Al Faisal University, Riyadh KSA

LoA: Honey, Look! They are opening a brand new University in Riyadh.
She: I will divorce you. *serious stare*
LoA: Shall I make chicken for dinner?
*She goes back to what she was doing*

ALFAISAL UNIVERSITY is a private, not-for-profit research university that will be self-governing and internationally recognized in education and research, and that will produce capable trained professionals who lead their fields. Students will begin their programs in Colleges of Business, Engineering, Medicine, and Science and General Studies in Fall 2008. Eventually, the University will enroll 1,000 students per class. The initial class will be much smaller with a gradual build up thereafter. The campus is being constructed on the beautiful grounds of the late King Faisal’s Palace in Al Maather in the center of Riyadh. The Palace will serve as the administration quarters; the other buildings will form an almost complete circle around it. Instruction will be in English. The University was founded by the King Faisal Foundation and organizations such as Boeing, British Aerospace, THALES, and King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Center, whose representatives serve on the Board of Trustees. Before entering the University, students will complete a rigorous one-year preparatory program that emphasizes English language, study skills, math and science. The College of Science and General Studies offers a four-year degree program in genetics and life sciences. In addition, the College provides core courses in the sciences, humanities, and social sciences for all university students. The curriculum of the College will involve problem-based and technologically-enhanced learning. Graduate programs will be added in the near future. The goal of these programs is to train students to use systems- and critical thinking, problem solving, and teamwork. Our programs are designed to meet high international standards with collaboration from major western research universities. The College of Science and General Studies seeks faculty with teaching and research expertise in English Literature and Language; Philosophy and Ethics; Arabic Literature and Language; and Islamic Studies. Attractive salaries and generous benefits will be provided. Queries and applications should be sent to humanitiesrecruitment@alfaisal.edu and should include a cv and the names of three references. The subject line should specify the discipline, position and advertisement reference. The deadline for applications is 15 January 2008. Off-site interviews for leading candidates will be conducted in early 2008 in the US, Europe and/or the Middle East.

upon having been vindicated like seven times that day...

She: why doesn't everyone just OBEY ME?!

...and i even had a pair of strappy sandals already picked out, too!

LoA: i am the one who showed an interest in her ring; i am the one who oooh'ed and aaaahh'd over her dress; i am the one who went shoe shopping with her; and YOU get invited to the bachelorette party?!?

She: gender discrimination sucks don't it?

love and marriage...

up until very recently the home in which i had lived longest at one stretch was a villa in king khalid military city in saudi arabia. it was villa #2370. across the street in villa #2369 lived my best friend, hiren, with his sister, manisha, and their little brother. and of course their parents, whose names i, sadly, do not remember: mama and papa patel.

mama patel gave me my first extensive exposure to indian food: a steady diet of samosas of various sorts and desserts which ought to have been served with insulin injections, they were so sweet. she was a warm woman and her house was always open to me.

at some point i found out that mama and papa patel had met only by a parentally arranged marriage and, being american and a boy in his early adolescence, i somehow tactlessly and shamelessly asked whether or not they didn't resent that. didn't they want to have love before they got married, etc.

papa patel was a very quiet man, a relative stick of a figure. the most words i ever heard him speak in one afternoon came during a badminton tournament held on the base during which he did quite well: he would talk to himself very sternly every time he made a mistake. needless to say i got my answer from the round and much more effusive mama patel.

he was an engineer getting ready to move to america when they got married; her parents convinced her that this was the opportunity of a lifetime. and she said, that indeed, she did resent and regret much during the early years of their marriage. they were total strangers to one another suddenly forced to live together and trying to make sense of the habits and desires of the other person. she laughed when she told us that her mother had told her 'that is marriage, but you get used to it'.

she got pregnant a little over a year after they got married and had hiren and manisha in relatively quick succession. she said at that point she had something besides her husband to focus her attention on, and while she may not have loved him at that point, she ceased having time to resent or regret decisions. she had two children to raise.

love came, she said, as the children left infancy and began to become interactive members of the family. she saw him as the father to their children, that he was a good father to them, and she began to cherish him for the way in which he loved and nurtured their children. her love for him arose out of the shared love they had for their children. and now, she said, she could not be more grateful to her parents, nor could she be more in love with a man than she was now. papa patel sat beside her all the way through the story, silently, his arm around her shoulder, proudly smiling.

and when i remember back, 15ish years now, to our own decision to marry, i believe i too would have to tell that rude little boy living in that villa in saudi arabia, that we were children when we got married. we did not know ourselves, let alone one another and could not even begin to comprehend what love really was. how She put up with that person over the first years of our marriage is a mystery. but here we are all these years later and i could not be more grateful...with still so much more to learn.

the parental unit has arrived

She: You know why your dad likes me so much don't you?

LoA: Why is that dear?

She: I know how to use power tools, I build work benches, I plaster the wall when you knock a dent in it with the vacuum cleaner....

[momentary silence]

She: I am like the son he never had.

academics don't do it for money...

She: So, do you get anything for being the editor of an edited volume?

LoA: The satisfaction of a job well done?

[silence...]

She: I hear the post-office is hiring.

so much for the categorical imperative

So act that the maxim of your will could always hold at the same time as a principle in a giving of universal law.
Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Practical Reaon

She: [entering the door] you have to go to this yoga class with me next week.

LoA: i can't; lectures start back next week.

She: but there was this guy hitting on me during yoga class. i shouldn't have to be harassed during yoga.

LoA: introduce MB as your partner. that should shut him down.

She: [ponders] i'm sure not she could handle that.

LoA: was he cute?

She: uh, no.

LoA: that's too bad; if he is going to harass you he ought to at least have the common decency to be attractive.

She: it isn't harassment if they are cute. [evil grin]

LoA: [ponders on where to begin....decides to go back to reading kant...]

no wonder...

friday afternoon, She got off work a bit earlier than normal and so dinner was not quite ready when she got home (more to the point, our second-turkey of the season still needed to baste for another half hour). so She went upstairs, changed clothes and grabbed a book. She sat in the afternoon sun in a chair by the window and began to read. i brought her something to drink and a small plate of cheese and crackers to tide her over until dinner was ready (otherwise She has a tendency to take a jar of peanut butter, a spoon, and ruin her dinner; and i didn't just spend all afternoon on a SECOND turkey for that!). contented, She disappeared into her book and was hardly heard from again until dinner was on the table.

as She sat down and began to eat the hot meal, fresh from the oven, She says:

"now i understand why men didn't want to give this up."

-LoA