I love The Office. I have the first three seasons on DVD, and I’ll definitely be buying the Season 4 DVD when it is released early next month. The new season starts on September 25, and I can’t wait, especially after seeing this commercial that aired during the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. Enjoy!
[youtube]http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=A2Ja2mrdadE[/youtube]
I went scuba diving again today with some friends here in Qatar. The place we went is pretty cool, but the visibility isn’t great at all. It was still tons of fun. I got an underwater enclosure for my Sony Cybershot point and shoot camera, so I now have pics and video of my own. Check it out here. The last few things in the gallery are short videos that I took. Here’s a sample of the fish eating out of our hands:
[youtube]http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=V8Sb2tZZ7ac[/youtube]
Today is my parents’ 29th wedding anniversary. Wow. This is sadly becoming more and more unheard of, so I brag about them whenever I get the chance 🙂
Thank you, Mom and Dad, for your love and support of me in all of my crazy adventures. I love you, and I’m so thankful for you.
If you’ve never lived in a foreign country, you may not understand the importance of extremely cheap ways to call home. I have a voice over IP (VoIP) line that works over the internet to give me a Dallas phone number. This makes it super easy to keep in touch with friends and family, and it lets me conduct any business with companies in the States that I need to. I pay a monthly fee that’s cheaper than my cell phone was when I lived in Texas. I also use Skype a lot for video conferencing and even computer-to-phone calls.
There have been a lot of news reports here lately saying that it was illegal to use these services, because it takes away from the income of the telecom provider here. I don’t think this affected expatriates like me as much as it did the much lower-paid workers that work way too hard for very little money. Inflation is bad enough here without them having to shell out big bucks to call home.
Anyway, here’s a story from the paper today that explains the whole situation and finally gives an official stance.
I know it’s been a long time since I’ve posted, and I hopefully will very soon. I’ve been busy with work, took a short vacation to the US, and I went to Bahrain to visit an old friend this weekend. Wow, I love my life 🙂
I saw a couple of stories in the news today that I had to share. These are definitely not ones that you would see in the US. Enjoy.
A CHRISTIAN man and a Muslim woman escaped jail for having illicit relations after he converted to Islam and the couple married.
Lawyers for the pair had asked for the charge to be quashed following the union, but presiding judge Mamon Hamour said the subsequent wedding did not erase the original crime and he passed down a suspended one-year prison sentence.
He explained that “marriage was a holy contract” and it deserved more respect than to be used to cover up a crime. However, the court applauded the man’s decision to convert to Islam and admitted that the fact that they were now husband and wife had helped reduce their sentence.
The couple’s illicit affair was uncovered after the woman accused her then lover of blackmailing her. She said he had in his possession a number of intimate photographs which he had threatened to put on the Internet unless she had paid him QR100,000.
The court heard that the Lebanese pair had hoped to marry but both their families had been against the idea because she was older than him and because of their religious differences.
The trial also heard that the couple had lived together for a while in Doha in 2005 because the woman “was unaware that such a matter was illegal in Qatar”.
The man denied attempts to blackmail his then girlfriend claiming she had concocted the story after falsely believing he was about to marry another woman.
Officers found no evidence of compromising pictures on his computer.
Acting on their lawyers’ advice, the two of them buried the hatchet and tied the knot in March after the groom-to-be converted on October 31, 2007.
Despite mentioning the alleged blackmail plot, judge Hamour said he would only deal with the charge brought by the Public Prosecution of illicit relations.
The court also stopped short of deporting the pair “to allow them to establish a family in Doha”.
However, legal sources said the couple’s conviction could affect any decision to renew their residence permits.
MOST Qataris are not in favour of any plan to introduce co-education, saying it will only “cause damage to a deeply-rooted culture of segregation between male and female students”.
Abdul Aziz al-Sayed, a principal of an Independent School, said that any plan for co-education would be regarded as a “war against the culture and create confusion and alienation among students”.
According to him, it is hard to put an end to a heritage of single-sex learning. “We should not be lured by the educational philosophies made in the West. Every society has its own traits and our society is not prepared for such step or even will be happy with it,” he said, adding, “Even some Western countries have introduced single-sex education system.
“I have visited many schools in the USA and Europe and they are reviewing the policy of co-education after many findings showed its drawbacks,” he said.
Noura al-Saad, a columnist with a local Arabic daily, said that any proposal to introduce co-education system would be doomed to fail since “the scheme would not be acceptable to the community at all”.
“I believe that any step like that will be rejected by the majority. Our community will not be happy about the idea of mixing between men and women whether at schools or at work. Nothing obliges us to adopt co-education system,” she said.
“I put a face veil and work in an exclusively female section in my office, I will quit my job if it becomes obligatory for me to work in a mixed-sex environment,” she added.
Dr Amina al-Hail, an official at the Ministry of Education, dismissed the perception that those who received their education in a single-sex system can hardly work in a labour market permitting mixing between males and females, as “untrue”.
“All the Qatari women are now working in public and private sectors along with men though both were products of a single-sex education. The problem is that the foreigners think that our community is being shackled by restrictions and traditions. This notion is wrong. Men and women are working now on equal basis with one another in many departments and we do not hear about harassment of any type,” she said. However, Hassan al-Jifairi, a social activist, favoured co-education system, saying that it would improve the output of education process by attracting students to schools and universities.
“I believe that ending the segregation of genders in university and schools will improve learning and make it attractive. Both males and females would be inspired by one another and have spirit of competition,” he said. According to al-Jifairi, it would also create some sort of self-discipline as females and males try to be courteous, cautious and under control when they are in one place.
So there’s a really important update that I’ve been meaning to write but never got the chance. I am now on vacation in the US for almost 3 weeks. Yeah, it’s a pretty big deal…sorry for leaving that one out 🙂 I arrived in Dallas early this afternoon to very excited parents (duh). I’m really excited to be here. Work has been really busy and tiring, and I was definitely ready for a vacation.
I have put up a bunch of new pictures up on my photo site. I’m still working on integrating it with my blog, so for now, head on over to my SmugMug page. My friend, Trent, has been here this weekend, and that’s been tons of fun. I have pics of some of that time, as well as the recent TAMUQ graduation. Enjoy!
Hey everyone!
I can’t believe that I haven’t written anything since April. I really want to be more on the ball with this. I’ve been really busy with work and trying to do fun stuff to keep my sanity. I wanted to write a quick note to let you know that I have a new photo site. I found one that I like a lot more than Flickr. It’s called SmugMug. My site is at jhizzle.smugmug.com, and I’ll have it integrated with my blog very soon.
I got a new camera this past week, so I’ll be updating the photo site pretty frequently. I already have a gallery on there called “New Camera,” so check it out. Here’s one of the first pictures I took with the new toy.
I’ve decided to start posting news articles from the Gulf region, so that you know what’s going on here. These will range from weird and hilarious to governmental policy and everything in between. Here are a couple to start:
TAMUQ career fair draws top firms
TEXAS A&M Univer-sity at Qatar (TAMUQ) has hosted regional companies at its annual career fair as part of a week-long programme called Careers for Engineers 2008.
The event was organised by the university’s Academic Services Office for students and employers to connect with each other in time for the campus’ first graduation ceremony this May.
Students were able to submit resumes to over 20 local companies, hiring for both internships and full time employment.
Company representatives were able to interact with students on an informal one-on-one basis and also conducted formal interviews and information sessions about their companies.
With engineers in high demand within the country and regionally, companies are eagerly awaiting the first and subsequent classes to come out of TAMUQ.
Companies represented at the career fair included Alfardan, Oxy, Shell, Qatargas, Kahramaa, Qtel, Qapco, ExxonMobil, Q-Cert, QChem, Maersk Oil Qatar, Schlumberger, Baker Hughes, GE, RasGas, Dolphin Energy, Qatar Petroleum, Halliburton, Qatar Steel, Qatar General Organisation for Standards and Metrology, Qatar Vinyl Company, and Oryx GTL.
“After attending the career fair, I am encouraged that the industry is not only looking for engineers, but Texas A&M engineers. I personally had three interviews and am hopeful that I will receive a positive reply for a summer internship,” sophomore mechanical engineering major Dani Wannous said.
US calls for Qatar to relax labour laws
US EMBASSY officials are urging a “liberalisation” of the sponsorship law to combat forced labour and human trafficking violations within Qatar.
The call comes amid increasing speculation regarding a draft law, currently awaiting approval, governing the entry and exit of foreigners, their residence and sponsorship.
The US embassy’s Charge d’Affaires, Michael Ratney, said: “Trafficking is a serious problem as many expatriate workers make arrangements to come and work in Qatar for a certain wage and a certain number of hours, but then often find themselves to be working double the hours for half the pay when they actually get here.
“The current sponsorship and labour laws mean that this practice is all too common, and we have urged the Qatari government to look into this.”
A recent human rights report commissioned by the US State Department, covering countries to which America provides foreign assistance, made uncomfortable reading regarding the lives of some expatriate workers.
It stated: “Men and women from Africa, South Asia and the Middle East travel willingly to Qatar as labourers and domestic servants but often subsequently face conditions of forced labour and physical and sexual exploitation.
“Legislation guiding the sponsorship of expatriate labourers created conditions constituting forced labour or slavery.
“The dependence of foreign labourers on their employer for residency rights and the inability to change employment or to travel without the sponsor’s permission leaves them vulnerable to abuse and arrest.”
The report pointed the finger at individual employers, contractors and recruitment agencies for the violations, adding “there is no evidence of institutional involvement by government bodies or officials”.
At a press conference held to discuss the report yesterday, Ratney admitted that Qatar had made “steady progress” in its human rights record and hoped the country could lead the way for others to follow.
He said: “With its strong leadership (Qatar) has the potential to set an example in the region.”
And part of that example would be a “liberalisation of the code that governs workers in Qatar”.
Amendments to the current sponsorship law, insisted Ratney, would benefit not only the largely expatriate workforce but also result in increased competition to the benefit of all.
The US Department’s human rights report on Qatar for the year 2007 was based on information received from a variety of sources, including governments and multilateral institutions, national and international non-governmental groups, academics, jurists, religious groups and the media.
Ratney added that the Qatari authorities had also been extremely helpful in providing information.
Well, I did it. I took my new Xterra out to the dunes of Qatar. It was a blast, and the Xterra handled the sand extremely well.
I went with several friends yesterday out to the desert for a good time of relaxing, playing on the dunes, and eating lamb. It was my second time to go out to the desert, and it was my first time to actually drive a car on the sand. I drove a four-wheeler on sand dunes in Cabo San Lucas, so I had an idea of how to drive without the traction of a hard surface. Obviously, a large vehicle is different than a four-wheeler, but the basics are the same: keep moving, and give it gas if you start to slow down.
I’m really looking forward to more trips to the desert with current and future friends. When the weather starts getting hotter, we’ll go later in the day and spend the night. That will be tons of fun.
Check out pics of this trip here. I’ve also made an album dedicated to Dwight and his travels.
Tomorrow is Easter, and I am taking the day off to celebrate Christ’s victory over death and the life He has given me. What a great thing to celebrate!