Kate in Arabia
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Posts posted by Kate in Arabia
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I think the judge went way over the line. The case isn't even over, what if there's an appeal or other activity where she could be called upon to act in an official capacity? How is she going to claim to be 100% unbiased now? And speaking as a non-Christian, to have a judge proselytizing from the bench... well, I guess some people of that faith may find it inspiring, but I feel the opposite...
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5 hours ago, Laura Corin said:
More details on how I ended up eligible for US residence. I'm British and DH is American.
We met overseas and got engaged, and then looked into moving to the US. Long story short, the company I was working for failed to arrange the work visa for me to work in the US and I ended up there on a visa waiver, with no job and no right to work, and not yet married. I was told that I had two options: the 'correct' one (go to the UK, apply for a fiance visa, wait for a year, enter the US and then marry); the 'incorrect' one (i.e. frowned upon by the US immigration authorities) which was to marry straight away in the US and then turn up at 5am at the San Jose immigration office on Monday morning with certificates, etc. Reader, I married him. Two weeks notice. It was lovely.
We were called in for interview, took the required items (photos of our four-year relationship, etc.). We were given a very easy time. We could hear the tone of voice of the questioning in the next booth, and it was not at all easy. The official told me, 'We're not worried about you, because you have a good passport already'. I was given a temporary Green Card and the right to apply for a permanent one (that's another story).
Be very, very careful about getting good current advice - how we proceeded worked at that point (decades ago) but I don't know the situation now. The immigration service was massively overloaded and inefficient, so there were delays and mistakes (they lost my file once, and also claimed that I had missed an interview to which I was never invited). Good luck!
Agreeing with much of what Laura has said here. My experience was straightforward. I met dh at univ overseas, but we got married in the US. He had come on a student visa. He did not have a "good passport" 😉 but even so our experience was straightforward, just time consuming. I don't remember it being ridiculously expensive, we did not hire a lawyer. He was granted a green card pretty easily, the nationality took longer; the whole process was a few years. He had the additional complication that his home country does not allow dual nationality, so he had to actually renounce that "officially". We did have the separate questioning, the immigration folks were serious but polite, and we were on top of having all the paperwork and supporting documentation (letters, cards, pictures, joint bank statements, utility bills, etc. etc.). My takeaway, slow and steady wins the race..
..and I will reiterate Laura's comment about being current on procedures, in our case it was 25 years ago..
Also, just mentioning, I have had what seems like a lifetime of people questioning our motives, his motives (just married an American to get the nationality, hates his heritage, etc. etc.), mine (couldn't get an American so looked elsewhere, I've "stolen" one of their men, etc. etc.), you would not believe (or maybe you would) the ugliness that people pile on others. Hopefully your dd (and you) won't have to go through much of that.
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Thanks for both your comments..
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With a child who was interested in the analysis side of poetry reading, we used Classical Writing's poetry curriculum.
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20 minutes ago, Halftime Hope said:
Interesting that you mention this. I guess it shows how wide a range of Muslim beliefs there are, because the artist is Muslim, and many women go to the pre-parties and concerts wearing their head-coverings--they come from all over the globe, not just western Muslims.
And as I think of it, the artist was recently at a four-day "lifestyles of the rich and famous" celebration for someone, well, rich and famous. 😉 Alcohol was present, but the artist and his family who were also there, were not drinking.
The artist's concerts are most definitely secular. Every pre-party thus far has had alcohol, but ironically ours may not, as a cost-containment strategy. Sigh.
Thank you, Kate, for your valued input. The above is just musing...
Yes.. this is true even here, where there are several alcohol-available restaurants. I have some family/friends who will consciously avoid those and others who are ok eating at a restaurant that serves alcohol. Again, I think anyone who is up for a concert would probably be pretty flexible about both the venue and the presence of alcohol. jmo
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I am currently fleshing out plans for my 9th grader; as I've mentioned here before, with my high-schoolers I create a Middle Eastern studies course than runs roughly concurrently (timewise) with World History stretched over three years, and it dips into English each year as I tie in correlating literature readings.
So, 9th grader, means this year we are back with the ancient period. In World History she is reading SWB's History of the Ancient World and coupling that with a wide range of different movies (all genres, all periods -- classic, modern, historical, somehow tied to historical topics, etc.); in ME studies we are sort of pinning it to the stories of the prophets in the Islamic tradition, but tying in articles and readings that discuss Christian/Jewish beliefs, the archaeological evidence, etc., and are arranging field trips each week to visit local archaeological sites that roughly correspond to the time periods under study; and as one element of her English credit I am pulling together literature readings that relate to either the World History or ME studies courses.
I have a copy of the JPS Tanakh, and I have pretty much decided I'd like for her to do some reading from Psalms, but that's a pretty big book and I'm not exactly sure what I should include in a "selected readings." Also I've been debating whether I should include selections from other books... I don't really need historical narratives, I think that's covered between the readings in both history courses, it's more "religious text as literature" that I'm aiming for.
As an additional tangential note, I will probably also include some readings from the NT Bible, perhaps the Parables of Jesus? I feel like she should at least be familiar, from a literary allusion perspective, with stories like the Good Samaritan, etc.
It would be great if anyone has any advice or suggestions they could share, it's been a long time since I've looked at the Jewish/Christian scriptures...
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I'm Muslim, I personally would not have a problem with attending a secular event in a church building.. just like pretty much every other major faith, there will be a range of opinions and practice on this, but in thinking about the wide range of Muslims I know, those I know who would not be comfortable attending an event in such a location would also not attend an event with alcohol, and likely would not be interested in any event that had music or focused on music, so I'm not sure they are your target audience anyway. My opinion, the majority would be ok with it.
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I have two "starting" university this semester... my oldest did two years at a community college-type school here in Dubai and went to the US last year to transfer to a state univ. They told him his fees would be out of state, and advised him to wait and work until he got state residency; so the past year he's been working two jobs and getting himself settled as legally independent and thankfully was able to be granted resident status. He started univ this year as a late-sophomore, although his academic advisor said with diligence he should be able to finish in two years. I was a little concerned, because there were several positives to going this route but one negative is that since he transferred all his gen ed classes, four of his five classes this semester are in his major. I remember turning to him in the advisor's office and saying, "well, I guess you're gonna find out if you like this major or not!" 😉 However he does seem to like them all, he has a maturity and seriousness that was missing before which I attribute to the gap year and being away from us. So he's got himself pretty settled, I think, taking classes full time but still working on the weekends.
My second didn't want to stay here in UAE so he thankfully got enough financial aid to go to a small, private univ in the same city; he's living with his brother and my parents, and commuting. I think he was nervous about friends, but the school is small and really focused in the orientation week on bringing students together -- had a mandatory overnight camping trip, a formal convocation ceremony (somehow Hogwarts-Sorting-Hat-Day-esque in my mind), etc... and they have lots of activities and resources specifically for commuter students to make them feel included. Needless to say, with my extrovert middle child, he was able to get into a social group fairly easily.. academically he says it's going "fine," but I guess we'll see when he gets through midterms. He's very chatty, so I hear from him a lot on WhatsApp, pics, videos, etc. And I must say that I have never seen a school so on the ball and attentive, I only ever went to a large state university so this treatment at a smaller school (there are just over 600 students in his class) is an eye-opener for me. He filled out a bunch of online forms back in the spring about his interests, etc., and we figured no one really looks at those; well turns out, someone does -- because when he got there they had already set his class schedule for the semester and other than a couple of mandatory 1st year courses, it was all things he likes; and they made sure he had Friday afternoons open, because "we saw in your file that you're Muslim so assumed you'd need Fridays to be pretty free." Amazing.
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I had a guy give me a lawn buddha when I was in univ (undergrad)... I'm so, so horrible at social cues; what does it mean if a guy gives you a garden ornament? He was from out of state, means he hauled a cement lawn buddha on a plane and gave it to me. At the time (clueless) I assumed he thought I was kinda quirky and would get a kick out of it, now (still mostly clueless (and still pretty quirky)) I continue to be not sure about the motivation behind it... we were living in dorms (no lawns)... I don't know, I was (and largely still am) terrible at reading between the lines.. maybe there were no lines...
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Happy things are going so well! I'm in the US helping my second boy get set at his univ, it's quite a transition! We had a different airport experience last year with my oldest, because I was the one leaving and left him behind at the airport.. it was pretty painful. I anticipate this year will be the same if not worse, as I will be walking away from two. I'm sure I'll be in great shape on that first flight home. 🙄😉
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23 minutes ago, BeachGal said:
You could eat at Cafe in the Crypt. You'd want to check hours. They have an area where you can do brass rubbings, too. The food is very good.
https://www.stmartin-in-the-fields.org/visit/cafe-in-the-crypt/
Maybe a walk around Camden Market? But I'm not sure about how you'd get there.
There might be something here she would like:
Thanks, I will forward these on to her and see if something will strike her fancy..
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15 minutes ago, Laura Corin said:
Windsor castle? It looks like about fifteen minutes by taxi?
..already been. We "did" Windsor castle last year during a layover, had a lovely boat ride, ate some fish and chips, it was great! 😉
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We're traveling through Heathrow (sorry I didn't mention before). She's interested in Harry Potter, she looked into what was available for that but nothing seemed to suit her... she likes street/urban art, fantasy/sci-fi, zombies/horror genres, etc. She mentioned a crypt scary-tour type thing, but honestly I don't know if my nerves can take that 😄. Our layover is in the afternoon-evening (abt 1 - 9pm)
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DD and I will be traveling back to the UAE in a couple of weeks and will have 8 hours to spend in the London airport 🙄. We've been to and through London several times and have seen the major sites already, some more than once. I thought I would put out a request here for suggestions; given the time getting into/out of the airport, I'd guesstimate we'd have about 2-3 hours to mill around somewhere. As I've said we've seen the major things -- Big Ben, Tower of London, Buckingham Palace, Westminster, Windsor... and my dd (14 yrs) is not much into shopping or high teas, etc. (we've had friends suggest those). It'll just be the two of us which is unusual, so it'd be great if I could figure out something neat for us to get into..
Any ideas?
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My cat had a similar issue a few months ago, in his case it ended up being an abcess from a wound on his neck. I was surprised because his cheek was swollen, so I was expecting a mouth/tooth injury. The vet kept him for a couple of days to get treatment started, he was ultimately fine.
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My dd 14 is finishing up her Silver Award project as I'm typing 😉 It's only her second year in scouts, but she's had a great time. She'll be bridging this year, they're talking about working on a journey next year.. she'll be a high school freshman, do they usually start on Gold Awards after that? Or is it a couple of years and they start as high school juniors/seniors? I was in girl scouts when I was teeny tiny, which is so long ago it's ridiculous, and so I'm not at all up to date on how it all works..
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50 minutes ago, Saille said:
Looking back, I find that part of our college search fascinating! A well-meaning friend came to me at one point and said, "Are you sure he'll be able to navigate big schools? As a homeschooler, maybe he should be looking at smaller colleges." And I knew this was based on stereotyping, but at the same time she was someone I loved and respected, and she got in my head. So I asked my oldest whether IU, in particular, felt big to him. He kind of laughed. "It's not bigger than Indianapolis!" he said. I just about smacked myself in the forehead. Of course he's not relating to it based on school size! Why would he? After that I didn't worry about that aspect of it as much. Though I will say that his program is small and dynamic, and gives off a strong feeling of community when you visit. He also applied to live in a Living Learning Center, which will promote that small-community feeling if he gets in.
I am an IU grad (BA and MA), woot! In my case I remember distinctly wanting a large school.. I had gone to smaller private Catholic schools my whole life and I wanted the opposite for college.. I also lived in a LLC, and you're right it did foster an immediate sense of smaller community.. I am still in contact with several of the people I lived there with, 30+ years later.
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Ds decided.. not much of a decision 😉 , as it was his favorite/first choice all along...
Where: Bellarmine University, Louisville KY
Why: ticked all of ds' boxes: good program in his major-of-interest, good financial aid package, smaller size, close to family
Other important info:
Major: Communications
Financial Aid: University scholarships, a big one for public speaking (he was super-active in Toastmasters all through high school) and a smaller one for "cultural diversity" (I was always kinda dismissive of the idea that a school would choose people based on their cultural background, but they were clearly interested in ds in part because of his -- they worked a lot to sweeten the deal.. not a full ride, but close.)
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My opinion, getting the "partial cook" on the rice right is the hardest part of making biryani. I soak the rice, and then cook it a little more than half way before draining and putting on top of the chicken. My mil's recipe has you putting the chicken and all the masala ingredients into the bottom of the pan raw, then covering with partly-cooked rice and cooking for a further 30-40 min..
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15 minutes ago, sassenach said:
Earthquake people, I’m right here with you. I think we’ve all been brainwashed. There’s a million light decorations that we could put over our beds. I won’t be putting any heavy frames, but I might secure a few small canvases.
The canvases I have are not framed, my dd painted around the outside edges in black to it give it a more finished feel.. they are very light.
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I asked my dd to paint three canvases in a "winter woods" theme.. it's so hot here most of the year, I wanted something that conveyed cool serenity 😉 .... when I look at it I can almost hear the crunching footsteps in snow, and that sort of muffled quiet.. and the bracing smell of snow at night, the cutting cold breeze... I haven't actually seen snow in many years, so this is a nice reminder...
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3 hours ago, Pen said:
I use Jarrow company methylcobalamin sublingual, but haven’t had huge decreases in pain from it. I am wondering about the specifics that worked so well for @Kate in Arabia . I have s chronic health condition with pain as a part, and would happily try a different brand or dosage if it might help.
2 hours ago, gardenmom5 said:part of it would be the etiology of the pain.
my cortisol levels were really high, and that was painful. when I brought down the levels the pain went away.
Just checking, the brand that's given as a prescription over here is from Japan, Eisai Methylcobal. They also have it as injections, but I take a 500mcg pill daily. The indications as written on the box are "peripheral neuropathies", which is exactly what I have.. I started waking up in the mornings with my arms/hands numb, moving to having that numbness during the day, and graduated to a deep, aching pain that was constant. Anything that involved using my arms/hands -- driving, leaning on a table, typing, cooking, anything -- and I'd have this horrible pain. Tests showed my B12 levels were ridiculously low, I had near-immediate relief once I started the methylcobalamin. Turns out I have several vitamin deficiencies, there's probably something underlying that but I have not found any definitive answers for that to date.
Sorry for going off-thread-topic..
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5 hours ago, PeterPan said:
The point on the Emerald Labs B Complex is the vits are methylated. If someone has methylation defects (MTHFR) and doesn't realize it, they might feel dramatically better switching over. I'm a mix with a heterozygous MTHFR defect and some other things that make me not tolerate methyls well, and the methylated vits are too much for me. There's a lot of discussion to be had about vits, and I currently take a food source B vit that doesn't give me problems. But just in general, the vits being methylated were why it would be such a dramatic improvement.
Sort of in that vein, I tend to eat when stressed. I have to be very intentional and tell myself to buckle down and take BETTER care of myself than normal. So I make pots of split pea soup and am tighter on desserts, eat my salad, lean meats, and just take care of myself.
Yes.. in my case, the prescribed B12 I take is methylcobalamin, but the one in the cheaper supplement was cyanocobalamin. Both are marketed as B12 supplements, I would have not even thought to look closer at sourcing, I learned the hard way that I need to. It wasn't immediate when I started taking the cheaper cyanocobalamin, it took a couple of months and then my symptoms returned (severe pain).. but again once I switched back to the methylcobalamin the pain was gone the next day.
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On 2/11/2019 at 8:47 PM, itsheresomewhere said:
Just wanted to plug the emerald labs b complex. I never felt so much better when taking another b. Emerald Labs was night and day. I saw a huge difference in a week.
I don't have experience with the issues under discussion here, but I have been diagnosed with a vit-b deficiency and just to say, I had near-immediate relief from my symptoms when I started taking the prescription supplements.. but some months later I switched to a health store supplement brand to try and save some money and my symptoms came back.. further research into it revealed that some brands use synthetic sources (I assume that's why it's cheaper), and apparently those do not work for me..
Just mentioning for anyone looking into b vitamins, not all brands/manufacturers are necessarily the same..
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Amber Guyger
in The Chat Board
Posted
I know she won't oversee the appeal. She still could have activities to perform if the case is appealed.. settling the record, if the case is remanded, etc. etc., perhaps any and all unlikely, and I'm not suggesting she would necessarily show any bias, it is just my opinion that judges should not have any bias and maintain the appearance of the lack of any bias to the best of their ability within the courtroom.
I also understand that it's Texas. And I've read the statements from virtually all the officials around her saying that either they support her, or that "maybe they wouldn't have done that" but they would fight against any action against her because of it. I don't know that there should be any action, I was just commenting that it made me uncomfortable and crossed a line...