the other night one of my moroccan friends who now lives in california sent me some youtube links of moroccan hip hop clips(here and here). He also posted a hilarious Moroccan voiceover to a scene of Lord of the Rings, here.
I followed the next few links and found a video of a Moroccan tv commercial for ‘popular’ music(ie country music), here. That video is so hilarious and representative of Moroccan tv(all two channels that there are!).
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i got an e-mail today from a student at william and mary who is organizing an online petition. what’s it for? apparently the president of the college has decided to take down the cross within the chapel when it is not being used for Christian services, since the chapel is used for both secular meetings on a regular basis as well as services of other faiths. this guy with the petition thinks it should always be up, and words the e-mail asking others to sign it as if the cross has been destroyed and will never be seen again. how annoying.
anyhow, i promptly replied:
As the president stated in his e-mail to the students, the cross has not been permanently ‘banished’ – it will still be put up during appropriate religious services.
Demanding that it be on display at all times does not foster goodwill amongst the diverse student body that is William and Mary.
I completely agree with the decision to not display the cross when the chapel is not being used for Christian services.
Andrew Whitehead
B.A. Religion, ‘02
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i’m really happy that jim webb won. by a stroke of fate my sister ended up voting with me, so we successfully cancelled out our parents’ say. and in a small way, we helped get a democrat in. and not that i was following the other elections going on, but it’s nice that webb’s win gained the spotlight so dramatically by being the last race in the air. i was pleasantly surprised by alan’s stepping down – a noble gesture and very unlike the party that he so often epitomizes.
chaz is throwing a big one-year-anniversary bash down at his record shop in durham, which i unfortunately won’t be able to attend due to a wedding(which will be an awesome wedding so i certainly won’t be lacking for fun this weekend). i was especially excited to have the chance to speak with gabe face to face finally, after his dodging my attempts at communication for the past two or three months. that’s the funny thing about screwing over a friend – you have mutual friends and you will eventually run into each other again. gabe – let’s just be friends. besides the fact that by us being friends again would mean i get my money back from the brooklyn apartment, it would also mean that we could be friends again, a la the past seven or eight years. and we’ve had more than our fair share of hilarious moments together.
that reminds me of another friend who’s travelling abroad right now. she was saying that i was the only person who she had known for more than three or four years who she still kept up with outside of her family. i was at first shocked, but then it made sense. i’m bad at keeping up with other people in the sense that i’m not much for maintaining constant contact with people. but i do think about and check in with those people that i care about. while i was in morocco i would go months without e-mailing friends back home(though i had the general venue of mog to expound upon my experiences there, as well as other web-based mediums). the second that i see a friend again, whether it’s been weeks or years since i’ve hung out with them, things are fun again. there’s some friends who i e-mail maybe once a year and might not ever see again. that moment of catching up momentarily, however, no matter how removed, is great. thinking about someone and knowing they’re thinking of you too is a small piece of darshan. and now and then, when i run into an old friend again who i’d resigned to message-in-a-bottle status, that usually ends up being a meeting worth remembering.
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just kidding – i’m not gonna rant about the hole in the floor anymore. i’m about to eat some grits for lunch cuz they’re delicious, and am also going to have some coffee made from my new coffee maker. tyghe sneakily left for queens with the apartment euro-style espresso hourglass thingy in tow, much to my chagrin. oh how many mornings thereafter did i take out my grinds from the fridge in a stumbling mess only to have it dawn on me that no, no coffee was to be made that day!! so i have another one, a birthday present, which is a great thing. i think there’s a guiness premiership rugby match on setanta right now so i’ll prolly eat to the tune of that.
in other more douchebaggy news, gabe continues to refuse to give me my security deposit from the brooklyn apartment. it’s been almost two months since we moved out now. i understood the delay at first since he was unhappy that i never supported his paint-half-the-walls-shades-of-green plan when we first moved in(and also that he took a three day trip to europe out of the blue right before we moved out). so i figured once he had the money he would send it. but i saw the other day that he stated he was making good money, got a chemical peel, a round of dermabrasion, and a makeover in soho. it now appears that gabe not having the money is not the issue at all, rather that he is just not going to give back my deposit at all. it’s a shame – we have been friends for about seven years and have lived together both a year in college and once again in new york. oh well; my grits are getting cold.
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i am spending my first night in my new place in the fan. weekends spent in dc retarded the process a bit(and i mean that like the french, as in slowed down – although when i use the word in french/french-arabic, i mean it like the english – retard). waybright’s carpenter was in surgery again last week so the small two-inch hole in the hardwood floor is still caved in like someone pulled a karate kid on the floor during some vcu party last year; i know this is not true, however, because the previous tenant was an older guy and had bad hygiene(personal and apartmental). wait a minute – that totally could have been from a vcu party.
the hole in the floor is easily fixable. i almost cut a piece of salt-treated pine to fit the hole until i realized i could whine to my new management company and make them fix it(which was a fun idea until their carpenter was having extended eye surgeries – a family member commented that my floor might have hit him in the eye). more disturbing, however, is the corrosive substance next to my bedroom window which resides beneath the wall –
me on walkthrough: what’s with the water damage in that corner by the window?
waybright girl: oh, that’s from hurricane katrina, from a year or two ago, you know.
me, in head: lol, noob. i mean liar. my construction experience tells me to think you are dumb.
me on walkthrough: oh ok. so what’s with the hole in the floor, and that bulge in the wall?
needless to say the bulge in the wall popped like a bubonic sore and had to be fixed up, and the hole in the floor is yet to be fixed. but goose and tripp warned me these guys sucked so i was willing to put up with it. and still am. said corrosive material will have to be dealt with, but it’s obvious it’s coming from an apartment or three above me, or maybe even an external issue since it’s on an outside wall. i just have to remember to burn the 30-step ladder lying in the alley beneath my window(WHAT?!). yeah, i forgot how ridiculous richmond could be. having recently watched ‘the departed’(such an entertaining movie) – i guess richmond is a product of me.
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things are gettin more organized since my move back to richmond. i’ve been back a little over a month now; classes are going well, i found an apartment and am in the process of fixin it up. it’s three buildings down from where tripp and goose used to live on franklin, a little closer to stuart circle. same management group too, though i had avoided their apartments at first. the apartment itself is decent, awesome compared to new york – i even have three windows to the outside world. for those that didn’t know, only one of the three roommates at the last place i lived in downtown brooklyn had a room with windows.
the main thing i’m thinkin about in regard to the new apartment is how to outfit it with soccer awesomeness. i need to figure out if and how to get both gol tv(italian and spanish league coverage) and setanta sports(english and french leagues). so far it looks like i’m gonna have to spend a lot to get both. ugh.
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