Burning Heat!!! (plus: more pics of my crib)
OK, so first things first, مرحبا
These past few days, I've been doing mostly administrative stuff. Like sitting in fancy conference room chairs filling out paperwork to become a resident, get a bank account, get my Qatari driver's license - things like that. Since I don't have a car (and won't for a few more days), seeing the city itself is really difficult. Prohibitively difficult. Case in point, today, walking just 7 minutes to the nearest mall and back was about to put me down for good. IT IS SO HOT. Even the palm trees - what few remain - are probably cursing the ground from whence they sprouted in agony. To experience this yourself, find yourself a sauna, crank it up to about 105 degrees Fahrenheit and add a couple humidifiers for good measure. Bonus points finding a sauna with several windows facing directly into your sun. You've just made a portable Qatar! But in all seriousness, I will never walk a distance like that again (at least, while it's still summer) Cultural point: this week and the next 3 weeks constitute the duration of Ramadan, which as you know, involves heavy fasting and prayer. Ergo, obtaining food is very difficult. Note to those considering vacationing in the M.E. (Middle East), make sure to schedule it around religious holidays. Not during them. Drinking water even, in public or in a hallway is not allowed in deference to the fasting. We do shenanigans like smuggling bottles of water in our offices in backpacks and drinking from them behind closed doors. Cue the Bond music. The campus itself is incredible. The lecture halls are huge and well equipped. Motorized whiteboards. Microphone for not only the teacher but for every student, should they have a question. Video feed of the lecturer plus a couple iMacs for presentation. I'm told each lecture and recitation is coordinated by an AV tech who makes sure everything is running smoothly. The seminar rooms here have new iMacs that pop in and out of the table with the push of a button. I share a large office (really large) with Jesse, another Physics TA who I am living with. We have are own iMacs as well, which sounds great. Except. No SHELL ACCESS. I wanted to cry. I'm sure this will be remedied in the next couple of weeks but until that gets there, it's nothing more than a windows box to me/paper weight. Pictures of campus/city later. For now, some pics of my crib (courtesy of Jesse)
