It's been a whirlwind 3 days of having Larry here and I have to say, it's been GREAT to have my two worlds collide (Lar and Eric are out picking up Applebee's takeaway together while I "pack," in fact) and have such important people in my life meet each other.
Tomorrow morning Lar and I are off to Jordan, and from there on out it's anyone's guess. Tentative itinerary/chronology is: Amman, Petra, Jericho, Ramallah, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, Nazareth, Galilee, Jaffa, Eilat, Mount Sinai, Sharm Al Sheikh - although that is, of course, entirely subject to change at the discretion of border patrols/security situations/personal whim.
I am sure it's going to be a wonderful, epic, amazing trip, and I will try to blog a bit from the road - although Lar gets fussy when I spend more than 10 minutes in an internet cafe, so we'll see. Barring that, we're back in Dubai on 2 August provided neither of us comes down with Jerusalem syndrome, which - let's be honest - is not entirely improbable.
Peace/shalom/salaam!
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Monday, July 21, 2008
Another Day, Another Bullish NYT Article on Dubai
Check it out. (Thanks, Dad.)
The cool thing is that the building they're talking about, the Dubai International Financial Centre, houses my new office. ;) So now you can picture me trotting my way through The Gate and into consulting stardom. Oh, and my best friend Mar lives in the elaborate blue building on the far right side of the photo, and I live directly across the street (not pictured). I love it when my neighborhood digs are plastered all over a newspaper 7,000 miles away - makes the world feel weirdly small.
LARRY COMES TONIGHT!
The cool thing is that the building they're talking about, the Dubai International Financial Centre, houses my new office. ;) So now you can picture me trotting my way through The Gate and into consulting stardom. Oh, and my best friend Mar lives in the elaborate blue building on the far right side of the photo, and I live directly across the street (not pictured). I love it when my neighborhood digs are plastered all over a newspaper 7,000 miles away - makes the world feel weirdly small.
LARRY COMES TONIGHT!
Sunday, July 20, 2008
21 Countries, 6 Years, 2 Monkeys, 1 Goal
(The goal, obviously, is to elicit the question "Who does that?" - I would have used a colon or perhaps a hyphen for the sake of clarity, but I was not in charge of t-shirt design for this trip. Ahem.)
Larry touches down at 10:45 PM tomorrow and I am peeing my pants with excitement to see his cute little all-American face pop out amongst the Pakistanis at the DXB arrivals hall. We're here for 3 days, during which time my mission is to make him not hate Dubai (a sizable task, given he is more predisposed to rail against the city's fakeness/plasticity/egregiousness than anyone besides maybe my mom). Then on Friday morning we fly out to Amman for 9 days in Jordan, the West Bank, Israel, and Egypt (with a long enough layover in Kuwait on the way back that we can leave the airport and count it as a country visited together, as per the t-shirt specifications).
I cannot even begin to imagine how great the trip is going to be, and I feel like some history-heavy, spirituality-pondering time in the Holy Land with the wholesome goodness of L.Soch is exactly what I need given recent partying/drama-mongering/man-obsessing. (Although I'm sure there will be some crazy nights out in Tel Aviv and Sharm Al Sheikh.)In other news, I am really intrigued by the French government's decision to deny citizenship to this woman because she wears niqab. I am actually totally unable to decide how I feel about it. On one hand, it completely goes against freedom of expression/religion, and it seems to be an arbitrary line - what's next, denying citizenship to Muslims who don't drink wine based on the same argument (that they haven't "sufficiently assimilated" to French culture)? On the other hand - especially living in the region where the niqab originated, and where 20-30% of local women still wear it - I am so viscerally opposed to the practice of wearing niqab that I almost want to go ahead and agree with the decision simply because it feels right.
Sigh. Is it time to leave work yet??!
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
A Long Time Coming
A momentous, momentous day has arrived. Yesterday I submitted my resignation from my current job, and today I formally accepted the offer with the consulting firm I've been considering. I have to say, it feels GREAT... I'll start on 20 August, just in time to get staffed and settled in on a case before Ramadan starts at the beginning of September. (Hopefully not a case in Saudi given that Ramadan there - to put it nicely - would BLOW.)
My last day at the old job is 14 August, so I'm already scheming about what I can do with 6 days of free time... I'm flirting with the idea of America but it's a long schlep to make if I want to start fresh at the new job, and if E is free I think the lure of this trip to Eritrea we've been talking about for ages might prove too tempting to deny. Anyone else have suggestions and/or want to travel with me???
Beirut last weekend was also a long time coming, and also GREAT. Much like Carrie looking at the perfect apartment mysteriously vacated by divorcees in the SATC movie, I found myself wondering: if you live here - in a city this beautiful, this vibrant, this blessed by nature and history - what is there to fight about?! (And then, like Carrie discovering the small closet, I remembered: Israel.) It definitely lived up to the hype and I can't wait to go back and see more of Lebanon. It was also great to see Bubba in the latest installment of the "Travels Around the Middle East with My Freshman-Year Floormates (And Other Things That Would Have Seemed Unlikely in 1999)" world tour.
What is not GREAT is my hangover right now. The crew from Kabul flew into town last night for a couple days of R&R in Dubai, so we hosted an epic dinner party for them which produced several interesting developments, including -
(1) Me & E finding out that our friend Farhad is a member of Afghanistan's former royal family
(2) Me & E learning that - unbeknownst to us! - Farhad had hired armed guards to follow us around the entire time we were in Kabul (in Farhad's words, "I can't believe you're shocked! Did you think it was just COINCIDENCE that you didn't get kidnapped?!")
Off to get my highlights done - let the last month of "work" begin!
My last day at the old job is 14 August, so I'm already scheming about what I can do with 6 days of free time... I'm flirting with the idea of America but it's a long schlep to make if I want to start fresh at the new job, and if E is free I think the lure of this trip to Eritrea we've been talking about for ages might prove too tempting to deny. Anyone else have suggestions and/or want to travel with me???
Beirut last weekend was also a long time coming, and also GREAT. Much like Carrie looking at the perfect apartment mysteriously vacated by divorcees in the SATC movie, I found myself wondering: if you live here - in a city this beautiful, this vibrant, this blessed by nature and history - what is there to fight about?! (And then, like Carrie discovering the small closet, I remembered: Israel.) It definitely lived up to the hype and I can't wait to go back and see more of Lebanon. It was also great to see Bubba in the latest installment of the "Travels Around the Middle East with My Freshman-Year Floormates (And Other Things That Would Have Seemed Unlikely in 1999)" world tour.
What is not GREAT is my hangover right now. The crew from Kabul flew into town last night for a couple days of R&R in Dubai, so we hosted an epic dinner party for them which produced several interesting developments, including -
(1) Me & E finding out that our friend Farhad is a member of Afghanistan's former royal family
(2) Me & E learning that - unbeknownst to us! - Farhad had hired armed guards to follow us around the entire time we were in Kabul (in Farhad's words, "I can't believe you're shocked! Did you think it was just COINCIDENCE that you didn't get kidnapped?!")
Off to get my highlights done - let the last month of "work" begin!
Thursday, July 10, 2008
A Year [Sappiness Alert!] in the Life
One year ago today, I arrived in Dubai.
With four orange suitcases in tow, I walked out of the airport, through the heavy, palpable 11 PM July heat and into the black Escalade that was waiting to take me to my swank 5-star hotel - the hollow trappings of an arrival that left me laying awake in bed all night, heart racing, teary-eyed looking at pictures of my dog, petrified about what I had gotten myself into and why I thought it was a good idea to move here and feeling more alone than I have ever felt in my life. The only thing that got me through that night - sleepless though it was - was to keep reminding myself that no matter what, I could always burn my bridges, hop a taxi back to the airport the next day (or any day thereafter), buy a one-way ticket back home, and let the dust settle from there.
But sure enough, the sun rose on July 11th, the pervasive disorientation of my jet lag began to ease, I dragged myself into the office for my first day at work and before I knew it, well, I was at that elusive point from which you never end up looking back.
So, in the spirit of Lucy's old blog (and my own self-referential tendencies), over the past year...
* * *
I've watched the tallest building in the world sprout its way into the sky, I've watched reclaimed sand in the Gulf take shape as the islands of The World, and I've watched the only historic, character-filled neighborhood in Dubai be systematically razed by the bulldozers of a large government-owned property developer - all from the comfort of my living room window, usually with a glass of wine in hand.
I've come to understand many of this region's peoples and cultures way better than before. I've also started to comprehend the power of racism, segregation, and class hierarchy ways that I never wanted to imagine - often by fighting those forces at play within myself.
I've realized that no matter how much Haifa Wehbe and Nancy Ajram I listen to on the treadmill, I'm never going to be able to move my hips like a Lebanese woman on the dance floor. But I've also realized that the average Lebanese woman is never going to be able to dig her quads into a 5:40 mile. From each according to her ability, that's the great lesson of Dubai.
I've visited new countries (Ethiopia, India, Kuwait, Syria, Afghanistan and - tonight! - Lebanon), old countries (Oman, Germany, and of course the good ol' US of A), and developed a lofty list of must-visits for the next year (Palestine/Israel, Egypt, Qatar, Kurdistan/Iraq, Yemen, Djibouti, Eritrea, Sudan, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, and Iran).
I've paid US income taxes for - hopefully! - the last time in a long, long time.
I've purchased a car for the first time in my life and been irreparably influenced by the ease, convenience, and bliss of at-will automotive transport - and yes, government-subsidized petrol doesn't hurt. I have had one (reportable) accident, blame for which I couldn't flirt my way out of even when the police officer suggested I call someone ("your husband? your brother? your father?") to pick me up at the station and I mustered my best crocodile-tearful response, "I can't, I'm all alone here!" (Didn't work - the accident still went on file as my fault.)
I have adopted more Britishisms - petrol, queue, flat, mobile, lift, chuffed, keen - than I ever did in a year of living in London, and I quite fancy the change in my vocabulary.
I have had my mind blown by the incredible, incomprehensible amounts of wealth here (as I write this, I sit next to a 23 year-old Saudi-Iranian colleague who - depending on her mood for the day - drives her Mercedes G-Wagon, Bentley coupe, or Audi A8L with 6.0L engine to the office ... yes, that's close to a million dollars' worth of cars, not including the posh license plates that add at least another couple hundred thousand dollars to the mix).
I have also had my mind blown by the incredible poverty and exploitation that lives alongside this wealth (Pakistani construction workers coming home from 12-hour shifts working in 100F+ heat to labor camps where the ceiling fans have been removed so they can't use them to hang themselves; beaten, battered Filipina housemaids whose $125/month salary is sent directly to their 3 young children back home, living in windowless maids' rooms which lock only from the outside, not from within).
I've made a great, amazing, surprisingly close group of friends who are truly my family on this side of the world and my roots in a place of constant flux. And I've realized - much to my delight - that in a world of blogging, Facebook, Gchat, international SMS, global interconnectivity, and the occasional late-night $80 phone call (whoops), old friendships persevere and grow even at a distance of 7,000 miles and 8-9 time zones.
I've kept the goal I had when I arrived: use my current job as a vehicle to get to Dubai, make some connections, and then get a better job. But I'm still looking for my calling. (Unless 16-hour workdays and really elaborate .ppt slides are my calling, which... they might be, we'll see.)
I have wanted - several times - to dig a hole in the desert and bury myself in it, having been engrossed in driving/vamping along to my iPod's Miley Cyrus/Hilary Duff teenybopper playlist only to look up and find the eyes of a bus full of laborers (or worse, a Land Cruiser full of Emirati guys) staring down at me, transfixed in wonder and confusion. I now understand how it feels to be a curiosity and a fish out of water.
I've done a marathon, and a half-marathon, and a teeny tiny baby triathlon. But I've also gained 10 pounds thanks to too many lazy Saturdays spent at the pool, indulging in water-bottle gin & tonics and Lebanese takeaway.
I have cursed the traffic, cursed the construction, cursed the locals, cursed the laborers, cursed the heat, cursed the queues, cursed the bureaucracy, cursed the drivers, cursed the malls, cursed the censorship, and cursed myself - at times - for moving here. But I have also come to really love and passionately defend this crazy, chaotic, cosmopolitan city that I now call home, and I've seen my answer to "How long do you plan to stay in Dubai?" evolve from "a year, maybe two" to "for the foreseeable future."
I've learned to appreciate things about my country, about my family and friends, and about the way I grew up that I never would have realized and been grateful for had I not left them behind for, well, the foreseeable future.
* * *
So there you have it, folks - my first year in Dubai. Thanks for reading and - inshallah, y'all! - there will be more adventures to come!
With four orange suitcases in tow, I walked out of the airport, through the heavy, palpable 11 PM July heat and into the black Escalade that was waiting to take me to my swank 5-star hotel - the hollow trappings of an arrival that left me laying awake in bed all night, heart racing, teary-eyed looking at pictures of my dog, petrified about what I had gotten myself into and why I thought it was a good idea to move here and feeling more alone than I have ever felt in my life. The only thing that got me through that night - sleepless though it was - was to keep reminding myself that no matter what, I could always burn my bridges, hop a taxi back to the airport the next day (or any day thereafter), buy a one-way ticket back home, and let the dust settle from there.
But sure enough, the sun rose on July 11th, the pervasive disorientation of my jet lag began to ease, I dragged myself into the office for my first day at work and before I knew it, well, I was at that elusive point from which you never end up looking back.
So, in the spirit of Lucy's old blog (and my own self-referential tendencies), over the past year...
* * *
I've watched the tallest building in the world sprout its way into the sky, I've watched reclaimed sand in the Gulf take shape as the islands of The World, and I've watched the only historic, character-filled neighborhood in Dubai be systematically razed by the bulldozers of a large government-owned property developer - all from the comfort of my living room window, usually with a glass of wine in hand.
I've come to understand many of this region's peoples and cultures way better than before. I've also started to comprehend the power of racism, segregation, and class hierarchy ways that I never wanted to imagine - often by fighting those forces at play within myself.
I've realized that no matter how much Haifa Wehbe and Nancy Ajram I listen to on the treadmill, I'm never going to be able to move my hips like a Lebanese woman on the dance floor. But I've also realized that the average Lebanese woman is never going to be able to dig her quads into a 5:40 mile. From each according to her ability, that's the great lesson of Dubai.
I've visited new countries (Ethiopia, India, Kuwait, Syria, Afghanistan and - tonight! - Lebanon), old countries (Oman, Germany, and of course the good ol' US of A), and developed a lofty list of must-visits for the next year (Palestine/Israel, Egypt, Qatar, Kurdistan/Iraq, Yemen, Djibouti, Eritrea, Sudan, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, and Iran).
I've paid US income taxes for - hopefully! - the last time in a long, long time.
I've purchased a car for the first time in my life and been irreparably influenced by the ease, convenience, and bliss of at-will automotive transport - and yes, government-subsidized petrol doesn't hurt. I have had one (reportable) accident, blame for which I couldn't flirt my way out of even when the police officer suggested I call someone ("your husband? your brother? your father?") to pick me up at the station and I mustered my best crocodile-tearful response, "I can't, I'm all alone here!" (Didn't work - the accident still went on file as my fault.)
I have adopted more Britishisms - petrol, queue, flat, mobile, lift, chuffed, keen - than I ever did in a year of living in London, and I quite fancy the change in my vocabulary.
I have had my mind blown by the incredible, incomprehensible amounts of wealth here (as I write this, I sit next to a 23 year-old Saudi-Iranian colleague who - depending on her mood for the day - drives her Mercedes G-Wagon, Bentley coupe, or Audi A8L with 6.0L engine to the office ... yes, that's close to a million dollars' worth of cars, not including the posh license plates that add at least another couple hundred thousand dollars to the mix).
I have also had my mind blown by the incredible poverty and exploitation that lives alongside this wealth (Pakistani construction workers coming home from 12-hour shifts working in 100F+ heat to labor camps where the ceiling fans have been removed so they can't use them to hang themselves; beaten, battered Filipina housemaids whose $125/month salary is sent directly to their 3 young children back home, living in windowless maids' rooms which lock only from the outside, not from within).
I've made a great, amazing, surprisingly close group of friends who are truly my family on this side of the world and my roots in a place of constant flux. And I've realized - much to my delight - that in a world of blogging, Facebook, Gchat, international SMS, global interconnectivity, and the occasional late-night $80 phone call (whoops), old friendships persevere and grow even at a distance of 7,000 miles and 8-9 time zones.
I've kept the goal I had when I arrived: use my current job as a vehicle to get to Dubai, make some connections, and then get a better job. But I'm still looking for my calling. (Unless 16-hour workdays and really elaborate .ppt slides are my calling, which... they might be, we'll see.)
I have wanted - several times - to dig a hole in the desert and bury myself in it, having been engrossed in driving/vamping along to my iPod's Miley Cyrus/Hilary Duff teenybopper playlist only to look up and find the eyes of a bus full of laborers (or worse, a Land Cruiser full of Emirati guys) staring down at me, transfixed in wonder and confusion. I now understand how it feels to be a curiosity and a fish out of water.
I've done a marathon, and a half-marathon, and a teeny tiny baby triathlon. But I've also gained 10 pounds thanks to too many lazy Saturdays spent at the pool, indulging in water-bottle gin & tonics and Lebanese takeaway.
I have cursed the traffic, cursed the construction, cursed the locals, cursed the laborers, cursed the heat, cursed the queues, cursed the bureaucracy, cursed the drivers, cursed the malls, cursed the censorship, and cursed myself - at times - for moving here. But I have also come to really love and passionately defend this crazy, chaotic, cosmopolitan city that I now call home, and I've seen my answer to "How long do you plan to stay in Dubai?" evolve from "a year, maybe two" to "for the foreseeable future."
I've learned to appreciate things about my country, about my family and friends, and about the way I grew up that I never would have realized and been grateful for had I not left them behind for, well, the foreseeable future.
* * *
So there you have it, folks - my first year in Dubai. Thanks for reading and - inshallah, y'all! - there will be more adventures to come!
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Her Abaya is Like Soooooo Slutty Today
This is a very interesting and cogent article about how the Kabul embassy attack could affect the region. Read it if you share my newfound (enhanced?) concern for what's currently happening in Afghanistan.
In other news, we just got an email from our corporate HR department about office dress code. Please take a moment to enjoy the first line...
Ladies
And in other other news, I just had a long Thai lunch with my crazy Romanian colleague who I like to think of as "the Kaouthar of Dubai" (haha) where, over tom yum and glass noodles, she lectured me about how I'm not 20 anymore and I need to start assessing whether I could marry any man I date right from the beginning of the relationship, and how she knows I'm very emotional but I have to start being rational about men because "trust me, I used to be guided by emotions with guys, and look where it got me? 34 and not married!"
Chilling. Eastern Europeans are so scary, dude.
And fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinally, in 2 minutes I'm off to the LAST interview of my interminable 6ish-month re-job hunt. It's final rounds with some partners from yet another consultancy, and let me just say, if I NEVER have to talk about why I want to go into strategy/management consulting or how I ended up living in Dubai or what 17% of 86 is again, it's too soon. I'm pretty happy with the offer I've gotten from Nameless Schmancy Consultancy so continuing the process is a marginally moot point, but hey, I like neatly tied-up endings, so I can turn on the charm one last time. ;)
BEIRUT TOMORROW!
In other news, we just got an email from our corporate HR department about office dress code. Please take a moment to enjoy the first line...
Ladies
Ø UAE National attire (avoid wearing tight Abayas).
Ø Formal business attire.
Ø Avoid wearing see-through clothes, low necklines shirts, skinny pants and tight and micro-mini skirts.
Ø T-shirts or shirts should cover at least the upper arm.
Ø Clothing that reveals too much cleavage is not appropriate for a place of business.
And in other other news, I just had a long Thai lunch with my crazy Romanian colleague who I like to think of as "the Kaouthar of Dubai" (haha) where, over tom yum and glass noodles, she lectured me about how I'm not 20 anymore and I need to start assessing whether I could marry any man I date right from the beginning of the relationship, and how she knows I'm very emotional but I have to start being rational about men because "trust me, I used to be guided by emotions with guys, and look where it got me? 34 and not married!"
Chilling. Eastern Europeans are so scary, dude.
And fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinally, in 2 minutes I'm off to the LAST interview of my interminable 6ish-month re-job hunt. It's final rounds with some partners from yet another consultancy, and let me just say, if I NEVER have to talk about why I want to go into strategy/management consulting or how I ended up living in Dubai or what 17% of 86 is again, it's too soon. I'm pretty happy with the offer I've gotten from Nameless Schmancy Consultancy so continuing the process is a marginally moot point, but hey, I like neatly tied-up endings, so I can turn on the charm one last time. ;)
BEIRUT TOMORROW!
Monday, July 7, 2008
Kabul, Dubai, Beirut
Hello there.
Much to my great chagrin and sadness, this morning's suicide bombing in Kabul (current death toll stands at 40) probably won't do much to help me convince people to visit Afghanistan. It's very, very hard to reconcile that event with the experience I had in Kabul - but then again, I guess that's the point. You don't feel that kind of violence coming until it's upon you - if it was predictable, it wouldn't incite so much fear.
The eerie thing is that we drove down that exact street just over a week ago when we were there. I remember Farhad pointing out the Indian Embassy and the Ministry of the Interior, and telling us that expats call it "Baghdad Street" because the presence of so many high-value targets has made it vulnerable to repeated attacks.
I don't know what else to say other than the fact that I'm still very glad I went and very thankful my time there was safe. I always say the reason I travel is because it makes places real and that's definitely the case here - what would have been a headline meriting a 15-second skim on NYtimes.com is now so much more of a real, tangible, tragic event. Maybe if we could all see each other as coming from "real" places, we would be less willing to harm each other. Empathy, man... it's a bitch.
[End philosophical musings.]
In other news, I'm firming up the details of an offer from Nameless Schmancy Consultancy, for those of you with whom I have not shared the good news. I am so incredibly happy to have made it through the crazy, intense, totally intimidating recruitment process - honestly, I didn't believe that it would end with me getting an offer, so thank you all for your butt-clenching and prayers. Pending a bit of negotiation, I have every intention to accept, so professional fulfillment - a long time in coming - should hopefully be in my immediate future.
And in the most exciting news of all, I'm going to Beirut this weekend. I cannot even begin to overemphasize my excitement about this trip, because ever since I got interested in the Middle East, Beirut has been the iconic city of the region for me. From countless hours reading about the Phalangists and the Druze and the Israeli invasion of '82 for my ill-fated senior thesis at G-town, to late nights spent eating labneh w zaatar and dancing to Nancy Ajram at Neyla in DC, to all the crazy couture-whoring money-dropping Lebanese I party with nowadays in Dubai, Lebanon has always been the epitome of what intrigues me about the Middle East. When I used to daydream about what it would be like to live in the Arab world - back before I had ever even set foot in the region - the image I always had in my head wasn't the pyramids at Giza or the Ka'aba in Mecca or the treasury at Petra... don't ask me why, but it was always Rue Monot in Beirut.
So now, finally (following the ill-fated tickets I booked in July 2006 and then had to cancel when the Israelis started bombing the runways at Hariri International a day later), I'M GOING! It's going to be a crazy trip - arrive 2 AM on Thursday night/Friday morning, meet Bubba (who's flying in from Frankfurt for the occasion), cab it straight to the club where my Lebanese friends have a table booked, sleep for a few hours, sightsee and be touristy all day Friday, more clubs on Friday night, and then (according to my friend Walid) -
saturday we have a booking at oceana beach, the temple of superficial fun. MTV-like open-air beach resort club with people dancing and getting drunk in the middle of banana fields in southern beirut. then saturday night is free for bar-humping and goodbyes :(
LOL. Bar-humping. Love it. I fly back out to Dubai at 3 AM on Sunday morning, arriving at 7 AM - just enough time to collect my car and my sobriety from the airport and drive straight to work. And yes, I am aware that there are probably only a few years left in my life where I can keep living like this without collapsing.
But in the meantime, it will be a weekend for the ages. :)
Much to my great chagrin and sadness, this morning's suicide bombing in Kabul (current death toll stands at 40) probably won't do much to help me convince people to visit Afghanistan. It's very, very hard to reconcile that event with the experience I had in Kabul - but then again, I guess that's the point. You don't feel that kind of violence coming until it's upon you - if it was predictable, it wouldn't incite so much fear.
The eerie thing is that we drove down that exact street just over a week ago when we were there. I remember Farhad pointing out the Indian Embassy and the Ministry of the Interior, and telling us that expats call it "Baghdad Street" because the presence of so many high-value targets has made it vulnerable to repeated attacks.
I don't know what else to say other than the fact that I'm still very glad I went and very thankful my time there was safe. I always say the reason I travel is because it makes places real and that's definitely the case here - what would have been a headline meriting a 15-second skim on NYtimes.com is now so much more of a real, tangible, tragic event. Maybe if we could all see each other as coming from "real" places, we would be less willing to harm each other. Empathy, man... it's a bitch.
[End philosophical musings.]
In other news, I'm firming up the details of an offer from Nameless Schmancy Consultancy, for those of you with whom I have not shared the good news. I am so incredibly happy to have made it through the crazy, intense, totally intimidating recruitment process - honestly, I didn't believe that it would end with me getting an offer, so thank you all for your butt-clenching and prayers. Pending a bit of negotiation, I have every intention to accept, so professional fulfillment - a long time in coming - should hopefully be in my immediate future.
And in the most exciting news of all, I'm going to Beirut this weekend. I cannot even begin to overemphasize my excitement about this trip, because ever since I got interested in the Middle East, Beirut has been the iconic city of the region for me. From countless hours reading about the Phalangists and the Druze and the Israeli invasion of '82 for my ill-fated senior thesis at G-town, to late nights spent eating labneh w zaatar and dancing to Nancy Ajram at Neyla in DC, to all the crazy couture-whoring money-dropping Lebanese I party with nowadays in Dubai, Lebanon has always been the epitome of what intrigues me about the Middle East. When I used to daydream about what it would be like to live in the Arab world - back before I had ever even set foot in the region - the image I always had in my head wasn't the pyramids at Giza or the Ka'aba in Mecca or the treasury at Petra... don't ask me why, but it was always Rue Monot in Beirut.
So now, finally (following the ill-fated tickets I booked in July 2006 and then had to cancel when the Israelis started bombing the runways at Hariri International a day later), I'M GOING! It's going to be a crazy trip - arrive 2 AM on Thursday night/Friday morning, meet Bubba (who's flying in from Frankfurt for the occasion), cab it straight to the club where my Lebanese friends have a table booked, sleep for a few hours, sightsee and be touristy all day Friday, more clubs on Friday night, and then (according to my friend Walid) -
saturday we have a booking at oceana beach, the temple of superficial fun. MTV-like open-air beach resort club with people dancing and getting drunk in the middle of banana fields in southern beirut. then saturday night is free for bar-humping and goodbyes :(
LOL. Bar-humping. Love it. I fly back out to Dubai at 3 AM on Sunday morning, arriving at 7 AM - just enough time to collect my car and my sobriety from the airport and drive straight to work. And yes, I am aware that there are probably only a few years left in my life where I can keep living like this without collapsing.
But in the meantime, it will be a weekend for the ages. :)
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