Eid plans

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After an almost-violent scramble for plane tickets last night, I'm headed to Istanbul for Eid break (September 17-26) with several of the TAs, after which we're going to make our way from Turkey through Bulgaria and back. I can barely wait.

Museum of Islamic Art

Below: some photos from the Museum of Islamic Art, which several of us went to visit about a week ago. The building itself is impressive and beautiful -- no surprise, since the architect was I.M. Pei -- as are many of the pieces in the collection, but so far we've only been able to explore half of a single floor. A return visit is definitely in the works.

Breaking the ice

Yesterday was the first day of class for the premeds, and ever since, it feels like we've been nonstop busy throughout the day. This week, it was my turn to teach the recitations, for which there are three sections, all of them one right after another on Sundays.

We started all of the recitations by going around the room and asking for everyone to introduce themselves, partly so that we physics TAs could start to memorize their names. Most students here are either from Qatar or come from countries in the surrounding region, so the majority of them have Arabic names. In addition, there are quite a number of students who share the same given names. Now, having spent the last 22 years surrounded by people with predominantly Western names, it's takes somewhat more effort for me to accurately remember and pronounce our students' names -- over 50 total -- so the introductions exercise is especially important for me. (It doesn't help that there's no consistent transliteration between the Arabic and English alphabets.)

Anyway, during the first round of introductions, we made our way around the class of about 15-20 people. After we finished, I told them all with total honesty, "Ok, I apologize in advance, but I'm going to forget your names almost instantly. Please, just keep reminding me, and I'll get them eventually."

And one of the students said, only half-jokingly, "It's ok, if you're not sure, just say 'Mohammed,' and we'll all respond!" -- to much laughter from the class.



So it was my first day teaching, but I got a pretty good lesson as well in keeping a sense of humor.

Ramadan kareem, and the end of (dis?)orientation week

Classes begin on Sunday (Aug 23). And, as it so happens, Ramadan starts Saturday (Aug 22), which is technically now at the time of this posting. In Qatar, the traditional observance of fasting during daylight hours entails no eating or drinking from roughly 5am to 6pm. By law, that standard applies also to all non-Muslims, at least when we're in public.

From what we're told, this is actually the first time that the start of the school year has coincided with the start of Ramadan at WCMC-Q. This is going to be particularly demanding on the students. Students' classes are scheduled between 8am and 4pm, and then many of the Qatari students, when they break their fast at the end of the day, have family commitments which run late into the night. As a result, the vast majority will be working, learning, and studying through the day without food, drink, or much sleep, and it's going to be tough for them to start out the year this way. It'll be a challenging balancing act for the TAs as well, between being understanding and respectful of our students' situation and making sure they keep up with the class as it moves forward.

At the moment, though, the premeds have just finished their week of orientation. This means, aside from my getting enough free food to keep me fed for most of the week, that I also got to say hi to a lot of first-year students as well as a few second-years, and it's been great meeting them. As usual, I'm near hopeless when it comes to remembering (and pronouncing) everyone's names, but with a lot of repetition, I'm making really slow progress on that front. Actually, I won't initially be seeing much of the first-years, since the fall physics course (electricity & magnetism) is for the second-years. Overall, though, the students seem really bright and driven, and I'm definitely looking forward to teaching -- very soon.

Doha midnight skyline

Another panorama: this one was taken last Friday night (Aug 14) sometime past midnight. I went with Aleks and Adam (who wanted to get some photos with their own cameras) and we drove out along the Corniche, which is the main road in the city that runs along the coast. From there, this is the view of the taller section of Doha:

Weekends defined, Learning to drive, and Traveling outside of Doha

Weekends

In the last post, I mentioned that it was the weekend, but what I neglected to mention was that in Qatar, the weekend is different than it is in most Western countries by one day. Since Friday is the Muslim day of prayer, the weekend here falls on Friday and Saturday, and thus by extension, the normal workweek runs from Sunday through Thursday. So the phrase, "this past weekend," henceforth, can be legitimately used in this blog starting the Sunday of any given week.

Driving practice

Anyway, this past weekend, most of us took the time to get accustomed to our cars and did a pretty fair bit of exploring. Friday morning was the test run for our new cars -- I share a car with my apartment-mates Jeff and Adam -- and so we all got some practice navigating the city and its many roundabouts. Actually, I was hugely anxious at first about getting behind the wheel, but I've been getting the hang of it a lot more quickly than I expected. Driving around Doha could well be a subject for another post entirely, but for now, suffice to say that every pass through a roundabout is accompanied by much honking and a rush of pure adrenaline. This is one of those cities where lanes and turn signals are apparently vastly overrated. Think NYC traffic but with circular intersections. That's approximately how it is here.

Venturing out of Doha

Come Saturday, we all took our cars and headed out to explore some more of the country, driving north from Doha toward the town of Al Khor. In hindsight, we probably should've come a different day, and we probably will later in the year. As it is, we're currently in the middle of the hottest week of the year: the highs are about 105-110 F and it's humid enough to fog my glasses when I step out of an A/C-ed car. At this latitude and at this time of year, the sunlight is powerful enough to force most people to stay indoors during the midday hours. Including us. When we got to Al Khor, it was pretty empty outside, so we quickly took shelter and got lunch at a self-described Indian/Arabian/Chinese/BBQ restaurant. As hungry as I was, there was a definitely lot more food than I could finish, but altogether I don't think we spent more than 15 riyals each (less than 5 USD). That's one of the best things I'm discovering about living here: it's fairly easy to eat well without burning a hole in your pocket. Which is nice, because other things I'm on the hunt for, like books, tend to be somewhat on the pricey side.

From Al Khor, we drove northwest toward Al Zubarah, an old fortress, the last stop of the day. The fort itself was a bit underwhelming, but it was a worthwhile trip just to be able to explore some more of the country. I leave you with these pictures in lieu of the thousands more words I could type.

Looking out at the beach in Al Khor:

Peter, one of the TAs in our group, picked up a huge cardboard box to shield himself from the blistering sun. I caved and joined him, as did a couple others, not too much later:

Enjoying a tasty biryani lunch:

Driving through miles of mostly empty desert to reach Al Zubara:

Al Zubarah fort -- the flag on top of the rectangular tower is the flag of Qatar:

The Qatari flag, up close:

Yep, it's pretty lonely out there:

Climbing down the tower:

The inside of the fort:

The apartment:

The weekend is finally upon us, which means I now have a little free time to attempt some updates, starting with apartment photos an update. Most of us (us being the TAs) are living in the new ASAS Towers. Like I said before, they're very nice, and WCMC-Q has been quite generous in getting us settled in. We're living three people to an apartment, each with our own room -- this is mine:


Bathrooms:


A balcony, which is where the panorama photo in the last post was taken:


The common area:


The kitchen:

Settling in

I got into Qatar safely and comfortably -- by the way, it should be said that Qatar Airways earns every one of its vaunted five stars, even in economy class. The lateness of this post is mostly due to the lack of internet in our apartments thus far, but hopefully that'll change asap.

Speaking of apartments, ours turned out to be very nice. There's more updates to come as soon as I can upload the pictures, and everything's been happening at such a fast pace these past few days that I have a lot of catching up to do. In the meantime here's the view from our balcony at night (you definitely want to enlargify it):

See you on the other side

Flying out tonight from JFK -- will post again from Doha.

Pre-departure items

• I have a confirmed, solid flight itinerary now: it's going to be a nonstop, 12 to 13 hour red-eye from New York to Doha, leaving the night of Aug. 10.
  


• I finally got my International Driving Permit, meaning I'm allowed to drive now in nearly any country I may be visiting in the next year. The world is less safe for it, but I feel so empowered now (mwa ha ha).


• It started raining today while I was running, which put a damper on my morning until I realized that this is the last week for a while where I'll see that much water falling from the sky (annual rainfall in Qatar is around 3 inches, mostly in the winter). Now I completely refuse to use an umbrella from now until I leave.