Memory One

When I was younger, we lived in a little apartment in Bur Dubai. The building was once colored a bright white and was full of life. Down across from our building was an empty rocky flat where the kids would play cricket or football. The building had a sizable swimming pool with tanning beds. The pool was indoor. The elevators were silver and they used seven-segment displays. The buttons were analogue and had to be pushed in with great muscle. The last number you could press was 7, leading you to my childhood home: 702.

The apartment was vast and cozy at the same time. It was a three bedroom apartment with a large living room and dining area, separate kitchen, three bathrooms, and three bedrooms, with one having its own bathroom and walk-in closet. Before my little sister brightened our lives, the third bedroom was called a “computer room.” A fitting name, as it was dominated by a massive desk with the heavy computer and its many cables strewn about its back. The desk had shelves, holding a large printer, speakers, and many many papers.

This desk was where my love for computers was born. Limewire, BitTorrent, video game emulators, simple scripts, and so many other little hacks captivated my imagination. Living near Al Ain Centre in Bur Dubai (think of it as a mall that only sold computers) likely helped as well as I’d always visit there to buy gadgets and I’d see open computers with their guts exposed. How do these things even work?

I remember, and this is a little silly, printing a lewd picture of Christina Aguilera when I was younger at the beckoning of my friend. We didn’t understand what we found so fascinating about it. Once printed, we taped the picture to my clothes cabinet in me and my brother’s bedroom. When my mom saw the picture, she smacked me right across the face while laughing. I don’t think I was ever more confused in my life but I also laughed. Looking back at the moment now and seeing the picture, it’s hard not to see why I deserved to be smacked. Imagine having the below picture taped to a cabinet for you and your younger brother to look at. I must have been seven or eight years old at the time.

Memory Two

The computer room had, to its left, a large Sony Trinitron television. Plugged into it was a mess of cabling that came from a PlayStation 2, Xbox, and GameCube. We had them all at the time, which I acknowledge is very fortunate. That entire set-up grew from being a little Sharp television and PlayStation 1 to being the dream set-up for any young boy.

Our game library was vast and the time my brother and I spent in front of these games is something I wouldn’t trade for anything. Once, with my friends over, we played Mario Party 6. My friends didn’t care for our love of video games but we always showed off what we had anyways and forced them to play. They did love Mario Party, though. The sixth game came with a microphone and you could speak words into it to control the characters in some competitive mini-games. I don’t remember the things we’d have to do exactly but I remember getting the microphones to work being its own hassle that made for plenty of laughs.

My mother is a great chef worthy of three of her own Michelin-stars and dinner would normally be some home-cooked food. But I remember Mario Party being interrupted by a call for McDonald’s. It was a warm feeling, sitting with my brother and friends and eating burgers and fries. I remember the warm glow from the little chandeliers as our mothers sat out on the balcony, probably talking about us.

Of course, as with all play dates, our mothers stood by the door for a very long goodbye while we stood around feeling like fools. We probably could have gotten another game in.

Memory Three

My mother’s family lives in Dearborn, Michigan in the US. It’s a little town that many Arabs flocked to during the political unrest that came about from the occupation of Palestine and the civil unrest throughout some parts of the Arab world. The town is clearly American in the way it wastes space for convenience but is also clearly Arabic from the little Arabic sweet shops and bakeries that sell you manakish. They’ve even got Arabic signs!

When I was younger, WiFi was not very widespread and my grandfather’s house did not have a WiFi connection. Whenever we’d get a chance to go to one of our aunts’ houses, we’d always make sure we’d carry our PSPs with us. The PSP had an Internet browser, and in the Summer of 2006, all I wanted to read about was the PlayStation 3 and the Nintendo Wii. With crap Internet signals and a lot of patience while staring at loading screens, the browser would let me read and I would devour the information. One was promised to be a behemoth of a video game console and the other was going to let me use my controller the way I’d tangibly use a bowling ball in real life to control a virtual bowling ball. That shit was the future.

Later that year, after a bit of good behavior, our father came home with a Wii and a copy of The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess. I’ll never forget this day. Never. I do not know what it is about this game. I do not know what it was about that day. I do not understand my attachment to this memory, but I don’t think I will ever be that innocently happy ever again.

The game, from soft beginning to triumphant end, was epic. And I mean epic. Not the epic that people use to describe a burger that tastes like all burgers. But truly epic. It was a tale that was so grand, the game could not contain it. I would get lost in the world trying to collect insects for Agatha, roaming the wide open field on my horse, breaking pots in people’s homes for that little extra bit of cash. And when I swung my arm, I swung my sword. I got to live the journey. It was the first time and the last time that I really felt technology take a leap forward. It was a moment where everything just worked together perfectly, so long as the Wii remote had living batteries in it. Every other technological change since then has only felt like an improvement, but the Wii and the experience Zelda gave me cemented in me the love for technology that I have held inside me for as long as I could remember.

After saving Hyrule and Princess Zelda over my winter break, I remember feeling hollow. Seeing the game’s credits roll, I turned away from the television to the little apartment, with a warm sunset breaking through. The orange glow cast a dim twilight glow on all the furniture and I could feel the emptiness expand within me. I was sad to let go. I felt a little older in that moment and walked outside to my father sleeping on the couch. I sat on the adjacent sofa and looked on as the sun continued to dip. The music accompanying the credits was barely audible out in the living room. But the emptiness would soon be filled with the more real parts of life. The will to graduate, start a new university life, and onward to become who I hoped would be a successful working man.

What a Time To Be Alive

I have a few thoughts regarding this current pandemic and I wanted to get them on a page for myself so I can one day come back to it and see how I feel when this is all over.

I have feelings regarding the quarantine situation, the responses we’ve been seeing around the world, and some other miscellaneous thoughts that I’m going to throw together here. It’s going to be a little long and I hope you stick it through with me.

On Quarantine

I have been very clear with many of my friends that this is awesome. When I was a kid, I’d dream of having days where I could waste it away watching cartoons, playing video games, and eating delicious home-made food. In that sense, I have been enjoying my time at home a lot.

I don’t think I am an extrovert, but I am well-adjusted enough that I can appreciate a fun time out of the house. I do crave it sometimes, but I’ve also completed New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe, which totally justifies not seeing friends (Right? Idk.) I’m excited to see what the next game I settle on will be.

But there’s an even bigger reason why I’ve been so happy to be locked up in my house: Pause on life. God, how much I’ve needed this. I work at a company that is a minimum of 35 minutes away from my current home in Abu Dhabi and is easily 20 minutes removed from the nearest town. It is remote. And it really takes a toll on my well-being. So my days had me wake up at around 7 (If I could), showering, getting dressed, and mindlessly driving out of the city, looking at nothing but flat desert, to make it to work. Doing that every single day, leaving at 5, and having to drive 35 minutes to get home? It took its toll on me. Hard.

In the spirit of maintaining my body to not have my now modest dad-belly balloon beyond repair, I’m also supposed to work out. I enjoy swimming and the nearest pool that I like is over 45 minutes away from where I work. So I typically didn’t even go home; I went to the pool. The whole process of undressing, getting in the water, swimming for 90 minutes, showering, and getting dressed again to leave was both tiring and therapeutic but by the time I was done, it was anywhere between 8 and 9 PM. Sometimes, I’d even get in the sauna just for kicks. The day is now gone.

Coupled with all the pressures of family and other aspects of my changing life, like the once-looming wedding and marriage preparations, as well as some really hectic days at work where I’d finish at 10 PM sometimes, and you can see how working from home has been a dream for me.

I’ve now only been eating healthy food (my mom’s) and I’ve been working from the comfort of my couch. And it still amazes me that I have been able to keep up with everything from this couch. It really put so many things into perspective and I’ve had the time to think about if all that running around was actually worth it.

The thing is, I’d still ideally like to keep some of that old routine but I just wish it didn’t take so much time and didn’t wear me down so much. I really like my job. This quarantine has been the break I needed to be able to want to go back to that old routine with some enthusiasm. I also hope this quarantine will open the company up to allow a few days of working from home every month. It’s clearly doable and would boost my morale.

I guess the only thing I miss while in quarantine is the “what could have been.” But in my mind, there will always be more. And also, now with everything on pause, I realize what I really miss: Date nights, family nights (with the extended family), and Wednesdays with the friends. It’s all about the people. Other than that, almost everything else is just a bonus.

Responses to COVID-19

To be perfectly candid, I’m not going to discuss everything I feel. That would be too much. But I will point out a few things I wish would have happened and a few things I have been disgusted with.

First, the UAE.

So I think our curfew thing is a great idea. Keep the people home, discourage them from going out, and lock them up at night while also trying to keep essential jobs going. I do not doubt at all that any decision like this is hard to make. No one alive today is old enough to even remember a pandemic, let alone know how to deal with one. So in that sense, any action at all is a good one.

However, I think an overreaction is better than an under-reaction. My fear is to have the situation spiral out of control and have our hospitals be overloaded with COVID-19 cases. The number of confirmed cases has already crossed the thousand, and with cases doubling every week or so, we should hit two thousand cases between Thursday and Saturday. This isn’t me being pessimistic, it’s me being realistic. This is all happening while we have the current curfew and travel restrictions in place.

With all this considered, I think we need a stricter response. Something that we will all feel as awful but that we will all appreciate in the long run. We need to get life back to normal… By completely halting it for two to three weeks.

I think the UAE is well set-up to deal with the outbreak with three key things right now. First, money. The UAE’s got money. Oil prices are going up again and I think that we can try to leverage that to fund a really harsh outbreak response period. This will include the funding for tests, treatment of patients, and logistics.

Second, logistics. I don’t think there currently is a shortage of people or places for where we could treat and hold the current number of confirmed cases. They could be put at privately held hospitals who volunteer their facilities and staff, labor camps with free rooms, and public hospitals across the country. As for volunteer staff, this would be a bit tricky but I am a proponent of using the National Service reserve force and military logistic equipment to help with the response. If it would all be too much then the local police forces would have to take on these tasks. I wouldn’t use the military for medical tasks unless they’re qualified. However, if the country was completely locked down, the National Service reserve or military personnel could be used for food delivery to people in need, transporting people in need, and other emergency logistical support as well as keeping the peace where necessary. They’d have to be tested for symptoms every time they are deployed and we’d have to be careful with how they behave, keeping masks on at all times, and what they touch as well as how often they clean themselves. It would be a massive undertaking but one, I think, that not many people would object to participating in. It would bring all of us together.

Finally, the situation. The UAE can stand to really benefit from its current situation. The cases have not yet crossed a couple thousand and locking the country down completely for two to three weeks would lead to completely isolating the disease and really tracking down and treating those last few cases that would be discovered in that time. A hotline would be set-up with very clear communication that testing and treatment would be completely, no-strings-attached, 100% free-of-charge. Anyone with even a tiny suspicion that they might have the virus can be tested, safely transported, treated, and expect to be discharged within, or shortly after, the two to three week lockdown period.

And then… Deliverance. Complete internal freedom for people to start living their lives again.

Now that that’s out of the way, I want to talk about the Americans.

I find it curious that, out of all the things that can be focused on, the government of the United States is thinking about… The economy. Really? Money? At a time like this?

I mean, if you just consider the facts, it begins to look disgusting. First of all, the government is handing out peanuts to the people and billions to companies in order to save them. In principle, it makes sense. A lot of Americans get salaries from these companies. They should stay afloat. Fine. But a lot of the people that will be getting peanuts are also going to lose their small business jobs. Those small businesses, like little coffee shops and barber shops, are not going to be able to stay afloat the way that big companies can. It’s just sad, man.

The other thing to consider is Italy, which is a real-world example of a country where things have gotten out of hand. As of this writing, Italy’s death rate (or mortality rate) is 12.25%. Twelve percent. To put it into context, if you can count 10 people you love, and one of you got the virus and spread it to everyone around you, one of you will die if all of you got the virus in a country where the hospitals are completely overloaded. That is insane. And the Americans are talking about the economy, bailouts, relief packages, and getting people back to work. How can anything be more valuable than people’s lives? How can anyone be asked to go to work and be willing to die to “give their children a chance at a thriving economy?” What are you even saying? The under-paid millennials living in an over-inflated world do not want to inherit your debt and broken system. They want you to be safe and alive. This is just ridiculous. And all of this applies to the other irresponsible countries that are predominantly Western, for some reason.

You would think that with everything we’ve seen so far, and with the success that China has seen, that the whole world would be locked down for a few weeks, but no: The economy is the god we must all serve at a time like this. Obviously.

Phew. Okay, done.

Miscellaneous Thoughts

1. I miss Zuma

2. Saving money is awesome

3. There are much more and much better shows on OSN than there are on Netflix. And they have a streaming app that works.

4. My dad can’t sit still and is having a hard time adjusting to this

5. I’ve argued with my siblings three times so far

6. My brother and I are rocking mustaches

7. My sister does not like distance learning and can’t deal with not being in control of her life

8. My mom has so far made kebbeh with laban, mlukheyye, koosa mehshe, and roasted lamb. We’ve been happy with the food output.

9. My sister is getting better at baking. She tried making ice cream but didn’t have enough condensed milk. It tasted good but the texture was wanting. I crumbled the Oreos.

10. My brother thinks I’m writing an email right now.

11. I’ve watched The Hunger Games Trilogy, Life of Pi, Lion, and the first few episodes of DuckTales. I plan on starting a Harry Potter marathon soon.

12. The weather gets surprisingly pleasant in the evening for this time of year. I’m curious to know if it’s because all the cars stop being on the road and emitting greenhouses gases.

13. I miss Japan

If you made it this far, thank you. You know me that much more now.
Hope you’re all well,
Ahmed Al Shaer
04/04/2020

Every night, they rock us to sleep. Digital family.

The air conditioner keeps the tiles cold to my foot’s touch. I press a button, the little vacuum cleaner whirs to life and starts to move around, quietly collecting dust and drawing a smiling face on its dark circular surface. I move it away from the wall and settle into my couch.

The couch is soft and comforting. A blanket waiting to keep me warm from the cold I’ve created. I tap. It glows to life. The warmest light of all. My lifeline. It’s where I keep my lover. It’s where I keep my family. It’s where I keep my friends. It’s where I keep my work. It’s where I keep my money. Where my life has meaning in the eyes of others.

I tap another button and the dark canvas that paints my dreams springs to life. Ready to show me a life my heart wishes to live. Full of troubles yet wholesome. Where the troubles are solved just by watching and waiting. The life I truly want. I watch on and wait for the soft bell that beckons me back to my lifeline. It is the happiest I can be. The wholesome digital life. Here. In my home.

Their voices and pictures feel like an everlasting smile. And the only time I can muster a smile is when I speak back through the digital skyline. I tap another button that brings me food. It brings me water. Disposable like the rest of my life. All that really matters: The glow. I love the glow. The glow that can be my proudest moments or my most shameful of desires. I watch on as the action increases.

The canvas paints an otherworldly world. A place where I can be one with nature. A place where I am accepted and understood. A place where it does not matter what war we fight in, what country we come from, what language I speak. Here, I am the English-speaking, American, war hero who always wins. Here, I am the English-speaking, British detective that solves the hardest of cases. Here, I am the English-speaking, American explorer who betrayed my people for the savages who become my new people. Here, I am the English-speaking star of my Oscar-winning story. I am living my dream. My truest human desire. I am living a real, true, and whole life. Free of the shackles of money, culture, tradition, and I can always start over. I can watch again. Live again. Over and over.

I pick up my tool to be a god. I choose the world I want to be a god of. I press a button, maybe even two. The black canvas flickers. It annoys me. Why must it flicker? Why must the illusion break even a little? It glows again. Do I want to control a mythological troubled father? Do I want to play god of an adventurer searching for treasure? Do I want to play god of the man who saves his kingdom and its princess? Or do I want to play god of the happiest jumping man I’ve ever known. I choose happiness. What a happy time. What an explosion of perfect color. Every challenge can be overcome. Everything mine to explore, run through, and take. I tell him to run with perfect glee. He runs. A fat man running. A fun man jumping. I am the god that beckons him forward and back into a somersault. I am the god that spins him out of control. I am the god that tells him to fall into the pit. An accident. I bring him back to life. What a world, the digital world. A man so ecstatic after his immediate and convenient resurrection. He never asks, only listens. He wants nothing more than to try again. His god beckons him to try and he will inevitably succeed.

What a perfect time with my digital family. It rocks me to sleep, every night, letting me live my ultimate dreams. It rocks me to sleep a god of my own world. It rocks me to sleep with my happiest of friends and the smiles of thousands upon me. This is what I see, this is what I feel. And so, it must be true.

I have lost myself. My dreams last days but I must live them in hours.

I blacken the canvas and silence the world. I walk on the now clean tiles and press a button. The smile fades back into the circular top. If only there were a button to empty the dust. If only there were a button for everything.

I slide into my bed and look at the same thing I end every day with. The same thing I start every day with. My first and last sight. A button for 7:00 AM.

Help me.

I really love animation.

From time to time, I like to talk movies with my friends and I’m often surprised at how their top 10 lists feature very little animated films, if any at all. I guess the idea for most is that animated films are for children and lack the depth and nuance of a live-action feature. What garbage.

Animation is an expressive form of film and, when done right, leaves a much greater impact on the adults taking their kids to see the film than it does on the children themselves. One of my favorite films of all time that demonstrates this perfectly is Inside Out. That film was produced by Pixar, a familiar household name at this point, and speaks about the development of complex emotions throughout our adolescence. The film frames its narrative by personifying the different emotions in a little girl’s head. The girl in question, Riley, could be anyone. She could be me as she goes through some big changes in her life: The move to a new town and new life, leaving her old one behind. Immediately, an adult can remember a moment like that in their lives: A moment of great change and the associated emotional struggle. A mixture of excitement, at the life yet to come, and sadness, from leaving the old life behind. Exploring ideas of the sort and making a film out of it sounds like a really daunting task. Exploring the ideas, creating the movie, and completely nailing it is just cathartic. I remember being blown away that they could take a mix of emotions we probably never understood when we were younger and then explain it to us as a natural part of the human condition. That’s genius. And for me, life-changing, because it led to a lot of self-reflection.

Inside Out goes to great lengths to capture Riley’s evolving emotional spectrum, ending the film on a note that would leave the most heartless and ruthless of psychopaths shedding at least a tear while leaving the Me’s of the world visibly emotional and sad. Pixar usually knows how to strike a chord with its adult audiences while still leaving plenty of room for children to be dazzled by the animated expressiveness of the characters and the beautiful colors on screen. A movie like Inside Out is rare. It’s all the more impressive when you consider The Incredibles, Toy Story, Ratatouille, and Coco all being beautiful animated features that deal with concepts of family, childhood, ambition, and death. These aren’t light concepts that only children can enjoy. These are deep and meaningful topics that have direct impact on us. You can’t make a film like Toy Story live-action because how are you going to make talking toys seem believable while still delivering the same emotional weight your story needs? Animation can be used to deliver the stories that are outlandish enough that they can’t be real but that carry a moral or lesson that is appropriately sage and allows us to reflect on our inner self.

Disney used to do this extremely well with its flagship animation studios. The classic films we’re seeing remakes for today are as magical today as they were when we first saw them. But the live action films cannot live up to that magic. That alone should be proof of the power of animation. But I think that the best example of what I’m trying to say happened this past weekend when I watched The Lion King’s remake with my wife. She hated it. Which surprised me because she liked the Aladdin remake, which I hated.

I don’t remember much of the original The Lion King. I remember my little brain didn’t like seeing animals talking and I was more a fan of seeing human characters, even in my cartoons. I was more of a Dexter’s Laboratory and Detective Conan (Space Toon Generation, baby) child than I was a Cow and Chicken and Sheep in the City child. Animals, thought my pea brain, should just be animals. My only exception to this rule, I think, was the beautiful 101 Dalmatians. My taste has changed over time, of course, but I never really got around to watching The Lion King again and just kept re-watching the films I loved as a child: Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, Tarzan, Cinderella, and some others.

So when we walked into The Lion King, I was pleasantly surprised. The animals looked incredible, and while the voice acting fell flat in some areas (Beyoncé could have been better), the writing was mostly great. If I had to complain, it would be that the animals were not too expressive and there was one comment from Pumba about how he would overcome his bullies that felt so out of place that it just came off as stupid. Honestly, I thought that whole bully set-up and Pumba’s quick resolution to that problem was just a throwaway piece of modern propaganda. Lazy. I’ll ignore it.

All things considered, though, I liked the movie. It was a good time. The songs were good. My brain definitely reconnected some neurons when I heard I Just Can’t Wait to Be King thunder through the theater. But I knew something was missing. Where was that Disney magic? My wife was clearly not amused and, similar to my take on Aladdin, thought that The Lion King remake trampled all over the beautiful and much more expressive animated original.

So this morning, on my long drive to work, I opened up YouTube and watched a clip from the original. The clip was the same song, I Just Can’t Wait to Be King, but from the animated original and oh my God. That, alone, was so much more beautiful than anything from the remake. Nala hops around like a happy little girl, Simba emotes like a boy that’s pretending to be larger than life and we’re all just playing along, Zazu holds up a pyramid of animals with Simba and Nala at the top. The background is suddenly shaded in stylistic colors that gives the whole song a trippy vibe. The animation and artistry on display trumps anything that a realistic setting could evoke in a film like this. The animals are beautifully personified and have that trademark Disney bounce and flow perfected in Tarzan. And this could be just me but the song has more oomph to it in the original. I don’t know what it is but coupled with the cartoon, the song has more soul than the remake’s version. That clip alone is so much better than anything else that I saw in the live action remake that I’m going to have to update my memory on the animated original.

In a film like the original The Lion King, an animal can express itself like a human would. And since we’re already being ridiculous with letting animals talk, grounding the animal in reality leaves something to be desired because the clearly fantastical element is trying very hard to work in a real world setting. This isn’t magical anymore. Imagine taking the emotions in Riley’s head from Inside Out and turning the whole movie into a live-action one. It just doesn’t work. How are you going to allow the emotions the same breathing room that they are allowed in a cartoon? You can’t.

If I may rant a bit: One of the most iconic scenes in Aladdin is the genie’s Friend Like Me sequence: A beautiful explosion of color that stretches and morphs the genie in fun ways as he sells you on the idea of having a friend like him. It’s bonkers. When watching the remake, that entire sequence fell flat for me because how are you going to stretch Will Smith, a human being, into a fire-breathing dragon whose fire turns into belly-dancers? It all just felt very uncanny and ended up looking disingenuous. Another weird thing was Jaafar holding an actual staff in the remake. I mean that’s just dumb. Real people don’t hold staffs that magically hypnotize people. They could’ve made it into a spell or something, it didn’t have to be a staff.

Also, something to piss off the masses: Jaafar and Jasmine get married in the least Arabic way imaginable. I mean, there’s a priest-like person holding what is probably a Qur’an and asks, “do you take Jasmine to be your lawfully wedded wife?” What?! Are these people joking? How do you get away with this?

I really love animation. Disney is really kicking me while I’m down with these awful remakes. And yet, I have to watch them in hopes that they’ll probably be good. I mean sure, they fooled me with The Lion King. But it only took a short clip to realize that they won’t fool anyone for long.

Some stories are best told as cartoons and best kept as cartoons.

One of the really great things about being in the space industry is the level of collaboration it takes to get a project literally off the ground.

Let me take you through the project that is just now orbiting the Earth: MYSAT1. MYSAT1 is a little nano-satellite with the simple mission objectives of being a tool for education, taking a picture of the UAE, and testing a home-grown experimental battery in space. The satellite is so small, it measures in at 10cmx10cmx10cm. It’s quite tiny for something that has been put on a rocket and chucked out at an altitude of about 450km.

Here’s how small it is:

What you see up there is an engineering model (what we call: an EM) that is identical to the actual flight hardware (or flight model) that is now orbiting the Earth. The picture up there shows it with two of its solar panels not in place, but I think the idea is clear. The cube-shape of the spacecraft makes this a “CubeSat,” a standard of nano-satellites that measure in at 10x10x10cm (or 1U). You can stack multiple CubeSats on top of each other as your mission becomes more complex and developers around the world have become more interested in stacking them to achieve more complex mission objectives. In fact, the currently in development MYSAT2 is a 2U CubeSat (measuring in at 10cmx10cmx20cm).

CubeSats are great little things because they allow you to test new technologies without the risk of putting that new technology on a larger multi-hundred-million-dollar satellite and instead you get to see a technology’s performance on something that costs less than 1% of the cost and effort. CubeSats are also excellent educational tools. The value you get from working on an actual CubeSat is far greater than if you just studied the theory of space and the theory of orbital mechanics and so on.

In no other project can you bring together so many disciplines under one program. In CubeSats, you have orbital mechanics (physics), an electrical power system (electrical engineering), an on-board computer (computer engineering, computer science, and electronics engineering), an antenna and transmitter/receiver (electrical engineering and signals analysis), and with more complex CubeSats, you can have propulsion on-board, which means you’d also need experience in propulsion systems and materials (chemical engineering). All of this is held together by a structure that needs to be carefully thought out and designed (mechanical engineering)and resistant to the hazards of space environment. And since all these systems depend on each other so crucially, these projects bring together all kinds of disciplines who all need to understand a little bit about each other while also having a deep understanding of their crucial role in the success of the program.

Shameless plug begin. The program in question is a Concentration in Space Systems and Technology that is offered with a Master’s Degrees at Khalifa University (previously Masdar Institute). This concentration is great in that students must take part in the design, assembly, integration, test, and launch of a nano-satellite. It’s arguably the best program available to aspiring engineers here in the UAE and gives students access to some state-of-the-art facilities available at the Yahsat Space Lab. Shameless plug over.

The days have been long trying to wrap our heads around how the satellite is doing exactly. Trying to receive signals and communicate with it is still something we are coming to grips with as a team but this is the exciting thing about space. You plan, you plan, you plan, you plan, and you plan some more. But once it’s real, you’re just never ready.

Being personally involved in now two completed and launched CubeSats is an honor for me and the journey has taught me a lot and has brought me around full-circle from first being a student working to benefit the sponsor to now working with the sponsor to benefit the students. MYSAT1 was just deployed into its orbit, giving our program so much weight and experience for future successes and I am very proud of the team and the work that was done.

I think I’ll begin from where we last left off. I’m currently starting my last day in Tromsø but when we talked last, I had just finished my ski trip in Oslo.

The Third Dull Day

So the day after skiing, I spoke to a local at the hotel’s reception, and they recommended I go to a town called Lillehammer. Apparently, a lot of tourists like to go there to see the history of that town hosting the Olympics in 1994. All we’ll say about that day is I wasted 2 hours on the train to get there, hated the place, and wasted another 2 hours to get back. Nothing about that day was good except for this next picture I’m really happy with.

The view from Lillehammer’s open-air museum that chronicles the architecture of Norway’s houses through the ages

Day 1 in Tromsø

I woke up the next day a little disheartened by the “cool tourist destination” I had just been to with a plan to head to Tromsø, one of the places from where it’s possible to see the Northern Lights. I went to the airport, which was a much easier process than I thought it would be and boarded the little crappy domestic flight that would take me there. The flight was delayed but was still weirdly ahead of schedule. I guess he gave it “full race.”

When I landed, it was a cute little airport with two baggage tracks and just outside… heavy snowfall. Snow! I’d only seen snowfall two times before that. I was like a little child, just waiting to get out and stand under it. The little puffs landed and instantly melted on my face and covered my clothes and bags in little flakes. The day was a little late so there wasn’t any sun whatsoever. I decided to get a car so I could try to see the lights myself tonight but also because public transportation here is a bit harder than in a big city like Oslo and I wasn’t in the mood for the headache of figuring out how to get to places.

Driving in snow was a little different from the drive going to the ski resort. The car would drift at the tiniest press of the accelerator and I had a good time going through roundabouts mildly sideways. When I got to town, I quickly checked in and headed out to continue walking around in the snow and to see the the town itself.

Tromsø is a very cutesy, small town with a single Main Street, a few hotels, a port, and a lot of students. It kind of feels like it’s still Christmas here. The town’s Main Street has low-hanging lights, everyone is bundled up in beautiful furs while sipping on hot drinks, and everyone was all smiles. I was actually surprised by the amount of young people here. Apparently, Norwegians like to come here to earn their degrees and the vibe here was so much more welcoming than in Oslo.

This would probably be a good time to mention, also, that since Lillehammer was a small rural town away from the big city, I really stood out over there as the only person that looked different and people didn’t really seem to like that. So Lillehammer was probably the least welcoming place and that contrasts greatly with the welcoming vibe of Tromsø. In Oslo, it really depended on who I spoke to.

Anyway, so now I’m hungry. What can I only eat in Tromsø? Reindeer. Guys, Reindeer. Santa’s flying horses. Oh my God, okay. So I went to this steak restaurant called Biffhuset. They’re generally there to serve steaks and that was my initial idea going in, but my waiter was this very chirpy old man. He was so full of life and seemed a mixture of shocked and happy that he could serve anyone at all. I looked down at the menu and looked up at him and asked, as I always do, “what would you recommend?” He grinned at me and looked over at the table near me like he was about to tell me a secret and said, “reindeer steak!”

You know how Toffee Nut Latte tastes like winter? Or how the Christmas candy canes (the red and white ones) taste like winter? Like it would be wrong to ever have those in the summer? That’s exactly what reindeer is like. It’s like a winter beef. Like a beef that tastes great but only if the weather is right. I loved the stuff.

Anyway, so I did that and now it was time to go see these green lights everyone was talking about. I got in the car and started heading out to a remote location and then it began to snow. Whatever, it‘ll probably stop soon, right? Right? Oh my God, I don’t even know how I’m still alive. Driving in heavy snow is not like driving in light snow or heavy rain. Driving in heavy snow is worse than the worst fog I’d ever seen while driving the E11 between Abu Dhabi and Dubai. It. Was. So. Bad. I could see so little that I opened up Google Maps and literally made it back to my hotel following the blue line. I couldn’t see the sides of a narrow road. I couldn’t see like two footsteps past the front of my little Skoda. The only thing the streetlights illuminated was my inner certainty that I was going to slip the whole car ,and fall into the cold water I was driving next to. What an idiot, Ahmed. You should’ve listened to everyone and gotten a tour.

How I made it back to the hotel was beyond me, but I did, and now I needed my second day to be perfect after this catastrophe.

Day 2 in Tromsø

Something felt very right about this day. It was easy to roll out of bed, easy to get my clothes on, and way too easy to find a touring company. I found them online while I was eating an Omelette made with goat cheese, which tasted way better than I thought it would. I’m loving my gastronomical experience here in Tromsø, by the way; Way better than the tastes of Oslo.

Before I headed for my tours, I visited the Arctic Cathedral, one of the landmark buildings in Tromsø. I’ll just let the two pictures speak for its architecture and its mural.

The Arctic Cathedral, with its more noticeable design, rising above the rest of town

The mural depicting Jesus Christ inside the Arctic Cathedral

I booked my northern lights experience with a company called Pukka Travels and while browsing online I saw “Bobsledding with Alaskan Huskies.” I guess I’ll do that too. It was the first thing on my agenda so let’s talk about that.

First of all, the dogs. These dogs are so friendly and love people way too much, just like everyone else in this town. They’ll jump up and lick your face, circle around you, lean on you just like, “yeah, whatever, right,” and are so excited to do anything. We got a chance to play with the dogs and then after a little lecture explaining how to drive a sled (yes, you drive), we started walking out to the dogs who were already waiting for us. While walking there, the dogs staying behind in the kennel started howling and begging to come join us.

The dogs we used were not Huskies, as was later explained (Shout out to my guide, Andreas!), because Huskies might want to tear your face off. Alaskan Huskies are a mixed breed of many dogs over several generations that were bred in Alaska. They eventually ended up being faster and friendlier than traditional Huskies and are now commonly used in sledding.

A sled is large and constructed of wood. There are two thin bits of wood that you stand on (kind of like skis) and leaning left or right will slightly turn the sled in that direction. The sled has strings that stretch out of it that connect to the six dogs’ harnesses. The dogs in my case were a team of three females and three males. The males are the muscle of the pack and are placed in the back of the arrangement (the dogs are arranged three dogs per row in two rows facing forward). The males are called “wheelers” like the wheels of a truck. The leaders of the pack are usually the females as they listen to reason more. My leading females were called Fame and Kaytoo! All the dogs love to run all the time. When we’re stopped (there’s a brake you press into the snow to yank the dogs to a halt), the dogs are constantly tugging at the sled, waiting for your attention to break, so that they can charge ahead. Once you lift your foot off the brake, the dogs burst into a full sprint and you have to control their speed with the brake. It was an amazing activity, very exhilarating, very fun, and surprisingly we got to spend almost 90 minutes driving the sleds and about an hour playing with the dogs and their puppies. It was just a really great time. Here are some pictures.

My sled and I. I am standing with my feet firmly planted in the brakes to stop the dogs from pulling the sled away.

The muscle of my pack

My view from the sled

Fame and Kaytoo, the leaders of my pack

The second activity of the day was going to start soon after I’d finished sledding so I rested in the hotel a little bit and headed back to the tour company. My Northern Lights group was a nice total of 6 people. There was a couple from Hyderabad, a Japanese woman who lives in Australia, a Ukrainian couple, and me. We got in our minibus, with layers on layers on layers of clothes, and headed out in search of an empty area of land to see the Northern Lights.

There was a chance that we weren’t going to be lucky. The lights appear in clear skies but it seemed to be patchy with clouds here and there. Additionally, we are currently in a solar minimum, which means we don’t see as much solar activity as we might have seen in 2014 or as much as we will see in 2025. The reason this matters is that the lights are a result of high-energy (and dangerous) solar wind making it to Earth, being intercepted by our magnetic field, riding the magnetic field up (or down) to the Earth’s poles, and descending down and reacting with our atmosphere. So a lot of factors had to happen perfectly together for us to be able to see the lights.

When we made it to our empty spot of land, the full super moon brightly illuminated the night sky and the mountains around us. It was really a sight to behold on its own. The temperature was 15 degrees Centigrade below zero and we huddled around the fire our guide had prepared for us. We exchanged some jokes about how balmy the weather was and some anecdotes about the countries we’re all from. Our guides handed us our pick of tea, coffee, or hot chocolate (my choice), and to eat, we had reindeer soup (God, I love reindeer).

As the fire began to wind down, the clouds that were blocking our view began to break open and right above the mountain, we saw it: A slight greening of the black sky. The light came into view like how you’d imagine a ghost would begin to appear. As the light grew in intensity, it began to stretch across the sky, heading further North. It was like a dream. It was beautiful. And so worth it.

The lights begin to appear over the mountain

The lights widen, brighten, and start to stretch across the sky

Six minutes in

The strongest we saw the lights

Nice, huh?

I spent the drive back asleep after this long and exhausting day. I made it to my hotel really late in the evening and today, I get ready to head back to Oslo.

I’m going to miss Tromsø. This place was pretty magical.

End.

The potato has landed in freezing snowy Norway.

Traveling alone with no clear purpose is a strange thing. When you’re traveling for business, even if you’re alone, your purpose is what guides you and anything extra that you do is a nice bonus. But arriving in a whole new country with absolutely nowhere to go? It’s a strangely freeing feeling. After a whole year where every action was spoken for, this freedom is an alien feeling again. I can choose whatever I want to do on my own terms and no one can tell me to not do it.

First of all, I love the cold. There’s snow everywhere. The trees are bare, the sun sets so early, everyone is covered in cloth from head to toe. Would I live like this forever? Hell no. Wearing all these layers takes way too long and I have no patience for that hassle everyday before I go to work or before I go out. God bless our simple kandora life. Wouldn’t trade that for anything.

What does the city sound like? Strangely silent. I like noticing what a city generally sounds like. The tram whirs away and whooshes to a halt. The train takes off with almost no warning. The people huddle around together and quietly talk about whatever. The weekend came and most of the cars were heading away from the city rather than towards it. Music in the cafe I was sitting in was an upbeat dance song but was played at a low volume. You get the idea. Everything seems private and quiet and in its own world. At least that’s my experience so far.

The people keep to themselves as all people do, but when I bother them for directions or thoughts on what I should do, they spring into action, excited that someone wants their help. It’s lovely and refreshing and kind. I love how thoughtful everyone is and how kind they have been with their ideas and observations. I was leaving the train stations trying to find my hotel and when one person couldn’t help me, another very kind man, who I didn’t even look at or ask to help me, came and started asking other people for help with me and wanted to guide me to the door of the hotel. What a kind gentleman, I like him a lot. My first encounter with a Norwegian was a gentleman next to me on the airplane who was really excited and enthusiastic to learn more about Emirati culture and how we court women and live amongst ourselves and how we lived with so many expatriates in our country. All this and I’m technically alone. Such lovely people.

My first day was your average tourist sightseeing experience. I got to see their Royal Palace, an old military fort, tried a restaurant, and walked a lot. The shops close early and life moves from office to home quite quickly, but what I did see I really enjoyed. The city is beautiful and relatively clean. Despite it being a capital city, Oslo is pretty small and very easily walkable as long as I’m dressed properly. The names of places are very hard to learn. I can’t find the logic behind me being able to remember a name like Aker Brygge. It doesn’t feel immediately memorizable but I can’t exactly complain. I mean try memorizing some of our road names if you’re a foreigner living in the Emirates, haha. I can imagine it being hard; What is a Garn Al Sabkha?

One thing I did easily notice and remember was the abundance of nice cars. Norway is very wealthy in natural resources and they have a sovereign wealth fund worth over a trillion US dollars. That, coupled with generous benefits like free healthcare, free education (and that’s free through university as well) probably helps propel them up the social ladder pretty quickly.

My second day was way cooler, both literally and figuratively. I walked over to Hertz, picked up a car, and planned my day to go skiing at Norefjell. I learned how to ski when I was a bit younger in school and I loved making days out of going to Ski Dubai when I’d just go down the slopes over and over again. It was a very nice way to spend a summer’s day back then. I thank my parents a lot for funding that little hobby now that I’m here.

Anyway, so I get the key for this… Opal (What is an Opal?) and get in to find a manual transmission. A manual transmission. In 2019. God, I haven’t used one of these in a long time. Did I even remember how to drive a manual? Hell yes. I buried my foot in the clutch, started the engine, put it into first, and slowly lifted off to get the car moving. It was very fun and involving.The drive would take about two hours to the slopes I was visiting. And the roads in Norway are oh so nice. First of all, they curve. Second of all, they rise. Third of all, they drop. Couple that with a manual transmission and tight roads and I’m dropping gears, speeding up slowing down, and turning the wheel the whole time going. The icing on the cake was the icy mountain road at the end I had to maneuver to get up to the ski resort, which was as fun in a manual as I could have hoped for.

The resort itself was this cozy wooden place with like the best hot chocolate; I kind of want to go back and have another now that I think about it. The whipped cream had me whipped, guys. Whipped. Anyway, I get my skis and I look down at the beginner slope and I’m like Hell no, I can’t do this. So I go over to the baby slopes and try to do a few round of that just to refresh my memory and then, it was just a beautiful day. I’ll drop a few pictures because honestly, those will do better for you than me saying anything.

Hello! That’s me on maybe my fourth time down the slopes.

This was the first thing I saw before I said I need a refresher on the baby slopes. Notice the sudden drop right after where the four skiers are. It was pretty scary for me. And this was the beginner slope. Norwegian beginners don’t strike me as the type that fear for their lives or anything.

As you head down, the slopes become narrower and easier, allowing you to take in the beautiful views. And what a view, look at all those trees!

And that’s been my first couple of days! It’s my third day now and I’m on a train going to a place called Lillehammer so I’m going to see what that’s all about. The view out of the train is just… I think I’ve earned some time to go enjoy that now.

Thanks for reading, if you’ve made it this far! Until next time!

End.

One evening, I woke up in a sudden. The light noise of the white fluorescent light buzzed in my ear as my eyes adjusted to the clinical look of the brightly-lit room. Home, I thought.

Not exactly. The bed was hard. It didn’t bounce in that way that would make a child inclined to jump on it. The blanket was a large, thin, boring affair that did nothing as far as warmth was concerned. The room was the same cold that made your bones ache on a winter morning. As my eyes came into focus, I took the room in. Definitely not home. It was a low-hung ceiling, barely higher than the wooden cabinet in the corner of the room. Next to the cabinet, right in front of me, was a mirror with a small but noticeable black spot in its top left corner. To its right, a little hallway stretched out that I couldn’t see the end of yet. Then there was my bed and I. “Where am I?”

You would think in a situation like this, I’d feel panic. Maybe I’d feel scared. I’d maybe reach for my phone (where is my phone…?) and call the police. I didn’t feel any of those things. I felt curious. I didn’t really remember how I got here. Even stranger, I don’t recall caring how I had gotten in that room.

I lifted my body up in one swift motion and spun myself onto the side, slipped my slippers on, and walked over in the direction of the hallway, pausing at the mirror. My beard is still outlined well, I’ll probably need to shave in a couple of days. Im wearing blue jeans, black shoes, and a beige T-shirt, which is all well (but why was I asleep in these clothes…?).

Hm. So the room is very much like a hotel room. Maybe not as nice as a hotel room. But it feels like one. The hallway was very short, ending with what was probably an exit. The door to my right was a bathroom. All my things were there. My toothbrush, soaps, and so on, and behind me now was a window overlooking a street that was not familiar to me at all.

Besides the noise of the fluorescent lights, the air-conditioning, and the sound of my feet shuffling me into the hallway, there was a dead silence all around. No children crying in neighboring apartments (I’m the only door on this floor actually, let’s see where these stairs go), no cars cruising by in the streets below, no drafts… Nothing. It’s all strange because the building seems to have been very lived-in. The stair railings were oily from years of greasy hands, no doubt, the walls had lost paint, been drawn on, and had the black circles of dying cigarettes, and the stairwell smelled of a thousand deep-fried meals.

At the bottom of the stairs, I walked through the front aluminum doors and out onto the street. The cold and silent air was gentle, barely making its presence known. The street was not level, moving downwards from left to right. On either side were parked cars that were wet from condensation. The cars looked like they hadn’t been touched in a while. There was not a single person to be seen anywhere.

I began to feel very anxious, probably even afraid. Waking up in this strange building on a street I’d never seen and still not being able to find a single other person? Something is very wrong.

I proceeded out onto the street and turned left, pushing myself a little more than I should against the slanted road. A minute went by, maybe 5, I’m not sure. Slowly, the road began to plateau and curve again downwards. The road seemed to be built on uneven land, I guess.

As I descended down the road, I came at an intersection. The lights were red in all four directions, with the exception of one green light to turn right. I looked to my right and saw a brightly-lit street with the warm welcoming glow of shops on either side. No, there was nobody there. I followed the traffic light and peered into every shop. Nobody was in any of the shops. Can I go into one of these shops?

The whole time I was walking, it began to seem normal to me that this piece of city was so empty. I still felt a bit cautious but with nobody else in sight, there was no real point in panicking. I guess if you spend enough time in a strange reality, your mind will register the strange reality as now normal and anything different as strange. My mind and general emotional core adjusted to this new reality and I pushed any lingering questions down in the hopes of answering them later. I mean, it doesn’t seem like anyone is going to bother me. And I’m hungry, maybe I can have some ice cream from over there.

A little bell announced my entrance into the ice cream shop. No one greeted me but the familiar cold, creamy smell enticed me. I walked around to where the employee would normally stand and found the scoops and paper cups. Stracciatella is my favorite ice cream flavor so I was generous with the 3 scoops I gave myself. After giving myself a napkin and a plastic spoon, I walked over to the door and it was locked. What the hell? My confusion was quickly interrupted with a loud dingggg. I turned around and saw the green lights of the cash box flashing a number at me. 24.50. Of course, I need to pay. But who am I paying? I started to feel very scared and my body quickly began to sweat.

What am I supposed to do? Do I just pay anything? Who operated this machine? How does it know that I took the ice cream… How does it know I need to pay… Who or what locked the door…? I slowly walked over to the register and looked down. There was already some money inside from some previous transaction, no doubt. So I guess there are others here. Maybe if I just… I reached into my back pocket and found some change: exactly 24.50. Of course. I put the 20 with the twenties and dropped the coins with the coins. Shhhwinggg. The register closed itself and went silent. I stood there for what must have been 10 minutes. The door is definitely open now. I really didn’t want to check if that was true, though. But I had to go somewhere. I needed to find someone. I needed answers. I slowly turned around, expecting to see some kind of person just standing, waiting, and willing to speak, but of course I found nobody. I walked over to the door and pulled it open…

Back on the street, I walked along in the same direction and I was clearly moving away from the market as the street turned back into quiet and dark. The road ahead was as empty as it had been the whole night. I looked down, pulled some ice cream out of the cup with my spoon and looked up again to see a tall woman standing about 10 meters in front of me. Oh my God. I stood dead in my tracks. A breeze began to pick up, but she didn’t move. Her clothes didn’t flow with the wind. Her hair hung dead on either side of her face. Her face. Are her eyes ope- are those black eyes? What is she holding? Who gives a shit, I’m going home. I turn around so quickly, ready to run for dear life. I couldn’t register anything around me except that she was standing there, even closer. Maybe 5 meters now. She’s looking (Is she looking?!) right at me. I turn around again and begin running for my life. I can’t see anyt- Thud. I tripped on myself. I’m on the floor. My feet are in front of- Those aren’t my feet. I look up and there she is… Looking ahead into the abyss, holding a little mound of cloth.

What do I do? Oh my God, where am I? Who is this? Can I stand up? Please wake up. Ahmed, wake up, this isn’t real. This can’t be real, this isn’t your life. Stop this now please. Please, Ahmed, please, wake up, where am I, what am I doing, who is this person?

I’m crying, no: Sobbing my heart out as I began to stand up, knowing that now I must face this woman. I must speak to her. It is what must happen next. She will follow me, I know she will. I try to make out who she is. She looks like someone I know, someone vaguely familiar, but I can’t quite tell who. Her black eyes and dead figure continue to terrify me. A million thoughts are racing through my mind but I know that I can’t satisfy my loudest one: Run. I look down at the mound of cloth and I see a baby. A baby. The lady’s arms begin to extend, gesturing me to receive the baby. I look up and see a tortured face, a pleading face, begging me to receive the child. I lift my arms, I receive the child, and I am overcome with fear, pain, panic, I can feel sweat pour down my body, I open my eyes, and see the chandelier in my comfortable room, but the baby, I must care for the baby, I look down and see that there is no baby, only my room in my home in the real world, and I hear the burning ring of an alarm clock begging me to begin another normal day.

End.