Enjoying Day Time Curfews

I really love day time curfews. It makes the whole city feel like an oversized park. The weather these past few days has been gorgeous too. Kids are playing football in the middle of the roads, I saw a couple with kites too. I wish I had repaired my bike. It really sucks that I'm somewhat stuck at home. Even the internet cafe where I'm at is going to close as soon as the electricity cuts off which is pretty soon.

Kiko called me today. That was a pleasant surprise. He's a crazy guy, the only dude from Lebanon to have visited me in Iraq. I also chatted to Jen a couple of days ago. It's been ages since I've chatted to her too. She's just moved, and seems a bit out of place or something.

I'm so worried about pulling off a decent summer. I need to get out of here for the summer cause it's going to be way too hot with no electricity to bear. I'm hoping I can make it to the UK and that my bro will hook me up with a job for a month or so. Save some dough. And then pick some place to go.

I'm still shocked that I got a 3/25 on my mid-year marketing exam. Damn, if I fail that could ruin my summer plans, probably not completely but it might make me spend the second half of it in Baghdad to take summer classes and do the retest. And that will hurt. I'm still not sure of the implications of failing a subject. But I'm pretty confident that with a reasonable amount of effort I could pass the stupid subject.

Cousin Visiting

Had a really long day yesterday. After I made my last post I drove over to go pick up my cousin and her mum. I parked infront of their friend's house and called up Suzy. We spoke for a while, she said she'll show up at college on Wednesday. About time too.

Things between Suzy and I haven't grown into any kind of romantic relationship. India did point out to me that there is some level of intimacy. And that in itself was something. It's all fine with me, just wish I could hook myself with some chick eventually as unlikey as that seems. I do fancy her best-friend Sandy though. That chick has a petite but oh so fine body. And she's really perky too.

I was hoping to take my cousin and her mum to a restaurant after I picked them up from their friend's house but it was 9 PM and the whole neighbourhood was closed down. When we got home, Nahida hooked us up with some pasta. And oh my god does my cousin have an appetite.

We played scrabble and this time I won. After that her mum went to sleep. And my cousin and I spent the night chatting about how our dads are so messed up. She then went to sleep.

And even though I was really exhausted, I decided to call up Remy who had sent me his phone number. It's only when I speak to a guy like that do I realize how much I miss the bugger.

Clumsy And Exhausted

Clumsy and exhausted is how I feel.

They joined together the two sections of our class today. I think it's pretty fun. Everyone else is mockingly making antagnostic remarks at the other section. It's pretty funny.

Unfortunately we got our old schedule, which is a shame cause the their section had a better schedule that starts later.

I haven't seen Suzy since the vacation began. I finally got through to her on the phone a short while ago. I'll try to call her later.

I've seriously got a case of the clumsies this past week. Don't know, but as much as I hate it, it's refreshing for some reason. I nearly had a car accident while I was mucking about with my iPod hadn't Zaif pushed the steering wheel. It would've been my first serious accident.

But I was in tune with my iPod today. That I guess is an exception to my clumsiness.

There are things that I think about while I'm driving in my car that I want to express on my blog, but I keep forgetting them. I guess they weren't that important. That or I've really got to fix my mind-set when I get to the internet cafe.

I spend so much time in traffic, that some great ideas have to emerge.

Time's up. Got to go pick up my cousin and her mum, see if I can take them out for dinner.

Cafe Closing Soon

Got back from spending a night at the farm yesterday. My cousin and her mum slept over at mine. Her mum beat me at Scrabble. I was so glad to finally have someone to play scrabble with. It's been months since I got it.

Went to uni today. As usual no bleeding classes. There's talk that the two sections in my year are going to be sticked together which is pissing off all the kids. I don't really care. But sure that does bring the quality of education which is awful as it is already even lower.

Spent the day with my cousin, I think it's the first time we actually have a good time together. We had lunch and picked some gift for her dad's birthday. Turns out that both of my uncle's are born on the same day. One was actually born past midnight but in those days that didn't mean that he was born in the new day. Something to do with the lunar calender my uncle tells me.

My favourite internet cafe's generator has been repaired since the last time I came here. What a relief but it's late now and they're going to close soon.

It Ain't Ramadhan But It's Similar

The rumbling of an electric generator is a pain. When the electricity comes back and all the generators turn off, I'm often tempted to not turn the tellie on just so I could enjoy the silence.

Getting up this morning for college was really hard. Took me ages to get ready. Half way there the road was blocked so I got out of the cab and got on foot. Took me ages to get there. Didn't attend any classes because half the class wasn't there. Had some lunch with guys from college and went to the computer market to look for a laptop.

India's so lucky to have found such a cheap laptop with such high-specs. I couldn't find any laptops with a hundred gigabyte hard disk. Well it's not big deal yet, since I don't have the cash to buy one. Hopefully by the time I do have some cash some US forces convoy full of laptops would get hi-jacked.

I got a book today. Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, I've now got the chance to live that French childhood that I missed out on all my life. It's a good book so far. Once I'm done with it, I'm really not sure what else I could read. I'm just going to have to go through the kid's book section and hope there's something just as good. French books look awfully dense.

Got back home exhausted, read some of the book and then fell asleep. Woke up and had some chicken with rice for dinner. Feeling a bit queasy right now. Think I need some tea or something. I think I fancy some coffee when I get home.

Not being able to buy booze is something I'm trying not to think about. The liquor shops are closed this lunar month of Muharram. I think we're about half way through it now. It's a Shiite thing, it's the first time they pull this off, and it's not cool. Not really sure what the deal is about Muharram. But as usual there are rules. As far as I know you can't party, marry, or move into a new home.

The liquor guy warned me and I did buy 6 bottles of wine. But I'm seriously regretting not getting any vodka. It's true that I was becoming alcoholic a while ago, and from that perspective I'm glad that I can't buy any booze. Now if only they had a month you can't buy cigarettes.

And It Starts Again

Bugger, starting to feel a bit lazy. Uni re-starts on Sunday. Everybody else has just started their vacation. Most of the kids plan not to attend class this week.

I didn't get round to moving my stuff downstairs. I did make a to do list though. And that's a big step. It usually helps alot if I write what I want to get done first.

Got some new DS games from Bab Al-Shargi today. We also went to Sana'a street to check out some laptops. We being India, and 3 other guys.

Lots of women on the streets today. Not sure what's up with that.

I'm not really bored. But I really feel dis-interested. Somebody I met on-line told me they think that the reason I don't have a girl-friend is that I'm rude. I want to ask some chicks if they agree. Got to find out what the best translation of rude is in Arabic. But I will admit that I'm awfully rude when I'm chatting on-line.

I'm hungry. I want to go home and get some food. Play a little Mario. And I should go to bed early because I have to go to college tomorrow. Yay!

Day with Dick

Spent the day with Dick yesterday, I just got rid of him and his girlfriend who had both slept over at my place. Scorched my allowance, drank my booze and made me pay for the worst booze that I ever drank. His girlfriend was supposed to bring me his sister so that I get some action too. But she had a fight with her daddy and so couldn't come. This is the first time I ever have a girl sleep over at my place by the way. Nahida of course wasn't too pleased, but so far she seems quite cool. She did make me say that it would be the last time though.

There are so many issues with having a girl sleep over. I don't like taking risks with people myself, never know what to expect. The first fear being the girl's brother knocking on my door coming up with something like you've had sex with my sister and now you've got to marry her. Or that she's scounting for some place to heist or something. Or maybe she'll turn into some psycho.

Dick gave her a big pack of lies, he's even got a different name when he's with her. But it seems like he goes by two names. Pretty sly if you ask me, and awfully dodgy. Dick is a seriously dodgy guy. He's my classmate, but he's got this story that he's a business man, I'm one of his partners, and that my house was belonged to the company.

So yesterday I had met up with Dick at around 2 PM. We went to Betaween (it's the dodgy neighbourhood near the IZ that I think Fisk is refers to as the place next to the IZ as being unsafe), to get some booze from some hotel. It was a sneaky sneaky deal, because all the booze shops are closed on the occasion of Muharram, and in adherence to the rule of sneaky sneaky deals, we got screwed and paid three times the price for some of the worst whiskey ever.

We then picked up some food and rubbers, and killed time till it was 5 PM to pick up Gladys and her sister. Sure enough I was seriously expecting the girls to not show up. Wasn't too far off. Only Gladys showed up. She was tall, nearly my height. She had big eyes, big cheeks and a big nose. Her skin was fairly dark, and it looked like she was packing some big breasts, or alot of tissues. (note to self: ask Dick about that).

We drove straight home. I had forgotten to buy something to mix the whiskey with. And all I had left was some powdered Lipton Iced Tea that I had bought months ago. They tried drinking the whiskey, it was really bad. Here they would describe it as pure alcohol mixed with flavourings and colourings. Not too inconceivable. So they drank my bottle of white Piat D'Or. All in all it was quite an expensive venture on my behalf, 5 grand for some food that didn't get eaten, 15 grand or more for some of my home-made food, 15 grand for that shit whiskey and another 15 for my wine. That's a total of 50 grand. Damn! (that's over 30 bucks). Oh and another 10 grand for their cab ride home which Dick says he'll pay back. For the books that guy owes me 25 grand, 15 for the wine and 10 for the cab ride, I'll let him off for the rest.

At around midnight, after spending the night watching Arabic music videos, them drinking my wine and me drinking that screwed up whiskey mixed with Iced Tea; I shooed them to bed. At around 1 AM, I turn off the generator and start getting ready to go to bed. Dick shows up telling me to walk into the other bedroom and screw Gladys, a cheesy porno scene begins to run through my mind. I tell him I can't do that, I suggest that if she wants to climb into my bed that's fine. I did do one dick move hehe: I took the big bed and gave that the coffin sized bed mwahaahaha.

Dick came back several times to talk me into screwing the chick. And even though it might of been a ploy to get me out of my own bed so that they could spend the remainder of the night in mine. But it is a 'custom' here that in the case that one guy brings a girl and another guy provides the place to screw, the shelter-provider has the right to screw the chick too. It's pretty damn sick-minded. Well eventually I went over to Gladys and asked her if she wanted to get into my bed 'because my bed was bigger'. She declined, and that put an end to Dick's attempts to pursue 'custom'.

In the morning Gladys woke me up with tickles. I got up acting slightly grumpy. And then drove them off to the main street. Dick was expecting me to drive them home, and that I wasn't going to do. Today's an odd day, my car being evens and not allowed to drive. I could get pulled over and with my Arabic, I can get fucked with i.e. accused of being a foreign terrorist and today being a shiite event only made that worse. So I had to drive back home and give him cab money, because I forgot he was out of cash.

All in all, it was big hassle for nothing. But it's been a while since I've had a day like that, and for that I'm kind of grateful.

I Got A New Phone

Yeah yeah yeah, I got a new phone finally. After one month of bearing that piece of crap Nokia 1100 which had a faulty IC chip that made the phone turn off whenever I spoke through it.

So now I'm the pround owner of the Nokia 1101.

Mum left yesterday, she left the house at around 7 AM to go to the airport. She had to wait about 12 hours for her delayed plane. I've no idea how she bore through those hours and keep her sanity.

So things are back to normal at home.

I'm enjoying the vacation. I spent all afternoon with Nahida's brothers. One of them boozed me up with Arak (Alcohol commonly made from aniseed, but in Iraq it's made from dates). You can make nearly anything out of dates (something the sanctions proved during a period of which Saddam banned manufacturing with the use of sugar).

Dad's been calling alot lately. I don't know what's going on with him. He's usually too frugal to make international phone calls.

Should be going to the farm in a couple of days.