And...?, or Day 8 in Doha

Well, kids, I'm running out of things to take pictures of. My adventures of orientation are spiralling slowly downward into the mundaneness of classes. I've spent more then a couple hours in the last two days doing readings for classes. I have more English-type classes this year than ever... probably part of the reason for all of the books.

I keep forgetting to mention, the day that I walked the Cornish I counted the number of shoulders and knees I saw, as an example to you all of the conservative dress around here. I saw about 11 pairs of knees (only one pair was a females) and 3 pairs of shoulders (all were male joggers).

I must also mention that I saw an older man running around in those teeny running shorts. Chalk one up for the chalky white thighs.

So, to get that image out of your head, here are the pictures I took today:
There was originally a bird in this tree, of the chickadees variety, but the shy thing flew away when I hit the shutter. The smudge on the left is something that is on my camera lens that I haven't been able to clean off yet. I also keep forgetting about it until I see it due to blue sky.


This one was just a stunning shot of the sunset, and palm trees, and how sometimes the excess of water and architecture and greenery can just look pretty without looking over-the-top.



In a continuation of my desire to share birds (though these just walked away from me instead of flying away), I took a picture of some pigeon-like birds and a sparrow-type bird on real grass. As a counterpoint to that one, I also must show the fake grass. I like the fact that they are thinking green (for once)!
Now, what you've all been waiting for... a stray cat picture! This cat hangs out by the door fairly often. Apparently it has a fondness for the female dorms. The hall director was saying that she has found it sitting on a chair in her office before. I have been careful not to let it make a mad dash inside while I've been around, but as you can see, that doesn't prevent it from looking hopefully inside every time I pass.

So, in keeping a sense of humour about my roommates, I took a picture of our lint trap when the dryer was finally free today (for the first time in days) so I could do my laundry. It is like the sedimentary layers of rock or something. It also shows the domestic aptitude of my roommates. (I showed Sarah how to load the dishwasher today. And she mentioned that she like pasta... ordering pasta.)

Speaking of domestic, I decided, at about 7pm, that tonight would be a good night for baking cookies. Since I didn't have any supplies, I called up my new friend-with-a-car Abdalla and promised cookies for a ride.

I see now why Abdalla makes friends so easily. Besides an easy-going, multi-lingual, fascinating person, he also has a great talent for conversation. We were having a conversation about my opinions, and, when I stopped talking, he would simply said, "And...?" to make sure that my thoughts were completely finished. Keeping the other person talking is what makes a good conversation sometimes, and he definitely kept me talking.

Everyone around here is so incredulous about the fact that I bake and cook. Apparently, no one cooks! On the way back from the store, Abdalla got a call from Zaid, who didn't believe us when I said I was making cookies. Abdalla even didn't think I was making them tonight. (But really, why else would I have asked to go tonight?)

Anyway, so I got pretty much all the supplies, for around $15. Pretty comparable, but the prices on imported stuff is more expensive than any generic, local brands. But the more expensive stuff is still only a bit more than buying it full price in the US.

Enough about prices. Let's just talk about how I got this brown sugar that was really granulated and the box said to enjoy it in your drink. Then we can talk about this log of butter. I wish we had logs of French butter back in the US. (The brown sugar is on the right side, the white sugar is in the middle, and the butter log portion is on the left.)

So between those and the pasteurized eggs, the dough came out a little... yellow-looking. And maybe a bit too gooey, since I added a little much water to dissolve the baking powder. I put it on the foil-covered rack (since I don't have cookie sheets here). But, it seemed fine enough.

Until we tried to bake it, that is. Daedri pried herself out of her room, since the boys couldn't come up and help me cook. (The dorms are segregated, which is the new bane to my existence.) And we sat. And I pulled out the cookies after fifteen minutes... doughy.

Long story short, after us squishing them down (with a fork like peanut butter cookies), then baking them for another nearly half an hour, they finally finished. So it took an hour instead of half an hour. My approximation was wrong due to the funny consistency of the dough.

Anyway, here is the final product. A glorious batch of chocolate chip cookies a la Doha!