Speed Dating

Thursday was officially the best day on campus! Actually, it was a pretty good week. On Sunday, the Office of Student Life provided free ice cream, and then Thursday was Cheesecake Day. Little did we know, that July 30th is “National Cheesecake Day” in the United States. So the Dean of Student Affairs decided to bring the tradition to AUK. Needless to say, we were definitely including this in our daily agenda.

To our surprise, cheesecake day on campus was not just limited to the table outside of Starbucks. You see, the advertisement said cheesecake was being served from noon until 2:00 p.m. But then, we got another email saying it would also be served from 2-4 p.m. How lucky were we?

As we checked out the second location of cheesecake, we soon learned this was slightly different than the first. We walked in and were welcomed to the “speed dating” version of eating cheesecake. Around the room were tables and each table had a different type of cheesecake on it. I never knew there were so many different types of cheesecake. Strawberry. Cherry. Lemon. Caramel. Chocolate. Snickers. Oreo. Blueberry. The goal was to visit each table and leave a comment about the particular type you had just eaten. It was easier said than done. Our excitement and enthusiasm quickly faded after several rounds of cheesecake. I’m not kidding, I ate more cheesecake that day than I had probably in the past five years.

Jill's facial expression illustrates how we felt after consuming our weight in cheesecake.

We were thoroughly impressed with this concept. It was a great way to meet other faculty and get to know others. It was a great day.

First Week of Class
The first week of class was good. The class is smaller, and they do not seem to be as talkative as the first group. They are mildly reserved, but I hope that will change as they get to know more about me.

Their first presentations were also on Thursday, and they were good. On a whole, they were better than the first presentations from the first four-week course. Additionally, as a class their quiz scores were much higher than the first group. I hope the trend continues, and that I see improvement over the next three weeks.

Other Items of Interest
Dunkin’ Donuts. This week, I was asked why I like Dunkin’ Donuts so much. I was honest in my response: I’ve never had Dunkin’ Donuts. So why am I so obsessed? If it were open, I would be there. I can only imagine how great an iced coffee would be on the morning commute.

Peace Out. This week saw the departure of three more new friends. Kevin and Ashley (AUK Student Life interns) left this week. We celebrated with Kevin on Thursday night at the Palm Palace. Our new friend Jeremy left on Saturday. Jeremy is also a student at Virginia Tech. Who would have thought that another VT student was in Kuwait? With these departures, we are reminded that our time here is getting shorter and shorter.

Kuwait Towers. On Saturday, we checked another tourist spot off of our list…the Kuwait Towers. The towers are pretty impressive, and the observation deck provides an amazing view of Kuwait City. Luckily, it was a clear day when we were there. From above, Kuwait City is a pretty amazing city.

The view of the Kuwait towers.

Looking down from the observation deck.

Looking towards downtown Kuwait City--quite an impressive view!

In the tower, they had several pictures displayed showing the tower after the Iraqi invasion. The captions of the pictures are interesting. This one said "The Iraqi invaders made beautiful oasis garden a dead land."

Laundromat. I really haven’t had to go to a Laundromat, but I like to pretend that I have been. Because our washer/dryer still wasn’t fixed, we were given a key to the apartment across the hall so we could do laundry there. Don’t worry, no one lives there. Luckily that only lasted a few days. As of yesterday, our washer/dryer is back and working. Knock on wood.

Life has been pretty uneventful lately. Welcome to life in Kuwait.