How Hard is the First Week of School?

The first week of school for any semester is generally about as easy as you want it to be.

It’s not like they go out of their way to make it difficult. New classes are starting, and the teachers don’t want to do anything except pass out syllabi and talk about themselves. They don’t want to go to work early unless they’re math and science teachers, in which case there is nothing else they can do.

And how you handle it is going to go a long way toward how hard it is.

You’ll be coming back from vacation. And you’ll be tired, possibly hungover, and the last thing you’ll want to do is to get up from playing Modern Warfare to go to class.

That said, if you get up, go when you’re supposed to go, and pay attention, then there’s really no reason that any of this should be difficult.

Librarians: How Effective Are Your Computers?

If you manage a library that has computers, are they being used effectively? Aside from basic Internet usage and word processing programs, are your computers running the best that they can? In many cases, budgets do not allow for much flexibility with computer systems. This does not need to be the case.

Please get in contact with me, Laith Salma, to learn more about how I can help and provide advice regarding your library’s computing needs. In addition, feel free to ask me any questions via the comment section located below.

5 Things to Do in New York City

New York is a fantastic city to play in, and living here ain’t half bad either. There’s plenty to do here and lots to go see. And I don’t mean to limit you to just five things, but let’s face it: who can really get all of that done?

Let’s just give you five things to start with.

1. Visit Central Park - this is a huge park, and it’s iconic to the city itself. It’s filled with bums and crooks and hucksters but if you can get past it you’ll find some truly beautiful parkland.
2. Dine-In - New York is a hustling city. It’s huge and busy and crowded. That doesn’t change the fact that there are some great restaurants and things worth seeing in this town. Slow down. Take your time.
3. Visit the Memorial - it’s New York City. You know the one I’m talking about. I’ve been on the anniversary of the attacks, and... it was something. I can’t say much more than that.
4. Walk - for love of Allah, don’t take a taxi. They’re expensive, and they take forever to get you where you want to go. Take a subway if you absolutely have to get somewhere, but for heaven’s sake enjoy the scenery and go for a walk.
5. Neighborhoods - this is where you get a real feel for the melting pot of cultures. It’s great food and low prices. I kid you not.

Happy New Year!

Hey everyone! I just wanted to take a moment and say that New Years in New York? Freaking. Amazing.

What to Visit on the First Day in New York

All right. Let’s say you’re visiting New York. Let’s say it’s your first time visiting New York. You’ve never been here before and you have a ton of different things to go see and do and all of that. But you have no idea where to start.

Well, here’s what you shouldn’t do. You shouldn’t go to the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building or the Chrysler Building. I mean, you should go there, but you shouldn’t try to do it all at the same time. Those places are tourist traps. They exist to shill you out of your money and they take forever. On top of that, all the tourists go there. Not only will you be stuck with lines and hours of waiting, but you’ll be stuck with every family’s idiosyncracies the entire time.

It’s not cool. I know this.

Instead, to start with, I’d probably go with places that are well-traveled that don’t have an admissions line to get in. I’m talking Central Park, Time Square, the Metropolitan, Grand Central Station, places like that.

Why to Study in New York

So, of all the places that you could go to study, why would anyone pick New York? Sure, it’s got a big city charm to it, but so does Riyadh, or Tokyo, or London, and they have the added benefit of being more civilized.

Why New York?

Because America is a very fascinating place. It captures the imagination of us who live in the rest of the world. But traveling all over the US is a complicated thing. You have many states, many cities, and large swathes of land. It would be possible to travel all over it, but it would take a long time, and I wasn’t interested in putting my studies on hold for mere travel.

I wanted to experience America in a microcosm - in a single place. New York City was that place. I could imagine nowhere else I would rather conduct my studies than here.

Meet Laith Salma

Laith Salma is a student on holiday in the US. As a young man from Saudi Arabia, he knows that America has an awful lot of things to offer in terms of experiences and adventures that he can have that he wouldn’t be able to find back home.
America is a land of opportunities. This is a place where people are allowed to bear arms and demonstrate against the government - both at the same time in some cases. This is a place where the greatest experiment in governance by the people is taking place.
It’s truly fascinating. Doubly so considering that America is the last of the great superpowers. Some may say that the time of American hegemony is coming to an end, and perhaps it should. But until that day comes, America remains a fascinating place, somewhere that’s worth seeing.
That is the draw of it to Laith Salma. It’s not that America is the greatest country in the world - not anymore. But it is the freest, the place of the fewest persecutions, the place with the most opportunity. You can study something here, and if you don’t like it, you can switch to something else. This is a place where you can make money just by being famous enough. That is so stupefyingly abnormal that most Americans can barely comprehend it.
It is a land of experimentation. It’s not a land where opportunities are available to everyone, sure, but there are far more of them than what he would find in other countries. He knew that. And that was precisely why he wanted to come here, over anywhere else, to see what he could make of himself.
He’s looking forward to a wild ride. Laith Salma hopes to bring back many stories of what happened to him while he was here.