Category Archives: Humorous

Dec 09 2011
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Fiction, Humorous, Two minute read

Must I Do Homework: An Exercise in the Scientific Method

We eagerly await the results of the experiment. Note: real homework is in the corner.

Step one: ask a question

Why isn’t my homework getting done?

Step two: do background research

Current research: This Arabic student has done progressively less homework over the past 4 months despite similar levels of worrying about assignments.

Less current research: During the Arabic student’s second to last semester in college, homework assignments seemed to take up an  inordinate amount of time and be completed at the last minute regardless of when they were started.

Outside sources: According to the internet, homework usually must be completed by an agent other than the homework itself. My mother also recommends that I do it as opposed to not doing it.

Local experts: My own experience indicates that homework usually gets done more quickly if I do it. Also, fellow students who do their homework personally also seem to be continually prepared for class.

Conclusion: There seems to be a lack of research on whether or not mountains of projects complete themselves. Though current knowledge and common sense might indicate that this is probably impossible, if science has taught us anything it’s that nothing is impossible.

Step three: construct hypothesis

My homework, if left undisturbed for long enough in the right conditions, will complete itself with no added energy.

Step four: test with an experiment

After receiving my assignments, I will gently place them in the corner of my room behind the flowery arm chair where they are safely out of the light of the sun and out of my personal eyesight. I will take care of the test specimen by ignoring it completely and doing my best to forget about it. If I have to read anything from a book, I will also place the book behind the armchair and ignore it.

On the assignment’s due date, I will carefully extract the specimen from the corner, being careful not to disturb it too much, and tenderly set it into my bag before taking it to school and presenting it to the teacher without looking at it. At 1 am the following morning, I will board an international flight to a country across a large body of water or land mass.

If no news of my homework reaches me, I will assume it has done itself. Should I find the homework itself, undone, at my residence in the country I have traveled to, I will assume my hypothesis needs more work.

Predicted results:

My homework will complete itself and I will get to spend more time having fun with friends.

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Dec 04 2011
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Best blog posts, Humorous, Lists, Three minute read, Wedding

Dear Sister: Prepare for Defeat

Only one will win

My triplet sister is getting married at the end of next June, and my other triplet and I are co-chairing the maid of honor. Neither of my sisters realizes that this kind of sharing is impossible. There can be only one maid of honor. The other one is just “nice sister.” Therefore, I’m viewing the entire affair as a competition to see who can be the best maid of honor, where the greatest contestant will win the title at the end of the wedding and strip the other contender of all honors. It will be a heartwarming ceremony for all who attend, especially the victorious bridesmaid.

By way of good sportsmanship, I have drawn up a list of the reasons I will make a formidable challenger in this competition. May the best sister prevail.

1. I have literally nothing else to do once I get back from Egypt in May. While my opponent is busy reviewing flash cards, I’ll be yelling at the caterers and handling all phone, email, and material communication regarding the wedding for the bride. My level of availability is unbeatable.

2. As a special service to the bride-to-be, I will be live-blogging and live-tweeting the entire wedding. People usually pay thousands for this kind of coverage, a fee I’m willing to forgo, and the publicity could even result in our entire family or just me becoming famous. No one else is willing to invade my family’s privacy as much as I am.

3. Having spent roughly 6 years studying Arabic, or should I say preparing for my sister’s wedding, I am ready to use these language skills during the ceremony in a number of ways. I could deliver of my speech completely in formal Arabic, recite a few verses from the Qur’an and/or the Arabic Bible at any point during the service in conservative Oklahoma, or translate the wedding invitations and bulletins into Arabic. My Arabic skills know no comparison (to anyone in our family and friend circle).

4. I am willing to put myself into extreme amounts of personal discomfort in order to help my sister through the wedding process; I can thrive on trivial amounts of sleep and peanut butter for months at a time provided there is an unlimited supply of Nescafe Gold. I will punish myself for my sister’s happiness.

5. As a public speaker of average talents with a great passion for being the center of attention, I promise to limit the length of my speech to 20 minutes, no more than half of which will be in Arabic. Furthermore, I pledge to put on fake accents throughout the speech, including the two I can do okay—Slavic and British—and a host of others of which I know only a phrase or two. My other sister’s speech will not be nearly as memorable.

6. Since I attended a secular school for my undergraduate degree, I have more experience in both drinking as well as getting my groove on in public and private spaces. To that end, I will make sure that everyone knows there will be no alcohol at the wedding and that they’d do best to get smashed beforehand. I will also be in charge of keeping a good vibe going on the dance floor. No wedding in Oklahoma has seen hedonism like this.

After seeing these qualifications, I wouldn’t be completely surprised if my other sister doesn’t drop out of the competition. If she’s foolish enough to remain, I look forward to the thrill of a drawn-out competition that will slowly tear our family apart.

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Dec 03 2011
7 Comments
Fiction, Humorous, Three minute read

We Are Middle Earth

A mythical building for an imaginary world

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, I am a nerd. This means that I enjoy learning and fantasy fiction. After I finally read Lord of the Rings in eighth grade, I was hooked: Tolkien’s world seemed more real than my own. My fascination with Middle Earth formed a dangerously large portion of my personality, and I even ended up writing my college admissions essay on why I loved Lord of the Rings. A BU admissions counselor probably read it and thought I would add a unique, socially awkward aspect to the campus environment before being sent to a maximum security federal prison. At any rate, I’m thankful to have been admitted.

As I was considering the relationship of Middle Earth and the War of the Ring to my current experience in Cairo, I found that the characters I’ve met during my Arabic study adventures resemble the different races of creatures in Middle Earth. In order to make my life more comprehensible to the small portion of people out there who read Lord of the Rings annually or biannually and/or watch the films obsessively, I would like to present my findings. To these same people, I politely request that you don’t get your panties in a bunch if the comparisons aren’t perfect. To everyone else, I apologize for alienating you.

The subgroup of Arabic-interested persons that I would classify as hobbits are the average Arabic students. Though slightly dim-witted and occasionally reluctant to expend great effort on reading or writing, they are a tough breed and can surprise you with magnificent feats. These, however, are few and far between. For the most part, these students enjoy simple work, afternoon naps, and hearty meals instead of great Arabic adventures that might cause mental and physical discomfort.

There is a breed of student, however, that does take great pleasure in perusing ancient Arabic texts and spending hours composing non-obligatory essays, short stories, and poems. This species can also converse with you at length about the fascinating differences between dialects and other languages, of which they know many and can learn at great ease. These are the elves, who capture the fascination of most others and would earn their enmity were the elves not above the judgements of lesser beings.

Though hard workers that accomplish when focused, the group I consider the dwarves can be antagonistic towards others who are pursuing the same purpose and show little interest in learning about the culture behind the language they’re studying. These are the people studying Arabic for the money and are just waiting for a knock on their door from a defense contractor, intelligence organization, security consulting firm, or government agency.

The great Arabic scholars of old (and new) who have created linguistic masterpieces for the purpose of aiding those also studying Arabic I would classify as wizards, sent to help lesser beings in the field. Because of the effort of personalities such as Hans Wehr, Frederick Lane, Sayyed Badawi, and Kristen Brustad, who have spent countless hours deciphering this language, the great fight has been made more bearable.

Speaking slowly and clearly while avoiding hastiness or imprecision in language, Arabic teachers are best described as ents. Anyone who has studied a language knows the familiar frustration of leaving the classroom and realizing instantly you have no idea what anyone on the street is saying. Are you even studying the same language? The answer is no, since Arabic teachers actually speak Entish.

As skilled as earmuffs in social interaction and exhibiting no signs of living in a civilized society, the shabbab, or roving masses of teen-aged to mid-thirty year old Egyptian males, would have to be the orcs. Not only can they make foreigners’ stays in Egypt less pleasant, but they don’t even really like each other and internecine fighting is often the cause of much bloodshed and mutual annoyance.

I could go on, but I think this is enough nerding out for now. I’m not promising another LOTR themed post in the future, but it could happen.

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Nov 25 2011
2 Comments
Humorous, Open Letters, Two minute read

A Very Ex-Pat Thanksgiving

What have you DONE?!

Dear attendees of last night’s Thanksgiving celebration,

You ought to be ashamed of yourselves. Never have I seen such a despicable sight on this green earth. Normal Arabic students and friends were transformed into beasts of insatiable greed in front of my very eyes. The mutilated carcasses of the helpless birds alone speak for the gluttony that transpired last night, not to mention the photographic evidence of post-poultry dance moves that were ill-advised if not downright dangerous.

First of all, have you any idea of the ridiculous amounts of food that each and every one of you consumed? Not only that, but many of you had the audacity to complain about being too full even while shoveling more chunks of pecan pie down your gullets. Shame on you. Do you think I felt anything even close to pity when I saw you later on the couch with your tongue lolling out of your mouth and your eyes glazed over? Of course not.

Second of all, for all of those who cooked or baked or sautéed or peeled or mashed or otherwise did anything to help prepare the feast that was later set upon by the guests as a plague of locusts to the harvest, what business did you have in creating anything so delicious? Don’t you know that the human heart is weak, and that by making mouthwatering, delectable dishes, you were setting a trap for the already revolution-enfeebled souls present at the party? Had there only been sleeves of saltine crackers and unfiltered water, I have no doubt we would have witnessed similar hedonism, since these Thanksgiving-ers had all the self-control of a starving herd of goats.

And do I even need to mention the general spirit of gratitude that pervaded the atmosphere with a ripe odor not unlike rotting fruit? The sickly sweetness of good feelings and camaraderie were downright inappropriate, especially since many of us there were hoping to continue focusing on the negative aspects of the political, economic, and social situations in America, Europe, the Middle East as a whole. People kept saying they were thankful for things even when it was abundantly clear that there is no hope and everything is going to hell in a hand basket.

Last but certainly not least, I would just like to say that the generosity of the hostesses was completely inappropriate. Had I seen a herd of Arabophiles like these heading for my doorstep, I would have bolted the doors and called the cops as well as reported them to Homeland Security before lighting the fire under my cauldron of oil and getting ready to heave ho. The willingness with which you opened up your home and allowed it to be destroyed in a craze of excess clearly points to some kind of mental illness, for which I hope you will be treated very soon.

I hope to never see anything so disturbing again, and I’m thankful for the fact that Thanksgiving is only once a year.

Your disgusted colleague,

Emily

P.S. But really the party was great. The food and the company were both a sheer pleasure to enjoy.

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Nov 16 2011
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Best blog posts, Humorous, Three minute read, Travelling

Get Out of My Desert

We found it first.

(My trip to the incredibly beautiful White Desert continued, with more details and complaints.)

Civilization either exiles you to the desert or it wastes your sanity until you seek the desert as a refuge. For me, the desert was the latter: an escape from the mouth breathers and the metro pushers, the exhaust sniffing and the car evasion that scents my daily Cairo existence.

In the White Desert, rolling over the dunes and scrabbly rockscapes in the Jeep, I felt like not only had I escaped from it all, but “it all” was actually fake. Cairo, along with the entire world and its issues, was only a dream that paled in comparison to the stark reality of desert life and the landscapes formed by nothing but geological upheavals over the past couple of millennia.

Occasionally I would sink into reveries and imagine myself as the first person to have ever walked on this rock, or touched this grain of sand, or fallen down on this boulder. These thoughts, however, were likely folly. We were not alone. Other “people” had somehow found out about the White Desert. Was it the fact it’s a national park? That it’s discussed in detail in the Lonely Planet guidebook? That there’s a separate guidebook for the Western Desert of Egypt that outlines the nooks and crannies of the White Desert? The real reason will probably never be known, but the fact remains that though we spent much of the time by ourselves during our desert escapade, we did come across an unfortunate amount of intruders.

In theory, these humans were normal, fine people. Yet I despised them nevertheless. First of all, upon spotting another group in the desert, the air becomes electrified with tourist tension. I resent the other with a passion approaching my love for mushy, hot cereal. The other group is a reminder that my experience is not singular, that others have seen these things and taken better pictures than me. It’s kindergarten all over again: “Kids, you need to know one thing. You’re not special. There are 7 billion people on this planet. Your main purpose in life will be to serve as a statistic for marketing purposes. Half of you will divorce.”

Second of all, eco-tourists are filthy creatures that create waste, both natural and artificial. Despite encouragement from many reputable sources, including Lonely Planet, many tourists do not even attempt to burn their toilet paper after doing their despicable duty. Friends, let me tell you this: toilet paper does not stay buried in the desert for long. Like your shameful secret of eating 3 bags of peanut butter M&Ms before bed every night, it will be blubber to the surface. There’s nothing more unpleasant than realizing what you thought was a pristine campsite is littered with the unspeakable trash of inconsiderate patrons.

So, if you must disturb my desert, please remain quite shameful about your bodily functions and do everything in your power to prevent others from knowing that you have ever done anything so embarrassing.

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