the girl effect.

so i look at this website a lot: coolhunting.com. everyday it just posts a couple of things (products, ideas, people, etc) that its editors think are cool. sounds like it would suck, but i like a lot of the things i see there. recently they posted about a website called the girl effect.
the site is interesting. it suggests that to save the world, we invest (time/money/energy/efforts) in young girls from developing countries. statistically they are more likely to reinvest back into their family and community (than boys), so helping them would presumably help the girls/women & consequently everyone else more than current forms of aid. look at the site, it has a great intro, read it over and think about it. does it make sense to you?

today we finished with DFC and AFGRE. we toured the intercon (hotel side) and the festival centre. there was a guy from jordan, a guy from australia, a woman from dubai, a woman from slovakia, and a guy from detroit. he had actually worked/lived in milwaukee and was responsible for east towne and hilldale for a few years. weird huh? he was very nice- today saw the nicest and most natural people. at the same time he was kind of a tool because he said "making the most money possible" at least 5x over the course of the morning. according to him, the 3 goals of his dept are to: 1. make the most money possible 2. enhance the guest (read: people who come to the mall) experience 3. protect the brand, so yah ... kind of zzzzzz

lunch (at the bistro) was more interesting. the slovakian woman (never quite caught her name) was talking about how she was going to have a xmas party soon, because she hadn't taken down her tree yet, so she thought "what the hell, let's do xmas again", which was a refreshing example of personality and normal behavior that had so far been lacking from the people on the trip... also, this diverse group (all different ages too) were evidently partying together last wknd, because one woman (35yrs old) said to a guy (50-60 yrs) "we had another round after you left and then we went back to my place and watched some movies, we were up til like 4 in the morning" it was cool to hear that they are coworkers, but also a group of friends.

anyways, the slovakian continues to tell us that she is going on vacation soon to slovakia and then hungary and austria. she starts talking about austria and about some city where she is going ... she says that the beer is cheap and the women are beautiful. as if on cue, the american starts to pay attn to her and asks, "what's the name of that place? i wanna write it down." ha.ha. so she tells him and then she starts talking about vienna with respect to the women from the other city. i am half listening to her, but mostly i am paying attention to my lunch plate. i ordered the chicken, which turned out to be an entire chicken. it proved nearly impossible to cut into the chicken with just my fork and table knife as the bird kept rolling around the plate before i could pin it down to really dive in. so she goes on while i struggle "but their sisters in vienna aren't so lucky. they were bred with horses. all of the people in vienna marry in their own familes, because they all live in hamlets." i did all i could to not burst into laughter... but everyone else let it pass, so i think it looked like i was laughing at my own chicken. once we got back to the car i asked haider if he heard what i did and he confirmed it. then the jordanian guy with us says, "what does this word mean, bred?" ummmmmm
so. exhausted after work today, i took a nap. then played squash vs haider. he routinely mopped the floor with me (like nadal vs federer today). then we went to the nicer restaurant the hotel has: the ambiance was excellent, food delicious, and i had the chocolate beignet for dessert, with "sparkling fruit salad" which was basically fruit salad with pop rocks on top! (what are pop rocks and how do they work? ) now we're just hanging out (actually he's asleep now), before we go to work again in a few hours.

goooooooood night dubai! (good morning vietnam was on TV the other day ... i know, kind of a stretch)