Posts tagged ‘images’

October 20th, 2010

Becoming a grown up in the span of a month

In my last post I mentioned there were some exciting things going on in our lives.
Time to share!

One
We’re buying a house! This house, specifically:

They accepted our offer last week & we had the inspection Monday and, while there are things that need work, things are moving forward. Now we just need to secure financing & wait 25 more days until closing!

It’s a great 1 story house, built in 1925, with two bedrooms [one of which will be a yoga/sewing room for ME!], a huge basement [that Joel can transform into his man cave], a deck, fireplace, bigger kitchen & a bathtub [which means it meets all our requirements]. It needs some work [ripping up the gross carpet & refinishing the hardwood floors will be the first major project] but you can’t beat the price – $23,000. Plus, it’s in a quiet neighborhood & just a few blocks from downtown Ypsilanti.

Many thanks to Tammi Ebenhoeh [our great friend Alisha's mom!] for all her work!! She’s been an incredible help in this process & we definitely recommend her if you’re shopping for a home.

Two
Both Joel & I had job interviews yesterday at 1pm for our dream jobs!

My interview was at the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn for a Curator of Collections position. Joel interviewed for a Volunteer Coordinator with Growing Hope in Ypsilanti. You can read more about them in this blog post Joel wrote for the Let’s Save Michigan campaign [I've blogged about their poster contest before].

Other good news is that I got a raise at the herbarium! They’ll also be training me this week on a new position working with the database. I had approached them a few weeks ago about wanting to expand my skill set and take on more challenging work and I’m so happy they’re willing to work with me!

Between all that, grad school & event planning for the SAA group, things have been pretty stressful & awesome lately [hence the lack of blogging].

BUT! I promise the next blog will have lots of interesting cultural/archival stuff & a lot less about my personal life.

Until then, a beautiful quote about the power of books:

CategoryUncategorized | Comment7 Comments »

Tags:
June 3rd, 2010

Experiments in crowd sourcing

Here at the RBSCL@AUC [Rare Books & Special Collections Library at the American University in Cairo], I’ve become quite the social media guru. I’ve been blogging, tweeting & Facebooking for the library and, last week, my mentors mentioned starting a Flickr page. As an avid user my of Flickr myself, I was excited about the opportunity.

Today I sat down, explored the servers and hard drives at AUC and found some really amazing images and photographs. After loading them them onto Flickr, I posted a blog and sent out tweets inviting users to comment/tag/note them.

We’ve talked a lot about crowd sourcing, community participation and folksonomies in my classes at SI, most notably Wikipedia and the Library of Congress Flickr, but this is my first time being directly involved in such a project.

To my surprise, after a half a day, we already a lot of tags, comments and other descriptive information added. I’m so excited about this and I can’t wait to add more photographs.

Here’s an example of the types of things we have up:

Cairo, Egypt

Boulac Bridge; Cairo, Egypt

The City of the Khalifs (Blue Mosque)

Mohammed Ali 2

Feel free to check it out & add information!

CategoryUncategorized | CommentNo Comments »

Tags:
May 29th, 2010

One month in

It’s hard to believe, but as of today I’ve been in Egypt one month. Just 6 weeks until I head back to the States.

This weekend has been really great.
Friday night, about 10pm, Opal & our friend Muhammad came to get me & we went to a cafe. We spent a few hours sipping tea, smoking shisha, laughing & people watching before leaving. We decided against a cab & instead walked about 45 minutes through two neighborhoods back to our place – it was really nice.

Last night, a group of us [including new friend & fellow expat Dan], made a trek to Jesuit Cairo to attending ‘Egypt: The Musical.‘

Our group for the night

Although we left at intermission because we were all very hungry, it was a cool experience. After a nice dinner [at a place I actually went to when I was here three years ago - random], we came back to our place & stayed up late hanging out, taking & trying to play the rababa Opal & Muhammad bought me from our local street vendor.

This afternoon I tried baking again [you can read about my cookie making adventure here]. We had some brown bananas but no bread pan, so Opal suggest banana scones – they turned out pretty good! Some cinnamon would have made them extra good, but all the spices looked the same at the store & I probably would have ended up with chili powder. Regardless, they’re done & good & comforting.

banana scones

banana scones

I also picked up an ice cream mix. The process is the same as instant pudding – mix with milk & let sit, only apparently after two hours in the freezer you get ice cream. It’s freezing now & I’m interested to see how it turns out!

Instant ice cream mix

The rest of the day holds laundry, reading, Skyping, relaxing & generally enjoying myself before heading back to work tomorrow. Happy Memorial Day weekend to everyone back home!! [I wish I was at the cottage with my husband, dog & friends!]

CategoryUncategorized | Comment2 Comments »

Tags:
May 27th, 2010

Two good quotes

Life is too short & beautiful to do anything but embrace every moment.
These quotes help me remember that:

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.
[Anais Nin]

&

To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.
[Oscar Wilde]

CategoryUncategorized | CommentNo Comments »

Tags:
May 5th, 2010

Good friends, flames & frogger

I can’t believe I’ve worked almost a full week – just tomorrow & then it’s the weekend! [In Egypt the work week is Sun-Thur & the weekend is Fri/Sat. The reason is that Friday is the Muslim holy day, so many places are closed so people can observe it, like how Sunday day of rest in Christianity]

Not only am I excited for a few days off but, even better – ALISHA IS COMING FROM BOTSWANA TO VISIT!!!
I’m beyond excited about this! I’ve only gotten to see her 3 times over the past 2 years & we get to spend an entire week together & I can show her my life here & have adventures! I’m picking up her & a friend tomorrow at 6:40am, going to work for the day & then we’re taking a train up to Alexandria. We’ll explore the city & come back on Saturday. I absolutely can not wait!

The weather has been pretty nice so far – mid 80′s or so. I have a weather bar at the bottom of my web browser & I had to laugh when I saw it today:

Here’s a close up, in case you can’t see it:

That’s right – it’s a flaming thermometer!! Luckily we should be able to go swimming this weekend!!

Lastly, here’s a video of people crossing the street in Cairo. There aren’t any stop signs or traffic lights here, there’s no such thing as a traffic lane & horns are used liberally. Coming home from work I cross about 3 lanes of traffic going one way & then another 3 going the opposite way. It’s quite a feat & I’m rather proud of myself, so hopefully watching this will show you why [especially because the cars are going considerably faster on the road I cross!].

I just called a hotel in Alexandria to make a reservation, which was a little difficult since he didn’t speak much English. Although I think it’s under the name “Loiz,” he said “see you tomorrow,” so at least they know we’re coming! Win!

Anyways, time to sit in the bath & read a book. I’m so excited to have a bathtub here – it’s definitely one luxury I don’t have back in the States. I’m trying to enjoy baths now before it’s a million degrees out, although I suppose I could always take an ice bath!

Ciao!

CategoryUncategorized | CommentNo Comments »

Tags:
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »