What's Been and What's Ben

This is the view from my balcony.

My view of KAUST is optimistic, but for other people than me. The lab I want to work in won’t be up until 2011, so I am getting a one year masters and finding a PhD elsewhere. It is better than my friend who had the rug pulled out from under him when they took him out of the PhD program he had signed up for and instead put him on a master’s track. Previously this skilled research scientist was going to be here doing research, now he will be taking the path I am. The entire department sided with him, but the bumbling administration decided that they should not live up to what they promised him – what he left his previous graduate program to do. The labs will be great once things are setup and the invisible hand of Saudi Aramco steps back. They are having separation issues with this magical baby they have produced in a few short years.

On the media side of things, another friend, Nathan, had his blog copied and translated verbatim by a Saudi paper from the Western province about the student elections. He was in a meeting that I randomly got to sit in on yesterday with the Consulate and State Department. KAUST lawyers are helping him correct this crime.

I never really experience much culture shock. I watch TV. It was surprising to me when I found myself in a conversation that the absurdity didn’t hit me until I took a break to use the bathroom to realized I was trying to prove that the Holocaust actually happened and wasn’t part of a giant conspiracy.

I think of my life here as a series of pleasant evenings. The urban camping of our housing situation is starting to even out – although the thousands of dollars of students’ property that was destroyed is still up in the air. My biggest problem is how they treat the faculty here. My friend who had the entire department fighting for him was overturned by a strange administration that has no transparency.