first day of classes

        Woke up early today. I found an okay running loop that goes around the Etisalat Academy facility. While I was running I saw Andy also running. He showed me an even better loop around a section of the road in front of the Academy. It was pretty early but there were still people awake and boy did we get some looks haha. I think that randomly running for kicks in this country is not quite the norm.

        Showered and then went to breakfast at the cafeteria for breakfast. The mango juice at that place is phenomenal. After that, there wasn't anything else we had to do today so we all sort of hung out. Some people were discussing possible plans for the week we have free at Christmas. It's still up in the air it sounds like. 

Allie, Nina and I went to Mirdif City Center to get some stuff we needed at Carrefour. I just needed peanut butter. Getting to Mirdif wasn't a problem, just getting back to the dorms became kind of an ordeal. When we first got in the cab the guy said he knew where Etisalat Academy was located. A few minutes later we realized that the taxi driver had no idea where to go. He didn’t really speak English very well either. Eventually we just told him to take us to the Pineapple building (Silicone Oasis, where school is) because we could get back from there. So 37 dirhams later, he finally got us to RIT Dubai, but he still thought it was Etisalat Academy. Confusing. I hung out at RIT Dubai campus until my class at 6:00pm

        First class of the winter quarter, 6:00pm-8:00pm, Math 1 for Engineers. Professor Ghoneim is teaching it and so far it's great. It sounds like it will be a bunch of already learned math concepts all mushed into one class. After class we went back to the dorms. I had a much-anticipated PBJ for dinner. 

UAE National Day fashion statement at the mall.

        ChaRon organized a meeting with us and the other RIT Dubai students. All of us showed up and probably 12 other RIT Dubai students. We did icebreakers (of course) and got to know the students a little bit better. They are from all over the place. After a while pizza came and everyone hung out and had a couple slices. We gave the students some RIT T-shirts and sat around and talked. 

        I forget if I mentioned this but at Etisalat Academy, the boys aren't even allowed on the 3rd floor because it is "only for ladies". And the girls can only go in the lounge area of the boys’ floor, not their rooms. To us it seems really strange. So then Tito (real name Ahmed)  was telling me how to not be seen by the cameras in the dorms haha apparently he's had some experience with sneaking around the dorms. Diala was telling us about all the good nightclubs to go to. Ariel was playing his favorite house music, basically like electronic dance music. A lot of them like that type of music around here.