First Day of Classes

Drove into the CMU-Q campus this morning with a lot less stress than I thought I would have. I had a good navigator and except for one wrong turn in the last round-about, we made it without incident.

You see my somewhat spartan office (M2026) above in the CMU-Q building. To the right is the view out of my office window. There’s a dry heat succulent garden out there.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

First Day of Classes

I had two class meetings of 1.5 hours each. Modern Biology at 9:45 AM and Genes and Diseases at 1:15 PM. As of the first day of class I had 28 students in Modern Biology and 8 in the Genes and Diseases courses. All of them appeared eager and ready to go. I’m sure I am going to learn a lot of interesting cultural nuances from them. I hope they get some biology from me. In that vein, right around noon, there was this haunting call to prayer that was being sung in the great hall of the CMU-Q building (all stone walls). It was being sung by one of my Modern Biology students. This young man had a beautiful voice that carried the full length of the building and echoed in sort of a reverb way. It just stopped me cold and made me hold my breath. What a beautiful example of how I’m “not in Kansas” anymore.

I’m hoping to get some pictures of some of my students, although one has to be culturally careful about that. Permission is always required and one is not always going to get it. I did learn something scientific from one of my students today. As recently as late 2009, the Qatar government has been offering genetic screening to couples planning on marrying. This is the beginning of what is supposed to be a major effort at combating the rise in inherited disorders in the Qatari population where consanguineous marriages are extremely common. I’m trying to get verification of this.