This place is absolutely huge.
I would think that you could put about 10 of my old colleges in Dubai into the campus here and still have room. The buildings are huge as well. When you look at the pictures I have linked at the bottom of this sort of blog, If you have ever seen any video/film/movie that shows the size of the buildings at the Kennedy Space Center where they launch shuttle craft etc, you will get an idea of the shear mass of these buildings.
I will be working more with Blackboard than working with classroom setups and the AV systems although the teacher experience is where the managers seem to be focusing their energy right now. This is day two of teaching at the uni today and like any place there are problems.
We are working with MacBook Pros as our laptops and most of us are using Windows on the laptop but we can not control if the Mac OS or Windows will be used by the teachers. We are also just starting with BB V 9. I did not even know that it existed until I got here! So, they have had it set up by someone who has no prior experience with BB and I am now going to take a look at what the thing looks like. The whole place is flying blind and addressing problems as they come up. I would expect that this will be the norm for a while here. It is exciting and makes for an interesting day.
I found out that this university has a dedicated 10 Gig fiber optic cable that runs under the sea from this uni to the Netherlands! This institution has more data transmission dedicated to pure research computation capacity than the whole country put together. The $ here is bottomless too it seems. We have huge plasma TV in each teaching room and most have more than 2 which one is a touch sensitive and some have up to 8 video projectors or more. Each room has one of those object projectors as well and wall control touch pads for controlling everything in the room. BUT... we are still having difficulty with the simplest of things -- cable connections! and wiring. Like most new designers, the teacher was not considered when the classrooms were designed so there needs to be alterations made.
And finally, the grand opening will happen after Ramadan is done and they are building a large structure (to be demolished after the opening) and event and the budget is topping $60 million for the one night.
Living.... is not too tough right now
The cost of living here right now is not too painful as the food is free at the hotel as I wait for my house and also free throughout the campus. Free food is rather distracting and living in a hotel does not offer much opportunity for learning how to cook which is one of my goals while living in Saudi.
I got my Mac computer today and I will be running Windows on it so it will be much like just an ordinary laptop but the keyboard is for a Mac so it is providing a bit of a pain as the keys other than the alphabet are different locations and have different symbols. The mouse pad is awful as it does not have buttons but you need to do some sort of two finger tap to get a menu and I have not figured out how to click and drag yet. I need a mouse and external keyboard but they do not have any at the uni right now. To get them, they need to be ordered into the country. So, special things take a while to arrive like you can imagine.
Day Two: Meeting folk around campus
Over the past two days I have had the opportunity to get out in a professional capacity and recreationally (during meals) and meet some of the other people at the university. Other than those who I work with who are in the IT department, I have met people of diverse professions as: geologic seismic wave researchers who intend to develop simulations and models of seismic wave activity in different kinds of rock strata, genome researchers studying bacteria in the Red Sea, and other geneticists. From now on, I intend to keep a running list of the different kinds of things that people are here doing. I think it will be very fascinating!
The bus
On the way to work today I observed the typical traffic light scenario. Our bus came up on a light that had just turned yellow and to my amazement, he stopped – just short of the line where the lights were (these were normal overhead traffic intersection lights). Shortly after, a SUV cut around to the right of us and drove out into the center of the intersection and did a U-ee to go back on the other side of the divided road. This gave other cars the idea that there was possibly some room in front of us. Not a minute passed and there were about 6 cars packed in front of us lined up side to side ready to race across the intersection when the light turned. I feel that people see the lane lines as suggestions rather than rules of the road. Often there are 5 vehicles side by side in a 3 lane road. Not many race, but people are moving back and forth in abandon as they jockey around the slow moving ones while flashing their lights like strobe lights and hooting their horns as they pass. The place is not as bad as India, but definitely a notch below Dubai traffic behavior. Often we are cut off as a car dodges from two lanes to our left across our front and exits just in time to catch an off ramp.
Security Measures
During my walks around the neighborhood as I go out trying to get a grasp of the store timings during Ramadan (there are none! Might as well just shut up shop and come back a month later…) I walk by concrete barriers around our Hotel (the Crowne Plaza Jeddah and I understand all other hotels where foreigners stay). These are heavier then the normal you see between highway lanes and are pained yellow and black stripes. They are set away from the hotel and are laid out in a staggered way as to make cars have to zig zag and really slow speeds to get around and through them. I take it that they are there to stop a vehicle intent on crashing into the hotel with explosives inside. Each hotel has rather heavy security as well, with gates at front, guards around and metal detectors to walk through upon entering (which seem to be off most of the time). For me, I do not feel threatened or uneasy in any way walking around and doing a bit of shopping in the area as I always walk with purpose and do not gawk too much. 8-)
I found out today the person to contact about sports at the university. I understand that the reef natural protection park area in front of the university will only be in a few small areas to protect specific coral reefs. This will leave me with places to go fishing. Also, there will be designated areas for spear fishing while snorkeling. I am going to approach them about setting up a dragon boat team as part of the residential area of the university called the “Island” is separated from the main university area by a manmade river/moat.
Talking about the Island residential area, I found out that our new house will be on the Island. The area has periphery housing all around the edges and then some rings of houses on the inside surrounding a green area with soccer pitches etc. Our house will be on the university side of this green belt close to the moat.
I have taken some images of the inside of one of the houses – I understand that the are all mostly the same but for some having more rooms than others and the outside and configuration being different.
A bunch of other guys and I went to view this person’s house – he was to meet someone and get a tour but they did not show up. So we walked around the house and found a window open and one of the guys climbed inside and then went and opened the front door for us to walk around. I had missed the last bus leaving the college that evening so had found these guys who were willing to give me a lift home, but after they had viewed this house. After, we went out for dinner and we went to Quiznos – all for free! Since all food is for free on campus for the next month or so. Even though the campus is just starting up, there are still about 5 small restaurants open.
I will put up some photos on a web site with captions. If all you see for captions right now are the image names, please forgive me as I have little time when I get back from work after the 1.5 hour drive and waiting for the fast to end and then eating dinner and visiting and all the things that happen at the sort of festive time of end of day here…. As well, please forgive the quick ‘instamatic-like’ feel to the photos as I have been using my small digital camera as I want to just have something in hand as I walk around and it fits in my pocket. I will keep putting up images on the site over the next few weeks. I hope to send out a blog of sorts like this now and then – especially while things are new and exciting. 8-) http://www.pbase.com/pinicola/saudiarabia
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