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(The Sechuan Earthquake)
I was walking on campus when I noticed dozens of Chinese students from my university collecting donations for the terrible earthquake-hit region of Sichuan. It was odd having gangs of donation collectors strategically standing at every entrance to the university campus, running up to passers-by, asking for donations. This odd sensation, however, was immediately erased when I spotted a Chinese friend of mine who was also collecting donations and I remembered that he was from Sechuan. It’s strange how disasters that happen, even in what may seem the most remote places on earth, are all somehow related to us or someone we know.

(Dud WW2 bomb defusion in Tokyo)
The Keiyo Line, running in parts of Western Tokyo, was suspended on Monday of this week. The reason for this suspension was that a dud bomb dropped on the area during WW2 was discovered buried deep underground while there was some construction going on. I cannot imagine how the speed and force of the B-29 bomber that dropped the bomb at the time propelled the bomb to bury itself deep into the soil without exploding for over 60 years. The bomb was defused on Monday after 16,000 people were evacuate from its vicinity. I don’t know what to make of all this, but it does give a sense of absurdity in regards to how life continued normally on the ground with a bomb hiding underneath for nearly two generations.

(The 90 minutes of classroom time gives no space for political and/or racial tensions)
An Arab student finds himself in a dilemma with one of his classes this semester: he has to take a class that is being taught by a visiting professor from Israel. Now, regardless of how both the professor and the student are tolerant and understanding, there is obviously this undertow of tension between the two. Both the student and the professor, on the first day of class, look at the Japanese students in the classroom and feel a little jealous of how they are all ignorant of the political electricity and decide that it’s useless to even make an issue out of the Arab/Israeli conflict in a classroom: 90 minutes of class-time is barely enough to explain theoretical behavior patterns of consumers and firms.

(Lottery tickets bought on the first day have that highest chance of winning!)
The same Arab student in Japan was passing through a train station on his way back to his dorm room when he heard two young people selling lottery tickets yelling out what translates to, “Lottery tickets bought on the first day have that highest chance of winning! Today’s the first day! Come and buy our lottery tickets!”. He made a mental note of this so that - if he decides to win the lottery - he’ll just buy tickets on their first day.

(First Dinosaur Tracks from the Arabian Peninsula)
Dinosaur tracks that are nearly 150 million years old have been discovered in the south of the Arabian Peninsula. To read the paper written in regards to this, CLICK HERE. I just find this fascinating.

(Persian Gulf or Arabian Gulf. Which one is it?)
I’ve been trying to look into the history of the naming of the Persian/Arabian Gulf just to find out what the whole problem with the name comes from. I found that there were many documents, including those written by Arab scholars hundreds of years ago, that name it the Persian Gulf. However, there are some instances, especially since the beginning of the 1930s and again during the Pan-Arab Nationalist movement led by Jamal Abdulnasser that called it the Arabian Gulf. There was an Arabian Gulf, however, that existed before the current Gulf, that is now called the Red Sea. Herodotus (425-484 B.C.) identified the Arabs as, “those living between the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Gulf”, which supports the previous point. I find all this interesting. What I also find interesting is the that the Assyrians had a different name altogether for the Gulf: “The Bitter Gulf”. I’m still not sure what to call the region I come from, but for some bizarre reason, the Assyrian approach does seem to be logical when you consider the double meaning of Bitter.