Today I did stuff and then I didn't do stuff. That is not a contradiction but rather a stark look at the life of a secretary...if I match conventional secretaries in their work load and production.

Instead of driving back last night from my parents, I decided to drive up this morning. But in order to be at work on time, it meant that I had to leave at 5am. I am the queen of taking 10 minutes in the morning to get dressed! So I guess that is one of the things that I did manage to do. I also made a new logo for the office, scheduled individual appointments for "I" entire seminar on ME politics class, backed up my computer, updated the website and the mailing lists...but still, it isn't a lot of things, and that took 2 things off of my "long list". Other than that, not too much else happening...the fair Richard/Abdullah has an awful Brando impressions, but I giggled and twittered in the effort of flirting. Danelle almost broke up with DJ, Catherine has stopped talking to Jack because he came out of the closet, and I met a really cool guy today named Mike. He is a new grad student in the Arabic program, and he just finished working as an analyst for the government. You should have heard him spout off about jordanian politics, and his grasp of the regional inter-relations...it was awe-inspiring (but not intimidating). Then I found out that he had been to Diyarbakir and we started talking about Kurdish politics, in BOTH southern and northern Kurdistan. At this point Danelle and I were trying to recruit him into Model Arab League, but when he started dropping references to Eddie Izzard and Monty Python..oh, we knew that he was one of us.

Today---milestone, sort of---I registered for my first semester of graduate classes---I'm soo excited! I can't wait for classes to start!

I read a lot of news today, and I know that I should comment soon on KBU , but I feel kind of numb with all of the goings on and for the moment I wish to be just a spectator. The goofy named "Phantom Fury" operation in Falligha (and yes, I know that I spelt that horribly wrong) is distrubing. When I heard about the plans for the offensive, all I could think of was that a lot of people were going to die. I feel weighted down with the realization. I hope other Americans feel the weight of our actions abroad.