My Past

I translated a poem by Alda Merini yesterday. Angela helped a little...

Il Mio Passato

Spesso ripeto sottovoce

che si deve vivere di ricordi solo

quando mi sono rimasti pochi giorni.

Quello che è passato

è come se non ci fosse mai stato.

Il passato è un laccio che 

stringe la gola alla mia mente

e toglie energie per affrontare il mio presente.

Il passato è solo fumo

di chi non ha vissuto.

Quello che ho già visto

non conta più niente.

Il pasato ed il futuro

non sono realtà ma solo effimere illusioni.

Devo liberarmi del tempo

e vivere il presente giacchè non esiste altro tempo

che questo meraviglioso istante.

My Past

When I have only a few days left

I often repeat softly

that I have to live on memories.

That what is past

is like it has never been.

The past is lace

that squeezes the throat of my mind

and cuts off the energy to face my present.

The past is just smoke

of those who have never lived.

What I have seen

does not matter anymore.

Past and future

are not real but only fleeting illusions.

I must free myself from time

and live in the present since time does not exist

other than this extraordinary moment.

The Last Thing: Notice.

The last call: pastis again.

The last straw: broke, the camel's back.

The last word in poetic licenses: get one in your favorite color.

The last will and testament: old and new and made new.

The last day of the shortest month: no leap year.

The last gasp: exceeding my grasp and reaching.

The last person I wanted to see: you.

The last day of the week: Thursday in the Q.

The last hurrah: preceding the home stretch of the semester, not a horse race.

The last day before spring break: Valencia here I come despite eleventh hour complications.

The last resort: a hotel across the street from the station.

The last laugh: over dinner, over done, over and over.

The last time I did this: last month some time.

The last minute: blogging from bed in digital wedlock.

The last word: minutes before midnight.

New Year New

Restarting this beast for the Nth time. I don't know if it's the Qatar Foundation connection or this little Apple peach we brought back from the states last summer. Anyway, I'm putting it to rigorous use now that I have the software I require and most of my files transferred. I'm weirdly attached to Microsoft Office. Still, unknown connectivity issues at a time when internet traffic should be relatively light is making already tedious research even more so. I'll blame it on the computer since blaming it elsewhere could, as has been rumored, earn a ticket away from the Q.

So here I sit in the stone cold apartment waiting for 49ers playoff football vs. Falcons on American Forces Network while the incessant beep-beep-beep of some vehicle backing up nearby in the never-sleep construction site outside the compound helps raise the tension. What little traffic passes as the mechanical wind on an otherwise still night. The trucks line up along the dark desert roads. Who knows where they go.

In the form of words, I was hoping to bring you more of the winter Vietnam adventure than the overzealous cluster of Facebook photos and family fawning I left you already, but I sat down two hours ago to do something else and haven't advanced one word further. Who knows when it will be ready.

I'm yawning and there's still an hour before kickoff. I better get out of here if I'm going to get anything accomplished tonight.

Listing but not Listless

Busy. In the interests of time, more listing.

Unusually active five-year-old birthday party business every weekend, dinners and play dates, mom's massages and physical therapy, dad's tennis, son's swimming lessons, conferences, festivals, travel, trips to the beach and a visit from grandma and grandpa thrown in. We certainly can't say that we're bored...

Last night, after full days of school for all three of us, we went to a birthday party at the St. Regis. On the way there, Vito told us that Samuel--his classmate and the guest of honor at the birthday party to which we were headed--already had the gift we purchased, Monopoly Junior (a call to Samuel's mother confirmed it). So, mildly unhappy that Vito had told his friend what we had purchased for his birthday, we felt it necessary to go back to the store to exchange our gift. Jenga would have to suffice as a replacement. While at the party, against our better judgment, Vito had his face painted as Spiderman. His evening turned to tears later when, after already crying and whining all the way to the car because we would not stop for an ice-cream snack, falling into an exhaustion-induced sleep in the car and arriving home much later than usual, it came time to wash off the face paint, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Anyway, we left the party and met a couple friends for dinner at The Pearl because we had two-for-one coupons for The Mango Tree, a Thai restaurant, that we felt like we needed to use before the end of the year (when they would expire), and rounded out the evening at Katara's 2nd Annual Traditional Dhow Festival. Maybe we packed in too much, but there was no residue this morning.

Today and tomorrow I'll be attending the Middle East North Africa Writing Center Alliance (MENAWCA) Conference at the College of the North Atlantic. There were presentations scheduled for the whole day today, but I left at lunch to go to Fuwairit with family and friends. All work and no play makes Bob a dull joy.

The Doha Tribeca Film Festival kicks in next week--we have tickets for three movies--as does the Doha Climate Change Conference (COP18), both of which will surely ramp up activity around the city. We of the ABP have actually had our schedule altered to accommodate the goings on. Sadly, we are required to work next Saturday; however, we don't have to work the following Monday. I guess it will be nice to have a day off mid-week for a change.

Next weekend, we're hosting our first Thanksgiving ever. We're a little worried about the bird, but we have a plan. We'll be preparing the turkey, and our guests will be bringing the rest. They won't all be Americans, but they'll get involved!

I have to find time to grade papers in all of this. Where do I find time to write? I can't even make time to play the Wii that grandma and grandpa brought us when they visited at the beginning of the month. While they were here, we flew to Dubai and spent a few days there to start a tour of the Middle East mall circuit that ended in Doha.

December will be here before we can blink, the semester will be over and we'll be off for our Winter recess. Christmas and New Year's in Vietnam...

That's how it's rolling in the Q.

Weekend Wanderings

It was a busy weekend starting with a tour of the National Mosque after work on Thursday evening.

The Imam Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdul Wahhab Mosque.

On another excursion sponsored by Qatar Foundation (QF), the three of us joined a large group going to the Imam Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdul Wahhab Mosque in Doha. Many of my colleagues went, accompanied by a number of other QF employees in three large Karwa tour buses that were waiting for us outside the LAS building at the end of the day on Thursday.

It was the first time many of us had been in a mosque here in Qatar. Angela and I had only been inside a mosque one other time when we were traveling in China, a mosque in Xian, which was purportedly the oldest one in China.

After an explanation of how the mosque functions, what happens after the call to prayer, and general information about Islam, our hosts, Adam and Dominique, answered the group's questions. We stayed inside the mosque for more than two hours and, once discussion had finished, watched the evening prayer before boarding the tour buses and returning to the LAS building. Little did we know that our fun was just beginning.

Friday morning, we had as many as four maintenance men at one time in the bathroom in the master bedroom, because we had a problem with the water heater. Jokes about how many so-and-sos do you need to change a lightbulb came to mind. They had started fixing it on Wednesday afternoon, but couldn't finish and planned to return on Thursday morning. Unfortunately, both Angela and I had to work on Thursday and we didn't return until late, so they planned on Friday morning.

While we were eating lunch on Friday with Ruth and Samuel, it rained briefly.

On Friday evening, we left Vito at home with Samarrah, his sitter, and went to the Museum of Islamic Art (MIA) to watch 13 Assassins, the final Japanese film showing as part of a year-long celebration of forty years of Japanese and Qatari relations. I thought it was great, but it is not really a family film.

Arthur and Vito outside the Education City Student Center.

Lastly, on Saturday, after making pancakes with "the flipper," the maintenance men arrived and finally finished repairing our water heater. They were done by lunch time.

After eating, we drove across the city and picked up Vito's friend Arthur, and they spent the afternoon together. We played a game and watched a movie before heading for the arcade at the Education City Student Center. After burning through some tokens and taking Arthur back home, we returned to our home to get ready to see the Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra at Katara Cultural Village. Aside from pieces by Beethoven and Dvořák, the concert featured the music of Khachatur Avetisyan highlighting and instrument called a kanun, which, according to the program, is a kind of Middle Eastern lap harp. Neither Angela nor myself had ever heard it before.

Now, I'm staying up too late to watch football and finish this blogpost, but I want to post something in September before it ends.

From Russia with Love

Statistics indicate that I have more pageviews from Russia than from any other nation. That seems unusual. I don't think I know anyone in Russia, and I have never traveled there. I will add a label for Russia and watch to see if those pageviews increase. Perhaps, there is an overabundance of netspiders that originate from there...