My activities outside of the office recently have involved music. The Winter Enrichment Program culminated in a closing community dinner with speeches and awards and live entertainment- the live entertainment is very uncommon here in Saudi Arabia. The children's choir performed and then an arabic music group and a singer. My friends Dalila and Mohammed's daughter Manel performed in the children's choir. She is 8 and in second grade. The children were asked to wear dress from their 'home' country. Manel was born in the US in Tampa, FL when her father was teaching at the University of Southern Florida so she wanted to wear red, white, and blue- somewhat to the chagrin of her parents who are French/Algerian and Moroccon.
The buildings along the Harbor were all lit up and they had international food stations set-up: Middle Eastern, Mexican, Asian and American. I went with teh Mexican because the line was the shortest. You may be asking what they served as typical American food? Hamburgers, potato salad, coleslaw and cookies!
Manel in her red, white and blue
Mohammed and Adel who is almost 4 months old! (Manel's father and brother)
The Arabic group was amazing and even got some of the men up to perform traditional dancing! I did not take pictures of this as I was very self-conscious that the administration is always concerned about 'dancing' on campus appearing on You Tube...
A friend and former colleague from my office who now works in the registrar's office is in a jazz band. Madison is from Chicago originally and used to work for the ARAMCO oil company in the Eastern Province. He was in a band there so this is a new band for him. On Thursday they had a show that was their first public performance. It was at an expat compound in Jeddah so a nice change of scenary. Getting oneself onto a compound in Jeddah is not easy- almost as challenging as getting onto our campus if you don't live here. We had to be sponsored by a resident who can only sponsor so many guests and pass through various checkpoints. Cars were left after the first checkpoint. It was interesting to see an older compound since ours is so new. And of course the first big difference I noticed is that there were no Saudis living on the compound.- all foreign expats. It was more crowded and just generally more 'lived in.'
The band performed in the park and there were lots of people with picnics and singing along and dancing. We had lots of fun!
Aida and Salma
Adel enjoying the music. I think he will grow up to be a musician because he has been to three musical performances (these two and the African band) since birth.
Saturday morning I took a break from reading and purchased some airline tickets. Dubai for a long weekend at the end of February- a dear old friend of mine who is getting ready to retire from her college counseling career in Sao Paulo, Brazil was invited to visit NYU's campus in Abu Dhabi. So I will meet her in Dubai. And then to London in March for a workshop with our application vendor Hobsons and a couple of days with friends-- and maybe Melissa will meet me??!! She needs a weekend away from all of the snow days... Anyone else?
On to the reading of Master's degree applications. I read for two of our eleven programs- Electrical Engineering (EE) and Earth Science and Engineering (ErSE). EE is one of our largest programs- 527 MS applications compared to ErSE where I am already half way through the 80 MS applications! Hope you all have a warmer week ahead.
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