My Feet Are Cold

My feet are cold. It's chronic. Everywhere else I'm fine. It's just my feet. My socks get moist and my feet get colder. It's not right.

Tea is cold too. If it was room temperature it'd be okay, but it's verging on icy. Tea gets cold so fast during winter. It's not right either.

Today my aunt got me fast-tracked (wassta) into a membership at a social club. Something I've wanted for years. One technicality that I think got in my way before is that my parents are divorced. I must say it's a bit late since all the friends I had that were members have already ditched the country and Nahida says it's full of dodgy people now. In any case it's good to have in case things ever get better.

When I called my dad up yesterday to check if he'd accept paying the joining fee, the price I had to pay was admit that my summer in the UK was shite and that I wouldn't want to repeat it next summer and what sucks is that I've got a return ticket. My dad's so frugal. But I did emphasise that I still expect to get a vacation to some place else.

My dad also lectured me about how much of a user-abuser kind of person my aunt is. I realise that but fortunately for me I've at times been a user-abuser myself. So as long as there's a mutual exchange going on it's all good. Lately I've been my aunt's personal driver. So far it's just been for the sake of going to see or fetch my senile grandma (spending time with grandma is something I ought to do anyway). But today, after she got me the membership I came back home and she called so that I take her to the shops to do some groceries.

The other thing she's done for me is lend me one of her mobile phones since I still haven't replaced the one I lost. I'm having friends volunteer to scour my favourite phone for me since it's no longer in the market. India called me today and told me he found one yesterday in Bab-AlShargi. But Nahida also spoke to my dad yesterday, and she convinced him to give me three-hundred bucks to splash on a new mobile phone. After being tempted to get a Motorola Razr since Nokia's have become crazily over-sized, I'm settling on a Sony-Ericsson. Yet to see if I can afford the model I've got my mind on. And I hope I get used to those damn annoying buttons.

This year's New Year's eve party isn't going to happen for me. There was the thought of going up to Kurdistan and spending it with my cousins but it seemed to much trouble for its worth. To fly there and back would cost 150 bucks I think, and the cab rides to and from the airport in Baghdad would cost 80 bucks. And going by car is just too dangerous with Saddam soon to be executed.

So my plan is to just have a normal night. I'm even telling my mates not to come to mine. I don't want a cockfest at my house on New Year's eve. We'd just stare at each other and bitch about how shitty are lives have become. I'm not even planning any booze either.

I've given up trying to understand the politics that are going on in the country. It's just too much shit to stress about, better leave it for the others to deal with. It reached a climax for me when my aunt was telling me that it's the Sunnis that are attacking the Shiites in Al-Hurria and not the other way around as I mentioned a couple of posts ago. But I have to add that my aunt also denies that the Shiite 'death squads' exist.

I was taking it for granted that what was going on here was a one-sided affair. But I'm not so sure any more. It seems that there are others that are seeing things from the other end and they've come up with their own way of looking at things.

I'm spending way too much time looking at porn sites these days. So much so that they've lost their effect. I just want to see women, I don't want to forget what they look like. It's so pathetic.

I'm not getting any studying done. I think I ought to try and meet up with one of my classmates to try to collect some motivation. I still got one week. I don't expect to do to well in my first round of tests, but must put some more effort. Let's see I'm at page 7 of 9 of the first handout that I began reading at the beginning of the week. And that's just the first pass. I'm not understanding any of it. I haven't gone through the process of digging out the odd words (which is one per line) out of the dictionary.

Starting tomorrow, I'm building a schedule. And I'm going to get some studying done. Tomorrow's good since I won't be driving my aunt around.