#jawa bathing

[capnmariam]

"Remember, when you are a student you pass nasty gasses because of the scaring."

After breakfast, my dad admonishes me to grade more gently, given my snarkily panicked comment about these kids becoming nurses*.  It is, like most things, some manner of translation of a thought that surely flows more smoothly in Arabic.  My mom goes through a full red pen for each exam she gives.  I balked at this when she threw 5 empty pens at me before finding one with ink, but as I grade some of her lab reports, I totally get it.  She is tabulating things to herself in a whisper in Spanish.  My giddiness at creating a spreadsheet for results induces a little bit of pedagogical nostalgia, as the London Symphony plays in the background.  A robot vacuum scuttles against something across the house. 

Oddly enough, this is probably the quintessential and best-case home-home weekend situation. 

*The measurement errors are hilarious and terrifying. Imagine someone telling you (not in jest) that your finger is 342 meters long. It's fascinating. 

[capnmariam]

Look, I will tell you this thing, which every little kid with a middling grasp of Arabic knows: the word "أكبر" (Akbar), ...basically means "the most great". And every little kid raised on a diet of American pop culture knows that the reason most everyone remembers the greatness of Admiral Ackbar is pretty singular: his identification and characterization of traps. And who doesn't want to be at least a little bit great? Quick synthesis: you can trust that, as someone squarely in all of those demographics, I've spent years--decades, even--doing pitfall analysis, so, you know what? No, it's not paranoid for me to say "that right there is obviously bait for something horrible".

The fact that I would make this argument while entirely clearheaded, while at work, and in regard to an email from someone I generally hold in high esteem (even if he's recently been picking preposterous fights), is probably the primary reason that I avoid intoxicants.

[capnmariam]

Things I Got Weirdly Nostalgic about While Watching Tivo's Suggestion: "Aladdin" (1992)

Roles perfectly suited for Robin Williams

The rampant kleptomania of my teens/twenties

The desert (bonus points for being extra unexpected, since I don't particularly enjoy direct sunlight nor being warm)

The time before I explained to my Dearest Pal (the one who knew I was the worst) that our nice black neighbor--who may have been D.P.'s "first black person" and who D.P. definitely had been calling "Rajah" for months--was, in fact, named "Roger" and no one had corrected D.P. because it sounded hilarious* (Literally laugh-crying about that right now)

The last time my dad suggested a suitor for me to marry and, ideally, make tiny muslim babies with. (It's been all of 6 days! This week took forever and it was terrible and it was great and either way I call home on Sundays.)

Anthropomorphic home furnishings

The Bob Loblaw Law Blog

Talking monkeys

18 hours ago, I was submitting my 2nd 1st au. manuscript. 19 years ago, I saw this movie for the first time.  20 days from now, I have a seat at the grown up table.  21 weeks from now, ...we'll see.

*I had to explain because DP was writing a message on the board and, while it was plausible that others thought that it was just how DP pronounced things, I think I might have been one of 3 people who realized that DP was confused by ethnicity and just thought Roger had a different name.  And yes, one would think that I would be especially sensitive to this kind of issue, as name mistakes are still on the list of things that can make me SO angry, but no, I am the worst, especially when it involves corrections which could stop something hilarious. 

[capnmariam]

Great Library ------------- Prerequisite: Literacy Cost: 300 Shields Expires with: University/Electricity Function: Civilization receives any technology that 2 other civilizations have. Description: The Great Library of Alexandria was one of the two most important libraries of the ancient world. Ptolemy I founded it around 300 BC, and was enhanced and expanded by his successors. The library attempted to obtain copies of all scrolls of any consequence, and eventually contained over 700,000 volumes. Religious fanatics destroyed the library in 391 AD, after nearly 700 years of operation. During this period, Alexandria served as the cultural center of the Hellenistic world. Today, only part of the catalog remains, providing us with a mere hint of what treasures the library contained. Rating: ** to *****

Bibliotecadventures #25. The Library of Alexandria

In...2003, I hung out briefly in the threshold of the Library of Alexandria.  They had just done some fancy fireproofing but my Arabic was distressingly poor.  Of course, I'd spent plenty of time virtually there the previous decade.

[capnmariam]

If you hit the birds with the sword again, you may get attacked by a full flock.* Slutty American cousin, disturbing the peace in the roof-roost, Egypt 2011

Because I've had to answer this question about 20 times now--my family there is mostly farm-based.  Political upheaval trickles down a little, but day to day life is insulated.  Chickens to inoculate, guavas to be picked, alfalfa to be harvested, homing pigeons to train.  Roof-ducks.  Actually, there is a big-adventure summary that involves roof-ducks somewhere that I probably meant to share last month, but then I didn't.  At some point.  I can speculate about big pictures because I can speculate about lots of things, but I'm pretty much internationally apolitical.

*My little brother took this picture and told me that I live my life the same way I played any of the Zelda series of games: solving or telling other people how to solve puzzles, bothering animals in a mostly friendly way, mapping, mapping, mapping, etc.  He said it with zero judgment.  Love that guy.