Friday, February 26, 2010

one last joint

but it's never the last. mum's visiting. i've been tentatively packing my stuff because i'm supposed to get a job outside of baghdad some time in the coming weeks. it seems i'll be around for the elections. this time around, i should make my mind up ahead of time. so why not go over this now.


1. maliki and the state of law coalition. my dad's cousin is in this party and i don't like him. when people in shamiya ask me for a favour from him i tell them that when i was living alone as a teenager in lebanon he was my only relative in the country and he never even called to ask how i was doing. as far as achievements go, even though they've brought upon a relative improvement to the security situation, which i think they bear some responsibility of causing in the first place, there's not much else to show for.


2. sciiri (Iraqi National Movement). their leader's dead. what i've heard and from more than one source is that al-hakim's offices have not been allowing people to sell their properties in karada and offering to buy them at a discounted price. and where the hell are they getting their money? that's something that pisses me off about iraqis, they don't seem to ask where the money comes from, they do sometimes wonder where some of it went however. my personal opinion is that the state shouldn't give any money to the clerics and that the clerics should be able to support themselves on donations or in exchange for services such as readings.


3. the kurdish parties (Kurdistani List). i honestly do like these guys. talabani looks like a barrel of love doesn't he? sure they seem to operate like mafia families trying to go legal up there in kurdistan. a little shady here and there, but on the whole, i believe they've succeeded in making the people of kurdistan pround and happy. but i'm not going to vote for them even though that their behaviour has a lot of positive energy they don't really do anything for the people south of their border. they just keep to themselves.


4. sunni parties(Iraqi Accord Front and Iraqi Unity). they used to have a funny shaky guy with a cool hat. i haven't really had any interaction with them or any of their influence. i do however get the impression that they've kept things running smoother and operate a lot more competently in their areas than the others have with the exception of the kurds. they're pissed off all the time, and in all fairness i think they've got the right to be pissed off and they deserve to be listened to. the problem with them is that they've got themselves so involved in getting angry that they seem to have lost any kind of vision for the country.


there are more parties aren't there... trying to remember them...


5. allawi's (Iraqi National Movement). they have nice campaign billboards with nice smiles that brighten up your day. that party is a big bunch of really nice people and allawi's was dead cool when he went out there into the street right where a bunch of car bombs had just gone off to see things for himself when he was acting prime-minister or something. but they seem to have no grassroots support. their lack of support i believe is their distance to the people, they don't want to get their dirty. i don't think any of them are really up to the job. a lot of them have been living in abroad in england or wherever for a very long time and i think they've lost touch with today's iraq and its people.


oh another came to mind a moment ago...shouldn't there be a bbc list...


6. the commies. these guys are always good for a laugh. a bunch of geezers that pretend that communism doesn't include atheism. these guys have good hearts, in denial that communism failed and that no one's going to buy it anymore. they're the least corrupt of them all, it would be hard to imagine these guys stealing money from the state or doing anything dodgy. but on the other hand, they're so out-dated, all of their policies would fail and the country would starve itself to death. these old guys are just hanging around, keeping themselves busy in their retirement who of course have pockets of support everywhere among all the other over aged pensioners.


this is taking forever! there's a bunch of other guys but i'm not sure... wow! i found a wikipedia article! it's got the names of the parties that i'll put in brackets... oh i finished! i thought there were more. there was no mention of the commies in the article. i think the best thing to do is to just vote for a minority's party.


Post continued five days later...




I spoke to a Christian classmate to ask him who he was voting for so that I vote with him, but he was encouraging at all telling me to pick the hottest one, who according to the posters is a Fairuz Hatim. But after a google image search it turns out she's very fat. He told me to give him word if I saw anyone else that's cute. I also tried to dig out some info on the Christian parties and the candidates don't seem to be in any way spectacular. They get provisional seats anyway.


Another friend recommended the Ahrar party, a party led by a rather young guy that was previously with the Allawi list. My friend tells me that even though he's got a cleric's turban, the guy's very keen to make the most of help from abroad in the form of foreign advisors as well as foreign companies.


The party didn't get mentioned in the Wikipedia article I had read, so that qualifies them for that underdog quality and today I saw a poster for one member who is third on the list. Her name's Qortaba, she's got a degree in political science from Germany and looks cute enough.


And the post is continued on the day of the vote...


Sorry Qortaba, I'm not voting for someone that doesn't return a single Google result other than the one on her party's website especially if she's supposed to have studied in Germany because that's plain dodgy. Neither do I want to get a puzzled look when I tell people who I voted for. I'm succumbing to peer pressure and choose to vote for Allawi's list.


A couple days later...


I voted for Allawi :) No regrets so far. Did feel bad for not voting for the Ahrar party, I hope they do well and do better next time around. There's something that does get on my nerves. There are loads of people that didn't vote and if they didn't complain or care about the past four years about the country then that's fine but those that did, those that went on complaining about the state of things, they tick me off.


The way I see it, most of the people that didn't vote (about 40% of the electorate maybe) are those that are the most unhappy with the way things are whilst the guys that are voting for the punks that are pissing the unhappy abstainers as well me off are having fun knowing they're going to win.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Do Love a Good Steak

I spent the day trying to sort out my online existence because I can't seem to get the hang of social networking. Today's a been a try to get things in order, but so far it just looks like a bigger mess. I now have 5 e-mail addresses. The idea is that one e-mail address will be used for my blog and to communicate with friends on facebook and another for formal and family with another facebook account. Oh and of course there'll still be a need one for signing up to forums and other sites.

I was losing weight during the month of January, somehow my weight has bounced back up this month. Something I wouldn't know had I hadn't been playing Wii Fit. I ate so much when trying to quit cigarettes. I'm still upset that trip to the plantation messed that all up. There are still things that need to be taken care of there, such as getting all the socks that can't be found when in Baghdad.

My blog's pictures might disappear. Having changed the e-mail address to sign in with, if the other one is deleted the pictures might go along with the account. Not to worry, the pictures are backed up but it'll be a hassle to get them back on in the right places. Facebook, Picasa and Blogger are awfully hard to understand how to get to work together. There's a rising suspicion within me that they simply don't work together.

Went to Erbil with Od for a couple of nights and came back the day before yesterday. It was fun road tripping to there. We smoked up all the way up the highway to there. We'd wait till we pass checkpoints to spark up and several time we came up to another one before the joint was done. We stayed at my cousins', those two cousins are two big bags of crazy.

Od didn't get to see much of the town on this first visit of his, we spent our whole time in four places, the Speedway Center, Ain Kawa, Bakery & More and my cousins'. He liked the place a lot and during a brain storming session at Bakery & More we made a flowchart with his choices for the future ahead of him until he gets his immigration papers to move to the United States where his dear fiance is waiting for him. He's now considering moving up there to get a job.

My stash is nearly done and hopefully won't be replenished. Yes it's sad that it looks like it's coming to an end. but it's time for us to go our separate paths again and to long for the day that we meet again. It's the time apart that makes you realise you want it.

Today's Maz's birthday! That guy's been foaming on me since yesterday when he dragged me with him to the tire market. He took us to the airport to a little cabin restaurant run by an American. The food was good. Nais had a good steak, like the one Od had at the Speedway Center in Erbil. Iraqi restaurants are terrible at steaks, they're always too dry and taste like cardboard.

The weather's been great these past few days. It feels as though there's a gentle warm peace in the air which might be because it's a bit humid rather than the usual dry. It's only February however, and that can only mean that it's going to get hot even sooner this year.

I'm now going to go roll myself some of the stash that I had kept in a bottle of vodka to see if there's any goodness left in it after most of it should have been absorbed by the booze.

Sunday, February 07, 2010

At The Farm Again!

I'm here at the farm again. Hopefully this will be the last time for a long time. I've brought my new camera with me too. So hopefully, there'll be lots of pictures to post.


I was certain that I had things to mention here on this blog, but nothing's coming to mind right now. It's also been about two hours that I've had this page open to type something in it.

My visit here is limited to tying up some loose-ends that I've left behind and then I'll take back Nahida and Fozzy to Baghdad. I'll get Nahida to help me out sort out my junk.

Cigarettes are so boring. I should have brought my stash with me. I'm trying to quit smoking and so far I've doing pretty well, getting myself stuck at home without any lying around. Except that today, I find myself with a stockpile of cigarettes from my last visit.

My health's not doing so great. The other day, I took a generic Viagra gel thing and got myself a proper boner and not the half hearted kind that I have been getting of late. That was fun. Quitting cigarettes should help achieve the same effect. On the other hand, I've been eating like a pig and should watch out for diabetes.

Mentally, I'm doing alright. I'm not sure if I've got the patience to deal with farmer complaints tomorrow but hopefully I'll be able to deal with them using the repertoire developed over the time dealing with them.

I was supposed to figure out why I'm afraid to go back to the U.K.. In summary, the reasons are that I worry that I might not survive there, that my life there will be lonelier than the life I have here and that I probably will find it hard to secure a career considering my lack of skills and experience.

It's getting late and my phone's about to die.

Jobs In Baghdad

So I've been looking for a job and I've found a few links to job postings that might be useful to other Iraqis that have a good working knowledge in English and fluent Arabic (what I don't have).


American Embassy They seem to come up with new stuff every week. Busy people!

USAID: Assistance for Iraq Probably also worth checking regularly.

British Embassy in Baghdad... I haven't seen anything posted here, but who knows maybe someday.


If I come across others I'll try to remember posting them up and if anyone has any suggestions feel free to leave them in the comments section.