Karada Market

Waking up in the middle day, that's a luxury! I just woke up and had my dump with a cigarette. Fixed up my Zippo, the one that my friends in Lebanon gave me about ten years ago for my Birthday.

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that I hadn't many pictures taken in 2009. So I bought a new camera. Taking pictures is hard or something, because most of the ones I take come out bad. I also keep messing around with the settings which is my fault.

A few days ago, Od and I went to Karada and I brought the camera with me to take pictures. We were both uncomfortable about carrying a camera and taking pictures in the street with it. People might think that we're planning a terrorist attack or something and it can't be helped that there are soldiers nearly everywhere. Fortunately, nobody gave us any trouble. What I do want to do is go take photos with my uncle whose house is a museum. Maybe I could learn a trick or two from him.

Looking at my pictures however, made me realize how bad my body looks. It looks as though I've got man-titties. I must get back to playing tennis, which I can do since I'm no longer waking up so late in the afternoon as I have been doing the past couple of weeks.

Oh crap! I just realised that I have a couple of errands to do before I go to the plantation tomorrow for the very last time. I'll make sure I get as many pictures as possible, and maybe with the 10x zoom on this new camera, I'll finally get a good picture of those colourful birds that hang around the plantation.

Here are the pics that didn't come out blurry...

400 Posts or Why I'm Afraid To Go Back To The UK

Having a British passport and staying in Iraq is one of those things that people find strange in Iraq. Nearly everyone's asked me why do I stay. I've come up with a million different excuses to tell people some maybe true, most of them probably not. I'm not even sure which ones are true anymore.

The matter does come up now since I have very little to keep me in Iraq anymore, which for the past were college and then the running of the plantation.

I just spent spent the last 10 minutes making a table mapping what I've been doing since moving back to Baghdad in 2002. I've been here for 8 years. Things have changed in the world and so have I.

I really can't keep up with all the messed up reasons why I'm so afraid to go back. Typing this post is hard. Hard to choose one to start off with. I'll try doing a meditation breathing exercise for a minute.

Oh no! I just gave myself a head-rush. I figure out how to do the breathing exercise on the Wii Fit: that I must clench my tummy when exhaling and relaxing my belly when inhaling. Doing the opposite that I'm accustomed to: sucking in my tummy to inhale and relaxing to exhale might be good sometimes too, (smoking cigarettes might have encouraged this way of breathing).

Perhaps I need to make a mind map. I'm not going to get to the bottom of this matter in this post. I've given up already. The truth is that I don't know why I'm afraid to go back. I need to answer myself first which is another great thing to-do to put on my white board.

In a few hours, I'm supposed to head to a bank's share-holders meeting, but I've left my stock certificates back in the plantation. So I'm not even sure if I'm going to be let in or allowed to vote.

Laptop batteries are about to die.

Get a Job?

My dad let me have some money, not much compared to what I was expecting from our agreement that he's chosen to ignore. As a result, I don't feel myself obligated to the plantation any longer. And so, I'm supposed to be looking for a job now and a whole bunch of other things such as, the trouble is that I'm high. Right now I am.

I've never really taken the initiative to get a job. It's also the kind of thing I've always (and still do) imagined would just work itself somehow when the time comes. I'm not struggling or worrying too much about it thinking that the time will come when it will somehow sort itself out. But it's not going to happen like that, I'll start getting serious about it soon.

For the meantime, I'm making an effort to enjoy myself. Nahida got left behind at the plantation which is a bonus too. I wake up to a calm house that stays calm. My days start with a simple breakfast: some butter on toast with some tea and a joint. I try to stay at home quite a deal. My Ramadan stockpile of beer got finished by my friends. But I still have a small variety of spirits as well as a little bottle of green dragon (but mine's gold) that's waiting to be tried out.

I've also been trying to get a bit more serious with getting healthy. I've made a couple of salads and with some help they're coming out alright. I'm making it a point to play more Wii Fit as well, which I think has helped me avoid back pains. Occasionally, I get to play tennis, but then pain in my wrist sets in after half an hour of playing and I have to give up for a couple of days. I'm also hoping to go swimming soon too.

My sexual frustration has been taken care of too. She wasn't that pretty, but all in all it was a surprisingly better experience than I've had the last couple of times. The sex wasn't much fun, but to be relieved of pent up sexual frustration is something to be enjoyed.

Sav gave me the number of a pimp and I did all the rest all on my own, which is something I'm proud of. Some things did go wrong with the pick-up. The guard of a building that I'm acquainted with smiled at me as I walked past him and off with the girl to my car. I had made it so obvious what was going on that everyone on the street knew what was going on.

It's odd but I get the impression that there's something wrong with my perception of what it is that I can do as well as those things that I have achieved. I think I successfully managed the plantation, increasing production and making it more profitable, I made a big effort and I spent a whole big deal of my time but yet I feel I didn't do anything and achieved nothing for myself. In the end, I don't see myself as being any much more able a person.

I'm an able person however, I made salad. I'm slowly tidying up my home too. I'm noticing that there's a lot of junk in the house that's managed to blend into the house. It's difficult getting rid of junk simply because it's been there for so long, and so I'm doing it very slowly and it's making a difference. Having less junk cluttering up home is nice and I'm slowly adding things that are worth having around. Such as a vegetable peeler and curtains for my room. I didn't imagine they'd make such a big difference to the room's atmosphere.

So for now, I just want to keep reminding myself to enjoy myself something that I didn't feel I could do when I had to burden responsibilities back at the plantation. I want to focus more on enjoying myself for a while longer rather than getting a job. And if I make getting a job fun then all the better.