Such a Random Life, or Day 32 in Doha

Warning: today was one of those days were a million things happened and all of them are interesting!

First off, today was a very weird day for weather. After spending the morning Skyping and cleaning, I went outside and the first thing I see is a group of East Asians with dust masks on. I was immediately freaked out, thinking there was some crazy pathogen in the air that was making them wear the masks.

Thankfully, they were anomalies, though it was very windy and dusty, as you can see. The funny smog affected my mood more here than clouds do back in Pittsburgh and Seattle. I'm getting too used to the constant sunshine!

I spent the afternoon and evening around CMU: celebrating the new club space (by eating cake), working on a project, celebrating a birthday (by eating cake), and took a drive around EC with some girls I met at a Women Leadership Program lunch on Tuesday. As they invited me outside on the drive, one of the girls said, "Your life is so random."

You have no idea.

Anyway, they were explaining the licensing process around here. You hire a personal instructor, then take a much more intense test that we Americans go through. In fact, I think males are required to learn and test on a manual; us gentler sex are allowed an automatic**.

After the drive, I attend the finale of the "EC for Haiti" campaign. We had a goal of 20,000 riyals; we actually hit over 22,000 (over $6,000)! After a presentation about Haiti, a student band played (with my stunning roommate Khadeejah singing) while we wrote messages of hope to Haiti.

Next was the BAM football (soccer) game. "BAM" stands for "Body and Mind", and they are an EC-wide student club. This team included Rolando and David, two of the Texas A&M students, and a few others I knew (including the coach), so it was a lot of fun supporting them. Especially when they won against Cornell, 4-1, putting them in the quarter-finals!

Abdalla and I got a call from Zaid and Sidra, two friends we went out to dinner with before. I had connected with Sidra during the Haiti event and mentioned that we needed to go out again... I just hadn't realized it would be this soon!

After the shwarmas were gone, it was time for my first movie-in-a-cinema in Doha! Abdalla took me to see "The Men Who Stare At Goats", which has a whole slew of Hollywood actors. Half of the movie took place in Kuwait and Iraq, so it was fun sitting with someone who knew Arabic.

In the movie, Ewan McGregor's character is a reporter who wants to show his chops, so goes to the "war zone" of Kuwait (at least, that's how he describes it to his estranged wife). Now that I'm up on my Middle Eastern countries, I saw the humor in that; I also saw the similar grand hotels and impressive landscaping of a typical Gulf country.

Did I also mention that Ewan McGregor eventually begins reporting on these "psychic Jedi's" that the U.S. Army is secretly training. Well, Mr. McGregor (*cough* Obi-Wan Kenobi *cough*), you would know about Jedi's...

Well, I seriously thought my evening was over after that. I went home, felt the few raindrops outside, and started writing this.

Much to my surprise, I get a call just before midnight asking if I want to go for a drive. Apparently, it is traditional for Shakir and two of his friends, Aditya and "FeFe", to drive around when it is raining and sing Enrique. Since it was a thunderstorm, I guess they had to invite me, Fatima, and Maria along?

We ended up at bandar. I'm sure you are just shocked. And I got tea. Again, you must be in disbelief.

New to bandar was the lightning over the bay. Tonight's rain was fun to play around in; it never got too heavy, but my feet did get a little chilly.

We ended the night with a game of Charades... let's just say that it was better than all of the lame jokes we told in the half hour before that.

I feel you need a taste of it, so here's one from Fatima, the queen of the lame jokes: "What did the daddy tomato say to the baby tomato?" "Ketchup!"

I'm still listening to the thunder rumbling around outside. Different than the typical night sounds of the round-the-clock construction work... and much rarer as well!

**Correction by Rana: "Women can drive manual , and men can choose to do either automatic or manual :D :D :D Its not based on gender... But it makes more sense that we would choose automatic , its easier and any ways nearly most of the cars in Qatar are automatic, few manuals :D"