This Is My Life

So, tonight I started doing sit-ups. Well, crunches I suppose, but in my mind I still call them sit-ups, so that's what I'm going to call them here.

I can't do a lot of sit-ups, on account of two things:

1) I have a large gut that gets in the way.

2) I have a large gut with few muscles underneath it.

The best way to get rid of these two things, of course, is to do sit-ups. Well, that's just the way it is, so I'll have to deal with it.

Tonight I did 10 sit-ups. No, that's not very many, and to be truthful it's not the most I can do. My plan is to add one every night. 11 tomorrow, 12 the next day, etc, constantly pushing myself to do "one more."

Eventually, obviously, I'm going to hit a wall that I can't pass right away. It might be at 15, it might be at 50, but it will be there. All I have to do when that happens is keep pushing myself until such a time as I can do one more. Then push myself past that, and on, and on, and on.

Why sit-ups? Well, it's something I can do without any equipment, in the privacy of my own home, and it uses muscles I want to strengthen. For that same reason, I'm working on push-ups in the same manner, only even slower.

My upper arms are very weak; I can barely do wussy push-ups with my knees touching the ground. This will obviously require a lot of work. Still, the best time to start is now. I'm not even letting this horrible sore throat and chest-wracking cough get in the way.

Okay, maybe I should let that get in the way, but I'm not. If I come up with one excuse, I'll come up with 100.

Time for no excuses.

I hope.

According to what we have learned in Arabic 105, meeting somebody for the first time requires a lot of what I would almost consider "filler" speech. I know we do this in America as well, but usually the filler is quick and simple, "That's nice," or "Oh, yeah!"

In Arabic countries, a typical introductory greeting between two people could go like this:

John: Good morning to you!
Mike: And good morning to you, as well!
John: My name is John.
Mike: My name is Mike.
John: Nice to meet you!
Mike: Good morning to you!
John: Good morning to you too!
Mike: How are you?
John: Good, thank you, praise God. And you?
Mike: A little tired, praise God. Thank you.
John: I work at the university.
Mike: I'm a librarian.
John: Good morning to you!
Mike: Good morning to you too!
John: It was nice to meet you. I have a meeting, may I go?
Mike: Of course, go. Nice to meet you.
John: Goodbye.
Mike: Goodbye.

The literal translation would be different, but you're saying the exact same thing after every bit of introductory information. The "Good morning to you" translates roughly to a general statement of pleasure at learning something new. It's strange to me.

And there's a LOT of praising God built into the language. For example, if you say you're doing well, but don't say "Al-hum dul-allah" ("praise God"), it is considered strange and possibly rude.

Just thought I'd share.