I've Become Boring

I've been very boring the past few months. I no longer stay up all night staring at my PC screen waiting till the floodgates of my mind break open anymore which is a good reason why my posts aren't as cool as they were. Maybe knowing in the back of my mind that some of my friends might be reading my blog also is a factor.

I did get a camera a few months ago and haven't made much use of it. Well here's a picture of a tree I took at my grandma's house. It's so gay. But I know that in a couple of months I'll be missing the sight of clouds.

I've Finished My Mid-Year Exams

Yes, I'm done. I think the mid-years are harder than the finals. So I'm really glad to be over and done with these. On the other hand, I'm kind of bummed out now that the excitement associated with them are gone. I think I did alright all-round. I might have messed up in a couple of the tests, but I should be able to make up for them.

Mum's still here, she'll be leaving in a few days. She'll be leaving some stuff in my house. I got to make sure I don't lose any of it somehow, which is kind of hard when Nahida re-arranges everything all the time.

I was supposed to start moving my stuff upstairs downstairs today. Starting with my PC. Moving my work-out bench is going to be a pain. I think I'll need to dismantle it. It's going to be hard doing all things I plan to do. But I really need to work on creating a boundary between Nahida and myself.

I'm noticing my spoken Arabic is improving alot. I'm alot more confident talking than I was six months ago. I still sound foreign, I don't think I'll ever be able to fix that problem.

Idiot Classmates

I don't know what's worse the bad quality of teaching or the IQ of the students here. What's so hard about figuring out which area is bounded by three linear inequalities. For crying out loud it's high school stuff.

Mid-year exams are a pain. I don't think I'll be doing all too well. One thing that caught me by surprise is how noisy the exam supervisors can be, this while I'm trying to express myself in Arabic drove me nuts. Yesterday one of them began yelling everytime a student began cheating. And cheating is very tolerated here, not a single student got kicked out. How else are they to pass the people say. Yeah never mind learning. Not much point of learning since the teachers themselves don't really teach in the first place. It's a vicious cycle of idiots. Every generation becoming stupider than the one before it.

When they cheat they're not trying that hard to be discreet about it. Just talk with a normal voice and ask someone two rows away what the answer is. Unlike that put the test paper in view of the person behind me style that I'm somewhat more used to. I was never good at cheating. But I do keep my ears open to pick up answers being given. Alot of the time, that's a good enough method to get nearly all the answers.

Oh yeah and I got my pre-mid year marks, all but risk managment. They rock! I got two full marks, and the lowest is a seven out of ten. These mid-year exams are going to bring those marks down though. I can't be bothered to memorize all that accumulated material.

Mum wants to leave in a few days. That really sucks, I really enjoyed having her here. Although her phone calls every few hours do sometimes get on my nerves. I can't believe mummy's going. It's not cool.

I haven't got an e-mail in a while. Maybe I should send one or two. But to whom. Jasso has been sending me crazy junk mail. Recently made a filter to make all his e-mail go to a folder just for him.

Kiki made it to Malaysia a week ago. The nutter. He's planning to do a master's degree over there. Knowing Kiki's study discipline, that's a pipe dream. But he did it make it there, which was a quasi surprise to me, but not to India. But who knows maybe his encounters with she-males for which he has a fascination for will give him the inspiration to study.

I'm Soo Clean

I finally got my haircut today. And then I showered, and shaved too. Wow the feeling. And I popped that nasty zit on my chest.

Not much going. Still playing video games. Got a test tomorrow. Mum has an anti-study aura when she's around me. I find it so hard to study when she's around me. It's not as if she's preventing me from studying. I don't know what it is about her that makes her have this effect on me.

Oh got to go pick her up from my Aunt's now. I hope my Aunt doesn't catch the smell of whiskey on my breath.

Messy Me

I'm hungry. Not really sure what I want to eat. Not very sure of what there is to eat. I think I need to go do some shopping.

I'm a freagin mess today, I think I've been wearing and sleeping in the same clothes for the past 3 days. I really need to get a haircut. I think the last time I got a haircut was back in October. I've got a zit coming out on my chest just below my neck. And damn it hurts when I touch it.

Zaif just called, I found someone to have lunch with yoohoo. I'm bleeding starving.

Didn't Go To The Farm

Bullocks to the farm. It was raining the morning that I was supposed to go, so I said 'oh it's too dangerous'. And then then the next day I said I had to study for my mid-year exams.

Eid was somewhat cool. There was more social activity because my mum is here.

Got some new games for my DS yesterday, Some other tactic game and Mario Kart. Not getting very much studying done.

Nahida's driving me up the walls. I'm thinking of building that wall between us. Move my shit from upstairs to downstairs. Shut that door between us. And not have to see her roam infront of me anymore. Oh the bliss of it.

Off To The Farm Tomorrow

Yippee, off to Shamiya tomorrow. I really don't want to go, but I guess. I have to. Right now I'm at the internet cafe charging up my iPod. This iPod thing is not easy. I'm supposed to be able to view video on it, but so far I haven't been able to make use of it. I really need to fix my PC or get a new one, but I'm too damn lazy to go around looking for a good deal. I use a whiteboard to record all my expenses and then I type it all out on the PC. But I'm in a rut now that there's very little space on the whiteboard left.

I'm thinking of getting a laptop, but I'm not sure if I should go expensive or not. The idea of a laptop is really sweet since it can run for a limited time during power cuts. Electricity is so rare these days. It's off for more hours than I can bother to count. I just overheard some guy saying it's 7 hours off, and 1 on. That's painfully boring. But I've got my Nintendo DS. It did suck when I finished the Urbz though. I'm back to playing Final Fantasy Tactics (GBA) which is a really mind numbing game.

Today's Eid, mum took me to her recently deceased brother's place. His decease is what prompted her to come. Had lunch there. Visited senile Grandma. She's really senile i.e. suffers from dementia. I remember when Grandma was staying with us in the UK. She is a right nut case. She'd sometimes ask me for a cigarette. Once I gave her a joint. But she got suspicious and only pretended to smoke it without inhaling.

I'm gaining weight again, not good. Haven't done any exercise in ages. I'm smoking too much. I've kind of got grips on myself again when it comes to drinking. Last week was damn stressful, I think I'm recovering. Those two tests in Arabic last week really got me worked up. Did well on one of them, got an 8 out of 10. Was really glad about that. I didn't get my grade on the other test though. I was really curious to know my grade to see if I'm doing enough to get a good grade on my mid-year exam.

Well tomorrow, I'll be going to the farm. I might have the oppurtunity to see some animals being slaughtered. Might try to take pics of that with vomiting on myself. Damn I should've bought some booze. Cafe's closing up better post, because these guys have become really cheeky and just cut off the server to get the people out. And so I must now venture home, hoping that celebratory rounds don't land on me.

Great Start

Now I've got to write for 5 days worth of posts. Heck well...

Mum came over on the 1st. I'm really glad she came, I've really missed her especially of late. She got me an iPod just before she left Dubai to come here. So now I have a mum and an iPod yay. Trouble is that my PC doesn't work and the damn thing doesn't come with a charger. India came over yesterday to hook it up to his laptop to charge and to give me some mp3s.

Last Tuesday Suzy was pissed off at me because she had told me that she'll call me moments before midnight New Year's night and I didn't answer because I was asleep. Actually, I was passed out, from lots of booze. Wound up in bed before 11 PM.

After India left my place, I started to make my way to Ennie's place so he could teach me some subject that's all in Arabic that I we had a test on today. As I was driving through Qadissiya by the rail tracks (one of the commonly used routes to get from one side of Baghdad to the other), I was about to make a left turn into a wide alley and some crappy Korean car filled with armed men dressed in civies blocks my path. Nothing strange so far, it's quite normal to see convoys with civilian dressed security, and it's quite normal for them to block paths to let some big honcho from the government to pass. Then I turn my head left to look into the short wide alley and I see a white mini-van filled with armed men. Still okay. Some guy is standing waving a handgun. Still nothing out of the normal. Then there's a guy further left of my view staggering backwards with a distraught face only a meter or so away from the standing man with the gun. Getting a bit weird. Then the guy with the gun pops 5 rounds into the distraught man's stomach. The distraught man collapses backwards onto the ground. Disbelief, hell this ain't normal. I look ahead, the road in front of me is clear and I realise I ought to get out of here. I drive half the car onto the curb and peg it. Some car ahead of me sees some cops moments ahead and tells him that something's going on behind us. The cops just stand there. I don't care to provide any information myself since I don't speak Arabic too well, and that could get me into trouble, so I just continue driving. And for the next 20-30 minutes I'm freaking out and the death metal music coming out of the iPod that India had just filled up for me wasn't helping.

Today it took me ages to get to college (about 3 hours). The whole city is covered with checkpoints. I wouldn't have gone had it not been that I had two tests today. Neither of which I was fully prepared for. After taking one cab which I told to take me back home, I called up the only classmate that lives further from college than me. And he's there! He tells me one of the highways to get to the other side of Baghdad is open. So after sitting bummed on the porch of my house bummed that my bike's pedal is bust and beyond my repair, I decide to take another cab. Later in the day I find out that the reason for all the checkpoints is that the Minister of Interior's sis or daughter got kidnapped. I don't care, he probably deserves it, if he thinks that he's so special so as to screw up everybody's day. People are getting kidnapped in the hundreds everyday.

This year is proving to be quite testing on the nerves.