Jules CP-7

This is a long post, but I think you'll enjoy it.

Last weekend I met with Jamal for some food, fun, and conversation. He had been feeling cooped up in his dorm-style apartment, so I took him out to Piney Z Lake, which is connected to Tom Brown Park off Conner Road & Apalachee Parkway. Luckily the sun had set so it wasn't unbearably hot. He was struck by the lush, subtropical forest that is so different from the arid mountains of Afghanistan. We hiked down the trail for half a mile or so, and ventured out onto a fishing finger, which are these man-made grassy peninsulas about 150 feet long by 15 feet wide.

We sat down, kicked off our shoes and talked about his plans for after CIES. As I mentioned before, Jamal is on a Fulbright scholarship which is supposed to pay for graduate school at the institution of his choice... emphasis on the word "supposed". The Institute of International Education (IIE) is the organization that administers the Fulbright funds. They receive money from Fulbright, send in the students' grad school applications, and then take care of paying the tuition and fees. Apparently, the IIE receives a fixed amount of money each year, say, $5 million for 100 students. The allocation of these funds is at the IIE's discretion. In other words they have a vested interest in finding the best deal possible. For example, if a grad school offers the student a full tuition waiver, then IIE gets to pocket the Fulbright money. It sounds like this is what's happening to Jamal, and I'll tell you why:

When he found out he'd been selected for Fulbright, Jamal was prompted to select his top five colleges. In order from top to bottom, he chose the University of Missouri, FSU, New School of New York, UCF, and the University of Arkansas. A couple of weeks ago, one of the CIES teachers (I believe it was Dr. Kennell) mentioned in passing, "Oh Jamal, I'm sorry to hear that you pulled your application from FSU". Jamal was confused by this, and contacted IIE but received no response. They did message him a few days later to say that he'd been rejected from Missouri. Surprised and wondering what had gone wrong, he called UM but they had no idea what he was talking about. There was no record of him in any of their databases. The next day, IIE told Jamal that Arkansas had offered him a complete tuition waiver -- independent of Fulbright -- and they were now proceeding with his acceptance letter. Guess who's getting to keep that Fulbright money?

Jaded and more than a little frustrated, we decided to be on our way. It was getting dark and buggy, anyway. I stood up and donned my flip flops, and as I turned to the west I saw something floating in the water. At first I thought it was a piece of wood, but then it started moving. You guessed it -- alligator. Knowing that Jamal had never encountered such a creature, I didn't want to scare him so I just said, "C'mon, let's go". But he saw where I was staring and hastily put on his sneakers, not bothering with the socks. I wasn't extremely alarmed because the gator wasn't heading toward us; it was, however, swimming toward the mainland. So we speed-walked up the peninsula, and I lost sight of our reptilian visitor. Chuckling and breathing a sigh of relief, we turned onto the path back to the car. We hadn't walked 50 feet before there was a thrashing in the bushes. I will never be sure of what it was, but it was big, and it was low to the ground.

Jamal gasped, "WHAT WAS THAT?" and I pulled him back about 20 feet. "We should call the cops", I remember him saying, and though it was certainly no consolation I told him, "The cops can't help us out here". "Maybe we should run," he offered, but I told him that was precisely what we should NOT do. I just told him to take a deep breath, remain calm, and everything would be all right. Listening, breathing, and waiting for at LEAST several hours (okay it was probably closer to 10 minutes), he finally convinced me it was time to proceed. Those first 60 feet were some of the most agonizing steps I've ever taken, but clearly we escaped unscathed. We arrived at the car in probably under 8 minutes, even though it had taken at least 15 on the way in.

Once we were safely in the car with doors locked and windows up, we burst into jittery laughter. My heart finally stopped pounding once we hit Capital Circle (I've never been so ecstatic to see a Walmart sign). Jamal may not get to attend the grad school of his dreams, but at least he's alive today.