Tunisian Comedy Club Event - Sign Up Now!

Attention American Corner visitors,

Do you like telling jokes? Do you have a good sense of humor? Can you make your friends roar with laughter? Do you see the funny side of everything? If so, this is the event for you:

The American Corner is organizing a stand-up comedy event called Tunisian Comedy Club. This event will take place on Monday January 31, 2011 at 4PM at AMIDEAST.

As part of this event, budding, young, amateur comedians will perform their comedy acts for an audience of other members of the AC. Each comedy act must be around 10-15 minutes in length. This is a great way to make a start in the field of comedy and to give your peers the laugh of their lives. We may even have some prizes for the funniest comedians… ;-)

I am also working to trying to get members of the famous "Axis of Evil"comedy group to speak to the AC and give comedy tips and techniques to AC patrons as part of this event.

If you are interested in participating in this Comedy Club event, please e-mail me (rkaneriya@amideast.org) your name, e-mail, and phone number. And start working on your comedy acts!

AC CLOSED for Christmas Break

FYI: The AC will be CLOSED between December 24 and January 3.

We will open again on January 3rd at 2PM (so a half-day open), and then we will continue our regular schedule.

Theater Club will also be canceled during this break. It will start up again after.

Week of 12/20 Events

Mon 12/20 - 4PM Conversation Hour: Dean Obaidallah and Comedy about the Arab World

Tues 12/21 - 3PM-6PM America Corner Christmas Party!!!!!!!!!! - featuring gingerbread house design contest, Christmas quiz competition, AC Theater Club skit, and Secret Santa gift exchange (buy a gift around 20TD if you want to participate in Secret Santa)

Wed 12/22 - 4PM Debate Club: Sex Education in Schools

Thurs 12/23 - 4PM Conversation Hour: Animal Rights

Fri 12/24 - AC is CLOSED for Christmas break

Sat 12/25 - THERE IS NO THEATER CLUB MEETING DUE TO CHRISTMAS BREAK

American Corner Christmas Party!!!!!!!!!!!

When: Tuesday 12/21 from 3PM-6M
Where: AMIDEAST main building basement (Central Park Room)

You know you have been waiting for this, and it's coming: the American Corner Christmas party!!!!!!!!

This party will include either a snowflake design or a gingerbread plus a Christmas quiz contest plus a small Christmas skit performed by the AC Theater Club plus plenty of socializing, merriment, and fun!

We will also be holding a Secret Santa Gift Exchange that is voluntary. If you want to participate, you must buy a gift that will be given to someone else. This gift must cost around 20-25TD, and you must wrap the gift but not put your name on it. We will place all the gifts together in a pile. Each person participating in Secret Santa will receive a number. The person with # 1 will choose a gift and open it. People who go after can either steal the gift of someone who has already opened a gift or pick a new gift from gifts pile. No gift may be stolen more than twice. You can only participate in Secret Santa if you have purchased a gift for someone else. At the end, participant will have a gift. Google "Secret Santa" if you want to know more about how this game works.

See you there and feel free to bring any food or gifts for your own friends if you want! Hope you will have a wonderful time!

Amazing New Resource Available at the AC for Research

With the help of the US State Department, the AC has obtained access to the Virtual Library Database. This website allows you to access dozens of different databases ranging from topics like music, arts, history, English language learning, culture, environment, business, American society, and many more (pretty much anything you can think of).

Please feel free to come by the AC and use this new database for your academic and research purposes. You must come to the AC to access it.

12/12 Week Events

Mon Dec 13- Conversation Hour: Imagining the World in 200 Years @ 4PM in AC

Tues Dec 14- AC Debate Club: Abortion @ 4PM in AC

Wedn Dec 15- Guest Speakers: Abdullah Yildiz and Oumima Guesmi present about Turkey @ 4PM in AC

Thurs Dec 16- Cultures of America: Alfredo Mehia presents on the Guatemalans @ 4PM in AC

Fri Dec 17- Film: District 9 @ 3PM in AC

Sat Dec 18- AC Theater Club @ 1PM in AMIDEAST Main Building Basement

Week of 12/6 Events

Monday 12/6: 3PM - Henry Mendelsohn presents a lecture entitled "Beyond Google, Searching the Internet Effectively" (*** This event will move to Tuesday if Ras al-Am is on Monday)

Tuesday 12/7: Closed for Ras al-Am

Wednesday 12/8: 4PM - Debate Club: Racism is Tunisia

Thursday 12/9: 4PM - Natalie Brown will facilitate a discussion on women's empowerment

Friday 12/10: 3PM - Screening and discussion of the documentary "Jesus Camp"

Saturday 12/11: 1PM - AC Theater Club in AMIDEAST main building basement

Saturday 12/11: 2:20PM - Meet in front of AC to head as group to see the film "Amreeka" at Hotel Africa. First 15 people get discounted tickets at 1.5TD and others pay 2.5TD.

Sunday 12/12: 2:20PM - Meet in front of AC to head as group to see the film "Freedom Riders" at Hotel Africa. First 15 people get discounted tickets at 1.5TD and others pay 2.5TD.

American Corner Partners Sought

The American Corner is starting a new initiative called "American Corner Partners". As part of this initiative, the American Corner is looking for interested student clubs, associations, schools, institutes, and other civil society and non-governmental organizations with which it can form collaborative partnerships to help bring the American Corner experience to people all over Tunisia, whether they live in Tunis, Sfax, Gabes, Gafsa, Djerba, or anywhere else.

How would these partnerships work? As a first step, the American Corner will collaborate with official American Corner Partners to provide discussion topics and conversation hour articles, activities, and ideas. This means that other organizations around Tunisia can now bring the conversation hour experience to their local constituencies. Want to attend the American Corner's discussion hour on American foreign policy or the Ground Zero Mosque controversy but can't come all the way to Tunis to attend because you live in Kairouan? Well, if there is a local organization is Kairouan that is an official American Corner Partner, we will provide them with the relevant article that was discussed during our conversation hours, and now a local organization in Kairouan can put on a similar event for residents of Kairouan. This is the kind of idea sharing that the AC hopes to achieve by developing partnerships with organizations across Tunisia.

As a second step for the future, I hope to find ways that we can broadcast guest speaker events from the American Corner-Tunis to partner institutions across Tunisia. This would mean that if the AC hosted a major business leader for an event at the AC, we would show that event live, and any partner organization could bring that guest speaker event to its local members via the Internet. This really depends on the technology and the ability to find a web conferencing application than can perform such tasks. Therefore, this may take some time, but I hope to explore making this a reality as soon as possible.

There could also be other potential benefits and opportunities for collaboration that could result as things progress and our relationships with other groups develop.

If you are interested in becoming an American Corner Partner, please send me your name, your e-mail address, and the name of your organization/institution.

Please be aware that ONLY ORGANIZATIONS CAN BE AMERICAN CORNER PARTNERS. Individuals cannot be partners. They must be representing organizations. The only exception to this rule is English language teachers who want to bring AC-type discussions into their classrooms.

Thank you!

Ravi Kaneriya
American Corner Coordinator