So let’s cut to the chase, the Venus and Serena matches were nice, I couldn’t stay as long as I wanted to because I have a 10:00 curfew (on of the many lame things that I refused to get used to). The party at the embassy wasn’t a party at all, it was just a hot mess.  I had my suspicions that it would be bad, but to see them be confirmed so forcefully… oh well I guess.  The music was random, like somebodies Ipod playlist, the crowd ranged from 16-60 or more and the food was questionable….lol… My friends and I had fun poking fun at it I guess…. ce’st un experience I suppose.

The more acclamated I get to my class the more I see the distinct differences between my perspective on things and those of my classmates. I don’t get it all the time but sometimes I feel like saying “What the heck did you just say?!” …lol… I suppose it happens to us all.  It’s just weird that in Qatar where the assumption would be getting a feel for the Khaleeji point of view is the default, I am hearing about the lives and perspectives of a group of Europeans along with people from developing/industrializing countries,oh yes, and the WASP prototype.

I think our class discussions are for the most part cordial,but sometimes when it’s over I feel like, um did I really learn something new that I wanted to learn about this person?…

Case in point the other day I don’t remember how, but I was explaining some of the basic tenets of the Nation of Islam so someone and their reaction was “oh that doesn’t sound like  a religion at all… it sounds like some strange theory.”  Um, ok… I try not to say things like that about anyone’s religion—- I guess I just don’t see the point, but to each his own I guess and.  Besides, to be fair the person was expressing a view about something that must have been amazingly new and shocking to them.

Somehow the American chimes in about new religious movements and how they are basically a bunch of crazy crap and the conversation goes down  a road I am not traveling nor am I keeping quiet about.

I told them both that every religion has aspects that are beyond belief to someone and being new shouldn’t make something any less strange than the other more established religions.  I’m sure people found it strange that people believed that a man died and rose again from the dead, or that another ascended to heaven physically and then came back…. those are perfectly normal, everyday occurrences, right?  ….the conversation went dead after that.

I didn’t want to mention that one of the people is from a religious sect that was founded on the premise that the end of the world was coming in the mid 1840s and then amended this theology when this did not happen…. not strange at all!

   ….lol….  Gazelle has to speak her mind.  It’s good practice though, Alhamdullilah I think I was able to do this without offending anyone or trying to shame anyone.

Now for what to do when people feel like it’s ok for them to tell me what they think is so stupid about “Islamic” culture, or Qatari culture, or Hijab or any number of other things…. that could take a while.  Sometimes I am surprised that people say these things to me, on the other hand, it’s good to know what is really going on in people’s minds.  Sigh… I don’t want to be part of anybody’s lets dog this religion party….