Frivolous post

[qatarperegrine]

Two good things and two bad things.

Good thing #1: Our Arabic classes have started again. This morning we had Conversational Arabic; Reading & Writing II starts tomorrow. So far I really like the Conversational Arabic teacher.

Good thing #2: Last night I ran 2K (1.25 miles) nonstop, i.e. without slowing to a walk at any point. I've never done that before. w00t, go me!

Bad thing #1: I just realized I'm going to be out of town for 5 of the 12 choir rehearsals leading up to the Easter concert. Ergo, no choir for me this semester. :-(

Bad thing #2: Umm... apparently I forgot bad thing #2 while I was writing the rest of this post. I guess that's a good thing?

Comments

[qatar.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'd forgotten about that! What do I have to do to sign up?

Make that Km :-p

[shmuelisms.livejournal.com]

"Everything" in the metric system is K something or other (like Kg). :-p How long did it take you?? I don't think I could presently run that far non-stop, or without some walking in the middle. The circular route I have started walking is exactly one mile long, so the two of us have apparently swapped measuring systems.

Re: Make that Km :-p

[aristopheles.livejournal.com]

Well, I've always seen it as "kg" and "km", so that's how I'd write it if so inclined.
Runners are typically just interested in one unit--distance--and I think the capital K is standard for this context. (And American runners weigh themselves in pounds anyway.)

Fascinating

[shmuelisms.livejournal.com]

That is just plain strange! I wonder how that happened. Why would someone go and "invent" a new "symbol", for an internationally recognized/used unit that already has one, that is only one letter longer. Maybe it's because the meter itself, has no common usage in the USA, so can be said to be "superfluous"? Strange.

Whenever I see a capital K used in an American context, I think of school grades, as in K3, K12 (yes I noticed the number is on the other side).

Re: Fascinating

[y-pestis.livejournal.com]

That's good and complicated, but let me add another silly cultural tradition.

K is also used contextually in American culture to represent thousands of dollars. So you might see headlines that say "School board budgets 20K for sports equipment" to indicate an expenditure of $20,000. It usually has a dollar sign in front (e.g. "$20K") but I've been seeing it lately without as well.

I second the weirdness about the running distances. You often see references to races as being 5K or 10K. In fact an extension of it was not that long ago when my work fitness center was involved in a program to give people pedometers and try to get them to walk 10,000 steps a day. The program is called "Ten-K-a-day". They even use the domain - http://demo.10kaday.com/.

Americans will never really GET the metric system, I think that's about the only conclusion you can really draw from all this. ;-)

Re: Make that Km :-p

[qatar.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I'd never thought about that. I write "K" for running distances, as is fairly standard in the States, as aristopheles said. (The Terry Fox run kgilmore mentioned is a 5K.) But I'd never write "K" for non-running distances, e.g. "Mesaieed is 45 Km from Doha."

2K took me about 16.5 minutes.

Arabic teacher

[(Anonymous)]

I'm trying to find an Arabic class in Doha...any recommendations?

Re: Arabic teacher

[qatar.livejournal.com]

I take Arabic through my employer. We've gotten instructors through both the Qatar Center for the Presentation of Islam and the Qatar Guests Center. I've been happy with both. (And I believe they're both free.)

You can call QCPI at 486-4966 (men's branch) or 488-5917 (women's branch) and Qatar Guest Center at 486-2390.

Both organizations also offer other interesting classes in Qatari culture, Islam, etc.

Hope that helps!