Kudos

Warren Buffet, who has a net worth of around $44 billion, announced that he will be donating approximately 85% of fortune to five charities, namely the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. (see NYTimes article: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/26/business/26cnd-buffet.html?hp&ex=1151380800&en=0da0a19c850d46ae&ei=5094&partner=homepage) I heard about this today, and was very proud to see someone doing such a thing.

Most people who know me have heard me say at one point or another "I wish I could win the lottery," or "I'd make such a great rich person." And this is why. I would love nothing better to have funds at my disposal, not for shopping, but to give it all away. Again, if you know me, you'd know I'm far from materialistic and would truly love to just give it all to people who need it. Seeing and reading about what Warren Buffet is doing makes me happy that someone sees things my way as well. Granted many wealthy people and celebrities donate their money, but I hardly consider a $100,000 donation admirable when their cars likely cost more than this.

There are so many millionaires (2.67million in the USA alone).....why isn't there more giving going on? In 2004, there were 37 million americans living in poverty. Forgive me if I don't understand the need for elaborate mansions - I just think it's completely unneccessary considering the better uses for that money (like food).

The point of this, however, was not to go off of selfish rich people, but rather to congratulate this man (who is keeping 15% ~ $6.6billion) on his effort to help the world. Links of interest: http://www.grist.org/news/counter/2006/02/13/poverty/
http://www.forbes.com/2003/11/19/charityland.html

Click on these pages daily to donate for free:
www.thebreastcancersite.com
www.thehungersite.com
www.thechildhealthsite.com
www.theanimalrescuesite.com
www.theliteracysite.com
**You can even sign up for daily email reminders to click & donate.

"And in the morning, I'm making waffles!"

I finally found a waffle maker!!! I was so excited, but when I made them....they were kind of dissappointing. The waffle iron makes really thin waffles (boring!). So instead of nice thick ones, they were flat and heavy. Ah well, what do you do? On the flip side, they do come out with little heart shapes...awww!

Learning Arabic....or Trying Anyways

So, I started taking arabic classes this week; it's a class for faculty & staff and is held twice a week at the school. We learned the arabic alphabet and how to sound it out today. This proved to be quite an interesting experience. For each letter, our instructor points around the room to everyone and makes sure we're sounding them correctly. At one point I looked around at my middle-aged classmates, and had to laugh in my head. Here we all are desperately trying to sound out these foreign sounds and looking totally infantile and, basically, silly. Each letter has three sounds so we are all sitting there repeating "ah, ooh, eh" "bah, boo, beh" - it was when they all started sounding the same that problems arised. So we asked to differentiate between common letters and we got --> the first one sounds like "tha" and the second one like "tha"....is that supposed to help?! Baffled we are all still staring, thinking, huh? So, to clarify, he points to his mouth and says, "watch, 'tha' (pause) 'tha' ". OH! Okay, it's crystal clear now. Right! Poor guy...bunch of americans can't figure it out! He is a good teacher, I'm not making fun of him; I'm doing it at us, the students, because we look so ridiculous. Just teach me the words....

Doha at 5am

And here you have it: the reason for Daylight Savings Time (too bad its not practiced in Doha). This is a picture I took ten minutes ago at 5am from my front door. Ahh, so this is why there are super thick curtains....it's all clear now. I haven't been here during the summer yet, but apparently the sun continues to rise earlier and earlier. All the better for those who want to do their morning jogs; too bad I'm not one of them. But, honestly, the weather is perfect outside right now - it's just too bad I typically sleep through it.

How was your Chicken Slaughtered?

I'd first like to point out that I'm not making fun of anyone by writing this.... Below are pictures of frozen chicken I bought at the grocery store in Qatar. I didn't notice this, but my grandmother pointed out the phrase on the package stating that the chicken was "slaughtered by hand with a sharp knife." We both thought this was funny and so I decided to post it. It's been a while since I put anything up anyways.

Random Act of Kindness

Alright, so I may be stereotyping here, but I'd say about 85% of the Landcruisers here drive crazy! Not to say that others don't, but almost all of these bad boys do. So anyways...last week I was leaving work and got stuck at a backed up round-about. Typically there are police there directing traffic to help out, but not this day. So, all of a sudden the traffic on my side was going, going...so I figured a cop had gotten there and was letting us go. Lo and behold, I reached the round-about to see a Qatari in a Landcruiser who had just parked his car in the way of the traffic and was letting everyone pass. *blink*blink* Could this be true? I wanted to take a picture. It was really surprising (and appreciated)! So there are nice traffic deeds here after all!!

Tasty Treat!

Well, all my stuff has finally arrived and been unpacked. It didn't take all that long to get here, about two weeks. Too bad for me, I didn't know the walls were all made of concrete here, so all of my wall hangings are....well....not hanging. About this picture, I was surprised to see a TCBY here so I just had to try it out. :P I tried a "Shiver" made out of chocolate soft serve with oreo's and waffle cone pieces. It was quite a sucess! I really liked it. More later....