Albuquerque - Day 3

Hippie Town (Madrid) on the way to Santa Fe

Nedra Matteucci Galleries - Santa Fe

Sculpture Garden at Nedra

Lunch at Santa Fe

Loretto Chapel - Santa Fe

And thats all for today :)

Albuquerque, 10 February, 10:12 pm

Albuquerque - Day 2

Touring the city in the morning, my camera captured the following:

Casino in the middle of the desert. This is no Vegas, folks.

Winery: I was tempted to bring in a bottle of chocolate sauce with a hint of Cabernet. Would go perfectly well over some ice-cream or pie, or even as pancake syrup.

Statue at Botanic Gardens and Aquarium

Movie of the day: Brokeback Mountain. Wonderful story. Very much worth watching. Don't think they'd show it in Kuwait but oh well, long live piracy :)

Albuquerque, 9 February, 10:37 pm

Albuquerque - Day 1

After a restless night in bed, I finally woke up and headed to register and collect conference material. Around 12, and after chatting with this and that, my stomache started to protest, reminding me that I have been neglectig her (or is it him?) for the last 21 hours. Happily, I followed my stomache to a cafe where she ordered me soup and sandwich. We were both happy and decided to take a nap after such a satisfying meal to make up for last night's restlessness.

Alas, the nap lasted longer than expected and by the time I was up I could only catch the last session of the day, one against Spivak's Subaltern*. No harm done. I can still enjoy the rest of the night, maybe catch a movie. When lo and behold, here I am acting the role of the speaking subaltern as soon as I open my mouth with the words: 'Kuwait, I teach at Kuwait University.' Question upon question came tumbling on my head: do you wear burga' at home? do you date? do you have alcohol? do you eat meat? do you breathe? do you sleep? do Kuwaitis have 2 ears, 2 eyes like us Westerners? I submitted to these questions, like I usually do, by telling them 'No, No bother at all, ask away'.

When the subaltern in me satisfied herself by speaking, I decided to shut her up by taking her to a good-old American thriller. I mean heck, we Kuwaitis can watch thriller too, can't we?

I wasn't thrilled, neither was my muted subaltern, nor my grumpy stomache. Other than a beautiful house, the movie** had nothing. Why is it that thrillers always come with a beautiful house? Are we not to fear and pity those who live in projects? Such an Aristotelian mentality***!!

On the way back to the hotel, a mere 5 minute walk I spotted this and the blogger in me said: 'hold on here, let me entertain my blogging community with the first picture of Albuquerque downtown' I indulged, here's the result:

Church at 3rd and Tijeras.

And now me, stomache, subaltern, blogger and all are tucked in bed hoping to catch more sessions tomorrow.

*Spivak's "Can the Subaltern Speak" basically argues that no, she/he cannot speak, since speech utilizes the hegemonic colonial discourse which makes them speechless to begin with. So by speaking the language of the west, we become Westerners and thus our words are not those of the subaltern anymore.

**Movie: When A Stranger Calls.

***Aristotle tells us that the best tragedies are those with noble heros.

Albuquerque, 9 February, 1:19 am

Leaving on a Jet Plane

Leaving to Albuquerque, New Mexico this Tuesday. It's gonna be one hell of a trip. 3 flights, a total of 21 hours to get there. I hope Panadol night does the trick and puts me to sleep for at least 6 hours of my 9 hour Frankfurt/Chicago flight. Of course knowing me, the thing that is most likely to keep me up is my getting really really cold in those damned airplanes. Stacking up on layers of clothing won't help either, it'd only make me uncomfortable.

Now enough whining. I plan to spend a full day and night in London on the way back, so should be arriving home totally rejuvenated. I hope :/

San Felipe de Neri, Albuquerque.

Westminster Abbey, London.

My Multicultural Breakfast

picture's ugly but have to rush so don't have time to edit:)

Items on my breakfast table:

French white cheese
Kuwaiti milk
Swiss via Turkish chocolate powder
Danish butter
German Philadelphia cheese
American honey
Australian Kraft cheese

روضة بلقيس

You know you're old when you KG report turns yellow :)

Deciding to finally make some sense out of the mess I call my den, I came across this interesting piece of evidence.


I don't exactly know why I chose to remove the rest of my name. I'm probably still pretending that my blog identity is still a mystery :)

Kuwait's emir has died

Kuwait's emir, Sheikh Jaber al-Ahmad al-Sabah, has died at the age of 77, state television reported on Sunday.
The announcement was made in a statement from the royal court carried by the television in the tiny Gulf state, a key U.S. ally and OPEC member.
The emir, who suffered a brain hemorrhage in 2001, was the 13th ruler of a 245-year-old dynasty which has ruled Kuwait since the Anaiza tribe, to which the al-Sabahs belonged, migrated from the Arabian hinterland.
Since the fall of Saddam Hussein in neighboring Iraq in 2003 and U.S. calls for change in the Middle East, the ruling family had come under intense pressure from both Islamists and pro-Western liberals to loosen its grip on the government and share power.
Kuwait, a founder OPEC member, enjoys one of the world's highest standards of living, despite its reliance on oil exports, unpredictable oil income and huge losses from the 1990-1991 Iraq occupation.
The Gulf state sits on one tenth of the world's crude oil reserves, or 95 billion barrels.
Used as the main launchpad for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Kuwait hosts up to 30,000 U.S. troops and some 13,000 U.S. citizens live in the country.
Kuwait, which a population of about 2.2 million, has cracked down on Islamists opposing the U.S. military presence there. Diplomats say radical Islam is taking hold among Kuwaiti youth.
In December, a Kuwaiti court sentenced to death six suspected militants linked to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda for bloody attacks in the country.
The six were among 37 Islamists on trial as members of the "Peninsula Lions" group believed to be linked to al Qaeda in Iraq and Saudi Arabia.

Yahoo New

The Perfect Dress

Jennifer's wedding day was fast approaching. Nothing could dampen her excitement - not even her parents' nasty divorce. Her mother had found the PERFECT dress to wear and would be the best dressed mother-of-the-bride ever!

A week later, Jennifer was horrified to learn that her father's new young wife had bought the exact same dress! Jennifer asked her to exchange it, but she refused.

"Absolutely not. I look like a million bucks in this dress, and I'm wearing it," she replied.
Jennifer told her mother who graciously said, "Never mind sweetheart. I'll get another dress. After all, it's your special day."

A few days later, they went shopping and did find another gorgeous dress. When they stopped for lunch, Jennifer asked her mother, "Aren't you going to return the other dress? You really don't have another occasion where you could wear it."

Her mother just smiled and replied, "Of course I do, dear. I'm wearing itto the rehearsal dinner the night before the wedding!"


just something to keep my avid fans busy while I continue playing with my template.

Thanks to Shuroq's "try Wordpress, they say it has good templates" and Jackie's "need any help with templates I can hook you up with a few websites with nice templates," I am now addicted to the maze they call html :)

Fun with Template

I'll be working on my template for the next few days, trying out new things, so bare with me.

I leave you to rest here in the meantime:

I wanted this as my background. If only I can remove the dog it'd be perfect.

I hate sending such emails :(

I think you plagiarized your paper. I'll give you your two options:
1) Admit plagiarism. Earn an FA for this course. Case closed.
2) Deny plagiarism. We sit together and you convince me that you actually wrote it. Bare in mind that once you deny plagiarism but I actually prove you wrong, an FA is no longer the only result. If we discuss the paper and you fail to prove it to be yours, I report you to the dean and you suffer the consequences, which might entail your failure in the whole term.

Let me know what action you want to take.

Happy New Year

Last day of class today. A visit to Kaifan to collect mail and students’ paper (and apparently to argue with students about their grades not being well-deserved – their argument: they deserve more; my argument: they deserve less :)

I choose a marag 3adas lunch over going out in order to be faithful to my New Year Resolution to watch my expenditures. Ha-ha. I find myself laughing as I write this. Let’s see how long that lasts.

So now, 17 papers to correct, probably in a second or third version (when even really interesting papers lose their spark), and 10 more papers to correct for the first time, which means I have to struggle with sentence structure and language before I can even attempt to understand the thesis.
Wish me luck.

I’m not liking this coming Eid: two best friends are going away, one on vacation, another for a longer period. I’ll miss them tremendously. Two brothers also leaving with their wives so their kid will spend the vacation at their in-laws, making for a really quiet house at my mom’s.

I used to like Kuwait University

After finding this in my mailbox yesterday I came to accept that this is how things are. Whether I like it or not, our esteemed colleagues/administrators seem to think that it is the business of an academic institution to instill religious beliefs into its students. We might as well shut down the faculty of arts and transfer our students to Sharee3a.

Am I to expect a dress code soon? And will that apply to students only or does it also cover teachers?

And on a separate but related note: دعاء الركوب? Am I still at Kuwait University or is it now some religious institution? A colleague of mine was enraged because I asked my colleagues to consider the implications of these ads by leaving a note in their mailboxes. His/her argument was that I was thrusting my beliefs on them. Isn't the university administration thrusting its beliefs on students when it starts circulating religious messages in any form or shape? It's a university for god's sake, a place of learning. Can't we keep it as just that?
I have a big issue with calling our ministry of education وزارة التربية والتعليم, I don't accept strangers to be in charge of my children's 'tarbiya.'

The Fog

DONT WASTE YOUR TIME!
We didn't even have nachos or popcorn to distract us. I should've gone to see Ornina. The 3 hours spent on King Kong were much more worthy.

Saddam's trial is becoming quite a show. Funny in the beginning but getting on my nerves now. Get it done with already.

Our departmental lunch went well last Wednesday. But maybe not for the waiters at Biella. The poor souls, their service is already bad as it is, imagine having to serve a table of 6, no 10, no 24 who first asked for separate checks (you're joking ma'am, right?) then took over an hour to decide what to order. Of course yours truly totally forgot about that lunch and had lunch with her family at 2 only to have a colleague call and remind her of the department lunch at which time she helped herself with more lunch :)

So what's new in the blog world? I haven't been very blog-friendly lately. What did I miss?

Scars ... grudges ... and chicken

How long does it take for the scars of abuse to disappear? Do they ever go away? Whether it is child abuse, spouse abuse, or even strangers’ abuse, being in an abusive relation or witnessing abusive relationships seem to leave a permanent scar even if that scar is only obvious in one’s lack of inner strength, strength that usually enables us to deal with our shortcomings once we know their roots. Someone dear to me once told me I’m an adult now and should stop using childhood trauma (the term might be an exaggeration here) to justify my adult weaknesses. That person must have a deep reservoir of inner strength. I’m glad they do. But I don’t.

I am one to hold grudges. Even when I try not to, I can’t seem to help it. I have a really bad memory but when someone hurts me I can’t seem to forget. Maybe I forgive, but I almost never forget. Could that be why I don’t remember much from my childhood other than the times I was hurt? My only memory of the book fair that is held in Kuwait every year, and that I am sure was a yearly pilgrimage of my family, is of a dirty old man harassing me. I was fourteen back in the days when fourteen year old girls were actually girls. Or maybe I was just too buried in my sleazy romance novels to notice my bodily desires :). Up to this day I do not enjoy a trip to the book fair as much as I would want to. I even remember what I was wearing that day. Me. The one who wouldn’t remember what she ate for lunch yesterday or what she was wearing for work this morning.

People who lose their temper scare me. They actually scare me no matter how big or small they are. They scare me even when I know they have no intention of harming me. They scare me even when I know they can't hurt me. They scare me simply by heading towards me while they're angry. It's an instant irrational flash of fear that is/can not be explained or even contemplated. A very short glipse into darkness that is quickly chased away by my rationality. But chased away or not, it existed. For that blink of an eye it existed. Before my mind could register it my feelings took hold of it.
How chicken am I?

No Comment

I am a [female] university student ...

and my appearance suits my university.

I learn ... I discuss ... I debate
We compete in loving our university

No Comment. Hell. Please Comment. Please help me understand. Please tell me I don't work for this institution.

Both posters are displayed in Kaifan (داخل الحرم الجامعي)

Thank you cameraman N.M.

مهرجان القرين الثقافي

Last night (Thursday night) I went to Mishrif for a night of music with Ssassa, an Oriental Gypsy band. I haven't been going to many cultural events lately and I thought it's time to get back in the game (Going to Movie Week at Kaifan doesn't count). The music was so lively that it was hard to resist the urge to dance at times. A lebanese friend who was in our group was tempted to get up and do her share of dapka on those tunes. It was an extremely festive mixture of Greek, Turkish, Kosovan, and Macedonian tunes.



I don't know how many more of these qurain events I would want to attent though. I didn't check all their schedule yet.


On a separate note, did winter cancel on us this year or what?

The Hour of Demonic Possession

So according to this movie, 3 o'clock is the hour of demonic possession as it is the demons' way of mocking the holy trinity. I wonder what our Muslim hour of demonic possession.

Not a bad movie. I expected court scenes mostly but it turns out to be a jumpy movie at times.



A group of viewers arrived 5 minutes into the movie, talking in their loudest voices, laughing and edging themselves in the seats behind us. Now their loud entrace I might have excused if they didn't also happen to be carrying a bag full of popcorns and chocolates and dragging that bag on our heads as they eased their bulky selves into their seats. OK so the girl wasn't realy fat, just big, but she really needs to learn to check her surroundings when she walks. I wonder what kind of driver she would make. And then half way into the movie (or is it at the end? I don't remember) another member of that loud group got up to probably restock on food and this time it was her bag that whacked our heads as she left.

Going out for lunch now so will cut this short.

Nice Weather Today

Amazing weather today. Took my class out again where we talked about Coleridge and Opium. (I hope no one starts having ideas)

Scattered my second grass on the lawn in Kaifan (yes we have one). One group sat on the floor and I was tempted to spend more time with them than with the other groups. That group of 5(my limit to group work) increased to 7 members, tempted by their picnic style lesson (I told them all we need now is wine and cheese, but then suggested Vimto to preserve our traditional values)

(Another Lawn. Another Place. Far Far Far Away From Kaifan)

There was a stray kitten in front of our department and I was tempted to bring it some milk. It was greatly enjoying the weather while spoiling itself on the welcoming rugs they seem to spread ourside our building whenever we have a certain function. (Could it be their idea of a welcoming red carpet? But it's 3 big 3x5 rugs??)

تلفون خربان

Why do government employees lack the simplest levels of customer service?
Why do they assume that customers have nothing to do other than wait for them while they chat with this and that?
Why do men have a problem looking at you when you talk? And I'm not talking about those so-called religious le7ya dudes. This guy had no trouble blabbing away with his female colleagues.

I went to Surra (phone company? what do you call those places?) to get some things done and the woman servicing me didn't know what to do so she had to ask this man who appeared to be her superior. He was chatting in his loudest voice with other employees so stepped forward to quickly answer her questions then went back to his yapping. When I addressed him with my question he seemed to look right through me. Am I invisible? The woman asked him another question, and again he gave her a quick answer and moved on without waiting to see if she got it (she didn't). Why can't those people be a little more professional?


Lunch today was a three piece meal of dark chocolate shot for appetizer, fondu for the main dish, and dark chocolate truffle for desserts. You think I overdid it?

And Now I sleep.

Marooned in Iraq

Optimistic in its ending, as seen in the continuation of life through Hanareh's daughter, the film is an extremely somber type of dark comedy. The devastation of life that is evident throughout Mirza's journey, though presented lightly, gives a heartbreaking image of the life of Kurds both in Iran and Iraq.

Mirza sets out with his two sons in search of his ex-wife who sent for his help. Moving from one village to another, we become witness, through the eyes of Mirza and sons, to the degrading life suffered by those villagers. As the trio move into Iraqi borders, this poverty is made the more harsh by Saddam's constant bombing of Kurds, intensifying in the end when we hear of Hanareh's exposure to chemical weapons and the effects they had on her face and voice.

The education of children, within these harsh circumstances, is noticable in this movie. In the first 'school' scene, the student are hidden inside what seems to be an upside down crate (thought my eyes might be deceiving me). When next we meet a school of students, their lesson is taken outdoors (much like my morning lesson today though with a totally different kind of scenery). This second group of students are orphans who live in a refuge for Irani and Iraqi Kurd orphans, an orphanage quite dismall.

The movie ends in an affirmation of life and a confirmation of the Kurds' resilient nature. Life goes on in the midst of all this poverty and bombing, and the adoption of Hanareh's daugter by Mirza further symbolizes the Kurds full grasp on life.

One of the most beautiful images in the movie is one in which the students, after learning about the two types of planes, throw their paper plane off a cliff, resulting in a shot of so many white kites gliding across the mountain. Breathtaking.

This is by far my favorite movie in film week.