Graduation, or Day 121 in Doha

I feel surrounded by love around here. I've met all sorts of people, from CMU faculty to CDAs, from Cornell freshmen to VCU exchange students. And, in these droves of people, I've gotten to know a couple dozen, and in those dozens, I've made connections that, insha'allah, will last far beyond my time here in Qatar.

Enough of the philosophizing. The day started with many, many errands, to get rid of as much of my stuff as possible and to be able to leave the country. I ran into Kaleem as I was heading home, and we shared some tuna sandwiches (in my last ditch effort to clean out my kitchen of food as well).

After lunch, I ran into Tina, who I then spent the next few hours with, making an unforgettable heart cookie. Just when it was perfectly positioned for a picture, it slid off the plate, cracking, like our hearts, into a bunch of chocolate-y, chunky pieces. With a bit of elbow grease, we turned it back into a heart-like shape. (Appearances are a bit deceiving, because it was still very delicious.)

A group of CS majors from CMU was headed out to Nando's at City Center, so I hopped into Rishav's car with Samreen and we enjoyed a bite with Tessa and Swapnil as well. Since, of course, Nando's is Tessa's favorite restaurant.

I went home to sleep off a bit of the food (and the fact that I had to wake up early to talk to my parents this morning), then headed over to the grand production of CMU-Q graduation.

The ceremony was less than 80 minutes, the speaker had a clear agenda for her talk to keep it fairly brief, the Dean and President were eloquent as always, and the bagpiper reminded me of Pittsburgh.

For over three hours, we ate and talked and celebrated the graduates. There were hugs, but no tears, and promises of future meet-ups for those coming to Pittsburgh this year. There were also the few people that I congratulated that I might never see again... but one never knows who those people are.

It was the last day of finals for most of the Texas A&M students, so after the seniors (graduates) had gone home so they could be up for the Qatar Foundation convocation in the morning, Abdalla and I went to see those students.

We caught them right as the restaurant was closing, and we weren't allowed to pull up chairs next to Ziad or Kelsey, but we stood and talked for nearly two hours. The boys were doing riddles, a few different groups ventured off to return with ice cream, and sheesha smoke was in the air. I left before the mass exit, but it looked like they weren't heading anywhere anytime soon.

Unlike me. Very soon, I'll be in Bahrain/Jordan/Egypt/Turkey/USA. Very, very soon.