lovely group and a lot of fun to hang around with. In an odd way they remind me of the absolutely wonderful group of faculty that I spent time with on my first trip to Jordan on a State Department grant back in early 2005: just very easy-going folks who don't let much bother them. They have been a tremendous resource in regards to Zayed University. As of this moment they're only supposed to be teaching this semester at Zayed, having been invited back to cover the heavier fall cohort, so none of them will probably be here come February (and more's the pity for me). As I've mentioned in previous posts, Tony and Peter invested their ZU money from earlier stays into lovely homes overseas - Portutal for Tony and Sri Lanka for Peter. In classic academic fashion, three of the four have spouses back home (we are all too many of us academic gypdies): Tony's in Portugal, Peter's in Sri Lanka, and Liane's in Belfast of all places.