Office sweet office

I've posted pictures of the new ICC. (Click the below picture to see the rest.) Our room is still very much a work in progress, but here's how it looks this morning:

My cube

Java

Last Thursday was the first exam in the freshman programming class. By Thursday afternoon, a large (over 2 meters long) "JAVA IS HARD" message had appeared on the whiteboard of one of the classrooms. Each of the letters was composed of tiny "JAVA IS HARD" messages. It was pretty cool looking, although I had to wonder how the artist would have done if they'd channeled all that time and diligence into studying for the test instead.

By this morning, it had been transformed into a "JAVA IS HOT" message.

( Photo here )

Geminates

One thing we beginning Arabic speakers can never get right is consonant doubling. It just feels weird to say a letter for twice as long as usual. When we say "assalaam" ([the] peace) we tend to say "asalaam" with only one s, because otherwise it feels like hissing: assssssssalam.

I just realized, though, that we actually do this all the time in English, when a word begins with the same letter that the previous word ended with. Say "tea member." Then say "team member." We really do double the m! And we double the s in "bus system" just like we ought to in "assalaam."

Now if only I could pronounce that pesky 'ayn....