Happenings

Since my wife and daughter coming to Kurdistan from Kyrgyzstan has been delayed for so long the school finally moved another faculty member into my giant flat. He arrived last night which was later than expected due to visa and travel problems. I am not sure how long the arrangement will last since he plans to move his family from Syria to here in the next couple months. At which point one of us will have to move somewhere else. But, I did get the flat cleaned for free by the school two days ago as a result. He is also an IT guy so I am hoping that I won't have anymore problems with the wifi or that if I do he can solve them.

We had our first meeting yesterday. Evidently AUIS is now in partnership with University of Arizona in Tucson. Practically, I am told this means AUIS students will also receive a U of A degree and faculty like myself will have the unpaid position of adjuncts at U of A in addition to our position at AUIS. So I finally will get a faculty position at a big name state university in the US. Ironically, University of Arizona is also where my Ph.D. supervisor from SOAS, Benjamin Fortna, is now a very big name. Which is something he richly deserves if for no other reason than he wrote me many hundreds of letters of recommendation for jobs. Three of those jobs, AUCA, UG, and AUIS I actually got in very large part due to his efforts. God works in very mysterious ways.