in the beginning.

I will be departing Austin, TX for New York on July 1st and then late the evening of the 2nd I will be making my way to Sana'a, Yemen by way of a 14 hour lay-over in London. After a couple days of sleeping off my jet-lag and the change in altitude, I will begin a course in colloquial Arabic and a little bit of research--taking oral histories of women.

I shall return around August 20th. I will be in Austin until that time and around campus helping with the UT Arabic Summer Institute! So much to do, so much to look forward to, SO EXCITED!!

sentimental.

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^this is where i'm going this summer^

i'm feeling really sentimental like i sometimes do at the end of things. end of the semester, classes i like are over, friends i like are graduating or traveling, books i enjoyed, i'm finished with them. its simply sad to say goodbye to some things and some people. other things, i will hesitantly put behind me becasue i know it is best for me, not beause i want them gone. and still even other things i am ready to throw into the wind and hope that they have to at least make their way all of the way around the world before i ever run into them again. right now i cannot say which is which, but shit is good. shit is really really good.

how was your day?

the best fucking day of my life!

really?

yeah, really.

why?

i don't know.

is every day the best fucking day of your life?

yeah, maybe.

HALAS!

Or almost halas that is...

I'm living in the PCL and Epoch again, as is usual at this time of the year. Writing papers on theories of virtual pilgrimage and Hamas, preparing for arabic exams and presentations... I've become a lot more active in PSC (www.utpalestine.org) recently, and I hope it stays that way. I should be deleriously tired but I think my body magically adapts to this kind of sleep schedule when things need to be done.

Not only do I want to make it through this week, but I want to kick so much ass this week that I will be able to easily justify the 24 nap I'm going to take when it is over.

Why are my footnote numbers in arabic? cut that out!

My most recent frustration: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/10/world/middleeast/10jerusalem.html