Feedback!

In a response to my post about Robert Wright's NYT aritcle on the "Meaning of the Koran," one of you recently pointed out that the spelling choice may simply be the NYT editorial standard. After having done some inspired research on the NYT web archives, this reader found that searching spellings other than the one with the K got no hits, while the one with the K got over 10,000. In light of this, I guess I have to retract my lofty criticisms of Robert Wright and blame whichever NYT editorial staff member who got to decide it should always be spelled with a K however many decades ago.

That being said, I though I'd take the opportunity to harp on that most common bloggers' refrain, which is to say, I love getting feedback! Besides letting me know that there are people besides my mom and dad (hey guys!) reading this blog, it helps me make this a better blog. Whether it's comments on the blog posts, or emailed reactions, or telling me my blog title is pretentious on my facebook wall, I love any and all feedback. I'm going to be out here in this crazy adventure of mine for another 9 months almost, and I'd like to keep writing about it here for the whole time, as I've come to really appreciate this outlet for my reactions and thoughts. With your help and feedback, I hope to make this an enticing enough blog that you'll want to keep reading it throughout my stay here.

To that end, I'm going to take the advice from my the very first comment on this blog ever and make a twitter feed that will show up here on this blog. I realize I've kind of dived (dove? Mooses? Meese? I never know these things) headlong into this whole social media business--something I was skeptical of, and a bit self-conscious about, before now. Not only do I find all this a good way to keep whoever is interested updated, having knowing I have this little corner of the internet open to the public has helped me process what all is going on

as I try and relay it to you. I feel like the benefit of getting twitter is that I can record those quick little thoughts or crazy stories that happen to me when I'm out and about with no other way of noting what happened. My Egyptian phone company periodically sends me text messages in Arabic that I can't really understand yet, but I assume I should be able to tweet from it. I'll just have to get over my aversion to being involved in something called "tweeting."

And finally, since my recent feedback-giver also

mentioned that she likes when my posts have pictures, here's a few just for fun. I'll go through the trouble of figuring out how to give the pictures captions soon...heh...Here's a picture of me in the Sea of Sand outside Siwa. That Kufayya that I am wearing is maybe one of the best purchases I have ever made in my life. Ever. Those things are super handy in the deserts, and if the Hollister and Polo shirt wearing Egyptians at AUC wouldn't think it was impossibly uncool, I would totally wear it all the time.

Speaking of pictures, I've taken almost a thousand pictures since I've been here, so it's taken the You're here too, oh palm webteam (i.e. me) a long time to cull through them all. An intern would be nice here. Anyway, Facebook albums coming soon also.