Sunday, August 10, 2008

Provohomeroad

I'm less than a week away from home! This past week has been one of the best I've had so far out here. I held off going to museums for the past three months, but since I'm down to the wire now, I am trying to go as often as I can. Over the past week I went to the National Gallery of Art, Hirshorn, and Smithsonian Portrait Gallery. I really liked two of the touring exhibitions by Martin Puryear And Richard Misrach's On the Beach. The sculpture above is by Pureyear.

The national gallery also has a big collection of Alexander Caldler's mobiles and sculptures. I've

I took a class this summer at Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies on Oman. Oman is a country I knew near-to-nothing about until this summer. The course was sponsored by the Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center, the chairman of which is the Omani Ambassador to the U.S. so upon completion of the course, my classmates and I were invited to the residence of the Omani Ambassador for dinner. The food was great and the residence was beautiful!


Last Friday my colleague, Virinia, and I went to the Middle East Instituter's "Talk Souq" event. It was a Moroccan themed party with live Moroccan music, food, hookah, and hena! We didn't stay too long, but It was fun!

I also went to Annapolis, Maryland last weekend with Randy, Marko, Sunetti, and Rochelle. I didn't bring my camera so I don't have any pictures from that, but I will put some up once someone uploads theirs! Annapolis is a beautiful old city. It is the capital of Maryland and considered the sailing capital of the U.S.!

This weekend I went to Delaware to visit my family for the last time this summer. The weather was soo perfect! On Saturday we went to Fort Delaware, a fort/prison that dates back to the civil war. Fort Delaware is located on Pea Patch Island, a small Island on Delaware bay in between Delaware and New Jersey. We took a short ferry ride from Delaware City to Pea Patch Island and then rode in some sort of a trailer thing to the fort.


Here is the fort!

the OLYMPICS started this weekend too! I watched the opening ceremony and some of the events with my family. Zhang Yimou, who I am a huge fan of, directed the opening ceremony. If you didn't see it, I highly recommend trying to find it on youtube or something. You can read more about Zhang Yimou in this New York Times article.


August 9th was Singapore's 43rd birthday!! I miss Singapore so much sometimes! Although I have never lived in Singapore for more than a year, I am a dual-citizen (Singapore and US) and have a little bit of nationalistic pride for the country. Majulah Singapura!