Thursday, April 24, 2008
electricity
Apprehension... I feel it just before touching the door handle of the bus before going to work in the morning, before shaking hands with a person who has just approached me... or in fact, before touching practically any electrical appliance. But not because I abhor going to work, meeting new people or using electrical appliances, because I still haven't become completely used to the frequent shocks you can get from these activities.
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2 comments:
Oh yeah! I know the feeling only too well. De-static yourself by touching a wall every now and again (and especially before touching metal, and people (g)). The electricity just wants to go back to earth, apparently.
Here in Japan elevator buttons and door handles used to be the big thing for me, but I wasn't bothered at all this past winter since I found out this little trick. HTH
Dear Zanmei,
This is in lieu of an email (as I don’t know your email address.)
I have just found your blog by chance a few days ago on the net, and have been reading it with great pleasure.
I spent a year (2002/3) in Duhok. Reading your blog gives me such strange feelings. A lot of things have changed since I was there, and also your situation and circumstance are quite different from mine, while at the same time so many things you write sound familiar. It is quite eerie really, reading about your experiences.
Re your blog on the Yezidis (as Yezidis were the reason I was there in the first place.) There is in fact a peacock (actually two) engraved above the entrance of the sanctuary. It is there in your picture too, only the details don’t show well enough. (There are two lions, flanked by two peacocks with long tails.) I would send you a photo, but I don’t think I can put it here. As for Yezidis being a deviation of… Well, deviation, I think, carries rather negative connotations. But we could safely say that their religion is related to Christianity, Islam, Zoroastrianism etc. (in any case, these movement are also related to each other, or at least we can talk about borrowed elements and influence.) It is quite possible that Yezidism in its present form, as an “organized” religion with its own religious hierarchy, started out as a Sufi order, but then went its own - rather creative – way, which included incorporating a lot of local elements going back to other religious traditions.
That’s enough of Yezidis, I guess. My favourite blog was where you described how students reacted to the grades they received at the end of the year. Oh, boy, did I have problems with that one! (But I am afraid my story had a more awkward ending.) I wish though you wrote more about your (and other foreigner’s) experiences teaching at a Kurdish university. I would really love to hear about that. And there are some other intriguing blogs where you refer to political happenings or problems with the big-dogs, and events being postponed for unspecified reasons and so on, but sadly you are too careful to give details. (I can understand that, of course, as anybody can read such blogs, but it made me so curious.) Anyway, it is really interesting.
I look forward to reading more of your entries
Best
Eszter S.
P.S. I really liked your photos of Turkey. We seem to have visited the same places (though I have never got to see the Arch in Dogubeyazit, or the crater-lake above Tatvan.)
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