Superbus!

Creators of the new Superbus hope to aid the UAE in its struggle to be environmentally friendly and spend ridiculous amounts of money doing it. This new form of public transport will take commuters from Abu Dhabi to Dubai in 30 minutes, traveling at speeds of 250 kph (150 mph). This vehicle will travel on usual city streets to pick up passengers and once on the highway, will travel on specially constructed "Superbus only" roads. If the project is approved, this will be the Concorde of buses. The main challenges will be finding trustworthy drivers to drive the bus at these speeds and keeping guys in Ferraris from treating the special roads as their own private speedways.

The 99

As a teenager, I loved comic books and read them voraciously. To this day, I recognize their value in getting kids interested in reading and in teaching values. Over the past several years, a man from Kuwait has been producing a comic called "The 99." It has been made into an animated series for kids and is soon to debut it's first Emirati superhero: Noora.

Much like the heroes Batman and Superman, the heroes of The 99 don't promote religion. However, this comic incorporates Middle Eastern historical events and Islamic archetypes. Since all of the comics I read as a kid were produced in the U.S., they tended to reflect the storylines of the archetypes in the States. One such example of this can be found with the aforementioned characters of Batman and Superman being orphans who received a calling to do good.

The creator of the comics stated that his goal, "was not only to promote good values for children worldwide, but also to reduce extremism and promote tolerance." I think this is a tremendous goal and a wonderful way to open the minds of not only the children of the Middle East, and to show the world a more accurate depiction of Muslim ideals.

F1 Exchange

Those F1 fans who had big plans to attend the Grand Prix in Bahrain understandably must be disappointed that the race has to be canceled. Because the race is on March 13th in a little over two weeks, it will likely be canceled entirely and the season will start in Melbourne.

However, Abu Dhabi has stepped up and offered to switch places with Bahrain, making the Yas Marina Race track the season's opener and the Bahrain race the second to last race.

If that happens, not only will Abu Dhabi have to accomodate the fans on short notice, it also goes on the presumption that everything will be cleared up in Bahrain by November.

In addition, the Abu Dhabi International Triathlon is the day before when the race would be held. Ordinarily it wouldn't be an issue, but the cycling part of the race goes on one of the main highways to Yas Island and part of the race goes on the actual track that they would need to do practice runs. It will be interesting to see how things play out and if I get a phenomenal excuse to not do the triathlon.

Unrest

For all of my family and friends or anyone generally curious about this region of the world, there is no unrest in Abu Dhabi. I generally don't like to write blog entries about the absence of things here, but due to the growing number of questions I've had from people, I felt that I should address this issue. If I had no access to newspapers or the internet, it is likely that I would not know there was anything happening. Despite the protests in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Libya, Yemen, Algeria, Morocco, and Wisconsin.

Alcohol-Free Coke

The radio program "This American Life" has revealed that the secret ingredient of Coca Cola is alcohol. The Coca Cola company is denying this as are UAE officials. However, Coca Cola have refused to comment on the release of their new product, Bacon Cheeseburger Coke, due to arrive in stores throughout the Middle East and India next month.

Cover Schedule

The cover schedule is a phenomenon at Abu Dhabi Men's College that doesn't exist for the math department. The number of math teachers is small enough that one teacher has the list and if someone is sick, the other teachers get calls and/or emails to teach the classes.

The English department has a different system. Even though this is my fourth semester teaching at ADMC, this is the first semester dealing with the system. Apparently what happens is we get an email at 5:02 pm after most people have left saying that the list is up and people need to find three class periods during the week that they can agree to teach if someone is sick and needs someone to teach at that time. Then at 7:02am the next day before most people are there, we get another email saying thanks for the fast response and that most of the slots are taken. At 7:50am, the teachers who are unaware of the system (like me) read the email and put their names down for whatever is left.

While this sounds like complaining, I got the times I probably would have taken even if I signed up at 5:03pm last night. Two interesting bits of information, though. First, I was told not to write my name in pencil because someone who wanted that time would probably erase my name and write their own. Second, as I was walking away after having written my name, I overheard a coworker who also had arrived late saying, "Oh good, someone wrote my name for me." That's right, it's not just the students who act in their own self interests.

Madinat Zayed Race

Today was the big day. After getting a good night's rest in a very comfortable bed, I woke to start my 9:00am "fun ride." From what my friends who did this last year said, this was not a race. Well, this year it was a race. I actually appreciated not knowing that fact until about 20 minutes before the race or otherwise I probably would have over prepared.

As it turned out, the local Sheikh took control of the ride from HCT and invited local high schools to participate. Because the Sheikh is involved, the police were very good about clearing the road on which the race was. I heard that last year the police were given medals for their help. Because of that, the police officers were fighting over who got to help with the race this year.

The idea is to gradually expand this race into a biking festival. In fact, Madinat Zayed has five festivals including the internationally known Camel Festival culminating in the Camel Beauty Contest. This is now the sixth festival.

I think it's great that Madinat Zayed is working to promote physical fitness by getting high school kids involved in something like this. I also think it's great that HCT promoted something like this so I could have the day off to go cycling.