mmm.... america flavored

Let me just begin this by saying I'm sorry if I broke my own blog. I may have done just that no more than a second ago. I was trying to log in, and because I am tired forgot that the buttons all flip from right-left and versa vice when the computer is set in Arabic (as the university's computers are wont to do). Therefore, in aiming for the log-in button, I accidentally flagged my blog as being inappropriate (which is oddly something that I can read perfectly well in Arabic). So, when the censors take this down, I did this to myself (literally. Not in the "I opposed the 1984 Party" sort of way, or the "I wrote inappropriate things" sort of way. The "I flagged my own blog as being inappropriate because I didn't bother to be literate" sort of way).

Anyhow, a few thoughts from the last few weeks that didn't make it into my sister-is-visiting-themed blog entry.

1) Thanks to Krys (okay, maybe still sister-themed), I made pistachio instant pudding for my family. Which, do to the failure of the word "custard" to be universally understood was explained to them as "warm, but not hot, but not cold... cool! cool ice cream!" However, seeing as the box said Jello on it, their understanding was something like, "Alexander is speaking nonsense, but is clearly making pistachio-flavored Jello for us with milk..." Needless to say, their reactions to the final product were somewhat mixed, (i.e. "At first I thought it was gross, but now it's not so bad. No, I'm fine without seconds."). However, the entire experience reminded me of an amazing part of the US. Pudding is instant! INSTANT! I poured powder into milk and it INSTANTLY began to set and within MERE SECONDS we had full-fledged, firm pudding. How cool is that? Actually, I think it's kind of gross, but that's beside the point. The point is that this is what US science spends time on: making kind of weird foods faster. And as much as I am repulsed by this notion (go slow food! go! but don't hurry!), for some weird reason, it made me very happy to see the instant-ness of pudding, as it is something that only we as Americans would value this much.

2) The Qur'anic lesson books gets better and better. I have learned what springs of Heaven the Righteous Believers drink from (The Spring of Ambrosia of course!), I have learned the word "ambrosia" in Arabic, I have learned which forms of oaths and swearing are blasphemous (anything that doesn't acknowledge God as the source of it's action, including phrases like, "If not for the pudding, I wouldn't have noticed the obsession with instant-ness in the US." Correctly: "If not for God, then the pudding, I wouldn't have noticed the obsession with instant-ness in the US."), I have learned why the evil eye amulet is stupid and no one should wear them (amulets don't protect you from disease), and finally, I have learned the different types of heresy, and their punishments... through grammar exercises ("The great heretic sinned against God and therefore was expelled from the Circle of Islam. The great heretics sinned against God and therefore were expelled from the Circle of Islam. The great female heretic sinned against God and therefore was expelled from the Circle of Islam... etc.).