Garanga’oh!

And, no, for once that is not a random babble that my brain often generously spews.

Yesterday was a celebration of Garanga’oh, which is a Gulf tradition that falls on the fifteenth day of every Ramadan. I had actually lived my life completely oblivious to such a tradition until a couple of weeks ago when Sara, from student council, asked me if I wanted to volunteer for Garanga’oh and then, seeing my rampant confusion, explained what it was.

Kids dress in traditional costumes and knock on doors for sweets, nuts, and candy. They also have their own chants and sing cute songs. If anything, it’s quite similar to Halloween’s trick-or-treat. It turns out that my college holds a Garanga’oh celebration on campus and invites children and their parents to come. I figured that, since I haven’t seen something like this before, then I would definitely like to help out and see what goes on. So, yesterday night was the night, and here’s what happened:

It was Thursday, and since I no longer have Essay-Writing at 3:10, I came home quite early. I didn’t do anything of importance until it was time for iftar, where I had about 45 minutes to eat since the sun sets at 5:30 and I was told that I had to be at the college by, at most, 6:45. Keeping that in mind, I told the driver to come at 6:15 so there would be enough time to make it to school. It was just my mom and I, since my little sister was going to eat out with her friends, and my father is in Saudi Arabia on a business trip. I felt weird having to sort of rush through iftar and leave my mom when it was just me and her, but my mom was happy I was going, and did not encourage me to stay home.

Anyways…

It’s the Magic School Bus!

I do believe I’m going to engage in a bit of double-posting today.

First I’d like to give an update on my school status. I have dropped Essay-Writing, thanks to my having done well on the challenge exam. But I still haven’t recieved my new schedule–which the Academic Dean promised to send me (by e-mail) ages ago. I know he’s a really busy guy, but it’s frustrating. He said he was looking into replacing the course I dropped with another one, and I guess it’s taking more time than he anticipated.

Anyways, right now I’m down to four courses–which is good. At least they’re all challenging and I don’t feel like I’m wasting my time in any of them. So far, I’m taking:

Intro Accounting
Intro to Marketing
Mathematics of Finance — and
Human Resource Management II.

My teachers are all great, and–as difficult as it is for even me to believe–I actually enjoy Accounting! Practically everyone else I know in school is lamenting on how difficult it is…but I think it’s quite interesting and even fun–once you get the hang of things. Trust me, this is amazing coming from a person who has vowed from an early age to never again take a class that would involve using numbers. But I find my teacher easy to understand and very approachable with questions. Heck, she even repeats herself a lot. I find it odd that some students say she doesn’t teach well…I frankly can’t think of a way she can make things any clearer! :-S

Then again…of course…

There is a language barrier you can’t ignore. I try to think of how I’d feel if I had a Qatari teacher teach the same subject and I think I can understand how the Qatari students in my class feel. I had a bit of a wake-up call when, when we had our first test, she was doing a last minute review before handing them out. I had practiced balancing transaction sheets a lot–but fell asleep trying to memorize definitions. So when I noticed a change in her voice when she was going over accounting principles, I immediately started reviewing them in my book. Sure enough, the multiple-choice questions all pertained to accounting principles–questions I wouldn’t have been able to answer if I didn’t catch the subtle change in her intonation. I’m sure there were students who didn’t think to study them, who wouldn’t have caught the hint because they were concentrating on what she was saying instead of how she was saying it. I think about that when I put myself in their position, and it’s quite eye-opening to say the least…

Colonel Sanders’ Popcorn Chicken!!!!

Yes, it’s another random title that has nothing to do with the post. I like to be creative.

I just thought I’d happen by for another update…seeing that I still have time to. Good news: I officially dropped my “Productivity Tools” course today! I got my challenge exam result back and it’s a 96%! So, I no longer have to complete the course! Yay!!!

I had my last Productivity Tools class yesterday, where I finished the entire batch of keyboarding lessons. (There were thirteen all in all…seven of which I did the previous class, and the remaining six I did yesterday.) It’s actually pretty mindless fun when you already know how to touch-type. I like to turn it into a time-race game thing–if only to add more zest to the work. But now that I don’t have to do it at all, it’s even better. Booyah!

I still have yet to find out the results of my Essay-Writing challenge exam. I went during my break to Mr. Long’s office, but he wasn’t there. I asked when he’d be back and no one could tell me, so I guess I’ll have to drop by tomorrow. *Sighs*. I hope to God I can drop it because it’d be a real blessing for my Thursdays (where I could finish my day at 11:30 a.m. if only I didn’t have Essay-Writing at 4:30. Five hour break with nothing to do on the last day of the school week, anyone?)

I mean, of course, even if it didn’t do wonders for my Thursday schedule, I’d still want out of it if only to save myself a good bit of frustration. Today we had to start writing our first real essay and Rex wanted the topic to be “Tourism in Qatar”. This stunned me because, dude, I know NOTHING of tourism in Qatar. Aren’t we supposed to write about what we know? But when I voiced my concerns he told me that it was all right if I wrote about tourism of another country. Fair enough…I chose Lebanon. I started trying to scrawl down some form of a thesis statement, but my head was throbbing and I couldn’t think. I managed to scribble a thesis statement and the first few lines of an introduction before it was time to go. Of course, since I was dying for an excuse not to write, I gladly wasted some time talking to Farah (a friend who I usually sit next to in classes) about absolutely nothing in particular between scrawlings until it was time to leave. Duuuude…I really want out of this!

It’s a Ninja Hiya-Ku!

“You stand way too close!
While I am reading this poem.
I steal your kneecaps”

I will, of course, credit it that to the “Ask a Ninja” ninja. I just thought it was funny. Somehow the thought of having one’s kneecaps stolen strikes me as more than highly amusing.

Anyways.

I have another test tomorrow in Human Resource Management…that would be my second test this week, and the second test out of three that fell on this week. I already had an Intro to Marketing test today. It went pretty well, I hope. I did a lot of writing in the essay questions…I’m not sure if my teacher really wanted that much. I just didn’t know how to make it shorter. Damn you Lebne and your vile (and apparently highly contagious) verbosity!

I also did my English challenge exam today. It started off as highly embarrassing because I told the professor, Dr. Mike Long, on Thursday that I had my last class on Sunday at 12:40. (To avoid confusion I’ll state now that the Qatari workdays are from Sunday to Thursday…with Friday and Saturday as weekends.)

Anyways, he told me to see him in his office at that time. Today, I found out that I misread my schedule and that I really ended my class at 1:20. So, in a panic, after class ended, I set off to find his office…and got lost. You see, Murphy loves having fun with me whenever I’m late by making sure I totally lose my already abysmal sense of direction when I most need it. When I finally walked into his office after asking a couple of people to point me in the right direction, he looked up at me, down at his watch and said, “You’re almost an hour late!”

Needless to say, I apologized profusely and explained that I had misread my schedule. He seemed a bit irritated at first, but then lightened up when he gave me my assignment and a pad of paper for me to write my essay on. Ironically enough, the topic I chose was how I would deal with employees who came to work late. It’s kinda funny, but honestly, it was the only topic out of the four that I felt I could make three distinct paragraphs on fairly easily. Too bad I had to feel a bit idiotic writing about how to punish latecomers when I had just kept the grader of my paper waiting for an hour. It took about sixty minutes to write it up, and I wanted to stick around to see him grade it but he told me it would take a while. I only saw him read my introduction, which he told me was very good. So I’m optimistic. *Crosses fingers*

Anyways…that’s all I have to say.

Ramadan Mubarak!

Wow…I can’t believe we’re already on the third day of Ramadan! Hopefully it’s a month everyone has the opportunity to enjoy, whether you are Muslim or not. It certainly is one of my favorite months of the year!

Of course, it’s hard to celebrate when there are missing family members. Lana, we miss you like crazy and hope that everything’s turning out all right for you in Montreal. It’s always weird…being split up like this on days when we really should be all together. Yalla, inshallah next year we’ll have a true Ramadan at long last…it truly is long overdue.

As of today I’ve officially finished my second week of school here and I can say that I still enjoy it! It’s even better now that they have the Ramadan schedule in effect. Instead of having the earliest class start at 7:30 and the latest at 5:30…now the earliest class is 8:10 and the latest is 3:50. This is especially good news for me because I have 7:30 and 5:30 classes three times a week! I’m usually a freaking zombie by the time I get home…

As for the two classes that I’m hoping to get credit for and drop…well, good news! I was approved for a challenge exam for Productivity Tools I (mentioned in my previous post). I did it on Thursday, and I think it went well. Hopefully I’ll get exempted! *Prays* It was actually pretty easy…mostly stuff on MS Word. I had to edit a document in a number of ways–like fixing the margins, centering titles and italicizing phrases. I think I got it all around except for one thing they told me to do about inserting a footnote. I couldn’t figure out the directions so I had to skip that part. I hope they don’t count it too much against me because I know I got almost everything else down pat! I also had to prove some form of competency in Internet research, so I had to find out information about Starbucks online and answer their questions and provide the URL’s I used to research the answers. That wasn’t too difficult, except for one question where they asked what Starbucks’ stock symbol was and I had no idea what “stock symbol” even meant. (To which I say: “Thank God for dictionary.com!”)

Afterwards I had to send an e-mail from my school account. (That was so difficult. Man, I had to write my NAME and STUDENT NUMBER in the BODY of the e-mail and ATTACH TWO DOCUMENTS! Seriously, I was so nervous, especially when I finally–at long last–found the ‘Send’ button.)

/endsarcasm

Well, like I said, I hope I did well enough to get an exemption. I also managed to get an appointment to write another ‘challenge exam’ for my essay-writing course. I have to meet a teacher who will give me a list of topics for me to choose and write an essay on. It’s a fair chance, and I’m taking it…hopefully it’ll work out in my favor.

Anyways…that’s enough of an update for now. I have to go study for the sixty tests I have next week. (Okay, just three, but still!)

Later…

1st Anniversary

It sucks, really, but I’m gonna look on the bright side of it.

Today is the one-year anniversary of this journal! Really, it could be better if I didn’t decide to start it on September 11…but hey, what are you gonna do? At least I did it on a significant day…that way, I’d be less likely to forget it. To even things out, I had a moment of silence for the people that passed on this day six years ago.

I actually have a math test to study for but I thought I’d happen by here and commemorate the occasion.

I guess I’ll also add, though you’ve probably deduced it by now, that I have officially started school and have finally gone back to being a regular joe (or regular jane. Whatever. Regular Judes. That works too) student at College of the North Atlantic-Qatar, or CNA-Q.

I’m having a really good time. I’ve made friends from my first day there, and I love all my teachers and my subjects are really cool. There are a couple of subjects I wish to drop, but it’s not because I don’t like them but because I’ve had so much experience in them it’s just too redundant to take them again. One of them is Essay Writing, and the other is called Productivity Tools.

The former is rather self-explanatory and I don’t know why I’m taking it when I’ve been educated in English all my life and was a regular essay-spewing machine in high school and when I went to Dawson College in Montreal. I get why they make Essay-Writing a pre-requisite here–it’s because Qataris often graduate from high school not knowing how to write a proper five-paragraph essay in English, so they take this course in their first year at CNA-Q to familiarize them with it. Me? I’ve been doing this stuff since I was twelve. Don’t get me wrong, I like my teacher a lot, and I’ve got some nice people in class…but that doesn’t stop it from being boring as hell. I have to listen to lectures about thesis statements and topic sentences. I have to listen to my teacher correct spelling mistakes and errors in parallel structure. I sometimes think the only good I do is on the teacher’s behalf. His name is Rex, and he’s kind of old and wears hearing aids. Apparently, no one seems to realize that he can’t hear you if you sound like you’re talking to something an inch away from your lips. So I’ve taken it upon myself to be the voice of the class and direct the Rex’s attention to the whisperer who is either answering a question he asked or is asking one. Other then that, there really isn’t anything I feel I’m getting out of this class except that now I sort of know what it feels like to be someone else’s ears.

Productivity Tools #I is a computer course that teaches basics about MS Word and keyboarding. I’ve only had two classes so far and my teacher, Stephen, has started on keyboarding. Yesterday we opened up the keyboarding program for the first time. He said that it was a program that was split into lessons and he expected us to finish two lessons per hour, and we had a two-hour class. He said that he did not expect us to finish that much on our first day, because many of us did not know how to type using homerow keys…let alone touch-type using homerow keys.

I finished seven lessons in two hours. I think most couldn’t get past lesson three, except for my friend, Lina, who also touch-types. That was also a bit of a boring class, so I kind of made it a race to see how many lessons I could finish before my time was up. It also helped me speed up my words-per-minute rate. My highest score? Over a hundred words a minute! My average was between 60-75 w.p.m. Damn, I’m good. But still, why do this if I don’t need it? Mr. Geldart in sixth grade already taught me to touch-type—-no need for anyone else to re-teach me anything.

Anyways, yeah, those are the classes I want to drop because it just seems useless for me to take something I’m already really good at.  The problem is that it’s just a little complicated to try to replace CNA-Q’s credits with credits that I’ve gathered from Dawson College because I have to gather Dawson’s course outlines and have them compared with theirs. It’s taking time, but hopefully I’ll be able to drop them and take other courses in their place. *Crosses fingers*

Anyways, I have to go. Just thought I’d happen by for the whole anniversary thing.