Iron Chunk

It's supposed to be a pun on both Iron Chef and Iron Man...

Why?

Because today is my first day back at the gym *and* my first day cooking!

It's 1:30 and as the housekeeper is about to arrive, I'm going to AUC to submit my passport for residency renewal, and visit the security office to report a harasser who has been calling more than 15 times/day for the past 5 days or so (just some random person who speaks no English and probably just dials my number randomly) -- won't get into all the failed steps I tried to take, already, to solve that problem, because then I'll feel frustrated and unmotivated :) I'll then head over to the Hyatt for a workout (with my new Nano) and lunch with a book that I'll review, later. Tonight will be heavy Arabic, as classes resume tomorrow, and I want to make a work plan for what I'll be doing outside Kalimat (my language school) to supplement my learning.

On the horizon, I also want to tighten up the work that I did last semester on humanitarian law and the insurgency in Iraq, so that it's fit for the Harvard web-portal (did I already explain that, here?), and will need to start working, on the 17th, on the syllabus for the course that I'm TA-ing in the Spring (Human Rights in the Middle East and Africa).

We'll see if the lentils actually get cooked, tonight, since I might be having lentils later at the Hyatt, but they are sitting in my flat, now, so I have everything I need to make my first meal...ever (other than hot pockets).

VC

Edit: I forgot that Ricco is racing in the men's pursuit, today! Might have to come home after AUC, as that starts at 3:30PM...then gym before dinner. But what to do with the housekeeper?? Have her come back on Thursday. Yes, that's the plan.

Maria Callas Diet

*Loving* the BBC special I'm watching right now on "The Tigress" opera diva Maria Callas.

Just wanted to say that she went from obese to slim in about two seconds and you know her secret? Steak tartare :) aka: a tapeworm from uncooked meat.

I'm going to go lick the streets in Cairo's butchery district now,* and pray for a tapeworm. By the way -- the "name that worm" competition I had more than a month ago on this blog? The answer was tapeworm. It's like a Veiled Chunk leitmotif!

"All my tears can never bring his love to me" (name that opera!) ended up being all too true for Callas, though, and I have to say that hearing her speak about her pursuit of Onassis -- who totally chose Jackie Kennedy over her -- reminds me a lot of my early romantic decisions (how's THAT for narcissism?). You work and work for someone (in my case an Evil Russian, in her case a Greek billionaire...ok so I should have set the bar higher lol) and then you look back on the isolation and secrecy and everything you lost (basically your life) and are both stunned by your own stupidity and loss of power and devastated by all that you didn't end up with combined with all that you lost. Good thing I moved on...she didn't. It sounds like people like to depict her death two years after Onassis died as the tragic (but strong-willed) female following her life pursuit to the grave. I don't know about that. I think that suicide happens when you really feel yourself to be removed from the system...like almost physically -- like you could die and literally EVERYTHING in the world would go on as it did before...you only kill yourself when you feel you've already ceased to exist (this is my impression). In any case, I'd like to think that her death was something more sublime than the willed-suicide of a tortured woman frustrated by lost love and a faded career, but why should anyone focus on hero (or in this case: heroine) narratives around her death, when she obviously was a legend in life. Personally I don't care how or why she died when I hear the high E she hit in Mexico singing in Aida -- either Onassis nor cracked-voice performances during a short London comeback can take that from her (let's hope Martina Hingis remembers that if things don't go so well for her).

Wow -- from tapeworms to suicide to Swiss tennis players. I'm really all over the place!

Off to have coffee with a Syrian film critic who lives nearby. The things I'll do for a visa ;p (kidding!).

VC

*There is no such thing, as far as I know, as a Cairene butchery district, and if there were, I certainly wouldn't know where it would be found.

Ricco is En Route

His back is better (I massaged it lots the other day) and is in the 10km spring in Ruhpolding AS WE SPEAK.

I'm so nervous.

He's cleared all the targets on the prone and standing shoots but is not all that fast right now on the snow -- in 2nd beind a really fast French guy (Poiree).

Will update!

VC

EDIT: My lover is 10 seconds out of the lead with a Russian now 6 seconds ahead of him for second.

EDIT: AH! Another German is 0.4 seconds ahead of him and he's rumoured to accelerate (which Ricco doesn't).

Edit: NO! Some Swede (who's only 20! I DETEST YOUNGER GUYS!) is now in 2nd.

It's hard to compare in these races because everyone stars at different times, do you can only compare split times.

Edit: Gross is across the line and can do no better than 2nd because someone finished ahead of him already. Some other German just finished (Wolfgan Rottman -- fastest skiier but sucked on the standing shoot) and his heart rate is 178 beats per minute.

Edit: AH! Someone else just finished ahead of Ricco. Ok I can't update again until it's ALL over, beecause it's making me neurotic and sad :(

Edit: Not done yet but wanted to say that the 20yo burned out :) HA! Ricco in 4th at the moment, but one another German is almost guaranteed to beat him, so I'm praying for 5th

Edit: OMG I jinxed my babe AGAIN! The 20 somehow managed to shoot EVERY standing target in like 1 second and even though he fell ON HIS FACE in the snow skiing out of the range, is like 15 seconds in the lead! Which puts 123 as German-French-German, and then Ricco probably in 6th :(

Edit: The 20yo put in an unbeatable time and 123 is Germany-France-Germany (so far). My only satisfaction is that the youngster was filmed in slow motion at the finish making some kind of oddly-fascist salute, kissing his fist while snot and spit stuck to his hand -- the most unglamorous part of this sport being that by the end they are COVERED in semi-frozen snot and drool. Oh...and he's 22, not 20.

Edit: The 22yo just got bumped by someone I don't dislike as much. Bad for my baby, good for my jealousy of the 22yo German. Looks like my babe is in 7th :(

But whatever, I don't love him because he's a championship skiier...or because he's extremely hot...or because he loves dogs and is a polyglot and is extremely hot (oh wait, I already said that). I love him because of who he is INSIDE -- which is an extremely hot championship skiier polyglot dog-lover ;p

VC

One Approach To Marriage

I had dinner last night with a close friend who I've mentioned a few times on the blog -- it was his auction where I met Leopold -- we'll call him "Glam" (which is how he signs all his emails lol), and he was telling me all about his friends from Vanderbuilt, and one of them sounds like SUCH a hoot.

I think Dr. Juicey and a certain Nocal Desi I know will like this story, especially...

A friend of Glam's from Vanderbuilt married the Director of Deutschebank in Japan (he is German), and their children grew up speaking English, German, French, and Japanese. Not the point, but still impressive.

Anyway, he (like some other pookies I know?) sometimes just needed to get away from everyone (especially her lol) and escape, and she understood and permitted that...but every time he disappeared for a weekend (about every two months he'd go for a few days into hiding) she demanded payment. She accepted cash payment or jewels, and he knew the routine: he'd disappear, return, and with no drama and not a word of condemnation from his wife, a bill from some auction house would come to him for some necklace or bracelent, and he'd pay up. It was quite the system. After many years of marriage, his disappearing routine landed her a villa in Hawaii and mansion in coastal texas with its own guesthouse and infinity pool.

One day, he came home, and told her: "I don't love you any more." His (teenage) children were there with them in the house. She said: "That's fine. Go tell your children that." He did. She then told him: "If you want a divorce then I understand that, but I hope you understand that I am going to take everything." He told her that he was miserable within the confines of marriage and was sorry. She told him that he didn't need to apologize, and that she didn't have a problem if he needed a divorce to save his own hapiness -- it was totally up to him...but she was gonna take everything. And she did.

Well wouldn't you know it, a year or two later, he came back to her and told her that while he was miserable in marriage, he wanted to work on things, because he was equally incomplete outside marriage. Glam told me that it would be obscene to even REPEAT the kind of contract she made him sign to get back together...I'm guessing she now owns a group of small islands off Okinawa.

I just thought it was hilarious.

There's no real moral to the story. I like a husband who knows when he should pay, and I like a wife who knows when to stand her ground. That said, I think that there must have been a better system for his wallet and BOTH their sanity that the disappear-payoff-disappear-payoff cycle. I think that people should pay for occassional transgressions (as an act of apology and as a display of one's intention to not repeat), but when something becomes habitual, it's time to take it to a counselor (that he should pay for lol).

VC

Chunky Predictions: Women in the Australian Open

Begining with the Quarter Finals:

Q1: Henin v. Davenport = Henin to Semis
(this will require Henin defeating Venus Williams in the Round of 16, and a tough match between Davenport and Kuznetsova in the Round of 16, as well)

Q2: Serena Williams v. Dementieva = Serena to Semis
(this is a complicated result: Serena comes up against Sharapova in the Round of 16, and hopefully will upset her; I also am thinking that Dementieva will upset Petrova, so basically neither Serena nor Dementieva are seeded to reach the Quarters but I hope they both will…the other lurker in this Quarter is Serbian Jelena Jankovic, who could defeat Dementieva in the Third Round, and herself come up against Petrova in the Round of 16, with the winner of that match going on to play the winner of the Serena v. Sharapova Round of 16 match)

Q3: Mauresmo v. Schneyder = Mauresmo to Semis
(this is according to the seeding – I think there is a chance Myskina could upset Schneyder in the Round of 16, but I’d still pick Mauresmo over Myskina)

Q4: Clijsters v. Hingis = Hingis to Semis
(ok, now, this one takes a lot of explanation: first of all, Hingis is my favourite player EVER, as I already mentioned, so I have to pick her to win some things that might not be the smartest bet; this is one of those cases…Hingis has a tough first round match against the most unstable on-court personality I have ever seen – and I totally feel for her for that lol – Vera Zvonareva; if Hingis makes it past Zvonareva, then I think she’s good until the Third Round where she’ll meet Mary Pierce; if Hingis beats Pierce, then I think she’ll also survive her Round of 16 Match and make it to the Quarters…in that sense, I’m optimistic: Hingis needs to beat Zvonareva and Pierce and she’s in the Quarters!...that’s the top half of this quarter…in the other half, you have Clijsters as the clear favourite, except that her hip and her back might be a little messed up, which I’m hoping will carry her through to the Quarters, if Italian Francesca Schiavone – the most Italian woman EVER – doesn’t upset her in the Round of 16, but hopefully a little injured, too…which would allow Hingis to upset her in the Quarters – or flat-out beat Schiavone if Clijsters is upset earlier)

This leaves the Semis as: Henin v. Serena and Mauresmo v. Hingis. It makes me salivate. I think that, while BOTH are rusty, Henin and Hingis can both pull it out, which puts Henin and Hingis in my dream final.

Sadly for my #1 Swiss star, I’m picking Henin for the final, but I think it’s *enough* of a success story (for now, at least) for Hingis to make it to the finals of the Australian Open.

VC

Pray for My Ricco

Disaster: My baby Ricco Gross has injured his back and was pulled out of Germany's relay team, today, in Ruhpolding (which is in Germany, FYI, AND is Gross's hometown!).

There is a lot of speculation, now, that he will be deselected from the German olympic team, despite the fact that, according to Eurosport commentators, he has won THREE gold medals with the German relay team and FIVE world championship golds with them, as well. They also called him "THE most reliable servant to Germany over the last 15 years," which would have been, of course, a pretty dubious distinction 60 years ago.

While you're praying for athletes I love, put in a few good words to whomever you look towards (I'm so hungry right now, my choice would be: Large Cheese Pizza with light sauce) for Martina Hingis and Justine Henin for the upcoming Aussie Open. My fantasy semifinals (although I haven't seen the draw to know if it's even possible) would have Hingis wining the final over Henin, after Hingis beats Mauresmo in the Semis, and Henin beats Pierce. Not that you care (AT ALL), my favourite players go like this:

Always Henin, unless she is playing Hingis (my real #1)
Always Mauresmo, unless she is playing Henin or Hingis
Always Pierce, unless she is playing one of the three
Otherwise, I'm rooting for Serena

There are of course emotional victories I'd love for Hingis/Henin to have (like I could have said "Henin over Davenport in the semis and Hingis over Sharapova") but then my OTHER faves couldn't have made it that far in the tournament, which makes me sad.

VC

Jinxed Ma Babe

I’m so sad! Part of my Eurosport obsession has made me an avid follower of biathalons. Today I watched a riveting race in which the German women were like krystalnacht all over again (if that’s even how you spell it). There was ONE Russian woman and ONE French woman in the top 8, and I swear all the others were German. The camera was set at the finish, which is just past the last climb/turn of the race, and I swear these girls just kept turning the corner and sliding and attacking the finish, poles and skis like Deutsche-Terminator or something. You’d have to see it. It was intimidating and frightening in that kind of thrilling way (like when you used to see all the Soviet gymnasts rock ALL their routines without sweating or smiling).

In the men’s race, though, I totally jinxed my lover. Now, since I’ve already BOTH asserted my saintly celibacy and repeatedly made reference to my romantic designs on one NYC Pookie, I should qualify this by saying that by “lover” I mean “hot athlete who I have seen a few times on TV and who, now that Pookie is frolicking with some Muscovite snow dancer somewhere in Novisibirsk, I am adopting as my fantasy man.” Let the fantasy begin…

His name is Ricco. Hey is SERIOUSLY Ricco. Ricco Gross – kind of an Italian-turned-German thing.

The fantasy background that I’ve made up for us is that we met one year ago when I was in Zurich. We were in the same shop looking at Freitag (Friday) Swiss recycled-truck bags (found at the Bloomie’s in SoHo for you NYCers) and he was so impressed with my pronunciation of “Freitag” when he overheard me asking the salesperson a question about the bag that that he approached me and said (in German, which I don’t speak but I of course understand): “You sound German when you speak, but have the face of a Eurasian angel and the body of a devil.”

I blushed and pretended to be offended by his forwardness (in English): “Actually I’m from Monaco” (like I’d tell him the truth in our first meeting? Egypt has taught me better…) “and I appreciate the compliments, but I’d be more impressed with someone who noticed my mind than my body.”

HE then said in flawless French: “Before becoming an Olympic biathlete, I was a PhD Candidate in Heidelberg in continental philosophy.”

At this, I picked up the bag I was looking at, opened the flap, grabbed a pen off the counter, and wrote my number ON the inside of the bag (the salesperson was totally shocked) closed the bag, handed it to him, said “buy it and call me,” and walked away.

I took the trolly to the river, where I sat by some non-hissing swans (Swiss swans are SUPER well-behaved!), and thought about how I wished I lived in Switzerland and not Egypt. Deep in reverie, I barely noticed Ricco approach me – barely noticed, that is, until he held me at gunpoint. Don’t be scared (even though I was): he jokingly had his beebie rifle pressed against my neck and said in my right ear: “One move and I’m throwing the bag in the river.”

I grinned: “I wouldn’t recommend that. It will just be such a hassle for you when I push you into the river and make you retrieve it for me.”

He sat down next to me and we properly introduced ourselves. As it turns out, Switzerland is his favourite country, too, and it was by total coincidence that he’d come to the same spot by the swans, where he said he’s also spent many a contemplative moment.

I was leaving for NYC the next day, and he had to go to some world championships of biathlon or something, but since that day he has called me religiously at least once a week, and we have often met in a cabin of his on Lake Geneva. I’m really popular with his biathlon buddies, mostly because they see how much happier (and faster on the snow) Ricco is, now that I’m in his life.

Just so you know a bit more about him, here are some photos. I took these photos of him training during the summer in Afghanistan (can you believe the sweetheart followed me there just to make sure I was safe!?), and I particularly love the one of him doing the standing shoot (no giggles!). The one of him on the ski rollerblades going up the paved hill might surprise you, because there aren’t very many paved roads in Afghanistan, but the big humanitarian sweetheart that he is PAVED A ROAD that he not only used as a practice track, but was also used by wheelchair-bound widows to get from mosque to market. So thoughtful, he is.

I have a cute photo of him on the podium from last March in Norway, and I know you are all wondering “did he dedicate the victory to you?” The answer is no, he did not – he actually dedicated it to Madame Wong (they really hit it off, because he has crazy taste in furniture, too), and promised to dedicate his immanent gold medal at this year’s Torino Olympics to me.

The last photo I have to share with you is of him looking over the rifle with chilling intensity at a race I was at in northern Greece last winter. I was having a bit of a stalking problem when the Shooto fighter known as “Shaolin,” pictured in my blog, below, got wind of my blogging about him, fell madly in love, and wouldn’t leave me alone. Poor Ricco had to always carry extra bullets in his riffle whenever we were together, just in case Shaolin appeared out of nowhere, and in this race he had a sixth sense intuition that Shaolin was nearby. We’re SO connected in that way.

I know you are all wondering – is he as intense off the shooting range as he is on the shooting range? The answer is: HE SURE IS! Let’s just say I’ve seen that look more than once ;)

Sadly, though, I totally jinxed him in today’s race (that was the whole point of this ridiculous story, actually) – he was in the lead going into the final shoot, had cleared the last set of targets in record time (less than 25 seconds), and then he missed TWO of the five targets on the last shoot. He is trying to peak for the Olympics, so today’s tournament wasn’t SO important, but the poor babe gets SO upset when he doesn’t perform to the highest level, it took about two hours of cuddling him and BOTH Legally Blonde DVDs to calm him down. I’m flying back to Cairo, tonight, and won’t see him again until Italy, but win or lose we’re spending a few days together on Lake Como after Torino, and I am really looking forward to being together again.

(on a serious note: he is a real hottie and did TOTALLY blow it on today’s final shoot; I seem to be jinxing ALL my favourite athletes: Hingis lost in Sydney, Federer lost today, although to another hot German who I like, and Kwan is injured and has to PETITION to be on the US Olympic Team!)

I may have said this on my blog, before, or maybe I just said it privately to Curie, but I think I would be an EXCELLENT biathlete. I’m good at accuracy/practice/precision things like shooting, and I think that I’m built a lot like the biathletes (I can just tell it would be a motion that my body would feel good doing – especially the climbs and that double-polled lunging that they do more in sprints), BUT – and this is why Curie and I concluded that I couldn’t really do any form of cross-country skiing, I can’t turn my feet out (Ricco doesn’t consider my pigeon toedness to be a deformity, but alas it limits my biathlon abilities) and almost ALL of the skiing positions require a bow-legged turned-out position…people like me would just trip over their crossed skis.

VC

Hating On Yale

Just wanted to say that Yale is going WAY overboard on its website in terms of trying to appear diverse. I don't have a problem with diversity -- I have a problem with borderline-desperate efforts to APPEAR diverse. It's like Yale's new marketing device is to make us think we're on the BET webpage.

I have been keeping some of the webpage bloopers of top law schools that will soon reject me just so I can feel better about being refused admission, and although Yale has not YET given me the thumbs down, I am compelled to start my hating early (love the school, hate the website).

First of all, of the three people who appear in photos on the official YLS homepage (www.law.yale.edu -- I don't want to link to it because I'm paranoid that they will track back to my blog) two ("students" and "alumni") are black, and one is the asian dean ("faculty"). Now, I love 'em, but isn't Yale trying a LITTLE hard to appear to not occupy the penthouse suite in the proverbial ivory tower? More outrageous is the photo, shown here and taken from the main financial aid webpage, of a bunch of black students sitting around laughing and studying (the only photo on the Financial Aid main page). WHAT IS THE MESSAGE? “If they can afford it, so can you!” or “Yale’s Blacks LOVE them some financial aid!” ?? It’s so odd. All the other people in other sections of the website are wearing v-neck sweaters and seem to be jcrew models while not studying at YLS, and this bunch is pictured in tshirts and (I can barely say it) OVERALLS and baseball caps. They may as well have a bucket of KFC, as far as Yale is concerned.

The other weird thing about the Yale Law School webpage, and I don’t even remember where I found this (back in September or October) is its school crest, which to me looks like a cheap East Village tarot card.














VC

More Royksopp

Merry Christmas to me!

I took no trips, I saved the money on my Arabic course at AUC, and I bought a pot to start cooking: aka -- I'm saving money.

SO, to celebrate, I bought myself a much needed Christmas gift: MY NEW BLACK iPOD-NANO!

It's gorgeous. I've named it Panda Pod (did I already talk about non-mating Pandas in an earlier blog? If not, then remind me to).

Anyway, since I'm listening to the aforementioned Royksopp on my new Panda Pod, I decided to finally edit the lyrics, below, from "Only This Moment" (read them again: It's a fantastic song with an equally fantastic video), and also include another song before I dash off to finally get my haircut and have lunch (and go to the gym with my new iPOD!):

Some of the lyrics are REALLY good (and some of the songs are REALLY bad lol), this song -- which I don't particularly like -- "49%" has a some great lines related to infidelity:

I won't try to dent your night, or stop your flight
I've known our plight
You know I'm right

I know about your little fling
How you hide your ring
You senseless thing -- I'll cut this string

The heat has simmered for a while
It's not my style -- so versatile, and with a smile...

When you kissed your toad, you killed your princely episode...

****

Actually that last line is my favourite.

The song "Circuit Breaker" is great -- personally, I think it depicts a kind of "love" that sounds hot, but is not what I would want for myself. It's a bit over the top, unsustainable, etc., but I do really like some of the words (I'm impressed by the poetry of this one):

What is that vitalizing sound?
Calling me
In my head
Repeatedly

What is that visionary sight?
Before my eyes
So prominent
So mesmerizing turbulent

You've got a hold on me
Your ingenuity
Seems to be driving me
down on my knees

The force you generate
You reinvigorate
Your body talks
and overstates

****

I LOVE that -- your body talks and overstates. There are other snippets here and there that are really good ("this candid chemistry").

Since this is a blog about ME, though, and not about Swedish electronic artists, I'll end with a song that in some ways feels apropos right now (of course, like all songs, it is limited in its applicability to my life and would require all kinds of qualifications). Unfortunately, I hate the actual song, but the lyrics are very well done: "Follow My Ruin"

Down below a faded glow
Vibrant key without a tone
Realize in here it's cold
I can only let it snow

Words were said so long ago
Left a mark, an open sore
You go fast, I'm burnin' slow
Hate to say I knew you'd go

So much going on
And I wish to hold on
So much going on
And I cannot let go

Past the trees that hide our love
Hurry now it's time to go
Make this moment matter more
Show me like you did before

Words were said so long ago
Face defeat and take the blow
So naive now I know more
Won't forget the things before

****

CNN is SO ridiculous! Iran has made the announcement that it's resuming nuclear research and CNN is discussing the story with the headline "Iran Nuclear Standoff" -- HUH? Wouldn't a nuclear standoff be, like, if Pakistan and India had warheads pointed at each other a la Cuban missile crisis? THAT, to me, is a standoff -- not a country announcing (with invites to international journalists and the IAEA) that it's resuming nuclear research.

Gotta shower.

VC

Yalla, Ciao, Bye!

Well Pookie is off to Moscow. I'm kind of worried he's going to return with some PhD physicist ice dancer -tuned- gay tour guide, but since I know first-hand what being in a relationship with a traditional Russian man is like, we'll just wish him luck ;p

No, joking aside (since I know you all follow his life just as much as you do mine!) he has just put his home on the market in NYC and is hammering out a lot of tough decisions about where he will be next and what he will be doing (the "with whom?" questions obviously needs to be answered AFTER the where and what), and I think this trip will be really good for him...plus Russian art is fantastic, and it's such a historically-interesting place.
He is spending the next two days in Amsterdam en route, and I actually planned an intercept trip that would have me there at 10PM tonight and in the Swisshotel (only $130/night!) and I could even visit Den Haag (former stomping ground of Hawk Barbie!) after he continued on to Moscow for $50 roundtrip on the train, but I think he needs his space. I don't mean to sound Panglossian about it, but I think that it will all end up for the best, and I think that when you really love someone, you stop asking yourself (except for certain rare moments of need) "where do I fit in" and focus more on how their lives are going and whether or not they are happy. I certainly see this with my mother, as well as my best friends -- Curie and Juicy and Barbie and Desi are not normally sitting around feeling sorry for themselves because I'm not with them, they are thinking about my life and how they can better support me, and that's what love really is.

Or...........love can be different....Or at least lovin' can lol --> Now, it would not be a blogosphere exaggeration to say that my sex life is about as boring as the Virgin Mary's (that should be my new screen name!), but in an interesting pre-development (meaning: it hasn't developed into anything and probably won't, because I'm *happy* to be the Virgin Mary...except I'd spell it "Marie" since I think it looks better), I was at dinner a few nights ago -- the Hard Rock night actually -- and as it turns out, I was noticed...and not just by Bin Laden and his body guards!

A friend of mine who we will call Leopold (because his real life name is seriously THAT "my parents are historical Egyptian elites and named me after a random Belgian king because that's what rich people, especially ones who do not want their Coptic son named 'Mohammed' used to do" -- French-speaking family etc.) who was our dinner companion with Lord of the Dance, called me today to tell me that we were spotted at the restaurant by a friend of his. To toot my own horn, this is actually the second time in the past 4 months (actually that sounds really sad, now that I think about it) that I've been spotted and later hunted down at a restaurant, but anyway, this guy called Leopold and told him that he wanted to know me (we all know what THAT means) and asked for my number. Leopold called to ask for permission, and the conversation went something like this:

VC: Hello? Leopold? I'm brushing my teeth.

L: Don't tell someone that. Would you say that you are wiping your ass? You are expected to be beautiful and shining with no effort.

VC: Saying I'm wiping my ass and brushing my teeth are two totally different things. Oral hygiene is something that people really value morally. Besides, what are you, a Victorian Woman? [I wanted to tell him about this poem called "Cecilia" that I read as a senior in high school that pokes fun at the dark underbelly of Victorian beauty, talking about a woman in her toilet preparing to go out, and her ear wax, and her bugers, and then, at the end, the disgusting revelation: "Cecilia, Cecilia, Cecilia shits!" -- but I didn't think he'd appreciate the anecdote, as we aren't on that kind of high school anecdotal basis with each other]

{fastforward through him telling me that the other night someone saw us and that's why he's calling, and me saying that it couldn't have been me and that it was either LoTD or the slutty American who was stripping for the Gulfis *or* he's passing me on to someone and making up a story to make it sound "social" and therefore legitimate}

L: He's a GREAT guy. Very intelligent, very very very good background. Upper upper middle class.

VC {chuckling, because in Egypt you wouldn't, especially if you are from a family like Leopold's, consider anyone middle class to be from a good background -- but his value set has changed since his family moved to San Diego, he saw a country like the US with a real middle class, combined with the fact that he has slept with so many REALLY ghetto guys that he is able to recognize shades of grey between the street and the elite}: Ok, so he's married, right?

L: Yeah he's married. But you like that.

VC: I DO NOT LIKE THAT! I like *older* guys, and here they all happen to be married, but that's why I can't be with anyone!

L: You can't expect people to change. He drives a BMW.

VC: You said it's impolite to talk about BMs over the phone *laughing*

L {silence -- puzzled -- a little dim, at least so far I think so, but not because he's ACTUALLY dim, just because here most lamps only handle 60 watt bulbs, and so 100 watt bulbs tend to tone it down a bit so they can be screwed in somewhere ... YOU figure the analogy out! ... and no, Desi, it's not about sex}: So, I will have him call you. He's a really great guy.

VC: Then why aren't YOU with him, Leo?

L: He's too much for me.

VC: What does that mean?

{repeat times 3 as I get nowhere trying to figure out what Leopold means by that and he doesn't tell me, then finally...}

L: He was too much for me sexually.

{DEAD SILENCE. My shock is best demonstrated by fastforwarding to a call I made later to the friend whose auction I met Leopold at, who responded to my relaying of the conversation with: "HE SAID HE WAS TOO MUCH FOR HIM SEXUALLY? LEOPOLD, THE BLACK HOLE OF HUMAN SEXUALITY FROM WHICH NOT EVEN LIGHT CAN ESCAPE?" So you can see that most people who know Leopold would find the statement extremely shocking}

VC *stammering*: Um, well. Um. You know I'm not so into hookups.

{fastforward through Leo then making the "and he's a really good friend to" approach, which eventually won, and I agreed to have my number passed on}

Mr. Sexual BMW called when I was washing my face, and I jokingly told him that I couldn't pick up when he called originally because I was washing my face, but don't tell Leopold otherwise I won't be invited to the ball. Mr. SBMW *got the joke* with little explanation, and was really nice on the phone. Unfortunately (and predictably) he was not really my type -- meaning: he made reference to the sheep he's slaughtering in the AM as part of the three day Muslim feast which begins tomorrow (which is why you have CNN obsessing over every step of hajj)...maybe I'm weird, but when someone says: "I'd love to see you tomorrow, but I have to slaughter a sheep for my wife," it kinda ruins it...BMW or not!

So the sheep will be slaughtered for the beginning of 3id (remember when I taught you about that letter earlier in the blog? "3ayn"?), and I've already gone downstairs to the bowaab to make it VERY clear to him that I don't want anyone in the building wandering up to the expansive roof (where my little cottage is) to slaughter their sheep. I was in Europe last year when they did this (I think?), but I've heard that there is literally blood on the streets, here. I guess when you have 16 story buildings with 70 families and EVERY ONE slaughters a sheep (since unfortunately, in a neighbourhood like this, everyone can afford to), it can't ALL be done discretely in the stairwell of the flat (where my old roommate told me they'd done it in our building the year before).

OH MY GOD I ALMOST FORGOT TO EXPLAIN THE TITLE OF THE BLOG!

It's what Mr. SBMW said to me when he said goodbye, which is to basically say "bye" in Egyptian slang, global Italian, and English. Middle class (since we're using the term lol) Egyptians usually say "yalla bye," which always throws me off, because "yalla" is also like "let's go" like "come on," so I always feel like they are asking me to go somewhere and then hanging up. "Yalla" really means, kind of: "Keep the momentum of whatever we were talking about and executing it" so it can mean "continue with our discussion of leaving and actually GO somewhere" or: "continue with the winding down of the conversation and say goodbye." The "bye" is also more of a deep, "mbye" (the mmm is actually almost hummed at the beginning) and I'm starting to say it this way by accident! I thought that "yalla, ciao, bye!" was just excessive, though. Who knows if he's too much sexually, but his adieus are certainly way overboard.

VC

PS: I can hear sheep "baa"-ing from my flat :( Tomorrow will be awful.

Fighting With Bin Laden

Well it’s just after 5AM and I’m returning from my first night out in Cairo (other than to dinner) since returning from Afghanistan more than four months ago. It is Christmas Eve for Egypt’s Coptic Christians, and after spending the day touring the pyramids with my closest remaining friend in Cairo’s two Turkish guests, I was awakened (sleeping in my friend’s flat I was so exhausted) by a call from my Coptic friend (American-raised and Stanford-educated, here for a year to apply to law school and learn Arabic – sound familiar?), who we’ll call Lord of the Dance (because I like to tease him about a post-modernist “fixed location dance performance” he did as a commentary on vertical mobility amongst immigrants in California while part of a Stanford dance team), or LoTD, telling me that he was lonely on Christmas Eve, away from family etc., and had made MIDNIGHT reservations (to break their fast – Copts spend the MAJORITY of the year fasting, although their fast sort of just means “eat vegan”) at an Egyptian restaurant in Zamalek, and invited another Coptic friend of ours as well as an American guy who is SCANDALOUSLY slutty and basically fluent in Arabic (ie: my total opposite).

I’ll fastforward through the dinner except to say that the slutty American kept making eye contact with the Gulfis at the table next to us and actually TOOK OFF HIS SHIRT to reveal his tank top underneath, which prompted one of them men to say in Arabic an expression akin to: “I adore God but I worship the devil,” or something that basically means “God help me in this moment to resist temptation.” LoTD has been wanting to go out, go dancing, explore explore explore (and gossip gossip gossip) – which I find quite boring and actually extremely depressing, and it’s such a reminder to me of how much happier I have been the past 5 months NOT going out. Anyway, we compromised on going to the Hard Rock Café, because it’s not AS high pressure as Latex (our one REAL nightclub), there are a lot of “khalijiis” (Gulfis), and LoTD has been itching to try one, and neither he nor the slutty American had been. The Copt dropped us off at Hard Rock (which, to continue with my theme, is at the Grand Hyatt lol), and we paid out 150LE cover fee (which you use towards drinks which are basically 50LE each), and moved on. The music is a weird mix of hip-hop club remixes (decent) and belly-dancing music (bad) and the scene is one that deserves more commentary than I’ll devote to it, here.

The club consists of two main groups and two lesser groups. The two main groups are young Gulfi men looking for, well, anything, and the second group (in a MUCH smaller proportion to the first) are prostitutes willing to give them just that. It’s really awkward, because you need to picture women TOTALLY done up to look “cute,” false eye lashes, bedazzled belts, bags, and nails, and lip liner galore, all floating around trying to look like the picture of glamour and NOT like trash. It’s kind of sad and awkward. The guys either give off cruisy heterosexual prostitute-seeking vibes, or obviously homoSOCIAL inward-looking vibes, but in any case the scene is very weird. The two smaller groups are the few non-Gulfi tourists who come, and the few Cairene residents (Egyptian and expat) who are there. I’d say that tonight, though, well over 65% were Gulfi men.

I should preface this by saying that I had heard that the Bin Ladens owned all the Hard Rock cafes in the Middle East, because a friend from AUC told me, last spring, that she once witnessed an American student wearing an “I hate Bin Laden” t-shirt at the Café in Cairo asked by the Bin Laden entourage to remove his shirt (they were apparently polite) and offered a free Hard Rock shirt in return. I was always a bit skeptical, and never really cared either way (the few times Desi and I went to Hard Rock it was a total disappointment). I can now confirm: the Bin Ladens own the Hard Rock and they are very much there.

One of the bouncers kept politely reminding me and LoTD to not stand on the steps leading from the dance floor/walkway to the upper bar level (just two little steps), and I assumed it was because we were blocking a passageway, so when I caught myself or LoTD or our other friend standing near it, I’d jokingly pull them back and sort of smile at the bouncer. WELL, just after 4AM, when it had again happened (me pulling LoTD away from the stairs that he had unconsciously floated too near to) and this time a man in plain clothes started pushing LoTD away, and we were almost ON a table away from the stairs and thus not in anyone’s path, the fight began. The bouncer and especially the plainclothes guard began to get very aggressive with LoTD, and I was trying to say (in a thumping club to people who spoke almost no English) that we weren’t anywhere near the stairs and I didn’t see the problem. It then became clear, when a thuggish guy sitting next to his friend, got up and ALSO started yelling (after having short discussions in whisper to both security guys who would then return to their spat with us) that this was NOT about the stairs, but was about these two guys’ table. I was still puzzled, though, because we were not blocking their view. I then though (as ended up being the case, but I still think it’s a weak argument on their part) that maybe we were too close to the women at the table next to them (with the table we were standing at being BETWEEN the men and the women), but we were clearly not talking to the women (and were CERTAINLY not interested in them) and were also not blocking their view. Finally LoTD’s fight with the security guys has escalated to such a degree (in part because he raised his voice an octave and was screaming in a banshee headvoice) that he was being forcibly removed from the club.

A manager came over to me to take me aside, as the two men form the table got up to explain to me what was happening (one of them still clearly angry and thuggish), as I insisted that we were not blocking anyone or anything, and I didn’t understand what was so special at that table and why we were not equal to those men. The manager took me across the room to the side of the bar and was trying to explain to me that everyone is equal, that it was just a matter of blocking the tables, etc. (which were all bullshit and which angered me more), and so I physically drug him by the hand outside, while condemning him for letting someone touch LoTD so roughly, until we were outside the club in front of all the people trying to enter, the cashier, etc.

To rewind: when I was checking out who, in the room, was using their Bluetooth communication program on their mobiles, I came across the ID “No.70AmrBinLaden,” and tried unsuccessfully to message him (people don’t normally accept Bluetooth files from people they don’t know), so I figured that what I’d heard about the ownership of the club was true, and that he was there. When the manager took me outside, I finally told him that I didn’t want him to bullshit me, that it was clear that that table was special, and that I wanted to know why. He told me that the man in the blue (the non-thuggish one) was the owner. I wasn’t impressed. I told him that I don’t care who the owner is, everyone should be treated equally, certain standards of decency have to be met, it was improper to rough-up my friend when we weren’t doing anything wrong, and it is also inappropriate for someone in plainclothes with no ID to be speaking to us as an employee/representative of the club, let alone touching us. I added that “I know he’s not the owner. The owner is Amr Bin Laden” (taking a risk). His reply: “He is the owner and he is Amr Bin Laden.” I then played it cool by immediately saying that I didn’t care who he was, it’s HIS obligation as an employee of the club to protect paying customers, and he or Amr can give us our money back. I also sort of pushed him on his deference to the owner’s authority, asking: “Do you call him pasha? No? Do you call him Bey? No? Why? Because we are all equal, then why are you worried about your job and impressing him.” I told him that I didn’t care about his job, that I don’t care who owns the place, and that I do care about what happens to my friend, there.

Enter Bin Laden. Bin Laden comes with the plainclothes guard, his thuggish friend, and another Hard Rock employee, and while LoTD continues to scream at everyone, I take the “this is so shocking and uncivilized approach” with Bin Laden. Our exchange was really humorous and I have to say that I was sort of funny and self-possessed. I told him that his thuggish friend was speaking in a really uncivilized way, that no one should be touching LoTD that way, and that I was disappointed that he was running an establishment with these hierarchies of privilege. He apologized, had his friend calm down, asked us how much we paid (300) and told them to give us back double the money. He tried to explain the nature of Saudi men (I told him that I knew it well and loved Saudis lol), and also explained that “the women don’t like to dance too much, they just like to watch,” and so us being there, close to them, and potentially in their way, was a problem. I explained to him that he only needed to have one person ask us politely in once sentence: “We would be more comfortable if you were not so close to these ladies. Could you please move?” and we’d have immediately been fine. He was dripping with the hugest gold and diamond-encrusted Bulgari necklace, chest hair fully exposed, and at one point I jokingly unfolded his shirt collar, which had tucked under itself, to cover more his hair (he thanked me lol). I also interrupted him once, when I recognized one of his rings (plain silver) from last season’s Bulgari collection, and also had some fun with him when he tried to tell me that none of his guards could tell me politely what was happening, because they didn’t speak English – I told him that he has the money to hire a bodyguard who speaks 10 languages, and he could even hire LoTD who speaks Enlgish and Arabic both lol. He told me that the guards had been putting up with Egyptian troublemakers (most people in the club being bad, he said) since 10PM – 4 hours before we arrived – and treated us the same way. I told him that they should work form the presumption that customers are good, and not that they are bad. He understood. He was trying to get us back inside, and I told him (in Arabic, but only this was in Arabic) that after this it was Latex and forever after Latex – Hard Rock is done. He asked why, and reiterated that he apologized, and I told him that he knew why I wasn’t interested in coming back. I jokingly asked him: “So are your bodyguards beating up our other friend inside, too, or is he still ok?” and Bin Laden laughed. I also told him, in relation to the point that most patrons are bad, that MOST patrons are prostitutes, and he doesn’t seem to mind that, and that we are not the ones he need to worry about. He welcomed us back again, and I added: “If your guards upstairs institute a couples only policy preventing men without women from getting in, then we can’t see you again here” (a police that is more biased against Egyptian males), and asked if that was another of his decent policies, and he told me no that that’s Egyptian local police who make and enforce that rule themselves. Our last funny exchange came when we re-entered the club to retrieve our friend, and two prostitutes came up to him and shook his hand, and I gave him the knowing/powerful “tisk tisk” with my finger, he said to me jokingly “now I have to wash my hands,” and so I gave him a friendly handshake and we left (not asking for the refund).

6AM and I now can’t keep my eyes open, but I’ve been getting so many blog requests that here you go!

XO

VC

Only This Moment

From my new Royksopp CD that I finally bought today as a reward for finishing my work, yesterday. I'll blog more about the sprint to the finish later this week when I'm alone during some formerly-central-to-my-life global holiday, but right now I'll just leave you with these words, which have a lot of meaning to me for different reasons. The usual caveat that I at times feel like the speaker of the lyrics and at times feel like the audience applies -- oh, and there is an important change to the chorus at the end, so you have to pay attention!:

Only this moment holds us together
Close to perfection
Nothing else out there
No one to guide us
Lost in our senses
Deep down inside I know our love will die

Only this moment holds us together
Lost in confusion
Feelings are out there
Scared of devotion
Doubting intentions
Deep down inside I know our love will die

Stay or forever go
Play or you’ll never know what heaven decided
You can’t deny it’s all you’ve been waiting for

Stay or forever go
Play or you’ll never know
Your spirit’s divided
You will decide if I’m all you've been waiting for

Clouds in my head have been parted with grace
By the force of an angel revealing her face
And her words do make sense, and I do understand:
Falling in love isn’t part of a plan

Forces within me mix reason with lust
But I try to accept it and not make it worse
'Cause I know I might lose it by taking a chance
But love without pain isn’t really romance

Only this moment holds us together
Close to perfection
Nothing else out there
Always beside her
Trusting my senses
Deep down inside I know love will survive

Only this moment holds us together
Close to the other
Nothing else out there
Always beside her
Trusting my senses
Deep down inside I know love will survive

********

VC

Most Rollercoastar Day Ever

Ended with a fight with the 34th son of the Prophet Mohammed (PBU them BOTH), and me leaving my mobile in a taxi.

I could just goudge my own eyes out right now, but the Oedipus thing is SO played out (as I remember Pookie and I once seeing, over the course of a month or so THREE plays/vocal performances/dance performances that explicitly referenced it).

Ok so now I don't have Syria and I don't have a mobile, and I really don't know what to do. Splurging on a vacation AND a new mobile feels obscene, but I loved that mobile, and I already spent $100 more for accessories.

Maybe the cliffs of Dover would be less trite?

VC

More Hating on AUC

I don't think a Registrar's office should even be ALLOWED to refuse to offer transcripts. And this is great (forgot to mention it), if you want a transcript within one day, it costs US$15, but if you are willing to wait five days, then it's only like $8 or something. Can you believe that? $8 for a single transcript? At Columbia there were free (and unlimited).

So here's where the Registrar's office is just so full of crap (and VERY typically AUC -- this is SO SO SO TYPICAL): If you order a transcript now, AND pay for the one-day express service, then you will get it on January 2 (keep in mind the office is NOT closed...it just isn't offering transcripts). If pay the "wait 5 days" rate, then you get it on 8 January.

CAN YOU BELIEVE that they are insisting upon an express v. regular service price AND time difference, when BOTH are taking way longer than the normal 5 day period? Wouldn't it be more appropriate to let everyone pay the 5 day rate and then APOLOGIZE for not getting it to them until the 2nd (let alone the 8th)??

I hate AUC.

Here is the email I just got from Columbia after I begged them to read my application without waiting for AUC:

Dear Chunk,

Thank you for your continued interest in Columbia Law School. [they always say that]

Unfortunately, we cannot review your file until it is complete. As therequirement for foreign transcripts is one that we insist upon for all ofour prospective students, we would not consider it fair to make anexception in this case. You are also very well ahead of the February 15thdeadline, so completing your application in January should not influenceyour candidacy to any significant degree.

We look forward to receiving your Dean's Certification.

Best regards,

Columbia Law School

So -- as we say in Egypt (even though I still don't really understand what it means): "ma3lesh" ("3" stands for a letter in Arabic that, standing alone, looks like a backward 3, is written in Roman script with an apostrophe in the shape of a superscript 'c,' and sounds like...well...I can't describe it, but if you know the German work "Ein," (like "Einstein") and then sort of constrict your throat and grunt (think pushing a baby out or being extremely constipated) on the "E" part, and you will have it -- I have a GREAT `ayn (or "3ayn"), which is what makes me superior to most Americans ;p -- you can click here to hear a recording of the sound, but I have to say it's kinda weak...we need a strong Gulfi `ayn, not some wimpy one that sounds more like German than Arabic). That was one big parenthetical! Anyway, ma3lesh basically means like "whatever"/"what can one do?"/"regrettably, no" and represents a passive acceptance of material circumstance that I find extremely frustrating (because it's like, once you "let go" and utter the words "ma3lesh" then you -- you meaning the waiter you are talking to, or the bureaucratic behind his desk -- are basically saying "I ain't gone do nuthin'").

VC

More Bureaucracy

Forgot to mention in my post, below, that I called the Syrian embassy and my visa was rejected...really don't know what I'll do, now, for Christmas/New Year. :*(

WOW I was tired when I did my last post. I kept falling asleep and waking up while I was typing, lol. Just woke up from almost 5 hours of nap, and need to make a plan to get this LAST paper squeezed out. It will involve a lot of text explication, and I always find these analysis papers (like in art history) much less torturous to write -- you develop your theoretical framework and you apply it to something...it's a pretty easy process -- but it's STILL a paper, which means it is torture in some way. Right now it's almost 7PM, and I'd like to have one of the three sections (I'm analyzing the banning of three texts) written before I got to bed, and hopefully pump one out in the AM, leaving myself with only one left for tomorrow evening (aka: NOT another 30 hours wherein 20 are a straight chunk of typing in different places in Cairo -- yesterday was AUC library, Grand Hyatt food court, then my house, assisted with two rather yummy MacDonald's cappuccinos!).

Still pissed at AUC that it is so twisted. The AUC press should publish a manual: how to get your students to NOT give back as alumns and trash-talk you when you go back home to the exact US universities from which they wish they had more students.

Unfortunately, despite any effort I could make to discourage students from coming here, there will ALWAYS be the government job seekers who salivate at the thought of their State Department/CIA files getting a boost from Arabic and living in the region.

Gotta eat!

VC

Bureaucratic Update

Given that humans are generally prone to mood swings when sleep-deprived, that this is a really stressful time, and that I genuinely have had a lot of sh*t to deal with today, I think that I'm handling everything with amazing balance. In fact, I think that maybe me having been awake now for more than 30 hours without rest has made me just SO tired that I can't be bothered by things like the AUC mess that was today.

If you happen to be a corporate litigator with whom I am totally smitten (you know who you are and so does everyone else), and you don't have a lot of time to read my rambling blog, today, then skip to point 3 below. It's the most important and confusing in terms of my life.

But let's start at the top. The good, the bad, the inbetween. It's all about VC's struggle within the bureaucratic matrix that describes his current life (read: academia).

Let's start with classes: Turned in my importing democracy paper (hence me being up for 30 hours), and it was on time, and I already have an A in the class (she posted it like an hour after I handed the paper in). I really REALLY like the professor, and feel good about that class. The ONLY thing I have left, then, in terms of coursework at AUC is the completion of a paper from a spring course in which I took an incomplete. Enter the stress: there is no policy published about when to submit these things, so I'm submitting mine on the 22nd (the last day of finals), however for all I know there's a very real chance that I missed some unpublished deadline and will fail (with all the repercussions for update law school transcript requests, my thinking I'd finished my coursework but being wrong, etc. that come with failing). Will work to finish it the next two days and just wait and pray.

On to law school aps: So Stanford has this AWFUL system where you have to physically mail the a check AND a Dean's Certification, so my ap there is not complete, and Columbia has the most ridiculous Dean's Certification. Keep in mind that I went to Columbia, AND Columbia, as a college that send Certs to OTHER schools for it's own alums applying to law school REFUSES to use the forms of other schools (and instead sends out their own standard "Chunk's GPA is X and he was always in good academic standing with no disciplinary measures" form letter) -- Columbia law school's Dean's Cert that it asks other schools to fill out is INSANE. All these grids and boxes and the request of a "summary letter" describing the student! I got the professor from the class I just handed the paper in for, who is an Assistant Dean, to fill them out for me, and I FedExed them today (a good experience, my first time at AUCs FedEx, where we get corporate rates and only pay 25% of what I was paying down the street at the real office!). The thing with Columbia, and I know this because I emailed and called them, is that even though Harvard, Yale, and NYU all OBVIOUSLY accepted the informal transcript that I sent (it's only grad school! most people don't even go at all!), Columbia wants one FROM AUC.

Enter AUC bureaucracy: The Registrar *refuses* to hand-out transcripts until after the start of January, since right now grades are being input into the system. SO, if Columbia (and maybe even Stanford) won't consider me complete until I get a transcript from AUC, which will be after the first week of January, then I'm basically screwed, because NO ONE gets in to those places that late in the admissions cycle. So -- yeah. I emailed Columbia and explained to them that the Dean's Cert confirms my GPA, that other schools didn't require an official AUC transcript, etc. and let's see what they say.

AUC cont'd

Had my comprehensive exams moved to next semester, although they kept them on my transcript with a "withdraw" next to it (question: why is it not the goal of the Registrar to present the student in the best light possible while still being truthful to the situation -- I NEVER TOOK COMPS, what is the POINT of having it there??).

AUC cont'd

While at the Registrar, I checked on the winter Arabic courses, and of course no one knew how/when I needed to actually register, and no one knew about whether or not my fellowship applied. I sought advice form the magical woman do takes care of EVERYTHING for grad students if you actually use her, and this is what happened:

1. The winer arabic course is not for regular students but for visitors, and costs $2200 for one month, not covered by my fellowship, and includes things I don't need like city tours and a dorm room with a roomate, etc.

2. I can apply for (and just got, apparently) an Arabic Language Fellowship, which covers 1/2 the cost of tuition, and they were generous enough to count it based on credit points for the course (removing all the housing and other crap) which is $535 (or something) per point X 3 points - 50% (fellowship), so I pay like $850...which is a lot less than it would have cost to go home for winter. Fine.

3. While I'm there talking about my Arabic problem, the cat is out of the bag that I finished my required courses, and *GET THIS* my fellowship is therefore over. Not only am I not permitted to take any courses next semester, BUT even registering for my comprehensive exams, which are 0 points if you take them with other courses but 1.0 point if you take them as a stand alone course, I will have to pay for. So basically I finished all my courses early and got punished by HAVING to pay AUC to let me stay for the fourth semester in which I could have been slowly finishing my coursework.

I am NOT paying AUC to stay here an extra semester. There is NO way I will do that. I mean -- like not even when hell freezes over AND pigs fly would I do that. I'd just as soon go back to the US ASAP (if there's not AUC reason left for me to be here), study Arabic there, and try to take my comps in AUC's New York office.

This is my new plan: the reason that I'm graduating early is that I got certain courses this term to substitute for ones next term that I officially need to graduate. What I decided to PRETEND to do is just not have the ones I took this semester substitute, register for the theoretically-required courses that I would then "need" next semester, like I'm not ready to graduate (and my fellowship is still therefore on), and register for Arabic (which we can do for free on top of a full couseload, but not standing alone -- great logic, right?). Then, once the bill is paid by my fellowship, I'll drop everything but the Arabic and have the last laugh. They can seriously kiss it if they think that i will pay them a penny more than what I'm paying for the winter course (which is already insanely expensive -- $850 in Egypt goes an EXTREMELY X 10 long way).

So -- law school aps in the air, might fail a class from spring, might drop out of AUC. On the equally-likely side: law aps will be fine, the paper I'll turn in on the 22nd will be accepted, and my master plan for registration for next term will go off without a hitch.

Wanna place bets?

:) MUST SLEEEEEEEP

VC

Still Peppy, But Realistic Too

Ok well it's nearing 3:30AM and I need to make an edit to my schedule, below.

I think I need to re-prioritize, given how long it's been taking me to put my argument together, and shift my efforts to doing the reading/short reaction paper that is DEFINITELY due at 4PM, now, and also work on the materials I'll be presenting at the Fellow's meeting. Then, with all that done, I can ONLY work on the long paper during the day (free of all other errands and commitments).

The long paper (in my independent study with the Assistant Dean) is due because I set the due-date for myself: [imagine this in black and white, since it happened a week ago]

Dean: "About your paper, I'll be leaving on the 22nd, so if you can try to get it to be, you know..."

[VC interrupts]

VC: "Oh I'll give it to you at our next meeting on the 18th."

[Dean, surprised, delighted]

Dean: "Oh, ok. Great. Looking forward to it."

SO, yeah, it's not great if I need one more day, but at least it will be MOSTLY done by the time I meet with her in 12 hours and 35 minutes. I also think that when I email her my reaction paper in anticipation of our meeting, like way in advance (at, say, 6AM), than she'll know that I'm taking things seriously.

Guess it's clear that the 4AM - 8AM sleep thing is getting cut-out, but I can rest when I get back from class for 3 hours and be good as new.

While we're being peppy but realistic :) who am I kidding? I'm totally more rippley than chunky ;p

VC

Post-Doctah Peptalk

Just got off the phone with Dr. Juicy and I am inspired (after being inspired by her to inspire myself -- meaning: she always puts me in a positive and driven place) to make my FINAL breakneck plan for the semester. I have a paper due tomorrow, as well as a meeting, another short assignment, and several administrative things to take care of, and then after that I have 4 days (sounds like eternity) to finish my LAST PAPER FOR MY MA. *VC cheers*

I have been dreading working on this, because I hate writing SO SO SO SO SO much (I'd rather run 10 miles, fast, and have to eat soggy cold spinach after each mile -- THAT'S how much I hate writing papers), but this is ridiculous: I'm a capable writer, I will do the best I can, I will not use comma-splices like I am in this sentence (these commas should be semi-colons), and this is my final academic push before a semester of intellectual indulgence next semester: Arabic study, TA-ing for my favourite prof, and work on a cool Moot Court project that will take me to DC. Finishing this paper and staying motivated means proactively getting one step closer to FINISHING my time in Cairo, returning to NYC, snuggling with my Pookie on the couch, lunching and shopping more than is responsible with the Dr., having my favourite popcorn with Curie and walking for hours, and, most importantly, returning HOME to a place where I can talk to my mom every day again on the phone.

Six minutes until midnight and writing begins (tonight we're writing about importing democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq...it started out as an analysis of Afghan election posters, but I expanded it. I'm making the argument that what starts out as the cosmopolitanization of democracy -- the global sharing of a seemingly-agreed upon value set -- when "imported" through belligerent occupation -- turns cosmopolitanization into cannibalism, evidenced by what it is that these countries who have imported democracy find themselves exporting: narcotics, torture, restricted identity categories along gender and tribal lines, etc.).

That was one long parenthetical lol.

SO: Last schedule of my LIFE at AUC (shouldn’t need these next term) à

Midnight - 4AM = Work on paper

4AM - 6AM = Sleep

6AM - 10AM = Work on paper

10AM - 11AM = Go to school and get settled (email, etc.)

11AM - 12PM = Finish paper work

12PM - 12:45PM = Prepare for fellows meeting (questionnaire, honours update, conferences update)

12:45PM - 2:30PM = Prepare for Dean meeting (reaction paper, long paper)

2:30PM - 3:30PM = Fellows meeting

4:00PM = Dean's meeting (check on Moot Court, Certs, and honours proposal)

Off to work. Motivation, productivity, and happiness to all my readers :)

XO

VC

In at NYU!

...and sending out Stanford. The Pook is thinking about leaving NYC, so I figured why not open up some geographical options (when you are strong-arming someone into a long-term relationship, I think the best strategy is flexibility lol), and I also think it will be a good ego regulator to receive more rejection letters than acceptance letters, and adding a near-certain rejection from Stanford (which is about twice as hard to get into as Harvard) will help me do that :)

VC

Cairo Photo Tour: Experiments With Food

I mentioned a few days ago (unless I only emailed people about it and never blogged?) that I tried cooking, and ended up having to throw away two plates after unsuccessfully trying to heat up pizza and cinnaparts (you should check the link out -- Pizza Hut KSA...gotta love the image of the camels crossing the desert to get some Spaghetti Bolognaise!). Well I've FINALLY loaded the software for my unbelievably gorgeous and "ever-so stylish" mobile, and so I was able to download some of the photos that I've been taking on my mobile (because I'm too lazy to PLUG IN my ridiculously nice camera so that its battery can charge), and one of them is on the couch in my living room with the cinnaparts heated up. I think it's also worth mentioning that the plate, which came with the apartment, is the same flatware (flatware is plates and not silverware, right?) that we had at my guesthouse in Afghanistan, which I found odd and a bit disturbing (thinking I'd escaped Cairo only to find out that it had followed me to Central Asia).

I am also attaching a photo of the "chocolate souffle" (if you tasted it then you'd know that it needs to be in quotes) that I ordered from Tabasco, last night -- a restaurant that is kind of the AUC student/Zamalek spoiled youth hangout, but we also have two here in Doqqi, one which *gap* serves alcohol. I won't get into the horrible (HORRIBLE) fight I got into with the restaurant, because that will distract you from the actual point of the photo, which is the odd cream sauce that they gave me {prepare for slightly philosophical discussion of "the normal"}

They were thoughtful enough (I am shocked) to actually give me a ton of powdered sugar and sauce to put on the souffle, as well as extra red sauce for my ravioli, etc. Here's the problem: I'm not sure (even after eating it) what the sauce was, and I'm not even sure if it was meant for the souffle.

As you can see in the photo, the sauce was a kind of yellow/white/GREENISH liquid that was mostly watery but with some moments of thickness (almost like a watery custard). When I *saw* it I thought: vanilla sauce. When I tasted it, though, it was basically just egg. Then I thought maybe they gave me extra souffle batter in case I wanted to cook my own (combining my cluelessness about cooking with the total unpredictability of ALL service industry logic in Cairo means ANYTHING could have been happening, in my mind), but then I realized that I'm not even sure if you use eggs in souffle, and even so, you'd need chocolate -- I felt stupid for thinking that it might be souffle batter when I realized that, duh, cooking what they gave me would have just made, like, scrambled eggs. Then I thought maybe it was white sauce for my pasta (I chose red over white, but maybe they wanted me to have options), or just a lot of creamy melted butter.

Here is the problem: I totally liked the sauce. I mean, the souffle needed some kind of peristalsis-promoting lubricant, and the sauce had this proteinaceous (admittedly: suspiciously so, although I won't make any comments more provocative than that -- you can see the photo for yourself) , SLIGHTLY sweet taste, and I liked it. I even *Chunk blushes* DRANK it out of the cup while I was eating. What made me so uneasy, though, was that, despite enjoying the taste, I was really hung-up on what was proper, and what I SHOULD be eating it with. Was I downing cream sauce made for my ravioli and pouring it on my souffle? I hate butter, but was I chugging creamy butter? That I was so gastronomically disoriented (and that I realized how much I *cared*, in the privacy of my own home, whether or not it was PROPER for me to be eating it or not) was really off-putting! :(

Things to look out for in the photos other than the food:

* In the cinnaparts photo, notice the freakish mini pillows that decorate my house (not my choice). EVERYONE makes fun of the midget pillows. I sort of like them.

* In the souffle photo, notice what is the EPITOME of "Louis Farouk" Egyptian interior decorating: the marble table atop the spray-painted gold wood. It's the quintessence of the Egyptian bourgeoisie!

Anyway, enjoy the photos. I will post more in a bit about pollution, here :)

VC

Cock-a-Doodle-Doo!

It's 8AM.

Bring it :)

VC

Fatigue-Induced SCS

(self-confessional syndrome)

Since this blog is read by less than a dozen people and you are all loved ones, I thought I'd share a moment from a little more than a year ago that I still think about, often. [now that I’ve written this blog entry and am re-reading it, I don’t talk a lot about the actual moments of realization but more about what it is that I realized…sorry lol – just picture all the thoughts below occurring while I’m sitting in ancient Middle Eastern cities alone and thoughtful and happy]

I had just purchased Nelly Furtado's second CD (a TOTAL unexpected gem) and set-off for 'Eid in Jordan and Lebanon with my now-lost iPod mini. Traveling alone for two weeks, you have a lot of time to think, and feel, and be reflective almost the point of obsession -- in other words: do what I do best, lol.

There is a song on her album, which remains one of my favourite songs in the world, called "Try." I think of it, now, because after I posted, earlier, about staying in NYC, I saw, for the first time, her video for this song (sort of what I imagined it would be, but a bit disappointing in the execution...anyway that's not the point). It reminded me of how that song really brought clarity and some kind of peace to me about my relationship with the oft-mentioned NYC Pook, because we'd been broken up for about two months with almost no contact, and the song, which I listened to a lot over my trip in the Levant, made a lot of sense, both in terms of our relationship, and in terms of my life at the time. Here are the lyrics, and I'll gab on a bit more [edit: a LOT more] afterward:

All I know, is everything is not as it's sold
But the more I grow, the less I know.
And I have lived so many lives, though I'm not old.
And the more I see, the less I grow,
The fewer the seeds, the more I sow.

Then I see you standing there, wanting more from me
And all I can do is try
Then I see you standing there, wanting more from me
And all I can do is try.

I wish I hadn't seen all of the realness
And all the real people are really not real at all.
The more I learn, the more I love
The more I cry, the more I cry
As I say goodbye to a way of life I thought I had designed for me.

Then I see you standing there, wanting more from me
And all I can do is try
Then I see you standing there, I'm all I'll ever be
And all I can do is try.

All of the moments that already passed
Try to go back and make them last
All of the things we want each other to be
We never will be. We never will be.
And that's wonderful.
That's life.
That's you baby. This is me baby.
We are -- we are...free in our love.
We are free in our love.
Try

What was so immediately impactful to me, apart from the relevance I think this has to my romantic life, were her comments about this kind of aged quality to her life. I have lived so many lives, though I'm not old, and while there is so much to be learned in that, and it's such a dream in many ways, it's also very rough. This is not to be self-pitying, but rather to make an honest assessment of the fact that you don't cram all this in by the time you are 23 and not be as broken by some of your experiences as you are enriched by them. There have been times in NYC and in Cairo (as Desi has witnessed) I have been both the seed-sower and the disappointed idealist, thinking I was on the brink of real, deep, and lasting interactions with people (and I don’t mean romantically as much as I do just in terms of friends) and ended up being totally let-down by how empty things were underneath the surface.

This theme sort of returns, when she talks about saying goodbye to a way of life I thought I had designed for me, only now, of course, the romantic element is also introduced. I found myself in Cairo, silently in love, with velocity going somewhere within a large and vague universe of "post-ivy kids who are supposed to make something of themselves but don't know exactly how that is measured," and I realized, quite suddenly, that all of the things that made my life from late 2003 to late 2004 so wonderful I'd totally taken from myself, and left myself with none of the things that gave the existence that I'd come to appreciate its essence. I look back, now, and think: "I had everything, including happiness...why did I need to escape that?" As I have asked myself that question SO MANY TIMES the past two years, I think that the answer is two parts: 1. I had to sabotage something I wasn't ready to accept I had, because of all the things accepting it would stand for; 2. Something in me knew that there was still some growing up that needed to be done in order to really appreciate and make use of the things I had.

In another song that I really like, "That Particular Time," Alanis Morisette talks about (to take it out of context from the song): "My foundation was rocked. My tried and true way to deal was to vanish." I look back and think about the total (TOTAL) contrast between what I had been conditioned to understand was love from my first boyfriend and NYC scene life in general, and then what Pookie presented, and I think that I didn't even understand at the time how difficult it was for me to re-orient towards something that was actually healthy -- towards a person who was actually a really amazing guy. I remember times when I would go into prosecutor mode and drill him on where he was/what he was doing, trying to catch him in a betrayal (which is just so NOT him), and when he'd say to me: "Chunk, I am not on trial, here, and you are being ridiculous" (but not in a dismissive way, just in a clear and honest way), I would realize my insanity and immediately shift, feeling ashamed of my inability to function outside a destructive romantic framework: "I'm really sorry. God, how can I even think it's ok to be so suspicious? I'm really sorry...how can you be with someone as un-trusting as I am?" and he'd just say: "Yeah, there's no reason for you to feel the way you do, but it's not a fatal flaw, and it's something people work on," and put it to rest. Anyway, back to foundations --> as well as I thought I was dealing with someone who was remarkably complete and healthy, I realized when I came to Cairo (and saw the kinds of drama that I was tempted to seek out/manufacture in certain situations, here), that the terrain I was on with Pookie was unlike any I'd been on (or witnessed) before, and I didn't quite know how to navigate. Foundation rocked, I vanished, and his own relationship doubts and perceived limitations facilitated my exit, and even helped me not understand, for months afterward, my accountability in what happened (and what didn't).

I say that something in me knew that I needed to sort of get away and grow up, and that I 100% stand-by that; there is just too much evidence of that need, and I physically FEEL -- and see, to my despair at times -- myself more as a man than as a boy, now. I say that it was difficult to accept certain things about what I had in NYC if I were to really face the reality of it, and I think that (while it's too complex a discussion to have, here), a lot of that has to do with the categories we, particularly as urban gay men, allow ourselves to be put into. Accepting valuation NOT through being young, or cute, or charming on someone's arm at a party, which was more or less how I originally came to understand my place in NYC gay life pre-Pookie, and instead having to understand my worth as an equal in a relationship between two adult men was, I think, a difficult transition for me to make. Even in terms of the physical types we are encouraged to think of ourselves as, I had been (or have been, rather) undergoing what was, at moments, an ungraceful and mentally traumatic maturation that definitively casts me outside the space of "boi" and into the that of "man." Just a few days ago I was lamenting over email the fact that I keep getting more and more muscular, and part of that lamentation is that when I see myself in the mirror, I look, well, like a man lol. {I fully accept the problematization of the "normative body" that my discussions of manhood deserves from you critical thinkers out there} Realizing, then, my own inability, at that time, to assume my place as an equal partner (despite what I always believed was my own defiance, as a boy, to be kept or be in any other way less than someone's equal), it was important for me to remove myself from my location within NYC urban gay life, my relationship, etc. and exist outside the system, so to speak, for a time long enough that I could grow and re-enter more effectively upon my return.

Back to the song --> What I think is so important in the song, not from my perspective as the person who understands it as his voice (as I clearly do, in parts) but as the person who also understands himself as the audience, what I realized during my time in the Levant, traveling, thinking, and listening, was that what I needed to do (and what I believe I have begun to successfully do, over the past year) was communicate to a certain someone that we can look frankly at our limitations, and disappointments, and still try -- in a way that is neither risky, nor damaging, and that, in reality, is very freeing. I love it when she changes the chorus to say "Then I see you standing there, I'm all I'll ever be" but says that, even being that, she can still try. I also love it that she is able to say that what is freeing (and therefore "wonderful") about understanding you and me and what we are (and are not) is understanding that we will NEVER be everything that we want -- not for ourselves, and not for each other. I think that most people, myself included, are pretty good, in the post-Oprah age, at not forcing themselves to dwell over what they are not, and I think that people are similarly good at not expecting unrealistic things from their partners (I'm not perfect and I don't expect you to be); the critical part that is often missing, though, is the ability to not expect from yourself as you relate to your partner things that are unrealistic. In other words: saying "I'm not perfect and I don't expect you to be, either" is great, but we need to also be able to say: "I'm not perfect, and part of my peace with that is also knowing that you don't expect me to be, and I don't expect myself to be unlimited in my capacity to deal you, even though I am admittedly limited, as we all are, as an individual." Got it? :)

To recap: Wandering through the streets of Beirut with nothing but some ridiculously hot Lebanese guys to heal my pain (SO KIDDING!), I began my reflections, which I continue to this day, on the decisions that I made to come here, my relationship with Pookie, and what it means to be damaged, limited, growing, loving, etc. all within this crazy world of global capital and the disciplinary state (just kidding: I threw that last part in as a joking reference to the meeting I had today wherein we discussed Appadurai’s theory of the “promiscuous movement” of financial capital, lol).

The song is extremely powerful, and beautifully (if simply) sung, and if you don't have a copy, but are in the tristate area, then I volunteer Curie to make you a copy (lol I made her go buy the CD as soon as I heard this song!).

VC

Law School Update

No, no decisions have come through, yet, but the more I think about it, the more I think that I will stay in New York no matter the outcome of this admissions cycle. If there is one thing that I have learned after leaving New York then it's that I really do feel like NYC is my home, and it's where I need to be for the next few years. There is the smallest (SMALLEST) chance that I could go to Yale and live in NYC, like starting my second year (although the chances that I'll be admitted are even smaller, lol), but I think that in all likelihood I'll stay in NYC. There are a lot of push factors that make me not want Boston as much (the character of 99% of the student body that I've met, there, being one huge factor), and there are so many pull factors for New York. It would feel amazing to have Harvard on my resume, and I think that the academic/program opportunities there, if they compare at all to what I observed as an undergrad at Columbia, probably far surpass the other top five schools -- with the exception being in international law. I can't be pushed into this logic of "some people are top athletes, some are top models, some top actors, and you are none of these, so you are a top student and need to go to a top school," because I recognize how important it is to NOT function according to these measuring sticks in other spheres of my life (eg: the general peace that I've somehow managed to move towards with things like physical appearance) -- why allow myself to get tangled up in another directionless race? I am going to incur so much debt in law school that it is really almost unfathomable -- I might as well enjoy myself doing it (meaning: be with Hawk Barbie, Vanine, Curie, and Dr. Juicy -- AND POOKIE!) and assert as much agency as I can over my life circumstances. I think it's different if you're straight out of undergrad and have not spent THREE YEARS working as an independent adult (even if for only a year) and then doing grad school abroad, and at this point I can't let myself make the "only three more years of unhappiness for a much bigger goal" cost/benefit calculation, when the cost of unhappiness is so high, and the marginal gains to not going to *gasp* the #4 law school in the country (and #1 in international law) are just not that great. Not only that, but I'll probably incur less debt at an NYC school then I would elsewhere, because they are likely to offer me merit-based aid offers.

Don't need to decide now, I know, but this is just where my thinking is at.

Off to a late (after 11PM) dinner.






VC

8AM GI Infections

It's 8:00AM! ... somewhere over the Atlantic :*(

Syrian Embassy and Radio Shack cut-out. Moving on...

Wanted to send out a quick public service announcement, courtesy of Juicy, MD emailing me her thoughts on her med school subjet du jour -- parisitic infections of the gastrointestinal tract (and I quote):

my advice:
don't eat raw ANYTHING (not beef, pork, fish. even vegetables are not safe because a ton of these parasitic worms live in the soil!)
don't walk barefoot ANYWHERE
don't go in freshwater ponds or lakes
don't touch ANYTHING, EVER! (if you must, make sure you wash your hands frequently!)
and last but not least, don't ever scratch your butt and then touch your mouth! (i think that is a good rule in general, but especially in the prevention of spreading of parasitic infections)

No, I am not becoming germ-phobic. Bacteria and viruses don't scare me. Flatworms, roundworms, tapeworms, and flukes, they scare me enough that i am considering leaving medical school. i am only eating processed food from now on, {censored} the organic movement, bring on the pesticides! (but not canned food, because even though i am not afraid of bacteria, botulism is an exception)

Remind me to tell you sometime about Wong's father's colleague's daughter (wow!) who had to have an enormous work drawn out of her system through her mouth using some kind of attractive light (at least that's how I remember the story from when I was like 7).

Chunk wonders if Juicy, MD can give her opinion (re: the "touching butt" point, above) on the risks involved in letting your ADORABLE and extremely elegant (and now-deceased) cat eat from your JELLO pudding cup even though she (as Wong often reminds you) "licks her own butt." Thanks for any insight!

While I away studying, you can entertain yourselves with this: NAME THAT WORM! (I'll give you the answer in my next post. Hint: the worm in the photo, above, is found inside the body cavity of a dead rabbit :) ("wormy rabbit!")

VC

PS: I had to spell-check "juicy" -- guess I'm not Spelling Bee Chunk, afterall!

Schedule Update (Fun, right?)

Well I received a call from Pookie NYC in which he had the gaul to challenge the likelihood that I would ever wake up at 8AM (indeed I did not, but he has insider knowledge of my sleeping habits: weekdays he would wake up, get ready for the gym, workout, come home, eat breakfast, and often get to our office before I did, even though I should have been the one with the less flexible schedule -- being a peon and all, and on weekends he would often wake up 3 or 4 hours before me, vaulting over me [I slept on the side exposed to the room], get dressed for the gym, workout, go grocery shopping -- sometimes dodging Upper West Side power-walking mothers and their strollers -- come home, and start making lunch before I would even get up...and he NEVER complained or resented my habits...tell me he isn't an angel!).

Pookie parenthetical completed...the point is that it's 5AM Sunday and I'm ready to revise my schedule (in short-hand that will be meaningless, but you can still read it just for your own confusion and enjoyment):

Sunday, 11 December
*Wake up at 8AM (I AM SO GOING TO DO IT AND POST ON THIS BLOG WHEN I DO!)
*Go to Radio Shack (don't forget to leave money for housekeeper!) to return the $100 universal laptop power source that I bought this morning to replace the one that I lost and then re-gained in the Grand Hyatt Food Court yesterday
*Go to the Syrian embassy and apply for visa (if goes well, go to AUC travel office later for tickets/hotel bookings)
*Go to school to print Rieker articles; read Rieker articles; write Rieker response paper and prepare talking points for meeting
*Moot court meeting @ 2:30
*Rieker meeting @ 4-5
*Go home and nap until 6:30
*Work on comparative con law final from 6:30-8 (this thing is taking FOREVER, but I have to admit that I'm doing a really good job on it...although that makes me sound like an obnoxious chunk, rather than a veiled one!)
*8PM go to Grand Hyatt, have dinner, work more on comparative con law final; gym; finish comparative con law final
*Sleep not at 5AM (maybe like 2 or 3)

Monday, 12 December
*Wake up at 8AM and gloat about how it's the second day in a row on my blog
*Prepare final revisions to Ottoman Yemen paper presented last week; complete reaction paper for final Sedgwick reading
*Sedgwick class @ 4:30PM
*Pick-up loaned insurgency articles from library
*Go home and nap until 6:30
*Email comparative con law class for update on simulation constitution draft
*Go to Grand Hyatt for dinner and review insurgency materials (as late as I can stand it)

Tuesday, 13 December
*Guess what time I'm waking up!? :)
*Continue with insurgency analysis
*Print comparative con law papers/final for class @ 4:30
*Go home and nap until 6:30
*Go to Grand Hyatt for dinner and review insurgency materials (as late as I can stand it)

Wednesday, 14 December
*8AM Encore
*Finalize insurgency materials for presentation @ 4:30 clinical
*DO WHATEVER I WANT (but go to the gym at some point)

Thursday, 15 December - Saturday, 17 December
*Complete Rieker's importing democracy paper for presentation on Sunday

Sunday, 18 December
*Complete and present importing democracy paper @ 4:30
*Work-out, eat, and review theoretical framework for book-banning paper

Monday, 19 December - Thursday, 22 December
*Complete book-banning paper for submission on the 22nd
*Relax, email, maybe see Flightplan again :)

Friday, 23 December
*Leave for Christmas and New Year in Syria (insha'allah)

VC

PS: Wrote this at 5AM and the spell check only revealed 2 errors. Go spelling-bee chunk!

VC Apologies & Update

Sorry for not posting AT ALL, lately, but I'm in my last 2 weeks of coursework for my MA (after which point a period of miraculous Arabic study will begin, the academic stuff behind me).

This is not a real post, but just a "what I'm doing and why I'm not replying to anyone's emails or updating my blog" note. By the way, I know it's selfish, but PLEASE keep emailing me. I love reading your emails even though I haven't been replying. They keep me sane (or something close).

My tomorrow (I should say: "my 2.5 hours from now" since that's when I'm waking up...it's 5:30AM):

FRIDAY, 9 December 2005

8:00AM – 12noon = Complete Part One of Comparative Con Law/Human Rights final, and begin Part Two

12noon – 12:30PM = Relax

12:30PM – 4PM = Book-banning paper Part One of Three

4PM – 5PM = Relax

5PM – 6PM = Nap

6PM – 8PM = Gym

8PM – 12midnight = Complete Part Two of Comparative Con/Law Human Rights final

12midnight – 3AM = Book-banning paper Part Two of Three


Final Coursework
* Comparative Con Law/Human Rights Final (Tuesday, 13 DEC)
* Book-banning Paper (ASAP)
* Ottoman Yemen Paper (Monday, 12 DEC)
* Analysis of Insurgents under International Humanitarian Law (Wednesday, 14 DEC)
* Importing Democracy Paper (Sunday, 18 DEC)

Pre-Finals Coursework
* Seminar response paper (Sunday, 11 DEC)
* Ottoman response paper (Monday, 12 DEC)

Other Responsibilities
* Register for Winter Arabic
* Re-schedule Comprehensive Examinations for Spring
* Moot Court meeting (Sunday, 11 DEC @ 2:30PM)
* Fellow’s meeting (Sunday, 18 DEC)
* Conference update/email for students
* Followup on honours proposal
* Survey draft
* Apply for Syrian visa
* Register for Spring (get proof of payment, insurance card, visa update)

Life
* Email severely-neglected friends

VC