For a quick view of some current Baghdad statistics, check out these from Juan Cole. He's been having permalink trouble, though.

My parents were in town this weekend, which was really fun. It's always good to see the place you've gotten used to living through new eyes. Saturday was their anniversary, so I took them out to TGI Friday's, then Sunday I showed them some highlights of the city and campus. We couldn't find parking downtown, so we also walked around Old Middleton, where my Mom bought a bunch of stuff from antique and craft stores.

I feel like I should have accomplished more work. I worked my second consecutive Friday night, but on Saturday realized I wasn't actually working, so I just finished Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire instead. Looked over some Fulbright stuff and found one requirement rather intimidating, but one I can probably put off until the fall. I feel annoyed with myself because even though I'm going to be "good enough" at a lot of things for the rest of the semester, it won't be as good as I could have been if I'd been working harder. But I'll come around. I have the whole summer to catch up on dissertation stuff, and Jordan has told me papers are only secondary to the IMC anyway. I never did find anyone interested in The Barber of Seville, and while Martin wanted to see X-2 at University Square I'd already decided to get work done at that point.