Turn of Another Year

Christmas and New Years in KSA

What can I say?.... nothing!  When I signed up for the job I had looked at the University calendar and others have commented the same, that we asked if indeed we get Christmas holidays.  The answer was yes, there was a Christmas break.  Well, I guess you can take this answer a number of ways.  Since I have lived in the Middle East before, I was a bit shocked with the answer.  In the UAE, we did not get a Christmas holiday but we did get a New Years day, day off.  When I got here, I noticed that the official calendar did not have any breaks between Eid (end of November 2009) and September 11^th of 2010!  I then looked at the academic calendar and realized that what I was told was ‘half true,’ yes, there was a break over Christmas and New Years but only for students (teachers can choose to take some of their yearly leave at this time and I guess I could as well if I wanted to), but there is no ‘stat holiday’ as they say in Canada.

So, again, how was my Christmas and New Year? 

For Christmas I planned on having Arindam and family over for a BBQ with my new grill but it turned out that I ended up over at their place for a BBQ on their new one.  It was a good day; I got up late and went to bed early.  In the middle of the day, I was feeling creative, and baked three dozen peanut butter cookies to take over for dinner.  I have learned that Donna has taught me well – always bring a gift when going out for a special evening.  8-)

Monday the 28^th was no special day, but it was the first time I have bowled in years.  KAUST has an eight-lane 10-pin bowling alley with some fancy electronics.  You have to type in your name on the control panel at each seating area to start the game, and then the large plasma displays, above these areas, animate each of the turn’s results, measuring the speed of the ball, the direction and suggesting how the next throw should be aimed.  Arindam and I were well matched although I did use the gutter-rails a few times as bumpers (they were pulled up for Arindam’s 5 year old son who was our Third).  New career?  Maybe not!

December 31^st was a pleasant day – my birthday.  I received so many birthday wishes on Face Book.  I wonder how many were auto-prompted.  But then again, I am sure they were all genuine! 

The same day, I carried on a tradition of sorts that lasted for 5 years when I was in high school in Kenya – just a mere 31 years ago.  Yikes!  Our family would go down to the coast and go deep sea fishing on my birthday.  I like to brag that I once caught a 236 lb. Black Marlin.  This time around, I brought my fishing gear as well, but never even had a bite.  I guess good snorkeling locations do not make for good fishing spots.  And the snorkeling WAS good!  On the way out to our anchor location I received a phone call from Donna wishing me a happy birthday. Later in the evening I found myself over at a friend's home with about 20 other people to greet the new year's arrival.

The post works here. 

My first bit of mail I have received here in Saudi Arabia was a Christmas card from my Aunt Jessie and Uncle John in BC.   I had to smile because if this letter could get to me anything will be able to.  The envelope was embossed with a large ‘Merry Christmas’ in gold lettering running vertically with my name in nice green font and address in black, below a short line with gold star.  Three days later I checked my mail box again and what did I find, but my Christmas gift from Donna and the kids.  Marlene, your Christmas cake is as fresh as the day you baked it and has traveled to the further reaches of the globe, sitting in my fridge, partly eaten.  What a wonderful piece of Canada.  Thank you so much, all involved.

Packed in the gift box was a beautiful hand made card from Donna which is sitting on my table beside Jessie and John’s and on my fridge door is a foolscap piece of school-binder paper from Aven with a whole lot of GOOD MORNING and BE HAPPY messages on it – with instructions to put it on my fridge door so that I can see it each morning.  8-)  And there it is, even now.

Vis Lab

Every Sunday between 1 and 2 in the after noon the Visualization Lab on campus has an open-house where anyone interested in seeing demonstrations of how measurements can be turned into visual representations can drop in.  I have described this facility in a few of my previous blog postings.  This time, I wanted to see it all (but found out that the best part, the Cave was not working that day so will go back again another time).  I did get to see a number of large display screens used where images can be spun, rotated and enlarged.  On one, millions of measurements of a human brain were taken with cat-scan technology and water movement pathways in the human brain (not blood movement but water movement) plotted.  These measurements were then turned into a sort of colored wire diagram in 3D so that each pathway is a special color.  This made up a bird-nest kind of visual object.  But when zoomed in, each of the bird nest twigs were color coded and bunched in groups and you could see where water movement came and went from each of the lobes of the brain.  This diagram could be spun around and enlarged so large that the visual aspect of it was like we were right inside the center of the brain looking out. 

Another visualization tool is to use glasses to enhance the 3D experience.  We were shown a set of plasma screens in the shape of a half cut-away ball.  We stood around the outside of the cut-away side and looked at the inside of the ball which were TV screens pointing inward.  This semi-circle effect enhanced the 3D.  This unit was not as good as the ‘Cave’ is said to be.  I am placing a You Tube video of someone demonstrating their archeological research in the Cave here.  The best part of the video is towards the end of it.  Keep in mind that this whole demonstration has been built from measurements at the archeological dig-sites.

Trying to get out and around

 I am slowly getting connected to the community as I have discovered a few websites being run by community members attempting to build community here on campus.  These sites will help me to start promoting the idea of a dragon boat club.  I need 15 founding people interested enough to sign a paper expressing their interest in being involved.  From there, I gather a few dedicated folks who would be willing to have organizational meetings and then put forward the proposal of the group.  Once that is done, we wait to see if KAUST will support the group and get boats, equipment and a trainer.  Then it is onward and upwards. 

I have been going out for walks in the evening but I'm finding that I feel safer walking on the roads than I do on the sidewalks.   The housing blocks are built too large for their plots causing them to flow out onto the sidewalks, which pushes the walker off into the gravel verge.  Hydrants sit smack-dab in the middle of the pathway, streetlights are right where the paths should exit at street corners, holes have been left open without signs, and sprinkled here and there is the odd metal or plastic pipe erupting out of the concrete path. Oh, and the single-car driveways often have two cars parked end to end or (on) parking pads that are too short for vehicles which forces the walker out onto the street anyway. So you can now officially call me a street-walker and I will not bat an eye.