Lazy Lane

There's a lost feeling in every one of us isn't there? A little something that yearns to come back to the place it came from. And how I wish I could grab it, to re-aquaint myself with it. To learn what it is that I had lost. The little things that just got away, slipped out of my hands and got lost like particles in a rushing stream of water.

I get the impression that there are parts of me that I've left behind me. Parts that might of taken another route through the parallel dimensions in which co-exist. I feel incomplete. I think of trying to remember the person that I was, to reach out at the person that I was so that I might pull and drag that person to the present.

I'd ask that person to take a look around at how the world has become for myself and the world itself. I'd want it to tell me it's reaction to it all. Maybe it'd share the blame, maybe it wouldn't. Would it make a difference?

I could've seen the world anyway I'd chosen. But I chose to see the world as such, whether by consicous choice or by the composition of who I am. Do I dare take my own will into my own hands? I don't believe so. I've let the random possess me. And the random has led me to even more improbable realities.

My treads and stumbles have led me to a show of the worst turn of events. Yet it could be worst. But yet I keep keep my eyes shut and so I continue to stumble. With my eyes closed I hope to see something beyond that which is under my nose and in my face. And I don't know if there's anything there to see in the darkness that I've created for myself. I progessively detach myself from the corporeal world and even of my own self, I turn blank. Everyday I shoot blanks in my head.

And I kiss myself to sleep every night. My nights are without dreams. If once I was connected to an astral plain, I know that I've lost that too. My mind now works in loops of the lowest common denominator and so my soul has forsaken my mind. But I dream that my soul could someday take me over someday. But I know not how it would lead to that or what to expect should it happen.

But dreams are something to live for and not something to realise. For what would be the point of life after one has fulfilled one's own dream?

The Lost Essense Of Sausage

I've lost the Essence of Sausage a long time ago. The Essence of Sausage a wisdom of yore. Unfortunately I forgot the whole mechanism of the philosophy. Surely if I could remember it, I wouldn't be in the fix I'm in now.

Now if only I could grab just a tenth of the mind that I had 10 years ago. I was a smart person with issues back then, now I'm a burnout with issues.

Need A Longer UTP Cable

The noise of the generator upstairs is drilling through my skull. I hope they haven't got it on for my sake. Feeling lethargic.

I'm supposed to leave soon, but I don't know what day I'm flying out. I have to wait for Fozzy to show up to hand me and explain me some accounts and cost calculations so that I can then pass them onto my dad. I'm pretty sure I can do the handling. The understanding I believe is a hopeless case, but I'll try. I hate the farm.

I thought I was going to be pressed for time to sort my things out prior to my departure. I had designs to clean my sort my stuff too. I'm not feeling pressed at all and those designs they can wait till next year. I got lots of things to do on Sunday. I need to go see a dentist to clean up my cigarette and tea stained teeth.

Maybe it's the heat getting to me. I don't know but something in my head feels wrong. I just can't put my finger on it and it's wrecking my nerves. It's like I'm feeling symptoms of depression but I don't feel depressed. I'll admit one thing: I've got a disturbing urge to wank these days.

Or maybe I'm feeling a lack of purpose since college is over for the summer. It's times like these the thoughts about how much of a failure I am are more prone to arise in my head. Might need to develop a new counter thought pattern against that.

If there's one thing I know that won't be disappointing when I get home in the UK, it would be a good night's sleep. A temperate climate, a comfortable bed, an open window and the sound of wind blowing through the trees. I just need to omit the image of a joint in that picture. I wonder how long I'll be able to control myself against smoking a joint when I get there and who'll be the one to pass it to me? A friend or a stranger?

And I forgot to get some herbal tea from the shops again today. Ah well it's off to bed again after another another inconclusive day.

Got Soap!

Been out of a soap for a week. A couple days ago I finally went out to get some and the cashier forgot to sac it. Couldn't be bothered to back to the shop till today (and it's only a 10 minute walk away). The cashier had my soap set aside and handed it to me. I can now look forward to putting an end to the strong odour emanating from my balls sack. But my laziness came at : I've got an acme excreting lump on the inside of my thigh.

I had one of these a couple of years ago. It would come and subside and reappear in a new place. So I eventually decided I need some medical help. Fozzy (Nahida's husband) recommended a doctor he knew, so we went to him. But the doctor was abroad and his apprentice was in charge. I was well eager to put an end to the zit that had made walking difficult. The young doctor gave me two options: antibiotics or a little on the spot surgery. I chose the on the spot surgery. And oh my gosh did that hurt.

He injected the area with painkillers but they weren't that effective cause it still hurt when he start cutting up my thigh and then squeezed everything out and it seemed to me that he was carving out the flesh out. But it put an end to it.

I don't really know why I told that story. Yeah well it's there now.

I'm extremely bored these days. So bored I actually enjoyed visiting my aunt for lunch. I got my missing handout from Sav today. My mum wanted some money and some papers from some relative of hers. I went to visit them and ended up with no money or papers but I stuck around and just chatted with them.

I'm not in the mood of using my anti-boredom activities. Don't know why. I've got so many little activities I could do at home. I'm not feeling myself these days. I don't know what's up with me.

I Think It's A Good Time To Pour Myself A Drink

Going to save the beer for another time and I think the time is ripe for some whiskey.

From time to time I do like to have fun with a post. Ofcourse the inspiration ain't so always readily available. My balls stink, but that's not inspirational enough. I think I've gone into social destructive mode. I'm acting really pissy towards alot of people these days. My stomach in turn got pissy with me when I fed it noodles. How dare you feed me such cheap food it cried at me. There's no love put into food that takes 3 minutes to cook that's for sure.

So I'm planning to leave to the UK and come back sometime in October. It'll be the longest stretch of time that I've been away from Iraq since 2002. Which makes me wonder what Baghdad will be like in 3 months time. I remember leaving for just a month and returning suprised to find the city a ghost town on my arrival around 9 in the evening. People that don't know me so well find it hard to believe that I will be coming back. I sincerely hope that I do come back.

I wonder if my psoriasis will flare up in the UK. I wonder if I'll start smoking copious amounts of ganja which I hope I don't. I wouldn't mind doing some ecstasy or maybe even LSD, mushrooms would be a treat (I've never tried those).

But I really want to get creative with this post. Posting has become such a routine task it's harder and harder to get creative. I don't even bother to mention alot of the funky things I see anymore. Like a couple of days ago I saw a cab driver try to run over a traffic warden who then chased him down the street firing rounds in the sky. If I were that traffic warden I would've shot at the car. But there were probably innocent passengers in the car. I always regret my inaction in such situations. I could've got the traffic warden in my car and helped chase the cab driver. That would've been fun but could've led to damage to my pile of junk car.

But mentioning stuff like that isn't being creative. Now that post about alcohol being lawfully banned and the social changes that it could ensue, that was kind of fun.

Need to go pour myself another drink.

Something cool happened today. I played a note on my guitar and it reminded me of the first note of a Red Hot Chilli Pepper song. It turned out to be an E and the song was was 'Otherside'. A song which I remember watching that video alot when I was in Lebanon sitting in that internet cafe where Remy and Logan had befriended the chick that worked there. We'd spend our days there using the internet for free and had control of the remote control.

I've given up on getting creative, this is just turning out to be a nostalgic post. But this is a good time to look back at the past year. Since this is of sorts the end of a little chapter of my life.

Have I changed much during the past year? I think I've become alot more stable mentally. And my Arabic has improved immensely at the cost of my English. I've gained the respect of the natives at college, something which I hadn't achieved in the first year.

I drink whiskey too fast, need to pour myself another. And no I'm not an alcholic. There just happens to be any bars here for me to meet up with a bunch of guys and girls.

I had Nahida turn off the generator. I hope the power comes back before I run out of charge.

What Would You Ask For From Iraq?

I'm pretty bored right now. The house is awfully quiet since Angus and Sav have left. The effect of the 3 beers I've drunk during the early evening is wearing off. Now looks like a good time to go to sleep. What a lousy day. I didn't get much of tidying up done today. But I did get a bit done. Other than that it was a wasted day. And I wasted 5 bucks calling Dina. 5 bucks! What a waste! Avoiding mistakes is pretty hard when drunk.

Just a couple minutes ago I was thinking to myself that today wasn't too hot and that I could maybe go to sleep without any airconditioning, and now I'm sweating.

I wonder if I should try getting some fuel tomorrow. Do I really need to bother? I could do without it. And I need to go return that bleeding wireless router. I really ought to go get fuel. Angus told me there's a petrol station in his neighbourhood that has a short queue cause it's priced at 300 Dinars a litre. I'd go there but I've got no clue where exactly it is, nor do I have any bearings when I'm in that neighbourhood.

I feel sick. I'm regretting drinking those beers now. I feel like poo poo right now. Tired, slightly nauseous, sweaty, and just well pissy.

So much for travelling light, my family in the UK is asking me to bring them all sorts of stuff. What's up with that? I'd of thought that there was nothing worth bringing from Iraq, but these folk can't stop thinking of things. The things they're asking me for is getting ridiculous. The latest is kurdish costumes for my nephews. We're not Kurdish for crying out loud! And they tell me not to bring anything of my own. I'm still going to have to bring an extra suit case to carry all the stuff they ask for.

When I was living abroad the only thing that I'd ask for from Iraq was date syrup and tahina (sesame seed puree or something of the sort). They better not make a habit of this or even better I should make it a habit to not visit them. I was considering visiting K in London instead of visiting them in the UK. But now I'm bogged down with this super-sized suitcase full of junk. The idea of saying the luggage got lost is so tempting.

Damn electricity came from 10 PM to 11 PM and didn't get enough time to charge the laptop. How gay is that!

Dreaded Conversation

Just had that dreaded conversation with Suzy over the phone. And so finally got the answer got the answer to what our relationship is, but it had a Pandora's box kind of effect. It's both our fault that we've avoided the matter for so long. So I don't love her but consider her a great friend, she on the other hand actually did grow attached to me.

Now this wouldn't be much of a problem in a normal world and it isn't really a problem for me. But the deal is that everybody thinks that we're boyfriend/girlfriend. And when we stop hanging out together next year, it's going to have negative repercussions on her. People might say that I duped her. Oh and she's been telling her close friends that she loves, and now that I think about it, why hasn't she told me.

She did once send me a SMS message that said something like "100% complete, you're fully loaded onto my heart". The day after she sent it, she asked me what I thought of it, and I told her it was sweet.

I just called her Sandy and asked her to check up on Suzy. Sandy is her best-friend.

I really fucked up the conversation with Suzy at the end. She was still laughing until very close to the end. She says she's going to think about whether we can be friends next year and that she'll give me an answer next time we talk.

Most Pointless Purchase In Iraq

The most pointless purchase in Iraq would be a mains powered alarm clock.

Started gathering all my notes to find that I left the risk management handout in one of the guy's cars. Called Angus who told me it was in Sav's car. Which should be right. I hope it's still there. It would be really awful if I failed the course and not have my highlighted handbook with my little translations scribled in the margins.

As I was waking up today, I caught myself revising some material in my head. I'm hating the knowledge that I'm leaving in a few days and that I've got to tidy up my stuff before I go. I ought to try and visit my aunt on Friday. I promised that I'll continue visiting her after my mum left and I didn't probably not even once. And she only lives 5 minutes away from me.

Yesterday I bought the Linksys wireless router WRT54-G. They didn't have any in stock, but I took one that was returned because it didn't work. I'll have to take it back, because it didn't work with me either. And it turned out to be version 5 and not version 3 (which is the cool one).

I really need to tidy up this mess in front of me.

Finals Are Done

Woohoo! I'm done with my finals, and my life is productive again. I got a bunch of things done today and I'm knackered. Glad the exams are over. I'm getting closer to leaving. On one hand I'm looking forward to leaving Baghdad, on the other I'm dreading going to the UK. I hate travelling and I hate adapting to new environments. One would think I'm good at it, but I'm not.

My body is aching, I need to crawl into bed, dream some dreams, and rest my knees.

There's Something In The Water

Been meaning to mention this for days... Know how your skin wrinkles up when you go to the pool. It usually doesn't happen to me when I take a shower, well even if it did I didn't really notice. I remember it happening when I was a little kid. But anyway, I'm drifting off the subject... The last couple of times I took a shower, the wrinkly thing happened, but it was so painful. The big wrinkles on the inside of my palm were burning up. I thought there was something wrong with me and then forgot about it. But then Angus mentioned it happening to him. And then another friend of mine who lives in a different neighbourhood passed by yesterday and mentioned it happening to him, he also mentioned that the water felt oily (I didn't notice the oily thing myself).

Getting bRaInWaShEd

Damn that study partner of mine, Angus, who's feeding me nonsense into my head.

Too Hot To Sleep

I had a haircut today. For 8,500 Iraqi Dinars probably one of the most expensive I've ever had in Baghdad. I've been trying to go to sleep and even though the window is open there isn't even the most subtle of breezes. The back of my neck was burning up because the barber had used a cut-throat blade to clean all the bum-fluff of it.

I just called Hans up in Sweden it's been a long time since we've heard each other's voices. Within 24 minutes of conversation we hit so many subjects so fast. It was a very efficient phone call. There wasn't a moment of silence or need to go on for too long about any one topic. We spoke about prositutes and the willingness to give them a go, about the wasted self-governance of some part of Denmark, how it seems that every brain problem seems to have its roots from previous drug use, and how few healthy romantic relationships that we both knew which led to the realisation of how many insane people around us (of which I'm one).

The guys somehow have managed to go to sleep. A helicopter flew over the house and activated one of their car's car alarm. Running low on laptop battery. The damn electricity better hurry up. Tomorrow I've got my first final: Database. I don't need to do well on it. I just need a 10% on the test to pass the course. I love it that the passing mark is 50% instead of 60% here.

Me Dissolute?

7:30 AM Sav and Angus brought over some beer and a prostitute last night. An idea we're sure to regret today. All three are asleep right now. I'd love to go to sleep, but I want to make sure the girl leaves without nicking anything. I've been trying to wake her up for the past half hour but it ain't happening. We'll be regretting what we've done last night. What we seem to have failed to predict is that by sleeping late last night we'll be spending the day asleep. I'm not too worried about the finals myself. We've covered much more material over the past 3 days than I could've covered in a week maybe even two.

I was so glad to have a taste of beer. And enjoyed getting drunk too despite a couple of unfortunate accidents both of which involved broken glass. Was playing with my skipping-rope and knocked a glass shade off of a chandelier. I've picked up all the broken pieces of glass and have put them in a plastic bag which I'll give to one of the guys to put in the car. Hopefully nobody will notice the missing piece of the chandlier. A wet glass bottle of juice also slipped out of my hand and smashed on the floor as I was putting it back in the cool polyphylene cooler container thing in the kitchen that we were using to keep the beers cool with half a block of ice.

Cette experience était l'inverse du precedente avec Farah. Il ne y'avait pas de excitation préliminaire au debut de quoi en parler. Et j'ai duré. J'ai duré plus d'une demie heure! Au point au qu'elle commencait a plaindre. Elle a même essayé de me sucer le bit. J'ai fini en me frottant moi-même pendant que je léchais sa chatte. On est ensuite entrés dans le bain ou j'ai trouvé du dentifrice a manger. Plutard puisqu'on a tous couché avec la fille on a pu conclure qu'elle était très froide et une mauvaise baise.

...Well it's nearly 9 PM now. Everybody left and I'm wrapping this post up. I guess there's more to be told about last night, but I can't be bothered so I'll just continue with the events that followed after saving the above part of this post as a draft...

I had fallen asleep on my desk and I think the girl woke me up to tell me that she was ready to leave at around 8:30 AM. We kept a vigilant eye on all our valuables as she left and Angus drove her off to the main street. Sav stayed asleep and Angus tried to sleep but my guitar practise kept him awake. We then got Sav awake around about 10 AM and got our lahma b'ajeens for breakfast.

They spent the rest of the day studying Communications (the one class in English) and I fell asleep for an hour. I tried helping them but I couldn't do as good as a job they did when they taught me other subjects. I'll try to do better tomorrow. The guys decided to not sleep over tonight. I don't blame them my house is alot hotter during the night than it is during the day for some reason. But they'll be back tomorrow at the usual time of 10 AM.

Got Lahma B'Ajeen

Sav and Angus came over this morning at around 10 in the morning to start our time-exhausting preparations for our final exams that start in a week. I suggested that we go get ourselves some lahma b'ajeens. And guess what! We got some! Today was might've been my 5th attempt during the past month to get some (all previous attempts had failed). Like last friday when the lahma b'ajeen place closed early because they were refurbishing the restaurant.

Sav and Angus just left. We studied a net total of 6 hours! I'd never thought I was capable of such a feat. Now keeping it up for the next couple of weeks is going to be incredible. I think that once I get studying intensively I end up liking it.

Well now they're gone there's not much point in studying, and I'm feeling bored. I'm not hungry. The electricity comes for an hour every five or six hours. I think it's going to go out here in half an hour.

Ever since I've stopped downloading mp3s through torrents. I've been downloading porn from a german website. Well I've got to download something don't I! So far I've been pretty unlucky and not getting anything worthwhile. But a thought hit me last night: It really sucks to see someone else screwing a hot chick. Just watching someone getting some action and not getting any myself. It takes the piss.

After we got some take away for lunch today and were at a supermarket to buy some soft drinks, Farah called, she told me she needed some internet credit urgently because her sister-in-law or someone got killed or something(I didn't really bother to understand what the deal was).

It was awfully fortunate that I happened to be in the supermarket. I called her back on the number that she had called me on, and checked that it was Farah because I wasn't sure if I had recognized her voice the first time she called, told her that I was going to SMS her the top-up code and then did so. She sent me one back thanking me.

I wonder if she's planning to screw me again someday. Last time I had spoken to her she said that she was too caught up with things to meet up.

Missed My Test Today

I stayed up late last night, and woke up late today. I could've woken up earlier but figured that since the test was going to be at around mid-day I could stay in bed a couple hours extra. Then around about 9 in the morning Suzy called to tell me the test was in 15 minutes because the teacher said he was busy. Suzy said she'll try to have a word with the teacher regarding me and I got ready without getting in too much of a rush. Nahida wanted to tag along with me to go to the bank nearby my college but I couldn't be bothered to have her on my case throughout the cab ride so I had a go at her and told her to take her own cab.

The traffic on the way which usually takes about 45 minutes was really bad so about half way I asked the cab driver to turn around and drop me back home. On the way back Suzy called to tell me that they were about to start the test. I thought to myself that it was a good thing that I choose to go back, because I wouldn't of been able to make it anyway. Quantitative Techniques is one of the subjects that I've got a good mark in and have no worries about passing, so losing a few marks from my final average because of this test wasn't a problem.

So I get back home and I practise some progressions, listen to some audio lecture that's supposed to teach one how to distinguish notes and I fall back asleep. An hour after Souad's last call, some guy calls to tell me that they've just started the test. And at that moment I felt like I just lost a 50$ bet. But it was a calculated risk and after reminding myself that I needed the extra marks I felt better. The only thing I got worried about was whether the teacher postponed the test for my sake.

Suzy called after the test. She told me that Dick had spoken to the teacher and that the teacher agreed to give me the same mark I got in my last test. Dick just called a little while ago to make sure I stick to the story he gave the teacher. He told the teacher that a mortar fell near my home and that was why I couldn't make it. I've got no clue how I'm going to repeat such a bad lie to my teacher. The trouble is that it seems like the teacher did indeed deem it a feasible excuse. But then again he's not the kind of teacher that would bother arguing.

Sweat Levels Are Reasonable

Got home and within minutes the electricity came on. Nothing could be more sublime than that. It didn't take long for it to go off again. And I'm sweating gently now. I'm waiting for a couple of guys from my class to show up now. We're going to study quantitation methods (I think that's what it's called in English, oh no I think it's called quantitative techniques). Anyway it's pretty easy for me considering since it's a mathematic study with little Arabic.

After initially wanting to have a relationship with Suzy no matter how lame and then having some confusion of where we stood towards each other and then eventually just getting sick of the whole deal yet aware of how dependent I am towards her in regards to my studies, I think I can confidently say that things between Suzy and I are just plain friendly. The conclusion came when how comfortable she acted when I suggested that I had a fancy for some girl that I've never spoken but just think that is pretty. Suzy started teasing me by trying to convince me to go walk up to the girl with her, so that she may introduce me to her.

Well it's past midnight now. The guys came and we studied for a couple of hours. I've spent the rest of the night mucking about on my laptop. My satellite receiver got reparied a couple of days ago, and I still haven't sat down to watch it. I miss TV. As a young kid I used to spend way too much time watching television. But the tellie I saw growing up in the UK and France was great, learnt plenty of stuff. Even when I was in Lebanon I remember watching biology documentarys at 3 in the morning that would have information about the stuff I was studying at school.

Nice Weather For May

The weather was nice today. It was very cloudy. It felt good to sleep without gushing sweat. I should've studied risk managment this week-end. The electricity has improved a little bit today. I'm not in the mood of posting. I want to get off my computer, sit on the couch and strum the guitar. I think my risk managment material is in the car. I should go get it.

Sweaty Afternoon

I'm sweating. My laptop is hot. I've waited over half an hour for my mug of tea to cool down. I'm looking at it, asking myself if I should check it. I check it. The mug is hot, but the tea is drinkable. I don't really have anything to do right now. I was hoping to go to Fal's but he's probably asleep since he's not answering his phone. I'm smoking too much. I stretch my back and think that I ought to change my laptop setup. I spend 10 seconds rubbing my right eye. I look around me and think nothing. Upstairs the generator is making it's regular noisy hum, the sound alternates if I pay attention, and Nahida's sister is compelled to raise her voice to talk. All the curtains are shut, but the sensation of a shaded room is missing. The tea doesn't taste great, but when I'm sweating this much it doesn't make much sense to me to get picky over what I drink as long as it doesn't aggravate a sense of thirst. I drink even if I'm not thirsty. I just drink. Take a deep breath and blow. Swipe some sweat off of my forehead. A thought goes through my head and is quickly forgotten. Setting up a net to catch the next one. I lost the sheet of paper on which I've marked all my expenses for the past couple of weeks. When I realised that this morning it made me quite angry. Maybe it's in my college folder. Called India a little earlier, he couldn't speak because he was at work. I want some honey in my tea next time. Bro interrupts me to say "hi". I'm building up motive to start using the 'invisible' function of Yahoo Messenger, or perhaps at least give the 'busy' status a try. All my bro has said so far was "hi". He's at the shop, where I hope I'll be working during the summer. I wonder if I could get a better or different job if I tried. He tells me that Mike's finally got a new job. Mike's been working/wasting his life in the shop for at least 5 years. He's become a nurse I think. I've run out of cigarettes, I yell for some so that Nahida can throw me a pack from upstairs, but she doesn't hear me.

Is You Spillin'?

I can't wait to get out of here for the summer. I'm worried that I might be building up my expectations. But I honestly can't imagine it being that bad. I'm pretty certain that I'm going to regret however I decide to spend my money during the vacation, but that's not a reason not to spend money is it.

I'm really not ready for my finals. I'm not ready to study. I've had enough. These scholastic years are too long. I need to find a way to unwind before the exams start. I recently realised that it's been a while since I've had a drink so I've been keeping my eye out for the alky store the past couple of days, and it's always closed! Just when I could need it the most and this time I've got no clue why.

I'm so tired of getting tired, and without alcohol it's a real drag. I remember that after a long shift running late into the night at my brother's corner shop I'd get myself a bottle of wine to unwind before going to bed. That's what I need now, but I can't have it. This just isn't right.

My ISP has bottlenecked the connection down to 17 KB/sec, and downloading torrents seems pretty useless right now. My Yahoo messenger disconnects when I download a file from Google Video.

I miss watching the tellie too. My downstairs satellite receiver still doesn't work. Not that there's anything good on TV anyway. But the passive absorption of media would be quite welcomed right now.

My psoriasis is flaring up. I think I remember one doc said that it's supposed to get better in the summer, but that doesn't seem to be the case with me. Which reminds me that I still need to get a filling for one of my teeth. And I've still got to check out what the deal is with my blood.

I fell asleep in one of my classes today, got no clue why I was so sleepy. I had spent all the afternoon asleep yesterday and I managed to get a few hours sleep in the night too. I ought to go to sleep early tonight.

Recently I've caught myself on the verge of spilling stuff on myself. But today I finally did it. While I was walking towards my car with a can of diet Coke and a Magnum biscuity ice cream in the same hand and reaching for the car key in my pocket with the other hand, I took a bite out of the ice cream and spilt the diet Coke on my shirt. Fortunately it was so hot it took just minutes to dry off.

So I had thought that I had the urge to spill something on myself had been satisfied. But I proved myself wrong. Later today, I had in my hands a couple of small glass bottles of Fanta and a textbook. I had left the window of my car partially open to not let the hot air cook inside. So instead of reaching for the key in my pocket, I decided to slid the textbook through, so as I tilted the book to fit it through I also tilted one of the bottles and spilt Fanta on my shirt.

Okay so I'm chatting to some Iraqi girl right now and she just told me that her friend quit her job because her boss was hitting on her. No big deal there. But what I find interesting is when a few months back I cited reporting a case of sexual harrassment as an example of cross-departmental communication in an organization in a Communications test at college the teacher left a remark saying that it was "inappropriate in this country" [to answer a question like that].

Oh my God is Suzy boring to chat to on-line. I rue the night that I taught her how to install Yahoo Messenger.

Sticky Me

I'm feeling sticky. I need to take a shower.

Yesterday was a big day in India's life. He finally did his master's thesis presentation. Something that's been delayed for more than a year maybe even two years. It went surprisingly well and he even got a 'very good' mark. He said he was very fortunate when after he made his 15 minute presentation the professors that were supposed to ask him questions (the tough part) ended up answering each other's questions. This was because India's project was an amalgamation of two different subjects and the teachers answered the questions that dealt with their own field.

I was surprised to find myself really happy for him. I'm also glad that I won't have to hear him whine about his thesis anymore. As is custom, India took us out for lunch and we had a sleep over at Kala's house. We brought our laptops to Kala's house and networked to play Quake 3 and Medal of Honour. We played for a while, but most of us had had little sleep the night before, so we slept a lot earlier than we usually do during a sleep over.

Today was a quiet day. We left Nais's house and went to get some Lahma B'Ajeen to eat. But the place was closing up. They told us they close early on Friday's. Just my luck with Lahma B'Ajeens. We then chose to go home, India came with me to upload some e-mail attachments and to pick some torrents for me to download.

I wonder what will I do tonight. Remy tells me that he's been practicing the guitar a lot. Making me feel that I ought to do the same too. All I've been doing is practicing a few open chords that I still can't switch through smoothly. He's looking for a new job since he got fired for his unkempt appearance despite being the best at what he does. He's Lebanese and lives in Ottawa so if you want a hire a hard working and don't mind him being unkempt, he's the man for the job.

I just remembered recently hearing that the dirty tap water that's available here is good for you in the sense that it builds tolerance against all the bad stuff that's in it. And that if someone who hadn't built up that tolerance is suddenly exposed to those prevalent bad microbes and stuff then that person's body will not be ready to fight it off. Now how about marketing dirty bottled water. It'd have all those bad organisms minus the heavy metals and other such dirt. It'd be bottled water for a stronger immunity system. And instead of advertising the altitude and location of a mountain source advertised a sewage drainage point could be designated instead.

I'm hearing the same problem about the tap water here as the one I heard when I was in Lebanon. The problem being that the pipes with the clean water and the pipes with the black water are cracked and the two are mixing together. Joy oh joy, having been to two such countries I must have a really good immunity system. But of course the far east is where the true challenge lies. I must go there and face the challenge someday.

I hate chewing gum. Not only do I hate chewing gum, but I hate those that chew it and then throw their chewing on the ground. Twice this week I've had chewing gum get stuck on my shoes. And I'm sick of it. It seems nobody appreciated putting the gum in a little piece of paper before throwing it away. Come to think of it I rarely do if I'm outdoors, but I don't chew gum that often. The kids at college for example don't seem to have broken out of the habit of chewing gum like school kids. There's always one with gum in my class. Kids at college ask for two things from each other chewing gum and tissues. They never use the tissues to wipe their noses, instead they use them to wipe their shoes or to wipe off the dust off the chairs before they sit on them. And it seems that a lot of times they wipe the chairs even if they don't need to be wiped. Unlike chewing gum, there doesn't always seem to be someone with tissues.

We've got two more weeks of classes and weekly exams before prep time for the finals. I hope I pass.

I bought Photoshop CS for Dummies yesterday when I met up with the guys at Sana'a street yesterday before catching up with India at his university. I've always wanted to learn how to use Photoshop ever since I had that awful computer in Lebanon. That was back in 1997. Well I've given up figuring it out by myself more times than I've tried. But by finally buying a book I think I'm on the right track for the first time. But I'm not going to start yet, I've got my finals that I should take care of first.

I don't want to study. But there's a silent voice in my head that says I should. It's a good thing it's silent.

I Hate Afternoon Naps

I just had an afternoon nap. The most significant difference between a normal nap and the afternoon type is that when I wake up from a normal nap I feel refreshed and when I wake up from a afternoon nap I feel like somebody has snuck a brick in my head.

I think the mistake I made earlier was to play the guitar in the toilet (good accoustics in there!). There are odd things that have had the ability to make me sleepy. The first of these was Radiohead's OK Computer album, when I first had that album I would not be able to stay awake throughout the first side of listening that tape. Playing games on my Nintendo DS also has also had that same effect especially when playing WarioWare. And now the guitar can knock me out too.

I'm hungry, I could take the car out or even walk to get some food from the local posh grocery store. But I'm too lazy. Where's my phone? Some classmate that lives near my house was supposed to drop by so that we study quantitative techniques.

Found the phone, now I bought a mobile phone top-up card yesterday and I can't find that. I wonder where the hell it's gone. I hope it didn't fall underneath the car seats. There's too much stuff underneath those seats (Empty cans of Diet Coca-Cola and little bottles of mineral water). All that stuff must not be good for the motorised seat adjusters. Well I've given up hope on looking for that top-up card, but first I'll take a better look at the car.

After rummaging through 6 little bottles of mineral water (3 of which were still half-full), an empty can of soda and diet Coca-Cola, an empty bottle of Gatorade, a bunch of cigarette wrappers and unused tissues, I found the bleeding top-up card.

I asked Nahida for some fries a bit earlier, she just told me that we've both run out of gaz for the cookers. Over here we use those horrible gaz canisters, which she tells me now cost 10 bucks each as compared to 3 bucks a few months ago. And those are the prices from the annoying guy that drives a wagon around yelling "GAZ GAZ!" while drumming on something metallic. It should be even cheaper if you get it from the gas station but that involves a long queue and the inconvenience of transporting it back home. And in all cases a ration ticket is used.

Screw those canisters, I'll get her to cook for me using the electric stove. Just need to wait for some electricity then. I wonder when that'll come back (Imagining waiting for a very long time). And I was planning to make some molten cheese and meat rolls out of lebanese bread when the electricity comes back. If I get really hungry, there's always tuna to be eaten. I love these tuna in packets that the local posh grocery store has been stocking recently. The tuna is one of those things that were brought to Iraq to be sold in AAFES (I think that's how it's spelt) stores in US bases. I'm not really sure how these AAFES things find their way into local Iraqi stores.

And the electricity just came back. Nicely! I'll be eating some fries soon. I'm going to make those sandwiches.

Drowsy Afternoons

That bleeding commerical law exam got postponed yet again. The teacher didn't show up this time. It's really taking the mickey. Tomorrow I've got quantative techniques, my second easiest subject. It's the ones with math or English that I need not worry about, and this one has both.

The weather is nice today, a little rain drizzled twice. This spring is remarkably cooler than previous ones. Looking back, last winter was remarkably warmer than previous ones too. I'm considering changing my stance on global warming if it means the weather in Iraq would get better.

I've given up on the idea of getting a guitar tutor for now. I'll get one when I come back from my summer vacation. I've got a keyboard back in the UK, could mess with that while I'm there. I wonder if there are piano tabs on the net. In the mean time, I'm learning chords and how to switch from one to another. Having a little trouble going from A to G right now.

When I was at that restaurant a couple days ago I discovered one of the benefits of playing guitar. The callouses that developed on my finger tips have made holding a hot little glass of tea easier. It's not perfect since I don't have any callouses on my thumb. But I thought it was pretty cool anyway.

Plugging my electro-accoustic guitar to my laptop doesn't seem to really work, I ought to fix my old pc which has a Creative sound card and get a better plug adapter for the guitar.

All of a sudden I'm really drowsy. I hate taking afternoon naps. But right now I'm very tempted. Maybe I just need to lie down.

Tea Makes Me Happy

I don't know what I'm doing to myself these days. Last night I slept at 5 AM and woke up 3 hours later to go to college. And I get home over 12 hours later. I'm definitely not going to stay up late tonight, even though I've got no class tomorrow. Yes! No way am I staying up late tonight I say with a decreasing sense of confidence.

I've been going on about my new wireless internet connection for a while now. So to keep it simple this time: I'm downloading alot of music late at night so as to not piss off my provider.

I'm losing a grasp over myself of late. Spending so much time outside of home and when I do get home I spend hours on the internet leaving me with very little time for reflection. I could argue that's a good thing by saying something like it leaves me less time to dwell on all the depressing thoughts one could have when left with nothing to do.

The heat is becoming unbearable, was quite fortunate to have a sandstorm late in the day to cool things down. I have to leave for the summer. The electricity is terrible, something like one hour for every 10 hours of electricity. Petrol queues are also verging on the unbearable, took me about hour to fill up my car a few days ago.

Kiki's birthday was yesterday, had no clue about that. I ought to add that to some on-line calender. I'm planning to transfer my short birthday list from the Yahoo calender to the Google one. I like Google, too bad Microsoft is going to give it to them. Quite amazing how Microsoft relies on the incompetence of it's clients to keep an advantage edge over competition.

Today I had lunch at a restaurant that I had never been to before, it was more traditional than the ones that I'm used to going to. They served yogourt drink in big tin cups which was awfully good, the kebab on the other hand wasn't so good.

While I was waiting for my tea to arrive the waiter threw a remark with a sprinkle of scorn that translated word for word would be: "You're in a different world". At first I thought he was referring to how drowsy I was and so I replied that I hadn't slept last night he quickly retorted that neither had he. Obviously I got the message wrong the first time.

I imagine something unusual does emanate from me, maybe it's my emancipation of current events or maybe I don't have those eyes that tell the same story of a lifetime of suffering that nearly all Iraqis share.

Need more tea.

Another Long Day

It seems to be the case that every time I can take out the car to drive (which is every other day) I end up coming back home at around 7 in the evening which is relatively late especially if you left home around 7 in the morning. I wonder how many hours I spend driving on days like these. I think I must've drove at least 3 hours today. That's alot of wasted time.

So today I went to college, I only had one class which is a piss take considering the one hour of traffic to get to college involves. One hour driving through horrible traffic to attend a half hour of class of Marketing. We used to have another class on Wednesdays but the teacher ran off to the UK a couple of weeks ago and I think she's planning to stay there. I did ask the teacher to change the schedule and she said she'll speak to the dean of the department.

I spent the rest of my time at college acting like a kid infront of Suzy and her friends. I picked round buds from a plant and tried lobbing them into the shirt pocket of her friend.

At around 2 PM Ennie and I left to go to his house so that he could pick up some money and then we went to Sana'a Street so he could buy a hard disk and I could pick up my repaired UPS. And I'm glad to say that I'm using it right now and it's working wonderfully. The guys at the shop even got that annoying buzzer removed for me. I'm so happy. Now I can use the internet with no electricity at all for at least an hour and a half.

We then spent an hour in his neighbourhood looking for some food for me lahma b'ajeen ('meat on bread' looks kind of like a very thin pizza), restaurants. There were 3 of them, and all of them were open but weren't cooking any. It was like some conspiracy, we got to another restaurant that we had lunch at the last time I was over and they had just closed! We drove back to his and realised that one of the lahma b'ajeen places said they'd be cooking by now. So we drove back, and the dude who was supposed to bring the gas to run the oven hadn't got back yet. Driving around in this guy's neighbourhood is a real pain in the ass because of all the potholes in the side alleys.

Ennie's mum wound up feeding me felafels and kebab, and Ennie taught me what was left of the commercial law material for tomorrow's exam. I'm actually suprised we got round to doing it And then I drove home completely knackered.

Farah's back in town, just chatted to her. I wonder how soon I'll be seeing her again. And the UPS is working wonderfully.

The weather has become suddenly alot hotter over the past couple days. It's uncomfortable. A little stroll can lead to alot of sweating. The electricity has also become alot worse since the change in weather. Nahida has chucked a bunch of food out of the freezers into the bin.

Last week-end I accidently shaved my goatie off. Ever since I've been getting remarks about it being missing. It's sacreligous to shave off your moustache or beard here. Well I think it's finally grown back enough to put an end to the madness.

Remy's teaching me how to play blues guitar yesterday he taught me to play a 12 bar blues 1-4-5 progression, today he gave me different chords to play it with. Not being as well acquainted with blues as he is, I'm having to download a Muddy Waters album. I'm still taking too much time switching chords, but I do see myself improving.

Got A New Wireless Connection

And it's going great. There was a palm tree in the way of my grid so the dudes spent a half hour setting up my gird on a long piece of wood so that I could get a decent connection unfortunately they couldn't rotate the grid in the exact direction because of the square nature of the wood. But it's working pretty well. I'll have to get a pipe installed on my roof to improve reception and to use as a durable solution since that piece of wood isn't very well secured. Now to try posting on my blog...

No More Wireless... For Now

Well of the three things I wanted to do today. I got two done. I e-mailed my bro's pics and I discontinued my subscription to my non-blogger-friendly wireless ISP. I did go to Enie's but I couldn't be bothered to study. Next time I should have breakfast and not get to his house hungry. Maybe it'd be better if I got to his after lunch. Well I'll be off to his house on Wednesday. But oh my god does he like to spend time hanging out at college. Well I could go pick up my UPS and come back to college I guess. My UPS better be fixed by then. I forgot that I'll need my UPS to set up a new wireless connection.

Posting Can Be Hard

I've been having trouble posting and editing using my wireless ISP lately. So this is going to be a final test before I choose to switch ISP. Should've had tried out a different ISP ahead of time.

Not much going on.

Did okay on my risk managment test today. Alot of classmates screwed up one of the questions and provided the wrong answer. It's funny cause all of them made the same mistake of trying to write down the '13 rules' of fire insurance (an impossible task) instead of the 3 factors of risk (dead easy). Suzy was the one who walked me through the material for this test. She's a really smart girl.

And I got lucky with cab fares today too. I usually pay 5,000 dinars (just over 3 bucks) to go or come back from college. I got a ride to college for 4,000 dinars and 3,000 dinars on the way back, and without haggling too.

I'm getting pissed off that that classmate with whom I'm supposed to start guitar lessons hasn't called any of the teachers up so that we could start. I'm thinking that I might have to do it myself along with Miz a guy I know through India who's been waiting for someone to take lessons with him.

Spoke to Dad over the phone last night. He gave me a lecture about how the accounts should be done and that I should call up Fozzy at the end of every month to find out the expenses accumulated at the end of the month. When it comes to business my dad gives good advice unlike he does in other walks of life. He also told me he's planning to buy a PC. My dad is the kind of man that can't operate a TV, so I'm left to wonder how in the world he's going to operate a PC.

Was too tired to go to the internet cafe and send the pics of my bro's house under-construction to my bro. I might as well try to send the pics through Picasa. I've got to go Ennie's place tomorrow morning so he can finish teaching me the material for the commercial law test. And I should send those pics in case Picasa fails.

I don't know if I've mentioned this before but it's really not me to be getting stressed out about exams and stuff. But it seems that if I have any chance to leave for the summer I can't fail college and get stuck here to do re-tests and a summer course which I think I've heard being mentioned.

I keep forgetting to mention that Nahida's bro has finally been released from US custody. I was suprised to find him in good health and good spirits. He's spent over a year held up. I'm glad he's back, it means I can finally maybe get a new car or just at least fix up the one I got. He's a very important part of my Nahida support network and it's been a nuisance not having him about. Aside from that he's a real nice guy, always excited about everything and very lively.

I'm really tired I'm going to bed soon. Oh crap posting still doesn't work with my wireless ISP... just going to have to rely on the ever so unreliable modem connection.

I just caught the end of an Iraqi show on the telly with people calling in to talk about internet chat rooms. I didn't catch what an Iraqi girl had to say about on-line relationships between boys and girls, but the rest of the callers seemed not to have had any experience with on-line chatting but expressed disapproval of it anyway.

One woman complained that it creates problems between married couples when the wife catches her husband chatting to women, a man complained that it's wasting the money of the parents of teenagers, and another man described the internet as something that could be used in a good way and a wrong way.

I wish I caught the show from the beginning. It seemed pretty interesting to me, angry adults complaining about the corruption of their youth taking place in front of their eyes.

Still trying to get this post up... giving up on posting using modem. I once managed to sneak in a post before my ISP could screw me up. Not working so far. So after spending maybe over an hour to post I think I'm finally going to do it. I got a nice modem connection working here. So here it goes...

Up At Night Again

I'm so bored right now. I'm having a bad time using Azureus to download torrents. My anti-virus program might be blocking it, it's been giving me warnings. So I've de-activated it for now. So either Azureus will work better or I'll get hit with a virus. It's lame to even try to download stuff with the connection I've got. But after three days I did download a whole Blur album, I just made the mistake of downloading one of the crappy ones. The gimmick should work better when I get that UPS back. Takes the piss to be able to seed for others but not to leech back. If I was coming close to my upload limit that might of been a problem. I don't really know what my upload limit is from my ISP.

I've got some port problem too. Mar might be able to fix that since he works in a company that provides internet to internet providers. He's invited me to come over to his office and slap on my list of requested torrents there.

I've been going to the loo alot today. Don't know what's up with that. I think I'm just having trouble holding it in. I'm sleepy too. Eyelids are heavy. I wonder how I'd feel after letting a poo loose.

I'm going to go crawl into my bed with my guitar and strum randomly for a bit and fall asleep. Things to do tomorrow: Fuel the car, take pics of bro's house under-construction and study for Sunday's risk-management test.

Taguchi

Friday Morning, woke up during a dream about not having enough time. Looking back at yesterday, I'm still finding it hard to believe that all I ate was shawerma sandwich, and I'm still not hungry. I've been falling asleep with no trouble at all lately. The night before last, I just fell asleep sitting with my feet up on my couch.

Fortunatly the commercial law teacher didn't show up yesterday but did have my total quality management test. All the teacher gave us was two questions. And I had think I had most of the material down, except the subject relating to the first question (What's the Taguchi method, it's principles and shortcomings) which after speaking to the teacher I had understood wrong. I even cheated in the exam, and ever so blatantly. Fortunately I didn't catch the teachers glance of disapproval because that would've made me feel bad. But the friend from whom I was copying did. And he said it was funny. Unlike everybody else in the class, I'm not so discreet about cheating because of my lack of experience.

I spoke to the teacher after the exam, I told her I was worried about not being able to pass her subjects (total quality management and marketing). She seemed to be surprised that I was worried. And she basically said that she'll help me out with my grades. I also got her to explain me that Taguchi method stuff.

After that my database teacher wanted to have a word with me about my Arabic. She told me that while reading my enigmatic test paper, she didn't know whether to laugh or cry. My general excuse for not being able to learn Arabic, is that Arabic is bleeding hard language and the unavailability of any courses designed to teach Arabic as a second language anywhere in Iraq. But I can honestly say that I give it the effort that I should. The simplest thing I could do is read the newspaper, but I can't be bothered.

Okay I'm hungry now, I better get myself something simple to eat cause I should be having lunch with Od and his old school gang. And oh my god I've got a risk management test after tomorrow.

Before I Go To College

Don't have much to say. I couldn't be bothered to take a shower this morning so I've got a few extra minutes of free time before I go to college.

My motivation to study is awfully low. I went over to Enie's, one of my classmates, yesterday so that he'd teach me the material for tomorrow's commercial law test. We read through a couple of pages and then called Suzy to ask her something about the material. She told me that somebody said that the test got postponed. We called up different people, nobody seemed to have heard that the test did get postponed but everyone we had spoke to did want the test postponed. Well that was the last little push for me to not to bother studying.

I've been speaking to Enie about what's going on between Suzy and me. He's been under the impression that we're a couple. I myself don't know what Suzy and I are towards each other, certainly without any kind of physical relationship (i.e. I haven't even kissed her) it seems pretty hard for me to say that we are a couple. And then she sent me a generic sms message saying that I've been 'loaded into her heart'. At the time she had asked me what I thought of it, I replied that it was cute. Enie thinks that was my chance to crystallize the relationship.

When I ask her about us ever wanting to go out together to a restaurant or something even if it did include her brother and other friends, she tells me that she'd never. What's the point of a girlfriend if you can't spend a good time with her? Enie suggested that Suzy and I might have been wanting/expecting different things entering the relationship. Well wherever the two of us are in regards to each other I don't want to tamper with it until perhaps the end of the year.

I've also got a total quality management test tomorrow. Haven't been able to bother myself memorizing the material. I have to memorize it because I don't have the language skills to express in my own words. It would've been a piece of cake otherwise. So far all I've done is read through the material once. And there a few things that I didn't understand.

Dissolute Diarrhea

Shat on myself as I was waking up yesterday. Diarrhea. Freaked out this morning when I found out that I still had it. I went to a street where more than half of the shops were pharmacies to get some Imodium. It was nearly 9 O'Clock in the morning and every single one of them pharmacies were closed. Mobile phone shops and grocery shops were open, but god forbid that a pharmacist should get out of bed to open his store. It's like Fridays, pharmacies are closed on Fridays here too, where's the sense in that? Iraqis must obviously not get sick on Fridays. Well I did end up finding a pharmacy open in my own neighbourhood and luckily enough it had some Imodium.

Since I was incarcerated at home yesterday (because of the diarrhea), I spent most of the day practising on my guitar using on-line resources. I spent alot of time looking for something that I could find useful, eventually I ended settling for GuitarNoise.com. I copied some chords into a notebook and practised them. I also tried taking the lesson on how to play "Wish You Were Here" by Pink Floyd, but gave up because I couldn't figure out which way to strum.

So I got to college in time for the second period and didn't miss anything in the first period because it was used to give some of the students a chance to take a test they had missed during Easter. I'm so overwhelmed by all the material I ought to study by the end of the week. They don't give us alot but it's in Arabic and it takes me ages and ages for me to study something in Arabic. I'm not so confident about passing this year.

After college I dropped off my faulty UPS thingie for the second time, picked up some pizzas and went to see K. It's a shame I've only seen him once since he got here about a month ago, and he'll be leaving again in a week. We talked over a few games of poorly played pool. It's sneaky how K would tell the most important things about himself by the by. I think it was while we were talking about Tania (my junior-high crush) that he told me he's planning to marry that girl that lives in Germany he got to know on-line a couple or so years back. He's gone so far as to introduce the mothers.

Regarding Tania he had caught her on-line and began talking to her by congratulating her on her engagement as a joke, Tania responded with surprise by how he had known that she had indeed got engaged a couple of weeks ago. So yes she's really engaged. K suggested that my chances with her are therefore all over. But to see if I still had a chance, I made a test of fate based on whether I'd get the 8 ball by rebounding it on the opposite end of the table and into the corner pocket. I got the ball in, and therefore proved K wrong.

I've learnt two new words recently that were used to describe me: callous and dissolute. Hans called me callous without meaning it in a bad way and someone who read my blog called me dissolute. I recognize myself as being callous, I just didn't know the word. On the other hand, I'm still trying to deal with dissolute, I'd admit that I've proved to be dissolute on more than one occasion, but I don't enjoy being dissolute. I don't enjoy being callous also, but I don't mind being called callous. Being callous is something I've come to terms with a long time ago. So about being dissolute, I think I've got the choice of trying not to be dissolute or coming to terms that I am dissolute. I guess I'll be thinking about that...

I'm done thinking about it. I'd rather admit being dissolute than make any effort to not continue being dissolute, I just hope that life stops putting me in situations where I'm put to the test.

Grumpy Mornings

During the last week I bought a guitar. A classmate and I are planning to take lessons together. I've got no musical talent whatsoever but I'm up for anything to kill time. A couple days ago a computer virus that I had got bad enough for me to spend a whole day to get rid of it. Interestingly I wasn't the only one infected by it, a couple of friends and an internet cafe had been hit by it too. If you happen to have problems downloading files, computer restarts, your folder options are missing and can't edit your registry you might have the same worm. So here's a link for the Brontok Worm fix.

Nahida has been unbearably annoying lately. Just now she asked me if I was aware of the time. Of course I am I've got a bleeding watch on my wrist that I never ever take off. And during the day she can't go on without yelling my name every half hour. I really wish I could shut her out.

The weather had a little schitzo trip during last week. We had rain, crazy loud thunders storms, painfully warm weather, duststorms and cool overcast days.

Well I'm late for college. There are no classes today (but I didn't tell that to Nahida). The 4th year students are celebrating their graduation today. It doesn't make sense to me cause I don't think they've actually finished yet. But I guess it's a way for those that are going to fail to not feel left out. The rules on the dresscode are going to be relaxed and it might also mean that I can walk in with my camera and take some pics yay.

And It Rained This Morning

Riding in the cab to college this morning I realised that I had forgotten what it was like to watch rain. The feeling of being subdued. The peace that comes along with watching rain. The compulsion to remain silent, and just contemplate the world around you as it deals with it's environment. Some were ignoring the rain, some wore raincoats, some were covering their market stands with clear plastic sheets.

Warm Weather

The weather is beginning to become uncomfortably warm. I turned on the airconditioning in my car today. In my experience it's only effective on highways. It might be time to try to see if dad can afford to buy me another car. Techinically I've never had a car of my own. I've been driving my dad's car. I wouldn't want to imagine what pile of junk my dad would buy for me. And a little voice in the back of my head gets slapped for saying: "If you'd work you'd get a car that you'd be happy with.".

Didn't have time to eat before going to the dentist so I didn't bother going to him.

I really need to get back into the student routine i.e. wake up early and study at home. I really need to grab hold of that marketing teacher for help. I should've gone to college today in the hope of finding her. I have to admit I haven't been so nice to the teacher. I've been venting alot of my frustration from not understanding in her class.

I'm going to grab my notes and read now.

Slow Day

I haven't left the house today. Now it's too late to go out. I should've gone out for a walk. I was so lazy today I even had an afternoon siesta. But I did study some marketing today. I didn't really study, I just tried reading the textbook. It's not making much sense to me. Alot of the time I just guess what is trying to be said in the textbook. How easy it would be to be studying in English. I hope I finish the whole distribution chapter by tonight. You know it's bad when you're hoping for something that's within your power. On second thoughts since it's midnight now, I think I ought to sleep instead.

I just tried calling Farah just now. Her phone was unreachable, sent her an SMS instead. I'm only just starting to make an image of her in my mind. She's been forced to skip alot of the innocence that's usually associated with an Iraqi teenager girl. I don't know what else I can say about her. I don't really want to pass any judgement on her yet. She's great in many ways, I don't think I've yet got to know her as well as I could though. I don't think I'm emotinally attached to her yet, and I don't think that it should become the case considering she's already engaged. Anyway, she's leaving for Syria tomorrow. She invited me over there. But I can't go.

Tomorrow's going to be a fun day I think. I got a dentist appointement. Oh no, that reminds me! I need to get some food down my throat before I go there. I don't want a re-run of the last time, when I went to him on an empty stomach and he told me that I can't eat for the rest of the evening. Come to think of it, he did a really shoddy job of the last filling he gave me. Damn it he destroyed half of one of my teeth in the process. The damn filling wasn't just inside the tooth, it shows from the tooth's side too. Well I ought to call the dentist to tell him I might be late. And I'll need to sort out some food too.

Yay Farah just came on-line. She's not gone yet. And she just got disconnected. And she got disconnected again, she's been having trouble staying connected with it lately.

Oh and yeah apparently AsiaCell does have a GPRS service which makes yahoo chatting work on her smartphone. I'd be tempted to switch but smartphones are too big. Whatever happened to the Motorola StarTac? The last one I saw was tiny. That was a cool phone. All the Iraqis here missed out on all mobile phones produced prior to 2003. Iraqis spend so much money on their mobile phones, especially since they don't get to pay a subsidized price from an operator. They don't remember a time when it was just cool enough to have a mobile phone to make calls with, now it's got to have a camera and play songs out loud.

The electricity has become really bad today. It's like an hour of electricity for every 6 hours. Are people turning on their air-conditioners already? I'm getting hungry. I ought to look for some milk. And damn it's getting late (1:30 AM now).

I Got Played And Survived

Oh yeah! I'm alive and safe. There was nothing to be paranoid about after all. After an hour of being half awake and wondering where the hell was my phone this morning, I got up and found my phone underneath the couch which I've turned into my bed. A few missed calls and a SMS message asking whether I was coming or not that was sent an hour earlier.

So I called up Farah (the chick who left the message and that I was supposed to meet today), I told her that I had just woken up and that I could be on my way over to pick her from her place in an hour. She was cool with that.

Yesterday she had told me that she wouldn't be able to make it because of her period. I told my bro and Kiki, the two people I had told about the story, that it was then off. My bro was surprised to find that all my worrying ended up being worthless, and Kiki was relieved for my sake. However, later yesterday night she had changed her mind, and told me that if she was feeling better tomorrow she'll give me a call to tell me to come over to pick her up.

Since I hadn't updated my bro or Kiki, I called up Od on the way to hers to tell him that I was off to meet some chick and that I just wanted to tell him so that someone knows what I'm up to should the worst arise.

I followed her directions, and wound up in a wide road. I called her up to tell her I was in her street. She told me she just spotted me pass by as I was talking to her so I turned the car around and drove slowly backwards. She popped out of a house and climbed confidently into the car. She seemed quite happy and at ease. She was prettier than her pics of herself that she had sent me.

I thought we were going to have lunch together, but she had already eaten. Which left us with no options that would come to mind as to where we ought to go now. I ended up driving to the other side of Baghdad trying to think of where we could sit and enjoy a coffee. I never thought it would've been that hard. Eventually I gave up and decided to go to some fancy yet low profile restaurant.

The choice of restaurant was a stroke of genius. The last time I had walked in to the restaurant was shortly after the end of the war, my friend and I ordered bottles of wine. That was then, so when I noticed that the men (there were no women there) in the restaurant were drinking tall cans of Heineken I was pleasantly surprised. I ordered a bottle of Lebanese white and we ordered some salads to go along with that.

She drank only half a glass, she had told me that she liked red, but I didn't think that someone liked red would dislike white so much. So either she didn't like the white or she just didn't want to get wasted. I sure as hell got buzzed much faster that I usually do. We didn't eat much of the food, we spent most of the time chatting about school life. I started joking about how if she didn't drink her share of the wine, I'd be drinking hers and would get all drunk and then she'd have to drive. So when the waiter was about to pour me another glass she told him not to.

She then suggested that we leave. That was cool with me even though we left the bottle of wine unfinished. But I did get a bit tipsy and my driving wasn't too great after that. We hadn't planned over the phone what to do after lunch, she had said that she'll make up her mind then. Now we were driving back to our side of Baghdad, I suggested that we go to my place and so we did.

Now what's up with girls handing out chewing gum before making out? I hate chewing gum. And as far as I can tell I don't have bad breath. Sure I smoke but is that such a big deal. Now that I think about it, I don't remember where I chucked my chewing gum.

On s'embrassa beaucoup et pour longtemps, on était les deux hesitant de coucher ensemble à cause de ses règles. Bon on a essayé tout de même et ça n'a pas durer, elle a cru que j'ai eu un problème à le garder soutenu mais c'etait pas ça, j'ai simplement fini très tôt. Comme c'est décevant!

After all that, I drove her back to her neighbourhood and dropped her off near a clinic where her mum was supposed to be to do some tests.

I drove over to Od's after that and since I was starving I took with me to Ali Al-Lami's supermarket/take-away restaurant. We drove up from the opposite side of the street and parked there because there was a car parked in front of the restaurant thought to be a car bomb surrounded by cops and a guy with a body armour vest with Iraqi police EOD (forgot what that stood for).

Od spoke to a shop owner where we had got out of the car. I was drunk and didn't care if there was a car bomb. Od felt that it was safe enough to cross the street and get that sandwich. We got us each a shawerma meat sandwich and ate them in front of the place. Od did a little monologue(if that's what it's called) that went something like this:

How do we live in Iraq? We go to Ali Al-Lami to eat shawerma. There's a possible car bomb parked in front of us. But we've got a bush in between us and the car to protect us.

After we finished our sandwiches, a woman who seemed to be the owner of the car showed up.

I'm Being Played

Alright to be honest, I'm not so cunning with the ladies, matter of fact: I'm bleeding incompetent. To demonstrate how bad I am: I once unwittingly walked out of a threesome. So when a contact on my yahoo list that my sixteen-ish cousin added on my yahoo messenger starts hitting on me, I fall for the bait.

My cousin was her classmate in primary school, but they weren't friends. I think my cousin got her yahoo id from a friend of his. I would say it was a rather routine chat at first until she asked if I could call her and meet her. After chatting some more and then leaving her to chat with Nisrine and some crazy Turk that wanted some business suggestions about what to export to Iraq, I called the chick up. And crikey all that heavy breathing on the phone is such a turn on.

We had a brain dead conversation that was full of her heavy breathing. She speaks some English which was great. She told she was 18, but I'm not buying it. Her yahoo profile says she's 17. But she sounds alot more mature on the phone than that. Or maybe I've got all my bearings wrong. I'm a bit confused about my age myself, hanging out with class that's 5 years younger than you could do that I think. When she said she wants to meet me, that's when it gets too good to be true. We're set to meet on the 9th, still got to arrange all the details.

Okay there's alot that's dodgy about this girl. Her dad died a year ago, she got an arranged engagement following that to some guy that she doesn't want, there's the age stuff. Her mum is sick and therefore she and her mum are going to Syria in a few days so that the mum and can get some medical attetion.

Oh and I think she's lying to me when she's telling me that she's using her AsiaCell mobile phone Nokia 6630 to chat with me. We don't have such phone services here do we? And there's no mobile phone logo next to her name on the yahoo list.

She might be trying to put me in a marriage trap. Or even worse, I've got my bro's wife saying that girls are being used as bait to kidnap or mug boys. I regard my brother's advice very highly. He told me that I should make sure I'm not followed and take an odd route to my house, if I were to bring her to mine. He also suggested that I take her to my dad's empty house, but it's unfurnished.

It really sucks that I have to be paranoid for my life to get some action.

Who In The World Is Nahida?

Well since Anonymous gave me such good advice about what router I ought to have bought, I think I owe him a response to his/her question about Nahida. I was seriously considering getting the Linksys WRT54G. It was the one model I had looked up intensively on the internet. Yet to see if the model available here in the market is pre-version 5. But oh yeah, I'm definitely going to buy it even though I don't really need it any more. I'm thinking of using it to play Mario Kart on the net with my DS, just hope it'll work better than it did with my dial-up connection. And if the Linksys would work with my ISP using a static IP instead of PPPoE, I'll be able to get a slightly better download rate with my present ISP.

Anyway, so who is Nahida? She certainly is an important character in my life here in Baghdad. To be honest I don't really know what the whole deal is with the woman. So don't be asking me questions beyond what I already know.

The house I live in used to belong to my dad's mum. As my grandma was getting old. She decided to rent out the top half of the house to Fozzy and his wife Nahida to have someone to help her out. My family was in the UK when all this was happening. So my grandma passes away sometime in the early 90s while I was living with my dad in Paris. Fozzy and Nahida stay in the house.

Then around the mid-90s my dad decides to returns to Iraq and moves into this house. So to put it simply Fozzy and Nahida just came with the house. Sure enough their relationship towards my grandma had established themselves as friends of the family. I didn't come follow my dad to Baghdad till a year later.

My very first impression at the sight of Nahida was that she was some kind of spy. I was 12 and all my thoughts about Iraq were strongly influenced by the cold war for some reason. Such cold war paranoia wasn't discouraged when people would whisper bad words about Saddam even in their own homes.

During the following 2 and a half years, I had a much more healthy relationship with Nahida than I do now. Sure I'd yell that I'm thirsty all the time and she'd bring me a glass of juice or something. And it came to down to her having motherly feelings towards me since she had no kids of her own (something wrong with Fozzy's willy after a fall from the 3rd floor during some revolution). But we still had a kitchen downstairs and I'd often do what I can with it.

Fozzy and Nahida assisted my dad with a lot of things, and at some point Fozzy became my dad's man at the farm running the whole show. When I came back to Iraq in 2002, I wasn't on good terms with my dad and lived them instead of downstairs with my dad. That's when my relationship began to turn even more uncomfortable with her. The expression 'familiarity breeds contempt' comes to mind.

There are things that really piss me off about Nahida. For example, I hate it that so much of our stuff is tucked up among her things or how she has to influence anything that's going on. She sticks her head into everything and anything. She'll do stuff with my stuff that without my permission. Recently she took some new pants that my dad had brought me that were too big for me to the tailor who did an awful job on them. And she's so unorganized it's crazy, especially in contrast to my own mother. Oh and she's got this obsession about keeping the curtains closed during the night which drove me so crazy that I removed the curtains from my old bedroom upstairs.

Now my whole family is in the UK and Fozzy is at the farm most of the time leaving the house to Nahida and me. I've moved downstairs but half of my stuff is still upstairs. My dad hasn't given me any responsiblities and for good reason too. I've got a strong record of being irresponsible. Therefore Nahida is responsible of managing my money and stuff for example.

Nahida now does alot for me: waking me up and bringing me a mug of coffee in the morning, bringing me food when I'm in jail, cleaning up the house, doing my laundry, processing any of my government documents, bringing gardeners and plumbers, cooks my food, the list can go on and on. It would be easier if I were to mention the few things I do and say she does the rest. I do most of the shopping and I get petrol for the car, she does the rest. Oh and she's got her extended family and the Sudanese dude that lives with us to help her help me.

So why can't I get rid of her? Well I can't kick her out of her home which is the top half of the house. But why don't I limit my dependency? That's actually feasible. I could start doing all those chores that I rely on her to do by myself. But it's too difficult. The lazy side is too strong in me. It's too difficult to give up all this luxury. And I know I'd be a better person if I was to rely more on myself, but I'm too weak. And it's not as if she's encouraging me to be more independent.

Ahhh finally! Nahida got me my food.

PPPoE For Me

After a number of days of fretting about which wireless accees point to get to use as an ethernet client, I got a SMC piece of crap access point for 80 bucks. It turned out that I wasn't fretting over nothing. I spent all of last night trying to get the bleeding thing to work last night. Today I gave up on a simple WLAN connection and tried connecting to the ISPs PPPoE service, called the ISP and asked for a username and password.

My Sudanese buddy just knocked the power cable of the access point, and I got disconnected. This thing doesn't put the mind at ease. And it's so annoying having to dial-up. And it ain't that fast! It's just a little faster than a modem connection. Still it'll save me 50 bucks a month. Paying for dial-up internet top-up cards cost me a hundred bucks for a month of use. This internet service should cost me fifty bucks.

Well as long as I don't ever have too much dialing-up then I guess it's not too much of a big deal for now.

I was going to buy a guitar yesterday but didn't find an electro-accoustic Yamaha. The shop I had went to had mostly some other brand that I had never heard of. There's a Yamaha dealer near my home but he's been closed for days. Maybe I ought to ask the neighbouring shops what the deal is.

Nahida went off to Basrah to go see her brother yesterday. I can't imagine what it's like for him. The summer is coming tooHe's been in American custody for about a year. Well, I always like not having Nahida around. She left me some good Kubba to heat up in the microwave for whenever I'm hungry. The one little hitch is that the power has been scarce of late.

And since Nahida wasn't here, I didn't wake up to go to college today. And I had four classes today!

Oh great the electricity is back and I'm famished.

Gypsies And Palm Readers

I just had a couple of memories. One was of me going or coming back from Jen's place (she wasn't home that day). Her home was in the 'white sands' (I think that's what it translates to in English). I was a bit bummed out. It was raining lightly and sporadically. I was sitting on a concrete bench, when an old gypsy lady came up to me offering to tell me my fortune. I don't really remember the how the dialogue transpired. All I had in my pocket was a five hundred Lebanese Pounds coin (about 30 cents). She agreed to read my fortune in exchange of just that coin.

She looked at my face and maybe my eyes. She took a look at my palm. She had made some pretty good presumptions of who I was. And what I remember her telling me was that a curse had been put on me by the father's side of my family. She told me that she could remove it for 10,000 Lebanese Pounds. I reminded her that I had given her all my money. She told me that I could find her here again if I was to look for her and with that she left.

The other memory took place a few years later, shortly after coming back to Iraq in 2002. I went to a fair at my old school. It was a gorgeous day, I was bumping into old classmates that I hadn't seen in years. I had my hand read by a teacher that I hadn't met before. She told me told me that I'd always have money at hand. That was a comforting thought. Never lifted a finger after that.

Now here's the mystery... why didn't I have the cash to pay that gypsy 10,000 Lebanese Pounds to remove that curse? It frustrates me, because I really do feel that I've been unlucky for quite a long while. I'm still waiting for my luck to turn. Still it's pretty hard to gauge how my luck is. I'm getting no where in my life, but on the other hand, I'm still alive aren't I?

Bullocks! I forgot to call dad and do an April Fool's prank on him. I was going to tell him that I had got married optionally to some girl that I got pregnant. Dina told me not to do it because, my dad at his old age might get a heart attack. I ought to leave out the pregnancy part. Anyway, I'm not going to forget next year. I'm putting a Yahoo! calender reminder.

Marketing

Been studying Marketing all day. I spent alot of time watching the tellie and mucking about on my PC too. Just finished the Pricing chapter in the book, that being the only chapter in the book that I read today. It's not easy for me, I have to keep opening the dictionary to look up words. And sometimes it can get really hard when there are two words in a sentence that have several meanings.

Had a good idea of how to get lots of people to open bank accounts by providing a bargain mobile phone service with the hitch being that you need to open a bank account to pay for it. The idea being a remedy to people's lack of trust in banks as a result of the '91 war and what other naughty things Saddam did. Unfortunately, I don't think the government would accept another mobile phone service provider. Oh and the trick is that the mobile phone company deals exclusively with one bank. That wouldn't be fair of course, but I think you can get away with it here. But you'd be expecting to get exclusive mobile phone banking services, which could be cool.

Wikipedia is a great help trying to understand some of the stuff that's being said in my Marketing book. I'm starting to get suspicious. Maybe all the author did was paraphrase everything from wikipedia. Heck if I was proficient in Arabic, that'd be a good idea to make some money.

Well anyway, since I'm done studying I can finally re-open that bottle of Chivas that I bought yesterday.

A few days ago, I went to get a filling job done on one of my teeth. The dentist was reluctant to do it, saying it was still early and that the filling that I had already on was a super duper one unavailable in Iraq and must've been done abroad. I just wanted to get it over and done with. It came down to me not being a regulart tooth-brusher and on that basis I should get the filling done now. Now what I didn't know is that I was not to be allowed to eat for the remainder of the day. And I just so happened not to have eaten anything up till then. I was shocked when I found out, then I became angry. I wasn't supposed to chew, but while having a fit with the kitchen door I clenched my jaw, and a little later I started to feed thin strips of sliced turkey breasts into the opposite side of my mouth.

Wow! Whiskey tastes so much better with ice.

Saw this Lebanese guy called Amin Maalouf on Hardtalk extra on BBC World today. He seemed to be a really nice guy. He's an author. I'm going to buy one of them next time I have the chance. He was on about how this century is proving to be really depressing. And that this will be a century of 'identity', as oposed to the last century of 'ideology'. The critical difference being that one can't have a debate over identity as one may with identity.

Whiskey really tastes good with ice. I wonder if I'll be able to enjoy it during the summer. I'm sure I will be if I'm not here.

Nights Like These

It's nights like these, nights spent drunk that the stars seem to align themselves for you... Yes there's something magical about alcohol.

I've Got Clan MacGregor To Keep Me Company

I don't know of it's the booze or the combination of booze and an aspirin pill that's making it hard for me to type but it in anycase. Hell's yeah, I'm drunk. Alcohol sales haven't been resumed but I was fortunate enought to bump into a certain somebody that was able to hook me up with some alcohol.

It all took place in Abu Nawas along side the river. A little earlier

The Evil That Men Can Do

India scared the crap out of me, just thinking about it now gives me the chills. If what he told me turns out to be true and indeed becomes reality, It would be mad. Sheer madness. It'll be the end of it all. The whole country would turn upside down. New powers would be created. The flood gates would finally break. And a new vector of chaos will churn the already violent world Iraq has become. I'm starting to think that I'll have to take drastic precautions should the chance arise. What India told me it that there's talk about alcohol being banned. Could they do that without a formed government? I'm expecting alcohol sales to resume next week. If they were to open for just a small window of time, I'd be able to stockpile the stuff assuming that the price isn't inflated based on such a fear. I don't really understand who tells the alcohol stores not to sell. During Saddam days it was just Fridays and the month of Ramadhan that they weren't allowed to sell. But now all it takes is the whim of a bunch of scary dudes.

Well heck if they do ban the stuff, there's a weak chance but which in time could increase of a new sub-culture being formed. That similar to the prohibition days of America, but that's wishful thinking when comparing to Saudi Arabia or Iran (doesn't Iran ban alcohol?). This is such crap.

I remember when the war had just finished, and I was sitting with a foreigner outside of pizzeria drinking down a cool beer. And it was the best feeling ever. Openly drinking a beer basking in the warm sun on a main street watching the people passing by and waiting for the pizza. Things have really taken a wrong turn since then.

Big Belly Bulging

Crap Just got disconnected. The internet's been really pissy with me of late. Ah the phone just rang. Somebody's been trying to call. I've had the line occupied for the past 8 hours at least. I'm too evil. Well heck everyone has mobiles now.

Since the 5th of March I've spent about 80 bucks on internet cards. I think this points out clearly that I'm better off spending my money on a wireless internet subscription for about 50 bucks instead. Now I just need to buy the hardware. And I'm really confused about that. I've got another pc upstairs in Nahida's part of the house that's broken down and I think that all it needs a new motherboard. I'll also need a UPS. The good news is that Nahida got herself a power line from one of the neighbour's generators, which means that she'll have electricity even when the national grid cuts off.

The PC upstairs is already connected to a grid on the roof and my laptop has wireless connectivity. Now what's the best way to share the internet between the two computers? Do I buy a router and stick a little antenna to the pc upstairs or do I get a USB wireless thingy that I stick to my pc upstairs. The first option is better in the sense that I won't have to rely on a constant flow of electricity assuming that a router can run on a simple UPS device for hours (need to find out if that annoying beeper can be cut off). The second choice is cheaper, but could end up being a real hassle.

This sucks, there are alot more explosions in my neighbourhood the past few days. I just heard one, and though it wasn't window shaking strong, it did have a strong crisp bass, it was probably small and close. Nearly skipped a heart beat.

I'm pretty sure there was a time when I heard more explosions in my neighbourhood than I do now, but it's been really peaceful for a great deal of time until now.

I just sent my uncle a really long e-mail in response to his request for help and advice about his inherited farmland. My dad split up the farmland and my uncle doesn't like how it's been split up. I think what's happened is that alot of people want to build rifts between them so they've been spewing crap talk to my uncle. Yeah the folks from my farm love to talk shit. So I sent an e-mail trying to be as diplomatic as possible, explaining to him that his threat of "holding my dad responsible" for his 'unfair' share of the inheritance was an empty one since there wasn't much he could do about it.

That same uncle got nominated for a really important government post today. I wonder what he makes of it, being miles away from here. I don't think he'd take it. I don't think it's his thing.

Damn Pirated DVDs

Saw K today. The first thing I noticed about him is how pale he's become from the lack of sun he gets in the UK. He got me some books to read. He got India the whole Friends collection. I'm glad to have K back in town.

I didn't get to see 'Waiting...' or 'Rent' yesterday. They were both 'cinema' copies. The kind that was filmed within a cinema that is. That really pissed me off. I got 4 films so far from that DVD store so far, and 3 of them turned out to be 'cinema' copies. He's a fair guy and told me that I can switch them if they turn out to be 'cinema' copies. But it's really too much effort if I have to keep returning 3 out of every 4 films. I'm just going to have to keep swaping these 2 DVDs till I got a couple good ones. And not buy anymore.

My belly is growing out of control. My shirts are about to pop. All part of being Iraqi. I'm hungry, the internet makes me hungry somehow. I'm not getting any studying done. It's terrible. Next thing I know I'll be overwhelmed by tests.

So I'm getting really bored these days. I've installed mIRC on my pc. I don't really know how to use it for anything besides chatting. I can't seem to find any Iraqis there either. I tried #iraq channel on undernet. And they don't accept visitors. The punks.

I've been listening to alot politics the past couple of days from cab drivers and friends. From what I understand things are not good at all. I don't think we have a democracy anymore.

Stuck At Home Again

I heard an explosion an hour before I left home for college yesterday, and today I hear the same explosion. Well they all sound the same to me. I walk to my main street today and all the traffic that I'm used to seeing is gone. I ask a man what's going on he tells me that he heard that there was an explosion further down the street.

I walk for maybe 20 minutes to the opposite end of the main street, no traffic there either. Saw an Iraqi army guy give a warning shot at an incoming car. I was surprised that the soldier didn't shoot into the sky, which is a good thing. I still wasn't sure if this whole thing was just specific to my neighbourhood or was city wide. I didn't dare ask any questions to the cops, I often get mistaken for an Arab by cab drivers, and now wasn't a good time to get mistaken as such by a cop.

I started to feel that I needed to finish my morning's dump and realised that I had forgotten my phone at home, so instead of walking another 15 minutes in hope of finding some open roads beyond the horizon, I chose to walk back home. On the way back, I overheard that the explosion took place at an intersection further ahead in the direction I was now walking. I hope the land registry didn't get hit, cause that might suck.

Now that I'm home I'm thinking of watching one of the DVDs I bought yesterday. I got the choice of 'Waiting...' and 'Rent'.

Happy To Go To College

Yippee! I'm going to college in a bit. I'm finally going to get out of my house. I'm all ready, had my coffee with milk, my bacon, eggs and baked beans, a shit, shower and shave, I even brushed my teeth (something I usually skip). I'm really ready. And I can almost see all my excitement and high spirits vanish within sight of college.

I was just taking a look at the google ads on my page and even though they're not targeted at me, they are chosen by google by what I post. And in response to all those quit alcohol ads! I wish I was in a position to quit, cause those alky stores are still bleeding closed.

I usually don't haggle with the cabs that take me to college, I've been quite happy paying 5,000 I.D. maybe 1,000 I.D. over what the price I could get if I haggle hard. But last time, they were asking me for more, and I had to haggle those busters down. I wonder how's it going to go today.

When I was a kid I used to haggle much better than I do now. I don't know if it's because I lost my touch much like I've lost my touch when it comes to many things or if I just truly don't care. Maybe it's easier to haggle when you're a kid in country suffering badly as a result of sanctions.

Alrighty I'm off, it's a good thing I've only two classes today. And when I come back I got to take the car to the petrol station. Musn't forget that.

Another Sloppy Day

Nahida woke me up today telling me that my dad is asking why I'm not speaking to him on the phone as regularly as normal. She repeated the question to me. Still in the process of waking up, I didn't give an answer though a few were running through my head. I've been in a bad mood, I'm ashamed that I bought the laptop before getting his authorization, and yeah I've been in a crappy mood.

Nahida just told me that I had left my internet connection on thoughout the night again. This month is some sort of experiment to see how much money I spend on an internet connection at home and then I'll compare the cost to a monthly wireless fee. At this rate the wireless fee, will probably prove itself cheaper. With few days of college, this month might've been a bad month to try this out.

I had thought I told the pc to hibernate after an hour, I guess it didn't if the power had come gone and come back. Which is pretty unlikely. Just checked my account log, looks like Nahida and her nephew were tripping, cause the log says that it disconnected at 6 AM like it was supposed to.

I didn't get to watch Futurama last night, I fell asleep. What's the big idea of putting cartoons at 4 and 5 in the morning? Ackh, I'm going to lie down for a bit.

Get Nothing Done

I had completely forgotten that I should've got petrol today. I would've done it had I remembered to call Zaif, like I had told him I would. I passed by his place around 6 in the evening. I really need to get out of the house for a bit. He told me that the petrol queue was shorter than usual around 4 o'clock today. And that he was expecting me to call since he had told me that he had ran out of phone credit.

I didn't study anything. All I've done is had numerous meals, watched the tellie, and another DVD that I bought on my way back from Zaif's. Now I'm hoping the electricity will come back before my laptop gives in.

There's a chance that I might be wrong about the booze prospectus, and that maybe tomorrow or the day after the liquour stores re-open finally. Fingers crossed.

Back To My Old Self

5 days since I've last been to college. Staying at home is really getting to me. I've reverted to the slob I am. I'm waking up in the middle of the day. I still haven't studied anything. I'll pick up some material to study after lunch.

K arrived from the UK, still going to have to wait a couple of days to see him. Zaif dropped by yesterday, we went to a juice bar, we then went to a video store, he rented an Angelina Jolie Video CD and I got Last Days on DVD. So far it's crap.

Staying up all night has lost its magic effect. But I've found out that at 4 AM Family Guy, The Simpsons and Futuruma show on One TV (Satellite channel on NileSat). When I woke up today I found that my computer had been left connected to my dial-up internet connection till around 12 in the afternoon. That hurt cause I pay for internet by the hour. That was like 5 bucks out of the window.

I need to brush my teeth. Oh and I need to go to a dentist to get that filling. I need to go to drag Nahida to the hospital with me too.

Fozzy wants me to contact my uncle to see if he wants us to manage his farm. I doubt that my uncle would refuse. I just hope that this won't lead to any problems in the future. I'm trying to think of all the possibilies that could occur. It usually is the assumptions that cause the problems. I'm not in the mood of sending the e-mail now.

Today's my day to drive, I really ought to go out for a drive after lunch. Wow, within a matter of minutes I've decided to push back my studies. Where's my lunch. I'm going to have rice with chickpeas and beef.

I'm so sick of sitting on the internet. I'm actually beginning to miss watching TV. I would go watch some TV now if there was some electricity. I ought to go and buy another DVD perhaps.

Need to draw up another accounting calender. Need to borrow some more money too. I don't have any cash anymore. That's something I can try taking care of now.

Happy Pancake Day

After 5 days of whining about wanting some from Nahida, she finally made me pancakes today.

Got no college for the next 3 days. A great chance to catch up some material. I'd suprise myself if I did more than 2 hours worth.

I watched Schindlers Liste today. What a great experience it is to start watching a movie and finish it hours later. I didn't understand how the man died though.

Yeah it looks like I've got a long boring night ahead of me again. Earlier I started reading that book I got. I fell asleep on page 36. It's looking good so far. It takes place during the 50s. The fifties must've been great.

When I was a kid I remember thinking that the world is always becoming better. Now I lean more towards the belief, that the world is just getting worse. People used to work and participate in society until a later age than now. Companies paid more taxes than citizens. Artisan work was still flourishing. I imagine people were happier.

People had more freedom to think, sure enough social barriers, taboos and injustices have been set right since then, but so many new ones have been built under our noses and without control such as the need to look beautiful or the want to have more than we need, and a largening of the gap between the rich and the poor or big brother governments.

And Iraq was a better place.