It’s my son’s prom tonight.
His school days are now officially over. His grandfather lend him his fancy
car, I got him the tie, his dad got him the suit. His life is in front of him,
all roads are open, no responsibilities, only opportunities for years to come.
The world is his.
I am jealous. Because I spent
my Saturday driving my daughter to and from the many social events she plans
during the week with her friends without my consent. I just get a list
presented on Friday morning. ‘Life as a Prima Donna’; she can write the book
already. And so I was all over town, running from one place to another, while
trying to attend to my own errands as well. My world is taken over by my
daughter.
Boy, I wish it were Sunday. We
had planned to go to a sandy beach somewhere down south. A friend of mine won’t
join us because “they announced they were going to bomb Dahiyeh (southern
suburbs) on Sunday.” Oh really? I missed that bit of information. The
security department of the company had mentioned that. They work for a foreign
multi-national, and so the security department sends out these warnings that
they actually believe. I am not sure who ‘they’ are either. In this place, it could
be anyone.
I mention this to another
friend. “Wasn’t that supposed to happen yesterday at 3? That’s what I heard.”
That’s more like it, some good old fashioned cynicism. If you are going to stay
home because of threads, you’re not going to leave your house anymore in this
place.
And so beach it is. Everybody
is urging each other to go to war. I don’t care anymore who bombs who and where
and at what time. But if I’d have any say in the matter, 5 o’clock in the
afternoon would be good, so the roads back to the city will be nice quiet and empty. In which case we’d also have to
send my son outside for his university. Just like his father before him. This
place is getting old.
6 comments:
If you can afford it, AUB would be a great choice. It tops a lot of European universities and some in the states, and can get you a decent job in a multinational environment.
AUB tops other universities? It is not in the top-100 of the Shanghai-ranking of top world universities. It is not even in the top-400. Actually it is not in the ranking at all. It is also not in the ranking of the Times Higher Education, and it is not in the QS-ranking.
It may not be in the list, but it will get you a job in international business.
On my first business trip to Saudi Arabia with a Lebanese colleague I learned how culture plays a very important role in the discussions. After such a meeting in our hotel I talked about this with my colleague and I remarked how we easily could get lost in the Middle-Eastern business environment. He looked puzzled. I said "well look at it this way, how would you feel if we dumped you in Rotterdam for some business, wouldn't you feel lost". He thought for a second and then he replied: "no, we Lebanese we never get lost".
Y.
In the Times Higher Education rankings, it is number 87 in Asia, that's among the top hundred.
It also ranked 250 in the 2012 Quacquarelli Symonds rankings. Now given the thousands of universities in Europe and the states, that's a really good position to be in.
Also, let's not forget how these rankings are made, and how UAE and Saudi schools are among the top 50 in several rankings. Just look at the graduates. Those Gulf universities offer scholarships for practically any AUB student who would agree to finish his Master's there.
The business school in AUB (OSB) is affiliated with Harvard Business School, the engineering school has recently been ABET accredited, and has strong affiliation with MIT (collaborative programs, lots of graduates study there).
Not to mention all the new multinational recruiters coming exclusively to AUB (in the Middle East), like Google and Facebook (those are the mainstream ones at least).
Congratulation my nephew .. 10 years from now I imagine you will look like this..
http://static1.purepeople.com/articles/0/74/28/0/@/562714-jacques-brel-637x0-3.jpg
http://youtu.be/qga5eONXU_4
voor mijn neefje
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