The new visitor

All clocks seem well set around here. The summer has officially left us for this year.

For its farewell event, everything is showered with celebration confetti: Pure drops of rain that borrow the colors of nature, always-welcomed sun rays lazily lingering around, casting cheerfulness on the leaves that announce the tone of the coming season.

And I'm looking ahead...

Bleeding green and white!

Ph.: Nick Dentamaro, The State News

One of the things that I really love about being here is that sense of belonging being an MSU student gives you. Being a Spartan. I myself have paranoid ideas about this sometimes, thinking that it’s just a silly thing that they make you believe in order to make you choose this university instead of another, and then to buy the MSU items once here. It is definitely a successful marketing tactic. But at the same time, I think that it does have a psychological benefit. Probably at least for international students who would need a sense of belonging once they move to a (totally) different culture.

So being a Spartan is of course not present in my mind all the time now. Life goes on normally once you get past the “honeymoon” period that lasts a few weeks after you first arrive here. During those weeks, I was willing to learn the fight song, and was excited at the idea of meeting our cute mascot Sparty. I even put my love for my favorite color (blue) on hold and became a fan of “Spartan Green”. But having spent exactly seven months now, it would take something stronger than just being an MSU student for me to remember that I am a Spartan… and be proud of it.

Yesterday was one of those days when I felt “the spirit”. The MSU men’s basketball team had got to the Final Four in the national championship and won yesterday 82-73 against the Connecticut men’s basketball team, qualifying to the final game! I am not particularly fond of basketball, but being able at least to understand what’s going on during the game (unlike when I watch American football ) I was glad to see our team qualify to the finals.

I also have great respect for the players who are very young MSU students that manage to succeed their course work while devoting so much time and effort for the game.

Anyway, tomorrow is the big day Spartans! We want a Spartan green final! Good luck to you and...

GO GREEN! GO WHITE! GO SPARTANS!

Decisions made

Nothing is worth missing those collective laughter moments among family. Nothing is worth missing the feeling of your parents’ hands on your shoulders. Your ears need to hear your loved ones' voices calling on you. Their real voice, not a ringtone. And nothing’s worth missing that.

I’m more of a real life person. I am not created to see my dear ones from behind a screen. I’m a proud old-fashioned person that prefers touching a hand-written letter to reading untouchable words behind glass. Even videos, audios, emoticons and the most eloquent descriptions mean nothing compared to the real thing.

"Are you planning to go back to Morocco when you graduate?" Yes I am. Fortunately!

One of those days...

All I remember from that August day are those green stress balls all students had received with many other give aways during a student orientation. I remember myself sitting with a group of new acquaintances , and the hands of someone tearing off that stress ball into small pieces. We joked together that day about how already stressed out that person was…

Then August went by, then the whole semester, then the first half of the second semester, and my stress ball was still there, with its green color and its dollar shape as intact as they were the first day. Not that I never stressed out since I came here (how could I not!), but because out of all the possible usages it could have, I was keeping it (with many other items like pens, pen holders etc) as a sample promotional item used for communication campaigns. Yeah, just what a studious Advertising student would do, you would think.

But today was the turn of my dollar-shaped stress ball to do the job it was made for. - or a little bit more. The reason is that today was the last day of a week during which I had one presentation, one mid-term exam (plus one last week), and a quiz (and endless readings, in-class discussions, group meetings, friendship disappointments, AND a dozen summer internship applications with no response). My green stress ball was also called for duty because today I got the scores of one of those mid-terms, and they had nothing to do with what I was aspiring for. Too much for the calm, serene Kaoutar people are used to see.

So being alone at home (fortunately) I just decided to admit that I need an insanity phase, and let myself go… Banging the table, letting out angry shouts, trying to calm myself down, failing, trying to get some relief by crying, but to no avail. All I could get out as usual were 2 drops of tears, and that was it.

Then came the turn of the stress ball. Because squeezing it gave no effect except intensifying the pain I already had in my wrist, I found myself doing exactly what that student was doing back in August. Tearing it up into small green spongy pieces.

Do I feel better? I think I do!

Sweet visions...

The color of my tea this morning was not echoed by brownish Moroccan crepes and cookies. Instead, I have had some colorful M&Ms and guess what... Sushi for this Eid :)

I have enjoyed my special meal today... keeping in the back of my mind the sweet vision of a warm Moroccan cup of tea, lighted by the smiles of those I love...

Eid mubarak said :)

Obama at MSU!!

So, it seems that I will get the chance to see Obama speaking live here at MSU!!  The presidential candidate is scheduled to speak next Thursday at 2:30 pm  at Michigan State University's Adams Field. 

I am not an American citizen (which implies that I have no voting power here), but being a "world" citizen is enough for me to be interested in the way these presidential elections are going and in who will be the next resident of the White House.  

Now remains one problem: I have class Thursday at that time!!  :(  I'll give it a try today and see if the professor would agree to make next session and exception!  We'll be learning there, won't we? :D

More will be coming soon!!

  

 

Large-scale confusion!

Last Friday was one of the longest days I had since I came here – although I am supposed to have no classes on Fridays! From 9 am, meetings and workshops followed one another, including an exhausting 4-hour workshop on SPSS that left my head spinning for the rest of the day. The last thing on my crazy agenda was a work group meeting that went from 6 to 8 pm, leading me to break my fast on the library’s exit stairs :)

But that day was one of the longest also in terms of the distance I walked. Those who know me would know that I’m not a big fan of walking. But when you study in a 21 km² campus, you do have to learn to love walking, or you will end up hating yourself! Of course I didn’t have to walk across all the 21 km², and will never have I guess/I hope XD, but I do have long walks though to go from a building to another (5 or 6 different places they were that day).
Talking about long and short walks, I always wonder why globalization only touched - and blatantly unified - important things like traditions, tastes and life styles - whole identities, but left out a few annoying things like the units of measurement in some countries like the United States!

Since the day I set foot here, I've been trying (not always hard though) to get the sense of what it means when somebody says that I have to walk “2 miles” to reach a place, or when they say that the university’s secondary campus in Detroit is 75 miles from East Lansing. Does that mean close or far? You will tell me that all I need to do is convert those units into meters and kilometers. Yes I can. But it’s really annoying – although funny sometimes – when you have to stop every time somebody describes a distance and ask yourself “Euuuh wait, does this mean that I can walk or should I take the bus?”

Weight and volume units are also misleading me here. When I go to the market, the prices posted simply don’t mean anything to me. What do I learn when I see that Goodrich’s sells apples for $3 lb, or green beans for $1.49 lb? Is that cheep or expensive? Euuuh and what does it mean to buy a 2-gallon milk bottle?

And I’d rather not talk about the weird numbers I would get if I try to know my weight or my height here. Oh and mind you, I’ve experienced 80-degrees hot days here … of course Fahrenheit not Celsius – otherwise I would have melted - literally!! (Ugh!!)

Anyway, I guess that this is part of that “adjustment” period all new comers here have to go through. I should probably start looking for, and concentrating on the bright side of things to be able to survive. Here at least, where I have trouble with units of measurements, all I need is time (and some quick brain calculations) until I get used to them. The bright side of it is that the risks I’m taking because of this (like walking a long distance instead of taking a bus) are nothing compared to a more serious (and not funny at all) risk I would have had if I were in England for example: getting hit by a car simply because I’m used to look to the right not to the left before I cross the road!!

Ramadan this year

A dozen-hour flight, or simply an ocean away from home, Ramadan feels so special this year.

It feels weird not to hear adhan announce iftar time, weird not to see restaurants close during the day, weird not to see totally empty streets at sunset, and not to see drivers lose their minds a few minutes before sunset, trying get home before Iftar. .

But it feels so special though to see one meal bring together people from all over the world. Pakistanis, Indians, Sudanese, Egyptians, Kuwaitis, Kazazkhs, Maleisians… and a Moroccan gather in one place these days, share their first meal of the day, and the joy of learning things about each other .

To all Muslims around the globe I wish a blessed Ramadan.

Aren't we one after all?

Differences, faces, colors, names, sounds, questions and answers, smiles, meaningful sometimes, meaningless most for the time. Intrusions, apologies, misunderstandings, understanding, fake at times, real at others.

Respect, gazes, stereotypes, silenced or masked. Languages, reflections, tastes, traditions, religions, habits, so different sometimes, so alike some others.

But aren’t we one after all??