Elton John in Abu Dhabi!

I have always had a love/hate relationship with Elton John.

Hate, because my mom loved him. When I was younger, parental approval of a band/TV show/book instantly made it less appealing.

Love, because there was some invisible turning point where I stopped disliking his music on principle, and actually started listening to it.

Since then, he has been, and is, one of my favorite performers.

So when I heard he was coming to Abu Dhabi, I had to go see him. I was on my computer the minute the tickets came out, because if I were in the states, he would be sold out within the hour.

Not so much in Abu Dhabi.

That had its advantages. We got to the concert fairly early, and there was no one really there at that time. Which means we got right at the barrier between the Gold section and the plebian section (ours).

He started with “The One”, a song I hadn’t really heard before, then moved on to “Sixty Years On”, which held a lot of power because he had just turned 65. (And was another song I didn't recognize. Though I have 11 of his albums on my iPod, I haven't listened to all of them). 

Very soon after was “Your Song”. Easily one of my favorites (Along with “Sacrifice”, and “Rocket Man”, which has so much more meaning to me now after living in Abu Dhabi for college).

He played classics, and some new songs as well. Partway through the concert Ray Cooper joined him on drums, and then his encore (just him and his piano) was “Crocodile Rock” and finally, “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”.

It was a beautiful night. My eyes may not have been dry, especially during “Your Song” and “Rocket Man”, and the next day my voice was gone from singing and cheering.

<3

P.S. If this sounds very schoolgirl fan-ish, it is because it is. 

Things That Might Make Responsible People Cringe Vol. 2

I feel like one of the first things a kid does when they are given scissors is try to cut their own hair.

Then a friends hair.

Then the scissors are taken away, and the child is told not to cut peoples hair.

Then you get older, and an (un)spoken rule is to never let a friend cut your hair.

Well, I broke that rule today.

Because the thing is, I can't get my hair cut in a guys salon (or should I say "saloon") because it is the Middle East, and at the women's hair places they don't cut it short enough and it turns weird.

Hair grows out. And so it needed to be shorter.

So today, I recruited Jordan to cut my hair. We used what is designed as a beard trimmer. The back is (I think) a 3, blended to a 5, and the front ever so slightly longer.

The thing to keep in mind, however, is that I didn't look in the mirror as this was progressing- I knew how I wanted my hair to feel length-wise, but I forgot how short that might be.

However, I love it. It is super low key, super (super) short, but it is comfortable.

<3

Looking back a day later, it is definitely a bit choppy. But that will grow out. 

"After all, not to create only, or found only,
But to bring perhaps from afar what is already founded,
To give it our own identity, average, limitless, free."
-Walt Whitman

Beautiful

I’ve been working on the first NYUAD student production- an adaptation and retelling of the Hindu epic The Ramayana. I was a stage management apprentice to start with, and then got shifted to a lighting design apprentice as the show came closer to opening night.

I saw the process from first read to final dress rehearsal, and then watched the closing show as a member of the audience. Even though I saw the performance go through so many stages, seeing it that final time, it was like a new show- with the masks, the costumes, the energy that the audience brought to the actors- the conversation was reborn.

It was beautiful, and reinforces my knowledge that all the hours are worth it, and that this is what I want to do.

(I don’t know yet in what capacity- maybe stage management, or dramaturgy, or design, or playwriting, or directing. But somehow.)

And now the show’s over. That is one of the beauties of theater- it is impermanent, and in that, aligns directly with human nature, but also battles human nature.

Nothing lasts, and our mortality alone is proof of that. But we try so desperately to hold on, to stop time, to make things stay.

That is an impossible attempt. As much as we try to fight our natures of impermanence, we fail at that. Theater is created, and then lives only through memory. You can’t freeze a performance, nor can you freeze a moment.

And in that, there is beauty. Memory preserves, but it also elevates.

However, we humans will still strive to live in that impossible attempt. And in that, there is beauty as well. 

<3

Things That Might Make Responsible People Cringe Vol. 1

Admittedly, this title could apply to many other decisions in my life, for example:

• Getting my ears pierced in India
• Sleeping on a beach in Oman
• Fighting in the SCA

... along with other lesser additions to this list (many involving a microwave). Today, according to some, might be a contender for this list. 

I have an assignment for Intro to Visual Culture to 'get lost in the city' and document what the visual culture manipulates and reconfigures as values. 

And so I took my camera and started wandering. Through the streets, the shops, the sun, the dust. Exploring. Finding new corners of the city I too - often ignore. 

I got some weird looks, but no different than the ones in the US when I take photos of less-than-picture-perfect objects. 

There were points where I was truly lost- I had lost sight of Sama (yay!), and everything looked unfamiliar- looked new. 

Taking those photos reconnected me to this city, and to reconnected me to my camera. I had the assignment in mind, but also allowed myself to diverge from that, and I ended up with some shots I am really proud of. 

Moral of the story: Wandering is good for my soul. Photography is good for my soul.

<3

Time-Turners

There has been a lot of conversation at NYUAD lately about Time-Turners.

(For those of you who don’t know what that is, first, go read all of the Harry Potter books. Not the movies- though if you look at them as inspired by the books, they are decent- but the books. Read them. Then come back and read this.)

Simply, a Time-Turner is a small hourglass shaped object that, when flipped over, takes the wearer back in time. Hermione used it in the series, (3^rd book), in order to take a million classes. Which, when you think about, isn't far from the goal of all NYUAD students. 

I first heard people talking about the idea here actually in relation to me. Long story short, two of my classes have trips on the same weekend, and, obviously, I cannot attend both. It has all been sorted out, and I can complete both classes, but my teacher was saying how she wished I could be in two places at once, and Cleo mentioned the idea of a Time-Turner. 

I then heard it in passing in the DTC garden, and now there was a comment about it because some exams conflict.

But hearing these references makes me think about the logistics of time travel. In the Harry Potter example, it supposes alternate universes woven together.

Are we ready for some brain-twisting?

So say Hermione has Divination and Potions at the same time. (If you are super lost, then go read the books. If you still refuse to read the books, substitute other classes like Math and English).

She goes to Potions, and then turns the hourglass, and then goes to Divination. But what we learn at the middle/end of the book is that you can’t run into yourself, because that would complicate things and mess you up for life (I mean really. The idea of dopplegangers is intimidating enough. But adding an actual flesh-incarnate replication of yourself that you interact with? Freaky.)

But then when do the two selves merge? How are there two people at once? The Hermione in Divination is the same one who went to Potions, but then what about the one in Potions? She would also go back to Divination. And that wouldn’t end it. There would be so many repetitions of that moment of time, but then how do all the selves get merged back together? Because if they didn’t, there would be an infinite number of worlds running at the same time, but still a consciousness that they are there. (Or maybe there really are an infinite number of parallel universes that cross. Hence dopplegangers.)

Now that I am writing this I am (mis?)remembering that the Time-Turner would run out of time- the original person needing to be in a place at a certain time. Is that the merge? And does only one of the selves have the Turner? If that is the case, there are still multiple people running around without a merge.

How would that merge work though? Because, presumably, both of you would be in the same place at the same time.

Unless the other person just disappears when the time runs out. So then the original person has gone to 2 classes, and the person who repeats the first fizzles out into the unknown.

That has moral implications though, and is also a weird concept- you are splitting/cloning/duplicating yourself, and then that duplicate is disposed of once they have served their purpose. Which is true of a lot of things in life, but yourself?

I’m really not sure. But congratulations if you got through all of this!  And now, I am off to read Brecht.

<3