CS Community, or Day 110 in Doha

People are trying to get me to stop talking about leaving... but it is what's on my mind these days. Sadly, taking the place of studying and projects that need to get done!

Today I spent the day helping Khaled, Samreen, and Keghani with planning the CS End-of-Year Banquet. I sat by a card that people were signing for Dean Thorpe; I got very craft-y and cut out and glued together placecards; and I designed and cut the name tags.

Basically, I sat at a table and had fun while Khaled ran around like a chicken with its head cut off, Keghani kept mentioning things that Khaled needed to do, and Samreen was upstairs exhausting herself with another project.

But, the event was a success! Samreen and I started by making the Computer Science Pictionary words into slips of paper, then attempting to print from the stubbornest printer ever. So I missed the opening, which included a geeky facts quiz about the professors that Keghani put together.

Janahi and Ahmed, a pair of guys that seem attached at the hip, helped with a slideshow of nerdy quotes (including some good Chuck Norris ones) and customized pick-up lines for each professor. These lines might have included jokes about hard- and software, shortest path algorithms, optimizations, and single hops... a computer science love-fest.

We had good food, some music provided by Kaleem... and then the skits.

This is totally something only CMU-Q can do. (I take that back... there are some professors and students at CMU-P that are distinctive enough to do this with.) First go the students: we pick a few professors with some quirks and create skits revolving around them.

My favorite was Khaled-as-Majd, a bipolar, marker-throwing tyrant who cares. Janahi-as-Khaled-Harras (my networks professor) had some nice moments too.

Next, the professors to get to jab at the students that are perpetually falling asleep in class, that ask a lot of questions, and that are just very distinctive in their walking or talking. "Janahi" and "Ahmed" were in a few different skits; "Khaled" had a in one as well.

We were all cracking up; it was like all of SCS was in one, great joke.

I didn't want to leave! It is an "end-of-year" thing, so everyone was talking about the future or the past. I still can't focus on the "now" of finals next week.

I can, however, focus on the "now" of finding people to hang out with. While on my way out, I ran into Fatima, Maria, Waleed, Hira, Zaid, and others playing charades on the cut with movie titles (a popular game around here). So, of course, I sat and gave my two cents, making Waleed act out John Tucker Must Die. (He didn't succeed, just for the record.)

I saw them again as Abdalla and I were headed out of EC. There were four of them that were very close to jumping into the car and heading to City Center, but they were smarter than we were and went off to prepare for finals week.

There is always tomorrow...

Bloggers Unite!, or Day 99 in Doha

Are you ready to get meta? I'm blogging about how I talked about blogging this noon with a group of other like-minded people.

I guess its official. I'm a blogger. The real question is will I be able to (or want to!) wean myself off it once this semester is over?

I feel that my life in Pittsburgh (or Seattle, for that matter) is much more of a personal thing than my life here in Qatar. It is about connecting with people I've known for quite a while and having adventures based on my interactions with them.

Here, it is about having adventures that are so completely different from what I would do back in the U.S. And these adventures seem note-worthy because they are so different (or surprisingly similar)!

Maybe, as we talked about during this discussion today, I'll have to grow into a different theme for a blog. This summer is going to be an experience in itself, working and researching with the Pittsburgh Science of Learning Center and Carnegie Learning. Maybe I'll keep track of my interests in how people learn, or my discover of usability studies and products, or just my experiences as an intern.

The session today was called "Personal Branding and the Web", and it began with a comparison of blogging styles: my daily life blog, Waleed's thoughts and opinions blog, and Yassar's interesting pieces of the internet (in addition to his own thoughts and opinions blog). Then there was the talk about registering your own domain name, like Varun did.

Did I mention that we also talked about search engine optimization? Yeah, getting people to link to your website bumps it up in the search results.

Enough with the serious side of blogging... let's get on to the ARC appreciation dinner tonight!

Marjorie (also a blogger, so one last blog link) is leaving Qatar after her time here with her husband Justin. He has been studying and teaching; she has been a coordinator in the Academic Resource Center where I am a teaching assistant.

She has been a quiet inspiration for me in my time here. I always enjoy my conversations with her, though we've only known each other a short time. I just feel like we have similar ideas about some things.

Such as during the dinner tonight when the faculty sat at one table and the TAs sat at two others. We took the step to desegregate together, and I don't think I've ever had a better conversation about saving yourself from wild animals. And eating silver. (Don't do it. It turns you blue forever.)

Clever awards (with the Qatar version of ramen noodles, called Maggi as prizes) were handed out to many of the senior TAs, including Rishav, Varun, and Aamir.

As for the other TAs... we were just enjoying the food, like always. There weren't any chocolate desserts for Samreen, but I had my first dragonfruit tart. Not the sweetest of fruits, but in that little pie crust... a yummy end.