Google Earth Updates Doha Imagery
Every now and then I think “wasta” is a good thing. (Wasta is connection, wasta is knowing someone who can help you out. It can be good when you need a favor. It can be bad when it gets you out of a situation for which you are responsible.) I have wasta with Google Earth. When I moved to Kuwait, I complained that my area was all blurry and within a week – WOW. High resolution.
I got word this morning from my connection, Earthling, that new imagery for Doha is up and any blurriness is being cleaned up. Thank you, Earthling! You have no idea – Doha really doesn’t have street addresses that you can figure out, so Google Earth helps me get to where I need to go.
If you are not a GoogleEarth user – yet – I urge you to download and give it a try. It’s free, and it is awesome.
(Earthling, can you call it work when you love what you do and where you work so much?) 😉
Kuwaiti Youth Read Books
Wooo HOOOO on you, Kuwait! 😀
Kuwait”s youth bucking the trend, more open to reading books
Nadia AlÙ€Nassar
Staff Writer
Al Watan
A solid core of knowledge comes from reading. No matter what book a person reads, numerous benefits come from it; unlike watching TV, reading exercises the brain through an active mental process. Kuwait is often cited as one of the top reading Gulf countries in terms of print news, but is said to be amongst the lowest in terms of books. However, there is a visible trend emerging in the youth, with the number of teenagers reading in Kuwait over the past few years gradually increasing
Talking to a manager of one of Kuwait”s prominent bookstores about the readers who visit the bookstore, he noted that about 50 percent of the customers are now between the ages of 13 and 17 years old. He said that the majority of them choose bestsellers and books that were made into television shows or films.
Most of the readers choose to read English books, while there are some who read English books that are translated to Arabic, said the bookstore manager, bringing up the fact that there has been an increase in the percentage of teenage customers witnessed over the past year.
When students were asked why they think the youth of Kuwait is reading more, their responses were diverse, as well as interesting.
Saud said, “I think that our parents are much more educated than the parents of previous generations, therefore our parents comprehend the significance of reading more than the previous generation of parents.
“Our parents are trying to promote reading by getting us into the habit of reading at a young age.”
Mariam had a different view; “I think that the students are reading more nowadays because Hollywood is creating more movies based on teenage novels, such as Harry Potter, which makes teens compare the book and the movie.”
Many of the students brought up the fact that teens enjoy discussing books together, which influences their friends who do not read to do so and be able to join in the discussion.
Haifa, a 17Ù€year old, said that there are more English books than Arabic books available to read in the book market, and more students now are better in English, therefore they have more options to read.
“I personally have always been a reader, and I have noticed that teenagers in Kuwait are reading much more because reading is becoming more worldwide and is being more publicized on the Internet, but yet I do not think that they are reading enough,” stated Jasmine, a high school student.
Faisal, a sophomore in high school, said he is reading over the summer to stay ahead in the courses that he finds challenging, whereas Jasmine reads for a different purpose.
“I read because reading takes you to a different place; it”s like traveling, and I am always willing to explore new places.”
Whether it is to enhance their information about the world or to entertain themselves, numerous students in Kuwait have realized the importance of reading and have taken it into their daily lives.
One of the most popular genres that teenage girls are reading in Kuwait is romantic fantasy, such as the Twilight series. Teenage boys on the other hand are interested in different genres.
“I”m very picky with the books I read; I usually read thrillers, fantasies and series such as Harry Potter and Charlie Bone, said 14Ù€yearÙ€old Saud.
Sara mentioned that teenagers in Kuwait are also interested in reading psychological books, such as A Million Little Pieces, one of the more adult books making its way into the small but growing new generation of Kuwaiti readers.
Last updated on Tuesday 4/8/2009
Gross!
Our son asked how the baby pigeons are doing. They are doing fine. They are huge! Yesterday, I saw the largest one stretch his legs and take a couple steps!
I also know now how pigeons feed their babies. Pigeons are just gross, or at least these wild pigeons who have chosen my villa are gross. (I am sure that Bu Yousefs pedigreed pigeons are much more refined than these wild pigeons. 😉 ) They poop on my front porch. To feed their babies, they eat and then they come back and shake all over and make themselves throw up and the babies go wild and eat right out of their beaks.
I know, I know, it is all part of God’s perfect plan and nothing is gross . . . but it FEELS gross to me!
As we were entering the compound the other night, we saw one of the compound wild cats, young, skinny, and oh-so-proud, head high, carrying a pigeon almost as big as he/she was. You couldn’t help but laugh, even though the pigeon was sadly dead, but that cat was strutting! He/She knew he was going to have a great meal in just a minute, once he got that pigeon to a safe, secret place!
Horseback Riding Camp
“Whatever you might have heard from your kids” the camp director started, and AdventureMan and I looked at one another with concern, “it is just rumors. The counselors did not have a big drunken party, and we have the situation under control.”
We hadn’t heard anything. We were there to pick up our son and his best friend from Horseback Riding Camp. They were eight years old and this was their first time away. We had dropped them off a mere week before, at the clean clean little chalet camp in Southern Germany, where they would learn to ride and take care of their horses.
“So, son,” AdventureMan starts with that casual voice grown-ups use with their children when about to launch an interrogation, “tell us about the camp!”
We were driving back, and wanted to get a campers-eye-view of the week. Our eight-year-old son was exhausted and not very talkative; it was only during the following week that most of the details came out.
He hated horseback riding. He hated taking care of horses. The instruction they got was minimal to non-existent. Most days they missed their horse riding lessons because the counselor overslept. The kids got up and got their own breakfast – cereal – until the milk ran out, and then they ate it dry.
Horrors. We had done everything right. We had checked the camp references, had visited and inspected the camp before deciding to send him there, had met the counselors – horrors! In fact, our son enjoyed the week, but mostly because they had a TV, and no supervision. They spent most of the week watching TV.
In the following years, he went to other camps – adventure training camp, karate camps, Space Camp (that was the best organized) and then became a camp counselor himself, teaching karate. Our most graphic memories as parents, however, are of picking him up at horseback riding camp and learning how loosely organized and supervised it was, compared to what the brochure said and the inspection visit promised.
Bu Yousef – World Digital Library
Thank you, Bu Yousef, for your focus and your generosity. Because his blog(s) are special interest – photography, Mangaf, bird-photography – he passed along to me this information on the World Digital Library, which he heard about on BBC during his morning drive. Because my blog is . . . well . . . here, there and everywhere . . . he knew I would love to share this with you.
This is what the World Digital Library looks like when you go there:
Of course, the first thing I had to do was go to the Middle East, where there are all kinds of early maps of the Gulf – and this! Look! The old trading routes through the Sahara!
WARNING! WARNING! You could lose hours of your life on this website!
Speaking of hours of fun, my friends, please go visit Neubronner, Bu Yousef’s new web page about his pigeons, and watch his movie of his pigeon, Charcoal, flying around his neighborhood. He even has a photo of a pigeon with the camera strapped.
Facebook Hurts your Grades?
From CNET News
Yes, researchers at Ohio State University have delved deep into the habit that is Facebook and concluded that those who express their membership regularly do worse in school tests.
In fact, they say, the majority of those who Facebook daily do worse by as much as one whole grade.
Aryn Karpinski, one of the Ohio State education department researchers, was quoted in the Times of London as saying: “Our study shows people who spend more time on Facebook spend less time studying. “Every generation has its distractions, but I think Facebook is a unique phenomenon.”
Ms. Karpinski will be presenting her findings this week at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association.
Some 68 percent of the Facebookers among the 219 young things questioned enjoyed a significantly lower GPA than those who eschewed friending and poking.
Schools Start Date 23 September 2009 in Kuwait
School year to begin on Sept. 23
Staff Writer
Al Watan
KUWAIT: The Council of Undersecretaries at the Ministry of Education has officially announced the next academic year’s schedule. Intermediate and secondary stage students are scheduled to resume their classes on Sept. 23, while kindergarten and primaryÙ€one schoolchildren are expected to return to school on Sept. 27, while children in the other primary stages are due to resume later; on Sept. 29. In another development, the council has also decided to cancel retests for students of all stages and announced that the new intermediate evaluation system will be introduced from the next academic year.
I am guessing that this is after Ramadan, and after the Eid al Adha?
Last updated on Monday 13/4/2009
Brilliant Sunrise, 5 Apr 09
Goooooooooooood Morning, Kuwait! 🙂
It is going to be another gorgeous day in Kuwait. Don’t let this “heavy fog” deter you. When I got up, the sunrise was so bright, I couldn’t see the sun, it was refracted all over the sky. I was only able to get the shot by focusing on the reflection of the sun on the water.
It is going to be a fantastic week – sweet warm days and cooling off evenings, perfect for sitting outside and drinking coffee, visiting with friends – and a little later in the week, a chance of more rain:
AdventureMan and I saw Journey to Mecca yesterday, along with about 500 others living in Kuwait. The movie is still packing people in! The audience was about 3/4 full with children, and I thought “oh this is going to be great, crying children and people talking on their cell phones.” I was SO wrong. Although the movie theater was full, I did not hear a single phone, I did not hear a single crying child – the movie held us all spellbound. We loved the movie, and we loved seeing it in the IMAX theatre.
(There are special headsets for non-Arabic speakers, with the dialogue in English. We didn’t know; they just spotted us as probably-non-Arabic and handed us the headsets.)
Sometimes, I am just slow. My niece, Little Diamond, had recommended a book called Travels with a Tangerine: From Morocco to Turkey in the Footsteps of Islam’s Greatest Traveller, but it was not until yesterday that I got it – that Ibn Batuta was from Tangiers! Sometimes, I am just slow . . . sometimes I can grasp subtleties but the obvious escapes me totally.
You can buy this book from Amazon.com for a mere $10.17 plus shipping. Yes, I own stock in amazon.com.
You can also probably find it at the Kuwait Bookstore, that amazing store in the bottom of the Al Muthanna Mall, near the Sheraton Circle downtown.
Closed Circuit TV in all Kuwait Schools
From today’s Al Watan:
CCTV cameras to be in place next school year
Staff Writer
KUWAIT: Former Minister of Education and Minister of Higher Education Dr. Nouriya AlÙ€Subaih has confirmed that the ministry is finalizing the installation of CCTV cameras on school campuses and is expected to be fully and completely implemented by the beginning of the next school year.
AlÙ€Subaih”s statement came during a press conference organized by the Teachers Society for its 38th Educational Conference, which was held under the title ”Excellent Training, Future in the Making”.
The minister stressed that all steps are being taken to provide students with a proper and adequate education and that their safety and security are equally prioritized.
She made reference to the recent abuse incidents in local schools and pointed out that contrary to popular belief, school incidents have taken place in the past with the only difference being that they were never reported to police and the press “because they were dealt with and tackled by the school management then.”
She recalled how when she was herself a teacher school problems were dealt with privately and discretely due to the sensitive nature of the problems.
AlÙ€Subaih further pointed out that acquiring the correct specifications and right CCTV cameras to do the job adequately and comprehensively “requires careful consideration to check the right models types, otherwise we would have gone to the local market,” adding that there were some models which the ministry had acquired but due to poor quality was later decided to be dropped.
For his part, Teachers Union Director Ayed AlÙ€Sahli said that teachers play an essential role in education and upbringing and that “the idea of training fits perfectly with the requirements of this noble profession to ensure that teachers make the children they teach more useful and productive.
“There is a need for training while teaching and great consideration is being put into the latest training programs with an eye to the future, so that teachers” skills and abilities are enhanced adequately,” he remarked.
Last updated on Tuesday 24/3/2009
MP Al-Muhaibi Condemns Male Teaching Female Students
From today’s <a href=”“>Al Watan
MP Jaber AlÙ€Muhailbi condemns school incident
Staff Writer
KUWAIT: MP Jaber AlÙ€Muhailbi has denounced the fact that grade 12 girls at AlÙ€Sabahiya High School are being taught by a foreign, male teacher. According to him, “the incident reveals a great amount of recklessness on the part of the Ministry of Education,” which he says disregards the traditions and values of Kuwaiti society.
AlÙ€Muhailbi expressed his apprehension that there might be forces planning to replace the conservative educational system in the country with a system that openly encouraged ”mixed” schools for boys and girls.
He held Minister of Education Nouriya AlÙ€Subaih solely responsible for the incident, said that it proved she was incompetent to shoulder her responsibilities as a minister.
He finally announced that he would put forward a number of questions concerning the aforementioned incident to the minister, and would inquire as to whether this was an occurrence seen in other schools, and asserted that there were plenty of female teachers capable of teaching female students in Kuwait.
He expressed his displeasure about the presence of a male teacher in a girls” school, calling it “unacceptable.”
Last updated on Tuesday 17/3/2009
12th grade? Isn’t that like the year girls graduate and go on to university classes (God willing/insh’allah) where they will be taught, as likely as not, by male professors?
Do these girls go to restaurants with male waiters?
Do they shop in stores with male cashiers? Male customer service agents? Male managers?
Learning self-control is like any other skill; it requires practice. You practice by confronting the realities of the situation. Society – in and out of Kuwait – is mixed. We sit next to each other on airplanes, we are seated next to one another in restaurants, our paths cross, daily. Kuwaiti girls are well brought up and can control themselves; they also have skills at turning aside the unwanted attention of the rare teacher who might overstep.
Mr. MP, we must be suspicious of those who see sexual issues lurking in every corner; what is in the heart of a man who sees sex everywhere? Give these girls a little credit. They are after an education, not some male teacher.
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