George Bernard Shaw in Damascus

The other night I watched students from the University of Damascus perform the George Bernard Shaw play, “Arms and the Man”. It was a great night. The so very English jokes about Central Europeans mixed well with the local Syrian genius for sneering and preening (very important in a class-based comedy like this), and the [...]

A Syrian conversation

I’ve written an article over at Offshorewave.com about a peculiar facet of living in Syria – the kind of historical/political discussions that I seem to get into fairly regularly with Syrians. When I wrote this piece, I felt a little uncomfortable with it, noting how adversarial it was (especially as it gives tips on how [...]

Sinai!

Hi everyone, I’ve just spent the last week sitting on different beaches in the Sinai pennisula. I went down by bus and ferry with two friends, and tomorrow I’m heading back to Damascus.
Good luck with your travels.
Daniel

Lamb and Islam

On Tuesday I ate lunch with a Jordanian, a Palestinian and a Bedouin. I was in Amman (the capital of Jordan), and I’d just finished my GRE test, so I went walking around the very American-style shopping district of Sweifiyeh. I walked up and down the hills, trying to find a way out of the [...]

MFAs

I’m still rewriting the story I’m planning to send to MFA courses as my writing sample. It should be good when it’s finished, but revision takes a lot of stamina.
There are three programmes that I definitely want to apply for, and am still looking for an interesting fourth or fifth.
The three definites are Iowa, [...]