Saturday, November 10, 2007

Events with food, food, and more food

VCUQ seems to constantly be hosting an art opening or special event of some kind, which nearly always includes a wonderful spread of Middle Eastern food. The opening of another school term provided the first round of food-embellished events in late August. Then an art opening that featured stories collected by Graphic Design students of old, present, and future Qatar happened about the second week of school...the poster for it will eventually provide some artwork for my rather bare walls. Then there were several special events for Ramadan (including a carpeted "majlis" that was constructed inside of VCUQ's atrium space to provide a setting for a dinner) and another art opening (a terrific photography and video exhibition of work by artists who live and work in the gulf region).

The most recent event was the Hamid Bin Khalifa Symposium on Islamic Art, which brought together many well regarded authorities on Islamic art from all over the world and lasted for two and a half days...with multiple dinners and lunches all free for VCUQ faculty and staff. To wrap it up, our deans hosted a party at their villas for the Symposium visitors one night then invited faculty and staff the next evening (this was last Wednesday, 7 November) to a lovely dinner. The henna artists were a fun addition to that party...check out my first henna tatoo. The good news is that I've only put on about 2 lbs (1 kilo) - but plan to take that off this week with salads for lunch and exercise.