As to take a break before our midterm for Arabic 101, we went out last Friday to Cedar’s Restaurant in downtown Orlando. Featuring a menu of traditional Lebanese cuisine, Cedar’s had a wide array of appetizers and entrées cooked and served by Middle Eastern chefs, cooks, servers, and waiters. The professor, Ms. Noelle Rumman, ordered appetizers for us but we had to place our order in Arabic if we wanted to get served. We struggled at first but we spent a whole class learning the food names and how to ask, say please, and thank you. Most of our class came to dinner and it was a nice change of scenery and a great break on the weekend before midterm exams.
Ashleigh is a student in our class and she belly dances at Cedar’s so other than great food for the night we had entertainment typical of a Middle Eastern restaurant. We all took turns to dance with her and she was really great. She received lots of attention not only from us that night, but there was a big group of around 40 guys who were at a bachelor party dinner. This outing reminded me of home, because family gatherings because my dad’s side of the family is from Syria. They cook much of the same food and I have my cousins who belly dance so going out to Cedar’s was amazing for me, I have already decided months in advance that there’s where I want to have my birthday dinner come March.
Earlier in the day I had been sweating in the McKean gym along with my RCC. Every week we have a fourth-hour called “Fox Friday” and this is just some fun time for the class to get to know each other and take a break from the stress of classes, roommate problems, tests, etc. We do something different every week and these past two weeks we have been having RCC Cup Events which include every single RCC class and by winning games, you get points which all go towards the RCC Cup race. We played volleyball the week before and had gotten pretty far. We won our first three games and lost on our fourth game putting us overall in 5th place.
That afternoon we played dodge ball and we didn’t make it as far as the volleyball tournament because we lost in our second game. I considered it more of a success than our volleyball games because the turnout was higher that afternoon. While it was 6 of us playing volleyball most of the afternoon, there were about 15 of us at the dodge ball game, including Dr. Gunter our professor for the class. He was really competitive and threatened the class that if they didn’t win, he would not be lenient in grading their midterms which they had taken earlier in the day. He was joking of course but it was great to get to be able to have a change of environment for our class.
In other news, Dr. Pequeño is back in town. He was head of the Latin American and Caribbean Studies department up until he retired last year from Rollins. Spending 36 years of his life teaching on our campus, he grew attached to the Rollins community. I’ve had lunch with him at Panera a few times already and he has not changed a bit. I feel bad for those who never had the chance to meet him because he was a remarkable human being. At his retirement party dinner, he made the comment that I was sitting next to his first advisee he ever had at Rollins and there I was next to him, his newest advisee at Rollins.
In his second year as an R-Journalist, Omar has enjoyed exposing the life of a student at Rollins College. As an Economics and International Relations double major, he has combined his passion for global affairs and economic policy. On campus he is involved on the exec board of the JUMP committee, vice-president of the International Student Organization, and founding co-president of Rollins Model United Nations.
Omar is the first international Cornell Scholar and as such has helped bring a different perspective on campus, that of a Muslim follower born and raised in Venezuela. His diverse background has helped him gain a more empathetic view of the world.
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