Beyond Samarkand

The new semester has begun, at least for my online classes. I've been having problems with registration exacerbated by my internet connections - yes, I have two - becoming terrible at the same time. Fortunately, school has not started here yet as Ramadan is almost upon us and NOTHING gets done in Saudi Arabia during Ramadan. The large amounts of nothing getting done are a worry at my school. We are down to four front line teachers, and one admin that can teach some classes in a pinch. We will have eight odd students this fall, which is down from 120 or students last term. We are supposed to be staffed with ten teachers, and supposedly have four "in the pipeline". Given the delays, I will be surprised if we see even two teachers in time for the term to start. Okay, I'll be surprised if we see them before October. While 20+ students in an ESL class may be normal in a public school in the States, it's unusual here. We are supposed to have an upper limit of twelve - t

I'm beginning to research the next podcast. I have various articles from the Arab News about black magic, sorcerers and the Committee for the Prevention of Vice. Now to weave these into an interesting narrative. If you have specific questions to ask, please e-mail them as text or audio and I'll work them into the show. Thanks for listening to the first show!

I've finished the certificate portion of the masters program. I have to say, I'm really happy about that, and really happy about the work I've done so far. I only need four more courses for the masters, so should finish by spring. It's been a personal goal for a long, long time to have a masters degree. The funny thing is, finishing this one, I want to try and do others - philosophy, digital libraries, humanities.It's unreal in a way to find myself contemplating doing all three in some kind of sequence. In other news, if I didn't have other plans, an ESL job I'd love to do: Pavlodar, Kazakhstan