Khalas for now!

I finished my last final less than two hours ago. Now that all of the frantic studying is behind me, and I have finished my courses with (Inshallah) A's and B's, I can look back on this semester with satisfaction. A lot has happened in just four months and I can safely say that this has been my busiest semester of school yet.

KAUST has come a long way too. Administrators are settling into their roles and delegating more work to an ever-growing staff. The students will be moved into permanent housing in January and (Inshallah) have fewer problems with maintenance. Some of the construction fences have been taken down and buildings have been finished. Even the large grocery store is now open (which has seriously increased the happiness of almost all KAUStians!)

Many things remain to be improved upon as well: biology labs still have much work until they are fully operational, the lab consumables supply chain is questionable, the housing really isn't finished yet (but we are moving in in January...), a lot of decision making is still happening at the highest levels and sometimes seems disconnected from student and faculty concerns, the beach is still colosed off, and there are still hundreds (if not thousands) of construction laborers working at KAUST every day.

Hopefully some of those things will be sorted out during the vacation. In the mean time, I am badly needing these next three weeks back home in New York with my family.

Goodbye KAUST! I don't think I will be gone long enough to miss you, but I look forward to another, even better semester in the spring where I make new friends, strengthen old friendships,visit new places, learn more valuable science from new courses, and start some real laboratory research!