Jimmy the Cultural Ignoramus

In Arabic last night, we watched some films of people engaging in basic conversation.  Couldn't tell you what they were saying, but I did notice that all the women were smokin' hot and wearing form-fitting clothing.

Apparently, Egypt is the middle east's version of Bollywood (which is India's version of Hollywood... why I didn't just say Egypt is the middle east's version of Hollywood is beyond me... but I digress...) 

So, learning Egyptian dialect is a good bet because most people in the Middle East can understand it since they've seen a lot of Egyptian movies.

Which means that Egypt probably has its share of incredibly hot looking actors and actresses and wannabe famous people, etc.  In fact, one of the dudes on there looked like he could have been a leading man on Jersey Shore.

So, I asked the prof how common this was.  The women weren't wearing headscarfs and their clothes were pretty tight.  They basically looked like Americans.  He said that all sorts of attire is present in the middle east, including women wearing hot pants, etc.  Not just in Egypt, but Lebanon, the countries around Saudi like Kuwait and UAE, etc.

Now, I know how utterly ignorant this sounds, but I'm a bit shocked.  Even when I was in Korea (30 years ago, mind you), women did not wear tight clothing.  Korea is a conservative society, but doesn't have nearly the reputation of the Islamic countries.

Just goes to show:  you can't always go by your preconceptions.  That moment, alone, was worth every penny of tuition I paid.

We reviewed for the test, and unfortunately, the only way I wouldn't get an A on this thing is if I had a stroke right after writing my name.  This prof is a very cool, laid-back guy who doesn't want to flunk anybody.  Honestly, the tests and quizzes are reasonable, but they're intended to allow people to get high grades.

I don't think I'll be doing it in the Spring, though.  It's not the class, itself, that's the problem.  It's that it puts one more thing on my plate at a time when I really have enough going on, already.  I don't need 2 more appointments every week.

In the Spring, Logan's travel baseball will fire up full-tilt. 

I will have a basis from which to continue learning, though.  I can always get the rosetta stone for Arabic and now that I can read and write, I should be able to make some progress through self-study. 

The other factor in all this is that my odds of deploying to iraq seem to be diminishing over time.  I'm fenced off until I finish DAWIA Level I, and that might not happen for another 12 months.  If Obama's time table holds, we'll have the bulk of our 50,000 support troops out of there by then.

This, of course, causes a bit of a domino effect, since even if our Afghanistan mission is alive and well, we have a lot of active-duty troops who used to be in Iraq who can fill those slots.

This has been such a roller coaster ride.  When I joined, there was a 100% deployment rate.  That was true until about a year ago.

Then, 6 months ago, it dropped to maybe 40-50%.  Now, maybe 20%.  I still have a bag packed, but with each passing month, the odds of deployment decrease.  The American public is bored with these wars and wants to focus on a domestic agenda.  Obama isn't a war president, and will want this off his plate as soon as possible.

Project e-bay is off to a good start.  I already got a bid for the minimum I wanted on my one Melancon guitar.  I put up my Gibson SG and it started getting bids immediately.  So, I should be down 2 guitars within a few days.

I need to go whole-hog on this thing and get my debt as low as possible.  Tonight, I'll probably take pictures of some of Logan's old baseball bats.

By "old baseball bats", I don't mean bats he actually used.  He was at a strange point last Spring where he couldn't handle a heavy bat, but the big-barrels were too short.  I bought at least half a dozen bats (at an average cost of about $150), before I found one that works for him.  I'm sure I'll take it in the shorts if I e-bay them all off right now.  However, they're not doing anybody any good in my basement. 

Right now, I guess I feel like I'm surrounded by junk.  So, I can either sell it off or give it away, but some of this clutter has got to go.

The rowing machine is on the UPS truck to be delivered today.  At that point, the cardio dungeon will be 2/3 complete.  I do need to get a TV down there, though.  I might be able to get the treadmill down there this week, which would pretty much finish it up.