The Things You Learn: Blogging

TnT has been in the blogosphere for around 4 months now and its success has been overwhelming, even though Tom and I don’t update it as much as we would like. This blog, along with two previous  failed attempts, have taught me what and what not to expect in this fascinating area. These are all found in list below. Enjoy

 

Wordpress Homepage- Image via Wikipedia

 

1-  The starting phase will be the most exciting period in your blogging experience.

2- You will put a lot of effort into choosing a name, a theme, and writing an “About” section.

3- Your first post will usually be an explanatory/poetic piece in which you describe your dedication, passion, and/or wildly varying thoughts that you just have to express through a blog.  This is exemplified in my first post for TnT:  The Very First One

4- Your friends will begin to hate you because you keep “spamming” their Twitter timelines and Facebook homepages with your promoting activities.

5- You thanked your lucky stars when WordPress introduced Zementa and the sharing buttons.

6- Even though you’re a grammar nerd in reality, you don’t really care that much about that when typing up your posts. (It’s part of self-expression after all.)

The Things You Learn: AUB

That They May Have Life and Have It More Abundantly

After spending the best two years of my life at the American Univeristy of Beirut, majoring in Environmental Health and being involved in so many extracirculars, I will be graduating in June- something I’m having a lot of mixed feelings about. I recently wrote an Op-Ed for Outlook, AUB‘s Official Student Newspaper about my experiences and this post is based on that piece. I’m certain that in the coming months, I’ll have more to add as my undergraduate years come to a close. Here they are in no particular order.

You will:

• Overnight on projects that will only count for 10% of your final grade
• study at Jafet, no matter how much you try to resist the idea.
• Take some classes that are going to very interesting. Others will just make you wonder what the hell you’re doing there.
• Drink coffee, chew gum, text, BBM, and fall asleep sitting up in class.
• Pronounce Bathish in the most American accent only to find out its Lebanese.
• Join some clubs even if they don’t appeal to your interests.
• Go to events just because there’s a reception afterwards.
• Run from upper to lower campus under the pouring rain, carrying two bags, an ineffective umbrella, and wearing the wrong shoes for the season.
• Take advice from random strangers and dispense it on others.
• Make friends that you will never see anymore.
• Meet people in the weirdest of ways.
• Have trouble with registration.

The Things You Learn

As a follow-up to my post, A Tale of Two Cities, I have decided to put together a list of things I’ve learned from all the time I’ve spent in Jeddah. I was supposed to publish this post earlier but then decided that since I’m going back to Beirut in a matter of days, now would be the perfect time. I hope you enjoy reading this list as much as I have putting it together. Here it goes!

Al Baik's Logo

1. Food, no matter where you get it from, is always great tasting. I’m most partial to Al-Baik, a broasted chicken chain that is deeply associated with Jeddah AND is incredibly delicious.

1. Wearing the Abayya is not as bad as it sounds. First, you wouldn’t feel like an outsider. Second, you can wear one that’s colorful so you don’t have to worry about conformity. Third, since it covers all your clothes, you don’t have to dress to the nines every time you go out.
2. Sleeping when the sun comes up is perfectly normal even when you have work in a matter of hours. Day and night have been truly redefined.
3. Arabic is not the official language, contrary to popular belief. Asian expats don’t speak Arabic, Arab expats have a difficult time understanding different dialects and the locals will only speak in their distinct dialect.
4. The sheer organization of taxis in this country makes me actually miss the chaos that is Lebanese “service”s.
5. We’re in the second decade of the 3rd millennium and women still don’t drive, and things don’t seem to be looking up.