Trip to the rocks

Ok, the first picture in this set is what the research is about, why we went to this set of rocks. The marks, for lack of a better term, are carved into the rocks in all sorts of depths and designs. very interesting and very desolate. We were close to the Emir's palace, in fact we drove right past it, no, we weren't asked in for coffee, go figure. The group of four of us then tried to find the other end of the line of rock carvings. We walked a ways through the desert and we saw 'wild' camels. The camels previously seen were at the livestock market to be sold, these were eating. I didn't get too close because camels are mean and the spit and bite. (It could have been an interesting blog but I didn't feel like having to explain that to the hospital. The last picture of this set is of 'camping' along the coast of the Persian Gulf. Some of these tents are really big and have air conditioners set up. I didn't get to go in the gulf but soon. When we were out there the wind was blowing steady at about 30 mph. It would have been very warm without the wind but the wind made it very comfortable.

$810.55 poorer, but so excited!

So I got the ok from by boss to leave for a little bit in May. YES! I am planning a trip to Finland and then on the way back I’ll spend 1 night in London. I’m excited about that too. I’m leaving Doha on the red eye on the 14th of May and coming back on the 24th of May. I know it is only 9 days but it will be fun. No, no one is going with me and I’ll be ok. One problem is that I’ll only get one checked bag which really sucks. I don’t really need a second one but I like to have the option. I’ve ordered my backpack from REI and that should be here someday. Things are taking a long time to get here from the support office. I even have the money already saved for the trip. I am still trying to plan out the highlights of the trip but I know I want to visit the town of Sarvela in southern Finland. That part of the trip will be expensive just for the cost of gas there.

I also asked for a trip to do some lab training in July. Boss said he would check and see if there is money available but he liked the idea. I should find out eventually if I get to go to that. I hope so, the school would just have to pay to get me there.

The only problem with trying to travel a lot is to save the money to do it. The money for Finland is already put away but the money for the trip in October to Prague and saving for Christmas trip and possibly a summer trip needs to start, well, yesterday. I know I can do it, it will just take strength not to spend on the “now” things. Come to think of it, with only one checked bag to Finland it isn’t like I’m going to be able to buy a lot of stuff. Although, I might need to put aside money for ham and cheese sandwiches, bacon and other pork products. (You only want what you can’t have.)

The other exciting thing is that I am trying the procedure for a new experiment for one of the teaching labs. I am finally making some headway with it because it needs to be ready for students in less than 6 weeks. And it will still need to undergo some revisions before it is ready for the students. I have a bit of work ahead of me, but that is ok. It will be interesting.

Oh, another project for this weekend. So I have ruined a shirt and a pair of pants since I have been here. So, this weekend I am going to take a lab coat and make it into an apron for lab. I think it will be easy and work very well. If it doesn’t work then I’ll be emailing and talking to Mom to try and get it to work.

New ways to freak out students

So today I woke up with a sinus headache because the wind was blowing and it has been really dry. Anyway, I'm teaching class and at the end of it I'm trying to answer a student's question when my nose starts to bleed, and I can't get it stopped. I get one of the other instructors to cover my class so I can go to the bathroom and while I am walking down the hall I see some more students. They ask me if I'm ok (I look kind of funny) and I tell them I'm fine, just a nose bleed. I get it stopped in the bathroom and head back to class. The students were a little worried. It was kind of funny I thought.

I thought of something that everyone at home might find interesting. Tonight I need to get a car wash, groceries, web cam, and probably dinner. I'll do it all at the mall. Very nice if you know which mall to go to for all of it. Well, traffic is going to be bad so I had better go.

Camels and fat-butt sheep

I saw a camel! (No, not the cigarette the animal.) I didn’t realize how big they were! I always thought they were the size of horses, not so much. There lips are so funny! This is at the livestock market which is close to the vegetable market, I guess that way you can get everything for a stew in the same place. Anyway, there were lost of camels, including baby camels, and there were goats and sheep. The other picture is of a fat-tailed sheep, I like the name fat-butt sheep better. The fat in the sheep would be harvested from the animal and rendered into cooking lard, instead of using pig, I guess. This is an expensive process so they don’t do that much of it anymore. Who knew, I thought a sheep was a sheep, I didn’t know that some have fat butts.


Let me see what else is going on, not a whole lot. I got a sewing machine this weekend. It is a lower end Brother machine, not as good as my Kenmore at home, but I think we all have to slum it occasionally. My first project on it is going to be a four patch, just so I can get used to using a different machine, then I don’t know what I’ll do. I also saw a Kitchenaide mixer wannabe and it made me think of the one I have sitting at home, just waiting for me. Someday, I’ll get to use it.

Work-wise things have slowed down a little bit. Oh, this is funny happening but especially for the teachers. My students are required to type everything so they use spell check. Of course, spell check doesn’t find word errors, like “morality” instead of “molarity,” and “shoe” instead of “show,” and “vile” instead of vial.” There have been some other ones but those are my favorites so far.


Finally, before I need to get back to work, thank you to all who did the Valentine Day notes on the ribbon. It was very cool and just reaffirmed the fact that my friends and family back home are the best people ever.

Church

Everywhere else that I have been, Mexico, Canada, and the US, churches are labeled with their name, denomination affiliation, and maybe even service times on the outside of the building. A lot of churches will have a cross on the outside or something that the building is recognized as a church. That isn't the case here. I have not seen a church that has their name on the outside of the building. There is nothing on the outside of the church that would make it recognizable as a church to another person. Two churches that I know of in Doha meet in villas, large villas, for services. The church that I have attended twice, Grace Fellowship, is the one pictured above. It isn't the best picture, I tried to avoid cars in the picture but I didn't get very far, but it shows what it is like. There are 2 dirt areas that people park, you have to be careful to avoid parking tickets. Also, there are two security guards out front. What a difference half a world makes in churches. I was thinking today about the Anchorage Baptist Temple and how they were fighting the city of Anchorage to be able to put up a larger sign. I don't think that the people here would complain about a sign being too small, do you?

Work is going well. I am not going to work this weekend, something new and different for me. Anyway, keep in touch, I love to get emails about what people are doing.

A fork and a spoon

Last night I went to dinner at a "restaurant" called Hot Chicken. This was good and cheap food but across from a gas station and some other places. It was a funny time that all you could do was laugh. First, our waiter didn't speak English, or Arabic (not that I speak Arabic), so we didn't know if he got really what we wanted. So, he brought the food (fried chicken, chicken fried rice, chicken noodles with spice, and chicken spring rolls) but he didn't give us any plates. So we asked him for plate, and we did didn't get one. So we asked again and he brought plates. We then asked for silverware, and again we didn't get it. So we asked again, this time acting out the action of using silverware, and we got it. The waiter brought 1 fork and 1 spoon for the three of us. I laughed and we made do with a serving spoon, a fork and a regular spoon. The food was really good but it was funny. The noodles had a spice on them that I don't know what it was, but it was good but very spicy.

Lab is going late again this week. We are almost 30 minutes over lab and I am assuming that it will go even later that this because students are not cleaned up yet. I don't really like staying overtime, but I do enjoy the ability to get comp time for later vacations. The first time you do something you try a lab the way it is written, now I will try it differently next week. How differently, I don't know yet, but it will work out, I am very determined.

New and Old

Ok, so I finally took my cameras out and got some pictures of more than just my apartment and parking lots. One thing that I have noticed in Doha is the lack of old buildings. Everything new is better than old seems to be the idea here. At Education City all the buildings are new and some buildings are so new they aren't even finished building them yet. Across the street from the TAMUQ building are some dilapidated buildings. I was able, very easily, to crawl through and got this picture through a door frame of the old building looking at the TAMUQ building on the left and the Weill Cornell Medical College on the right. I enjoyed the juxtaposition. They are building something new right next to these buildings so I assume they will be torn down very soon. New and pretty is desired here.

I was talking to one of my good friends in Texas last night and I mentioned something about the driving here, so let me tell everyone. I would rather drive in a snow storm. There are very few street signs anywhere, only on the occasional little street, but there are street names before you come to a round-a-bout. These only help if you know the street name that they are using at that point in the road. Each street has between 80-100 names (just kidding, bust some do have 3 depending on where you are) but they may or may not be on the maps. Since there is so much construction going on roads are opened and closed all the time, maps aren't accurate. I have taken to drawing in things on my map. The drivers here are a different ball game all together. Old cars are few and far between here and SUVs are the norm. I don't think I have seen so many Land Cruisers anywhere before and the people here, in general, tend to think that the more expensive your car is, the more power you have. You get better parking spots; can be ruder on the road, etc. For example, it is not unusual for people to flash their lights at you. This may mean a number of things, including "get out of my way," "hey, I'm right here," and "GET OUT OF MY WAY!" I am beginning to think that the more expensive the car the more the person is trying to compensate for something.

Also, if you, the reader, have any questions about what something is like here in Doha, send the questions to me (or to Mom and Dad and they can forward it to me) and I'll answer it here on the blog. Things are becoming normal to me now so it is harder to think of interesting things for the blog. One last thing for now, thanks to everyone who has emailed me about enjoying reading the blog, it is nice to know that someone beyond family is reading it. Although I am doubting myself about the spelling of words since so many former teachers are reading this.

Mosques

Ok, these are two pictures taken from different spots in the same parking lot. The first is taken right after we arrived to the souqs, about 5 pm, and mosque on the left is an old mosque, commonly referred to as the pigeon poop mosque because of, well, you know, and the other is what I call the circle mosque. Both are visible in the lower picture taken about 1 hour later. In the top picture you can also see some stores off to the right and those are part of the souqs. This is close to the gold souqs, the tailor souqs, and the fabric souqs.

I am trying to think of things that people think are interesting, and I am not having a lot of luck. I do need to go to the grocery store tonight, but it is just like any other store. The only real difference is the brand of products and the fact that it has Arabic writing on the packages. I am still working on learning to read my numbers and I am slow but I think I got it. Now I need to start working on my letters.

The outside of the apartment.

So Mom and Dad have been bugging me for a while to send pictures of the outside of the apartment, so here they are. This is taken, obviously, from the street side of the place and the little white car is mine for a little bit longer. The bottom picture has about half of the building, the double doors on the lower part of the building is the entrance in the middle and from there to the left is my appartment. Each apartment in this building takes up about 1/4th of the floor. They are big, and all the buildings look alike.