i guess i should start posting randomly about whatever's on my mind, to get into the habit of sharing my useless thoughts with others through this blog. things that i'm interested in shift very rapidly (too rapidly for me to ever become highly skilled or gain expertise in anything), so it would be nice to have a record later on to at least see what i thought of trying to become involved in and/or accomplish. i guess arabic is a nice constant, and i suppose many people don't even have that, but i feel like by now i should also be a skilled piano player or a seasoned swimmer or a competitive breakdancer or at least be able to whistle. so, basically, judging from this post i am currently interested in the idea of becoming interested in something. can i be an expert in that? perhaps this is already my expertise.
does this post even make sense? bedtime.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Sunday, May 15, 2011
oops
well, i haven't posted on my blog in about a year. i left yemen in august 2010, as most of you (if anyone is reading this) probably know, and i forgot most of what happened from may-august in yemen. well, i do have memories and remember certain trips, events, etc, but i'm not sure that i can blog about it with much clarity so i will refrain. in the end, i was pretty sick of yemen and fed up with being stared at and men mumbling things under their breath at me. i was getting pretty aggressive and yelling at random men in the street, so it was probably for the best that i left. i have told people that if i was a man i would probably still be there, and i still believe it to be true. i spoke with my boss at amideast (the best boss in the history of time, as i'm realizing more and more) about taking on a few more responsibilities and becoming an employee fo realsies, so i would probably still be there if i had junk. but i don't, and while i miss a lot of things about yems (including yemeni and foreign friends) and definitely plan to return, i don't regret my decision.
i will give a quick recap of the past 8+ months post-yemen. i'm becoming a big fan of lists lately, as liz and elisa have recently discovered, and if you don't like it...go read a blog by somebody less interesting. list:
-returned to pittsburgh in august while accompanying my 18 (ish) YES high school exchange students (and AKBOOB) to the US. my students are the coolest. i hope to see them all again (YAY) in about a month when they're in DC for their re-entry orientation, and am excited to see how much they've all changed. as expected and judging from their facebook stuff, including a profile picture of one of the boys with arms around two girls wearing strapless dresses at prom, they've changed lot.
-saw my beloved family and my yanala!!!! hung around pittsburgh being lazy and useless for a little while. oh also, we went to south haven, MI for our family vacation which was dope, as usual. highlights include good quality brewskies, uncle tom making ribs (pooorkkkkk mmm), beach, beer, young cousin steven with his highly developed and subtle sense of humor, teaching my cousins to make hideously ugly faces, encouraging cousins to do their eyebrow exercises, wearing summer clothes, grandma meals, inflatable boats, beer, and doing absolutely nothing productive. going again this august!
-after sufficient post-return pittsburgh laziness and half-heartedly applying for real jobs here and there, i got a job as a busser at casbah. not really much different from how it sounds. i got discounts on a bunch of restaurants owned by big burrito restaurant group and ate a lot of free/discounted food at casbah as well. i made some money. i cleared some shit from people's tables. it was ok brainless work for a while, and i made some good friends and hung out with my fam and homies. i went to LA at some point in there to visit victoria and others, which was good times. that's about it.
-in december i got a REAL PERSON job in DC working as a program assistant at american councils for international education. i was very excited, and still enjoy the job as i have some great coworkers who i've bonded and gossiped with, but i don't love working in an office. i was hired for my middle east expertise (yeah, what up) to work on the near east and south asia undergrad (NESA UGRAD) exchange program, but most of my work is actually on other programs for students and professionals in/from kazakhstan, kyrgyzstan, tatarstan, tajikistan, belarus...mostly stans. we don't get to interact much with the students, of course (since they're not in DC for the most part), and it's mostly admin. one thing i really enjoyed was the NESA UGRAD re-entry orientation in fayetteville at the university of arkansas. the students are of course the greatest part of international ed jobs, and it was great to meet the kids and speak some arabic with them! mostly arabs, but the program also includes students from india, nepal, pakistan, and...one other place i forget. and fayetteville has the most awesome bar in the universe, smoke and barrel tavern, which is almost worth going there itself. games, bluegrass, hippies, lesbians, businesspeople, good beer, dancing skanks, suave metro young professionals, etc etc.
-wow this isn't really a list so much as paragraphs separated by dashes instead of indentations
-I GOT INTO THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN'S NEAR EASTERN STUDIES PH.D. PROGRAM!!!!!!!!!!!!! i will be starting in the fall, studying either arabic linguistics and pedagogy (according to my app/interview) or something totally useless like pre-islamic poetry from the arabian peninsula (LOVE IT). really really excited. as i said, i'm already sick of my office job. i only applied to three schools and didn't get in to austin (probably my first pick) or georgetown (my georgetown prof asked me why i didn't get in. i was like...um...), but i think/hope this was for a reason. michigan invited me for recruitment weekend, everyone was very nice and welcoming, i got a FLAS fellowship, and am now very happy about it. ann arbor is really cute and i've got some really good leads on apartments with hippy liberals. akboob is coming.
-i love ron swanson. see: http://img2.timeinc.net/ew/dynamic/imgs/110120/park-recs-pyramid_1500.jpg
-i went to ultra music festival in miami back in march with scott. it was amazingly phenomenal, and i may or may not be slightly obsessed with electronic music now. our hostel was amazing. ohana...def stay there if you go. like arkansas bar, almost worth it just for this. $25/night includes all meals, meeting lots of cool people, pool table, short walk to beach, lots of partying at night, clean rooms, etc. met some awesome people, most notably two insanely fun irish guys and a hilariously ridiculous italian.
-i am going back to pittsburgh in june for my lovely yana's graduation from LAW SCHOOL!!!!!! i love yana and she is a genius.
-dan is still my soul mate and marriage plans are always in the making.
-i want to get malevich's white on white square on my foot. also, i need to find an arabic calligrapher because i need about 12323892380209 lines of poetry by antara tattooed on my body.
-hmmmm can't think of other things.
-oh wait, i forgot to tell you (future me) about my house. i'm living in a gorgeous and huge house in logan circle with 5 guys. i live in a large closet with lofted bed for $700/month which is totally amazing and great price for this location. i walk to work in dupont every morning/evening. the dog park is 2 blocks away and we usually go twice a day. this neighborhood is pretty awesome, and my favorite gay dive bar with cheap drinks, DELISH food, and leather daddies is also only a few blocks away.
OK well i am getting bored of writing and actually need to think in order to come up with things to say now, so i think that's a sign to stop. BUT, i promise i will come back sooner this time. i think i'm too lazy to change the name of my blog, which is appropriate given the subtitle. also, it took me a while to get it looking so ridiculously aesthetically pleasing.
سلام
i will give a quick recap of the past 8+ months post-yemen. i'm becoming a big fan of lists lately, as liz and elisa have recently discovered, and if you don't like it...go read a blog by somebody less interesting. list:
-returned to pittsburgh in august while accompanying my 18 (ish) YES high school exchange students (and AKBOOB) to the US. my students are the coolest. i hope to see them all again (YAY) in about a month when they're in DC for their re-entry orientation, and am excited to see how much they've all changed. as expected and judging from their facebook stuff, including a profile picture of one of the boys with arms around two girls wearing strapless dresses at prom, they've changed lot.
-saw my beloved family and my yanala!!!! hung around pittsburgh being lazy and useless for a little while. oh also, we went to south haven, MI for our family vacation which was dope, as usual. highlights include good quality brewskies, uncle tom making ribs (pooorkkkkk mmm), beach, beer, young cousin steven with his highly developed and subtle sense of humor, teaching my cousins to make hideously ugly faces, encouraging cousins to do their eyebrow exercises, wearing summer clothes, grandma meals, inflatable boats, beer, and doing absolutely nothing productive. going again this august!
-after sufficient post-return pittsburgh laziness and half-heartedly applying for real jobs here and there, i got a job as a busser at casbah. not really much different from how it sounds. i got discounts on a bunch of restaurants owned by big burrito restaurant group and ate a lot of free/discounted food at casbah as well. i made some money. i cleared some shit from people's tables. it was ok brainless work for a while, and i made some good friends and hung out with my fam and homies. i went to LA at some point in there to visit victoria and others, which was good times. that's about it.
-in december i got a REAL PERSON job in DC working as a program assistant at american councils for international education. i was very excited, and still enjoy the job as i have some great coworkers who i've bonded and gossiped with, but i don't love working in an office. i was hired for my middle east expertise (yeah, what up) to work on the near east and south asia undergrad (NESA UGRAD) exchange program, but most of my work is actually on other programs for students and professionals in/from kazakhstan, kyrgyzstan, tatarstan, tajikistan, belarus...mostly stans. we don't get to interact much with the students, of course (since they're not in DC for the most part), and it's mostly admin. one thing i really enjoyed was the NESA UGRAD re-entry orientation in fayetteville at the university of arkansas. the students are of course the greatest part of international ed jobs, and it was great to meet the kids and speak some arabic with them! mostly arabs, but the program also includes students from india, nepal, pakistan, and...one other place i forget. and fayetteville has the most awesome bar in the universe, smoke and barrel tavern, which is almost worth going there itself. games, bluegrass, hippies, lesbians, businesspeople, good beer, dancing skanks, suave metro young professionals, etc etc.
-wow this isn't really a list so much as paragraphs separated by dashes instead of indentations
-I GOT INTO THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN'S NEAR EASTERN STUDIES PH.D. PROGRAM!!!!!!!!!!!!! i will be starting in the fall, studying either arabic linguistics and pedagogy (according to my app/interview) or something totally useless like pre-islamic poetry from the arabian peninsula (LOVE IT). really really excited. as i said, i'm already sick of my office job. i only applied to three schools and didn't get in to austin (probably my first pick) or georgetown (my georgetown prof asked me why i didn't get in. i was like...um...), but i think/hope this was for a reason. michigan invited me for recruitment weekend, everyone was very nice and welcoming, i got a FLAS fellowship, and am now very happy about it. ann arbor is really cute and i've got some really good leads on apartments with hippy liberals. akboob is coming.
-i love ron swanson. see: http://img2.timeinc.net/ew/dynamic/imgs/110120/park-recs-pyramid_1500.jpg
-i went to ultra music festival in miami back in march with scott. it was amazingly phenomenal, and i may or may not be slightly obsessed with electronic music now. our hostel was amazing. ohana...def stay there if you go. like arkansas bar, almost worth it just for this. $25/night includes all meals, meeting lots of cool people, pool table, short walk to beach, lots of partying at night, clean rooms, etc. met some awesome people, most notably two insanely fun irish guys and a hilariously ridiculous italian.
-i am going back to pittsburgh in june for my lovely yana's graduation from LAW SCHOOL!!!!!! i love yana and she is a genius.
-dan is still my soul mate and marriage plans are always in the making.
-i want to get malevich's white on white square on my foot. also, i need to find an arabic calligrapher because i need about 12323892380209 lines of poetry by antara tattooed on my body.
-hmmmm can't think of other things.
-oh wait, i forgot to tell you (future me) about my house. i'm living in a gorgeous and huge house in logan circle with 5 guys. i live in a large closet with lofted bed for $700/month which is totally amazing and great price for this location. i walk to work in dupont every morning/evening. the dog park is 2 blocks away and we usually go twice a day. this neighborhood is pretty awesome, and my favorite gay dive bar with cheap drinks, DELISH food, and leather daddies is also only a few blocks away.
OK well i am getting bored of writing and actually need to think in order to come up with things to say now, so i think that's a sign to stop. BUT, i promise i will come back sooner this time. i think i'm too lazy to change the name of my blog, which is appropriate given the subtitle. also, it took me a while to get it looking so ridiculously aesthetically pleasing.
سلام
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