Gearing up for a new semester

I resume my primary job of teaching library information literacy classes on January 27. I taught 67 in the fall to 943 students so I predict I'll teach about 70 this term. I begin the week with teaching library resources to the new Islamic Studies class so that will be interesting.

Abu Dhabi has begun building a green city called Masdar City. There will also be a new post secondary institution aligned with this development called the Masdar Institute. For me these initatives are fare more interesting and vital to the region and the world than most of Dubai's engineering marvels (biggest mall, tallest building, etc.).

Our fair city continues, I think, to quietly upstage Dubai by hosting an Islamic Arts exhibition at the Emirates Palace. It should be an educating experience too. It's too bad that we couldn't have also built a new Museum of Islamic Art like Doha did.

I won't say too much about Bush's trip to the UAE. I think it was a short vacation for him to see the area for the first time. It's unfortunate that Bush had to be the first sitting President to visit the UAE. His only speech during his week long trip was at the Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi. The next day Bush traveled (by car?) to Dubai. All residents of Dubai were told to stay home or at least not drive so that Bush's convoy would not get stuck in traffic. It was strange to see photos of Dubai's empty streets - imagine shutting down a city of over 1 million people for 1 day!

Brrrr......

It's been refreshingly cool here for the last couple of days. Last night (for the first time ever) we turned off all the air conditioners in our place! This story talks about the bone chilling weather. Another story mentions near freezing temperatures. It would be cold for many people here because, like in Florida, houses here have poor insulation. Many buildings have tiles for floors which make it really cool.

The Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council recently published a book called Plan Abu Dhabi 2030: Urban Structure Framework Plan. It talks about about how our fair city will be transformed within 25 years. It's an interesting document to read and it rivals Duabi in terms of wholescale change for an entire city. It's available online but the contents have been split into several downloadable sections.

January 10 is the Islamic New Year so we're enjoying another holiday! But there will be no more breaks until the Prophet's Birthday in late March. We will start planning our April vacation to Istanbul this weekend. And we'll also try and book tentative flights to Canada this summer. We've asked to have July 27 to August 18th off. It won't be as long a break as last summer because we'd like to plan other trips. We'd like to go somewhere this fall and maybe winter too.