What, Me Worry?

Israel and Hezbollah have been pounding each other, and the Lebanese citizenry, for almost 3 weeks now, and there’s no end in sight to this proxy war between the U.S. and Iran. The Doha Round of the WTO trade talks officially collapsed last week. Iraq has more or less slipped into civil war. Gas prices in the U.S. are over $3 a gallon, and the Northern Hemisphere’s summer heat wave has seen record-high temps across North America and Europe.
But down here in my snug little corner of the world, winter’s cold snap seems like ancient history - although I read that it was NZ’s coldest winter since 1972. I’ve managed to finish preparing half of my lectures so far – in just over double the amount of time allotted for doing all of them. Needless to say, I'm making slow progess on my final LLM paper.

On the plus side, I now have an office to myself rather than sharing with two other people. It’s one floor up from the rest of my department, so I get lots of exercise going up and down stairs all day to the printer. And I’m making new friends with the folks on the 7th floor. There are a bunch of Americans in the Property Dept which is located here, and we all seem to have some connection to Chicago. One guy was interested in the topic of my LLM paper - securitization in China - and suggested we could do a paper together, as he's interested in it from the finance side, which would be totally cool.

Last weekend we visited with Antonia and her parents, who have a webcam. Their families in Germany have seen the baby more than Ali and me. She's up to 4 kilos now, a full third bigger than when we saw her two weeks ago. Armaz & Angelique said she hardly ever cries, just eats and sleeps. Which sounds like a pretty good plan.


Cheers,
Sandie

Exactly How Bad Is It?

There's been a plague of bad news in the world lately: last week North Korea was testing long range missiles, this week the Mumbai train bombing, and the situation in the Middle East seems to be going to hell in a handbasket. Ali's picked a funny time to be leaving Middle Earth, but he hasn't been back to the US for over a year and decided it's time for a visit. He just got a ticket for the end of August.

On Thursday the Commercial Law Department had its Mid-Winter Lunch, scheduled for 12:30 at a local Italian restaurant. Apparently, twice a year we're treated to a department luncheon. This was my first.

I'm in the middle of preparing 18 hours of lectures on NZ investment law, plus working on my last LLM paper. Next week when classes resume, I'll also be doing the Tuakana mentor thing again. In other words, I'm still keeping busy but I was happy to take time off for a nice lunch. Who knew there would be several cases of wine provided, or that it wouldn't get over until 7:30? Not that I'm complaining, it was a great time.

I'm also getting used to working weekends. Although the weather has warmed up a bit, today was pretty gray and drizzly. So it isn't a great sacrifice to stay inside. Tomorrow we'll go visit our new niece, who now has a name: Antonia Robabeh. (But she'll always be JBF 3713 to us.)

Her Daddy recently sent me a joke. I hope you enjoy as much as I did:

One morning George Bush is getting his morning
briefing from his war advisors on the situation in
Iraq.

They mention to him that 3 Brazilian soldiers were
killed in Fallujah yesterday, to which George responds,
"What? That's terrible..." and sinks down in his chair
with his head in his hands.

His advisors are very surprised, having told him about
the deaths of hundreds of Americans before and not having
seen much reaction. Yet now George is almost in
tears over the deaths of 3 Brazilians, so the advisors
just sit there in stunned silence.

Finally, George lifts his head up and says "Well, a
brazillion sounds like a pretty big number, but
exactly how many is it?"

Cheers,
Sandie

Announcing the Arrival of JBF 3713

When Angelique arrived in NZ almost nine months ago, she was also smuggling in the newest member of the family. Their daughter, who's keeping her name a secret for now, finally decided the coast was clear. She made her first appearance shortly before noon on July 4th. You could say Independence Day has new meaning for the Aschrafi clan. Weighing in at 3.35 kilos (about 7lbs, 6oz.), and measuring 54cm (about 21-1/4"), she takes after both of her tall parents. I think she looks like her great-grandmother, but her Great Uncle Ali says she looks just like her Aunt Apameh did as a baby. The proud new papa set up a blog a while back. For some great pics of Angelique "swelling with anticipation," and to keep tabs on them in the future, check out Kiwi Baby Girl. Cheers, Sandie