What's Been and What's Ben

in Saudi Arabia

bi-polar disorderly

by admin - August 21st, 2009.
Filed under: Uncategorized.
KAUST is an experience full of manic-depressive cycles where the overwhelming awesomeness of amazing facilities, great faculty, and most importantly my fellow students is combined with the frustrations that come with a new university in Saudi Arabia.
This afternoon I walked out of a meeting where our schedules were being handed out because the people in charge were so inefficient and counter-productive in giving us pieces of paper that had information that I had a month ago. It went from alphabetic piles sorted by department to each name being called out individual after the papers were shuffled by staff trying to make things orderly. I would describe how I was first in line and yet was denied my schedule because…no, it is not worth describing, except with the word: clusterfuck.
On the bus back from our trip to the Red Sea Mall I was talking with my buddy Romeo about the potential of KAUST. It reinvigorated my spirit to talk about 6th fastest supercomputer in the world, the clean room larger than typical introductory chemistry labs, an internet connection that puts to shame any other, and electron microscopes (plural) superior to those at any US institution. Around me everybody has questioned at one point why they are here. You would be crazy not to have moments of tribulations. Westerners are confronted with a more restrictive conservative society. Non-westerners are confronted with being forced to speak English – which is not the primary language for many here. We still don’t know when will be moving in to our apartments and I have not seen the campus since January.
At the mall I picked up a book on Arabic phrases to start learning the language and a Microsoft comfort curve keyboard 2000 – my old and favorite keyboard for typing. I plan to fast for Ramadan as long as I can. Although I will still drink water probably because I am not acclimated to the temperatures here yet. Like lent, it is more about personal sacrifice than doing specific things. So I will not eat while the sun is out. We can still order room-service (at KAUST’s expense) during the day since restaurants are closed at that time.

KAUST is an experience full of manic-depressive cycles where the overwhelming awesomeness of amazing facilities, great faculty, and most importantly my fellow students is combined with the frustrations that come with a new university in Saudi Arabia.

This afternoon I walked out of a meeting where our schedules were being handed out because the people in charge were so inefficient and counter-productive in giving us pieces of paper that had information that I had a month ago. It went from alphabetic piles sorted by department to each name being called out individual after the papers were shuffled by staff trying to make things orderly. I would describe how I was first in line and yet was denied my schedule because…no, it is not worth describing, except with the word: clusterfuck.

On the bus back from our trip to the Red Sea Mall I was talking with my buddy Romeo about the potential of KAUST. It reinvigorated my spirit to talk about 6th fastest supercomputer in the world, the clean room larger than typical introductory chemistry labs, an internet connection that puts to shame any other, and electron microscopes (plural) superior to those at any US institution. Around me everybody has questioned at one point why they are here. You would be crazy not to have moments of tribulations. Westerners are confronted with a more restrictive conservative society. Non-westerners are confronted with being forced to speak English – which is not the primary language for many here. We still don’t know when will be moving in to our apartments and I have not seen the campus since January.

At the mall I picked up a book on Arabic phrases to start learning the language and a Microsoft comfort curve keyboard 2000 – my old and favorite keyboard for typing. I plan to fast for Ramadan as long as I can. Although I will still drink water probably because I am not acclimated to the temperatures here yet. Like lent, it is more about personal sacrifice than doing specific things. So I will not eat while the sun is out. We can still order room-service (at KAUST’s expense) during the day since restaurants are closed at that time.

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