cattitude

Salaam everyone! Today I come bearing a somewhat fun story. It happened a while ago, but I still laugh when I remember it. On this particular night about two years ago, we found ourselves child-free for the evening as our daughter was visiting her family, meaning we had time to do whatever we wanted My…

Today in class we were discussing the presentations that are coming up next week. We went through lists of requirements and topic choices, picked the order to present in, and talked through any concerns students may have. “If anyone needs to ask me a question about their presentation, or if you want to show it…

Everything is temporary

While I am waiting on my visa to arrive, I feel like everything is so temporary. I can’t make any solid, long term plans because I don’t know how long I have until I return back to KSA. The other day there was a really great sale on chicken at the grocery store and I…

The Proposal

I am writing this now because the incident happened recently, however I am going to schedule it to post at a later date because I don’t want word to get around… It is my first day at work, and one of my supervisors calls me into her office. “The dean wants to interview you, please…

The Eid Proposal

Considering I was the only person in the room who didn’t speak Arabic, I didn’t feel so bad about excusing myself into the next room to take a phone call. I was really into a conversation with my friend in English when a stranger I had never seen before rounded the corner and started to…

Kentucky?

Usually I love love love cooking and doing kitchen things, but here I have been too lazy and disorganized to make food. And usually in my own country I never ever eat KFC, but here I seem to eat it on a semi-regular basis. Clearly I am a changed woman. I kind of dreaded ordering…

For years I had successfully avoided it. I had put myself through extreme discomfort, near-accidents, and weird waddling walks. But the day came that I couldn’t keep putting it off, and it was out of extreme necessity that I had to do the hardest thing I ever had to do. I finally found myself face-to-face with…

Fashion sense

Saudi Arabia is considered as one of the most conservative countries in the world. There is a dress code, and women wear black abayas, hijabs, and niqabs. The only thing visible on most Saudi Women when they are in public is their eyes.  When they are with other women, however, they are able to wear…

Cooking roosters

I’ve avoided this topic as long as I possibly could. I guess it was just naive of me to expect I could avoid it forever. But today was the day it finally happened. My students at Qassim university, located in one of the most conservative cities in the world, asked me the difference between “cook”…

Compound Bus

Four times a week our company has a bus come, pick us up at the compound, and take us into the actual city. Half of us are new, so while at least have an idea of who everyone else is, we don’t exactly know the fine details about each others lives. We all cram on…

Yesterday I gave my class a writing prompt. I asked “If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you want to live? Why?” One of my students answered “For me I want to live in USA. It has Hollywood and Justin Beiber is there.” What?

US Politics

I really found it adorable yesterday when one of my 18 year old freshmen told me that she feels sad that Donald Trump is a presidential candidate, and how amused she is by the fact that he hates immigrants yet he’s been married to two. Bless that girl.