the mall. already.

(above pic  is from adnan's graduation brunch with my favorite family. you'll hear me talk them ridiculous amounts. this is mona and nael--parents of adnan, adeeb, and nabeel. they're my favorite. yes.)

is it possible i've already made a trip to the mall with mona and i'm not even in kuwait yet? sad, but true. in case you don't know, malls are all the rage in kuwait. and they are nice. ridiculously nice. and in case you didn't know, i don't like malls. at all. 

but last week in richmond, virginia, mona and i had some time to kill and where did we head? you guessed it. the mall. and so, as we strolled through suburban richmond's short pump town center (a 'nice' mall by american standards, but not by kuwaiti, fyi) i might have solidified my dissertation topic. or clarified it at least. 

so, brief rundown of dissertation topic: undefined. okay, not completely true. i'm interested, although have not quite solidified how i'm gonna measure this, the relationship between consumerism and political activism/engagement. i'm toying with the idea of ethical consumerism as a new form of political participation, or something along those lines. so, i digress...

we approach victoria's secret and mona (a palestinian) tells me that victoria's secret is owned by an israeli and so she doesn't shop there. she proceeds to tell me other stores owned by israeli's that she and others she knows boycott. whether you agree or not, woah. the lightbulb went off. for so long i thought of ethical consumerism in terms of ethical production and treatment of workers, not in terms of the politics and ethnicity of the owner. i don't know why i never thought of this before. and so i guess the lesson of the day: something good can come from a trip to the mall.