The Queen of Sheba lived here

music

Magnolia is born
Kehinde and Taiwo are here for the holidays.
Taiwo started a blog last night. Thanks to her, I tried out the blog search button in blogspot, which is a good way to find Nigerian people/news/blogs.

Can't stop talking
I finally got both visas I need to go to Yemen.
The Yemeni one is almost entirely in Arabic. I can read my name, country, and passport number. I didn't try to read much else.
I never thought before about the fact that people carry travel documents in various languages. To think that someone at an airport can say, "sure that's my name on the visa - in Arabic script or whatever."

I'm scheduled to leave Los Angeles on Monday, January 2, 2006, and arrive in Sana'a on Wednesday afternoon. It's usually a challenge to keep smelling decent on those day-plus flights...

The school I plan to attend provides meals and wireless internet access!
The school I switched from couldn't get me a visa. It's apparently a great place as well, with half the fees, fan-tastic location, and an extremely pleasant director. (Scroll down on the services page to see testimonials).
A third school was fully booked till February.
We worked out a new plan - new school, new visa application - in under two weeks, despite an eleven-hour time difference, several holidays for Christmas, and the fact that our weekend begins when theirs ends. (Friday is the Muslim Holy Day, remember?)

While I'm in Yemen, I think I'll study Arabic a lot, go out and meet people a bit, read a couple of novels, and do my research. Maybe I'll visit Aden, and go on any included excursions.

I really hope to be a highly motivated, changed beast after this vacation...so I can focus for a year-and-a-half on doing my research, doing candidacy, doing more research, and writing a thesis. That's my plan and I'm sticking to it.