My New Crush, or Day 76 in Doha

After another lovely night of sleep (sorry I keep mentioning it, but one forgets how wonderful it is!), I woke up and spent the morning catching up, working on final projects, writing some postcards, turning in some homeworks early (gasp!)

This afternoon was the first Ultimate Frisbee scrimmage I've been to in a while. It is getting hot, so they booked the field from 4pm until 6pm, when there is a bit of a breeze and the lower 90s weather is decreasing down into the 80s (35C to 30C). I played pretty well; (Professor) Khaled kept making me run, but we won in the end.

After a very productive day, I was excited for my adventurous evening. The first "adventure" was going to the residence halls' event and making fried ice cream... I've always wondered how it works, and the secret is to wrap it in a slice of bread, then refreeze it, then fry the outer bread. So easy, so delicious, and so, so wrong.

Next was the search for dinner, which was quickly found when an event at CMU-Q had half of the members it was supposed to. A buffet was set-up, and I met some more random EC people (as I do fairly often), and hung out with Sidra, Zaid, Omer, Abdalla, Fatima, Maria... my inter-uni group that always entertains me.

Then, it was time for the event of the night... a Qatari football match! Two of the best teams in the country were opposing each other. (I didn't realize there was more than one team in Qatar...) Over 15,000 people turned out to the stadium, and it was definitely different than other matches or games I've been to.

First off, there was the price... 10 riyals is less than $3. Even very low-ranked baseball games are $5, so this was impressive for me (though not for Abdalla). Next was the cheering: it was very musical, with drums and horns and clapping. No spelling out words or cheerleaders, just beating and chanting.

Next, of course, was the concept of the "family" section. I was a bit at first that we weren't in the male section, where all the cheering was going on, but after ten minutes of their incessant cries (which were very clearly and loudly heard from our side of the stadium), I was glad we were a bit removed.

There was no halftime show, no loud peddlers selling peanuts (though there were quite ones selling candies and scarves), and no assigned seats.

There were, however, little bundles of squares of paper that, when something exciting happened, or just when one felt like it, one could toss in the air like confetti.

I wanted a packet, but never got a chance to buy one. It was halfway through the second half (and Abdalla had hinted a few times to leave, but I was still enjoying myself), and all of a sudden, a dark little boy, holding a packet of papers he has picked up from the ground, begins talking to me in Arabic.

I immediately turn to Abdalla to see what the little boy wants, and they have a conversation that ends with him giving Abdalla one of the papers. He turns to me, I smile and ask for some, and he carefully peeled off three from his rubber-banded stack. (See? He already likes me more than Abdalla.) Little Omar had stolen my heart right then and there.

I was so infatuated with his cuteness that when he passed by again (after giving the rest of his papers to other random white people in our row), that I had Abdalla take a picture of us. And the rest, they say, is history:


(I mean, the rest is actually that he went back to his family and collecting papers, while Abdalla, Maria, Fatima, Zaid, and I went to bandar for some carrak and a chat, in addition to singing obnoxious songs and helping me with my Urdu. I'm supposed to learn to count with this. Even when we left after midnight, there were still Qataris out on the road celebrating their win.)

Life, the Universe, and Everything, or Day 42 in Doha

Only a select few are going to understand the title for today, but I'm going to keep it anyway.

Besides obsessing over the number 42, today was Education City Family Day! As I've mentioned before, I love how of the campuses are interconnected, and so took full advantage of that.

First lunch and dessert were at Texas A&M (and catered by Sharq, a very fancy hotel in Doha), while saying hi to all the A&M exchange students, Abdalla, and Surahji. Second dessert was at CMU, while saying hi to a group of CS professors and all the Student Affairs staff. Snack time was out on the Green Spine, while saying hi to the student representatives at each university.

Since each school is pretty small, the likelihood of knowing someone whose picture is on some sort of advertising material increases. So my new favorite picture to take is the one where the person is posing with their own picture. (Remember Mathew?) I was taking a picture of Omer, and Abdalla one-upped him by finding two pictures of himself on advertising brochures.

Also out on the Green Spine were a group of Qatari musicians. They pulled in a few of the students and staff to dance some sort of slow line dance (similar to the sword dance, but without the weapons) while horns and drums were playing.



After the excitement (and deliciousness) of Family Day, I was asked by Varun to star in my own commercial! Well, my voice (and that of another guy) is going to be hear on the Qatar Foundation Radio advertising the Education City Quiz Challenge. (I remembered the website from the commercial.) We attempted some looseness with some improvisation, but let's just say it was funny listening to our gaffs right after we created them.

After the excitement (and silliness) of recording a commercial, I visited my CS buddies up in the Robotics Lab. They were just so full of life... or would have been, had they been a bit less stressed about the fact that the weekend was almost over.

A few hours of procrastinating later, I found myself in the apartment of the one and only Daedri. She is proud of her Jamaican heritage and made me some delicious jerk chicken to prove it. The chicken was a bit spicy, but so moist it just fell apart without a knife. Hats off to Daedri making (an almost midnight) dinner!

Then it was back to university, where I managed run into the exact same people that I saw this morning. In addition, I also checked out the architecture students' space. It looks pretty comfy for them being there 16 hours a day. They are even working their little "non-majors" pretty tough. It's a nice, warm, international feeling of always having work to do.