Winter Enrichment Program

One of my favorite sculptures on campus

KAUST is currently putting on their annual WEP (Winter Enrichment Program) and it has been a busy week for us since we have participated in several events and we have been to Jeddah twice--both times for birthdays.

The kickoff for WEP was a bit of a washout. I'm sure it was a big disappointment for a lot of people because the outdoor dinner/celebration/kickoff was spoiled by a huge thunderstorm. The setup was looking a little tenuous the afternoon of the planned event. We watched from the community library as winds whipped at the tents that were set up along the boardwalk. Later when it started to rain really hard, we got an email notice from the event organizers that the dinner was being moved to the dining hall instead. I thought about how the carpets and furniture and the grills and cooking equipment had been so painstakingly arranged and would have to go unused. We really wanted to go down to the dining hall and be a part of the evening, but the storm was so violent that it was simply impossible for us to leave the villa. Our sea shipment has not arrived so we don't have a single umbrella here yet. I had no idea we would see the kind of rain we have had. Even with umbrellas, however, we still would not have been able to make it without getting soaked. We ended up staying at home and watching a travel DVD on the Middle East. But since then we have made the most of WEP.

I attended a lecture called "Size Matters" that was about building and living in small houses. The speaker, Jay Shafer, built and lived in a house smaller than 100 square feet. His presentation was fascinating, and I found a lot in common with him in terms of purging belongings. He said it wasn't hard living in a 100 square foot house; the hard part was getting rid of the things he owned that wouldn't fit in such a small space. Once that was done, he said, the rest was easy. He seemed really happy to have so much less "stuff" and less house than most people would find acceptable, but the space he did have works really well as a home. The most meaningful part, I thought, was the rejection of the notion of working and working to pay a mortgage for a space (or for things) that don't really create happiness. He is able to find satisfaction with a smaller house and that allows him to be creative in his life in other ways. I'm not saying I would want a house as small as the one he featured, but the idea of being happy with something well designed instead of something that's just plain big is a good one.

This photo is from Hans Rosling's web site: http://www.gapminder.org/

The other presentation we saw together last week was called "A Fact-Based World View" by Hans Rosling. It was an eye-opener. His visualization methods for statistics make the analysis of subjects such as world economics, poverty, progress, and population levels across time and other variables much more understandable than I have ever imagined. Rather than columns of numbers, his visualization techniques using bubble charts on graphs can instantly make complex changes across thousands of criteria instantly understandable. The ability to to see and understand specific data, rather than thinking (often wrongly) in general terms is powerful. This is his web site and has lots of media and downloads. Warning: prepare to adjust your world-view perception. http://www.gapminder.org/

Dinner at Thai-Thai

Thai-style fried fish, and chicken with green curry.
Press the button when you need the waiter.

Switching gears now from statistics and facts, and on to my favorite subject: food! We had a great birthday dinner for Bill at a place called Thai-Thai in Jeddah. Every time I have something wonderful to eat, I think it is the best thing I have had yet, and I have tried so much great food here, it is really fun to do both the research and the reporting on my findings. We have been eating a lot of fish and enjoying it immensely. Being right here on the Red Sea, right next to Thuwal, a fishing village, we have had some of the best fish ever. In the Dining Hall they grill your fish to order, and in 5 minutes you can have some of the freshest, tastiest grouper for about $3.50 for about a 6 oz serving (salad and rice brings it to about $6.00). At Thai-Thai we had battered, fried grouper with chopped peanuts, sweet chili sauce and chopped fresh herbs that was incredible. I love Asian food, and have really been craving Asian flavors. Tom yoong ga soup, hot and sour soup and a green curry chicken made up the rest of the dishes. We had a remote-control buzzer to push when we wanted the server (don't you wish every restaurant had that?) and besides the tasty food, the decor was gorgeous. We sat on upholstered couches, admired the Thai artwork and all together had a very good time.

Dolmades

I have also been cooking and entertaining at home, and last week I tried a new dish using local ingredients. Many things are difficult to make with the limited equipment I have, but since the challenge requires a different approach, I am making discoveries I might not have made if I had all of the familiar things. I made a lamb biriyani with a spice mix I bought at a local supermarket. Nothing like the spice mixes a la Rice-a-Roni, this curry spice mix had huge cardamom pods, some other large seeds and a big piece of some kind of bark, along with cloves and pepper corns. Cooked with my favorite new dairy product, laban, the dish came out fairly close to what I was expecting. They serve biriyani at the on-campus Indian place, and when you make the dish you basically cook the rice on top of the stewed part without stirring them together. Having never made this kind of thing before, it really came out pretty well. The dolmades I also made went really well with the lamb biriyani, and the chocolate chip cookies for dessert (using the powdered vanilla substitute) were almost indistinguishable from the regular kind. The second day they weren't as good (lacking some complexity) but still pretty good.

Always happy to reach the finish!

Hopefully the 5k race on Thursday (our Saturday) will help with the cookie burn-off. It was a really fun WEP event, and they probably had 300 people turn out for the race, plus more to cheer on the participants. I'm still waiting to find out my ranking, but I was really happy with my run. I came in near the head of the pack, and on the single slight uphill, I passed a lot of people, probably thanks to my running in the mountains of Utah. A 5k is a pretty short run, but anything you try to run fast is hard, of course, and this was fast but over quickly. Anyway, I felt good about it and I think it was a really great event to hold here. They have a nice track at the fitness center, and the finish was inside that arena. They played music and had post-race snacks for runners while everyone cheered on the walkers/joggers. Not every venue has music here, so I'm finding it very noticeable when there is music. They don't play music in many restaurants, they don't play music in the grocery store or in the salon or at the mall. It's noticeable by its absence sometimes. However, sometimes there's music that's noticeable and also kind of funny because it seems so out of context. For some reason I've heard "Eye of the Tiger" a number of times, and a lot of other cheesy 80's and 90's music like Wham, Journey... I will try to make a note of the other music that's played here, but suffice to say that any music is welcome since it's something I think I have been used to and now I miss not having it playing in the background.





Dive boat with "The Beacon" in the background

Now for my dive report... I was determined to have a better experience on my second trip than on my first and I'm pleased to say that the second day of diving here at KAUST was great. We left the marina with no trouble, the weather was fairly calm and my showing for the first dive was really good. After just one mask adjustment, Bill and I and the dive master descended without incident to about 40 feet at Nizar Reef. We saw a lot of colorful coral, colorful fish and a smallish white-tipped shark. I'll make better notes on the fish I see diving, but for now I'll just mention that there are lots of different and colorful examples.

Diving Jan. 21, 2011.
Photo by Gary Taylor

I was primarily concerned with keeping myself calm and relaxed, given the difficulty I had on my first dive here (which was my first for 7 years). I was really very satisfied with how well I did on the Nizar Reef dive and was a little nervous to do it again after a 1 hour surface interval, but the second dive around Rowz (Rose) Reef was really amazing. Even with my low expectation level and focus just on my own ability and performance, the beauty of the reef was obvious. The reef formation is kind of like a small tower underwater. We swam around the circumference of the tower--40 minutes of easy swimming. Bill had told me that I would probably feel more reassured to be with the entire group of divers rather than just 3 or 4 of us separately, and that was very true. Stepping off the boat into the water, it was confidence-building to see other divers already swimming around beneath us. The visibility was quite good and I could easily see all of the way to the bottom. Overall, the visibility was probably 80-100 feet. We saw a lot of blue-purple bat fish, some other blue fish schooling up and down the tower, hundreds of tiny orange fish congergating around choice places on the reef; some yellow, black and white angel fish, two moray eels and a lion fish. I guess we missed one Napoleon fish, but I may have seen one of those on the dive anyway. It was really enjoyable and I was really pleased with myself and not being so overwhelmed by fear as I had been on the first outing. I really am looking forward to getting better and more comfortable with diving here every weekend.