English Curse Words

One of my favourite memories from Fes was learning the verb “to remember.” It’s pronounced tuffukker. When the instructor said this, I was determined not to laugh, but when I glanced at one of my comrades, she made a hand motion that I interpreted as “go ahead” so I blurted out “I don’t even know her last name!” and laughed and laughed and laughed.

The point is, any curse word or naughty phrase in english means something in Arabic. Today, while futzing with Shnoo the hell is going on Hna? I am came across another one:

A phrase that sounds an awful lot like “suck it” means “I aborted the fetus.”

So, there that is.

It happened again!

So, last week I see that they’ve got a DSC here. I ask how to go about using it (i.e. which form to fill out, etc) and get told. A few days later I ask how high the temperature goes (it goes up to 1600). Today I ask to use it, and I’m told it hasnt worked in a while. Why wasnt I told that at first? I can use the one in Rabat though. And I have to use the FTIR in Rabat, and send stuff there for XRF anyway, so… looks like there are some trains in my future.

A Week With Pater Mihi

So my father came to visit this week. It was the most time we’ve spent together probably since 1990 or so when we went to California. The last night he was here we went out to dinner at a fancy hotel restaurant. but before that we went to the bar at the hotel at the train station, where we heard John Denver on the radio.

 At the fancy hotel place, the guy at the piano and the lounge singer, or whatever you’d call her, played “Hava nagila”, or whatever it’s called. You know, the traditional Jewish song. it was disorienting. Tamp that down in your pipe and smoke it, Fox news! Jewish folk songs at an Arab kareoke.

An Open Letter to the People at Fodors

This is the first draft of a letter I am thinking of sending to the people at Fodors: 

Dear Fodors,

Your guide book for Morocco is a peice of garbage. Marrakesh is gone over with a fine tooth comb, and Fes and Casablanca are barely mentioned. Further, your restaurant reviews are crimes. You listed the restaurant Aeropostale in Casablanca as having a wide range of Belgian beers: 2 beers is not a wide range. And one of those two is Stella Artois, which is the Michelob of Belgium. Also, the price scale is insane. Aeropostale is listed as a “4 dollar sign” restaurant, but it is cheaper, generally, than some of the restaurants you gave 3 dollar signs. I wont even get into the fact that rating them with dollar signs, and not a hard number, is ridiculously impractical.

Your section on Fes is a joke. It’s a 1200 year old city teeming with interesting things to do and see, and you give it one tenth of the coverage that you give Marrakesh. I assume your main author for the Fes section is my esteemed colleague Mr. Wikipedia.

In short, your book is atrocious and I will never buy another fodors product for as long as I live. Further, I will vehemently discourage my comrades from doing so as well. Even if your book is cheaper, on sale, or even if it is being given away for free.

Love,

Aaron

Marrakesh

Took a one day trip to Marrakesh on sunday with my father, who is visiting. A lot of Moroccans have told me that Marrakesh is really nice and that I have to visit it.

It was sort of strange. Getting out at the train station, everything was really well kept up. Every building was painted pink, there were huge signs in every language, and lots of groups of europeans wandering about. The medina was strange: there were roads going through it large enough for automobiles to drive on! To me, the word medina means the Fes medina, which has zero roads large enough for an automobile.

Anyway, the place felt like Disneyland. The waiters spoke english, everything was meticulously maintained, groups of blatant tourists roaming about, and we even saw some double decker buses labelled BUS TOURS OF MARRAKESH! We saw a couple of palaces, a museum, and the Saadian tombs. They were interesting, I guess, but why Marrakesh is the huge tourist draw and not fes is beyond me.

Happy Birthday

The city of Fes is 1200 years old this year.

www.maroc1200.org

Rock!

Congratulations!

It has come to my attention that the Right Honourable Alex Moseson, from my group, and my good man Mr. Edward Anderson, from the Earth Cements Are Awesome Project (ECAAP) are going to recieve the GAAN and Grosvenor fancy pants scholarships, respectively. Congratulations and accolades I say! Accolades!

In addition to a fez, I shall need to purchase a top hat and monocle before I return to the US, that I may converse with them in the high-culture manner to which they shall soon become accustomed!

Frustration and an Analogy

So, I went to use the compression tester at the lab today so as to quantify the strengths of the samples I spent the week making. Apparently, it’s broken. However, they had a backup plan: I could use the lab press they use for making FTIR pellets. But not really: the smallest division on the gauge is a to, and a 30mm cylinder of my cement is not going to stand up to a ton of force. And I certainly cant estimate the difference between 1.1 and 1.2 tons by eye.

Anyway, this is the most important test for concrete, and I find myself suddenly very frustrated. This project is making me bipolar. Wednesday night, I felt that thursday I would go and do compression tests and really start making some progress. I was on top of the world. Today, it turns out I can’t do that and I’m stumped at this moment for a practical alternative. So now I am frustrated.

For some reason on the walk home I created an elaborate cooking analogy about this and I think it sums things up quite nicely. My graduate school studies are like making a thanksgiving dinner. I want it to be delicious so that I will get hired by a nice restaurant or maybe have my own cooking show. So far, I’ve made a pretty good green bean casserole, and some decent cranberry sauce, and some sweet potatoes, but no one has tried the sweet potatoes yet so I dont know if the are good.

And now I want to make the turkey, and once I do that I can make the stuffing and maybe a little gravy. And While I’m at it, I’d like to add some crunchy onions to the greenbean casserole, and maybe a little more brown sugar to the top of the sweet potatoes. Then all I need to do is set the table and we an all dig in.

But I decided to cook it at someone else’s house. And I was told that the kitchen was equipped, but it turns out there’s no stove, and all the spoons are in a different town. And I had to fashion the big serving fork dealie out of PVC pipe. I know I can still cook the turkey, but if I fry it in a pan it will be uneven and if I throw it under the hood of a car to roast on the motor, it will be inedible.

Look, the point is, I am frustrated. And hungry.

Apparently, people…

…were worried after my last post? I don’t understand! I was saying specifically that I did not have anything to do with creating an insanitary condition in the petting zoo! That should have assuaged fears, not exacerbated them!

Anyway. I go to leave my apartment last night, and as I lock the door, I hear a clunk, and not a click. Strange, I think, so I try and reopen it. And the key doesnt go in. So I call my landlord who is “doing sport” far away and she tells me she will come with a locksmith. They get there, and open the door somehow, and the guy is changing out the lock, and I hear my landlord say “yeah, it’s a small house” in Arabic. Then they both erupt in laughter.

She knows I speak a little bit of Arabic, but I got the distinct impression they were making fun of me. That’s weak. Whats even weaker is that it’s her apartment.

Anyway, so that was a blast. On the work front I do my first batch of compressive tests tomorrow, and apparently the other 9 kinds of slag arrive on saturday. wooo! So things are starting to ramp up I guess. Also, my dad arrives friday for a two week visit.

The secretary is, apparently, on strike today so I wont be getting that letter I need for my residency permit today. If I don’t have it by monday I am going to go try and get it again and pretend they never told me I needed it. I only have like 13 days left on my entry permit, and Insha’allah I will not have to leave and re-enter.

I Might be on TV.

If any of you use satellites or the internet or whatever to read or watch the international news, you may be hearing my name pop up in the near future. You may even hear my name pop up in some debates, and people may be making some claims and bandying about certain buzzwords. But before this happens, I just want to set the record straight.

During my time in Morocco, I’ve had an extremely enjoyable time. I’ve also occasionally found myself in, shall we say, situations that are less than optimum, from a moral standpoint.  Sure, I’ve done some perhaps inappropriate things, haven’t we all? I mean, I started a forest fire. I sucker punched an agent from the treasury department. I misrepresented the weight of livestock. I attended opening night of an art gallery nude. I sold fraudulent earthquake insurance. I passed dozens of bad checks. I fixed a cock fight. I befouled a dumpster near Florence Square. I appeared in an indecent video recorded on a cell phone. I roasted a peacock at an outdoor Barbecue and told people it was chicken. I caused an all-you-can-eat seafood buffet to go out of business. I taught children dirty words in english. I racketeered. I produced a short-lived bi-monthly publication that gave lawn care advice that was, at best, questionable. I threw a pimp off of a blacony.

But I want one thing to be absolutely clear: I had nothing whatsoever to do with creating an insanitary condition at the petting zoo.