My Poor Laptop

My laptop is falling apart on me. A month or two ago the battery's life suddenly decreased dramatically to no more than fifteen minutes and continued to decline up. As of yesterday the battery doesn't work at all. And during the past couple of weeks the 'C' key on the keyboard became temperamental. And then the 'D' key started acting up and now a couple of others. The 'C' key doesn't work at all anymore now and I was resorting to copy/pasting the letter.

Fixing the old desktop earlier this year is now paying because without any battery functionality on the laptop to prevent bad shutdowns it now makes sense to make more use of my old desktop and suffer the same fate without messing the harmony of my never once re-formatted laptop.

I've come to the conclusion that my eyesight is going too. I'm having trouble reading the name's of the songs on VH1. I must get my eyes checked someday soon.

Recently I've been explaining the material of one our classes called quantitative techniques (otherwise known as operational research). It seems I'm the only one who understand that class. It's the one class that's mathematical and therefore not in Arabic. What struck me as sad when going through exercises with them was how poor some of them could be a performing simple algebra or working fractions.

Last night a couple of my classmates slept over and Nahida made a big paranoid fuss about one of them who I had mentioned a while ago. She was against me having him over at my place on the simple basis that he comes from a neighbourhood which she considers dodgy. She urged me not to divulge any personal information that could bring any evil attention to myself such as any suggestion of my wealth.

The day after I broke up with Suzy, I saw her come up online and said 'hello' and she didn't reply back. I guess she doesn't want to talk to me, and even though we're in the same class, she's still not speaking to me and not even saying hello. That she doesn't want to talk to me probably isn't true, I imagine she's just making a statement and trying to perhaps disintegrate her perception of me somehow (does that make sense?). Well, I'm just ignoring her too and waiting for to get over it. I'll just have to make the most of that moment when she's in position to have to come over and talk to me or when I've got a real good excuse to talk to her.

I've been chatting to a couple of Baghdad girls online over the past month. The first of whom I met through my annual Yahoo chat room rampage. The first then introduced me to her cousin. More recently I've been chatting to the latter, Nosa, more regularly. I told Nosa about breaking up with Suzy, and the next day she asked me if I could come to her university to meet her and if I had a mobile phone. I gave her my number and I tried posing the question of what would we do then, but didn't get an answer. This chick ain't much more interesting to chat to than Suzy. But I do chat with her in English which is somewhat of a comfort for me and a challenge for her.

Nosa's the type of girl that wants to get out of Iraq. She tells me she envies all my friends for being abroad. When I asked her what does she want to do after university, she said she wanted to work at the US embassy. If this girl is anyway interested in me it's because she thinks I could potentially be her way out of this country. What's odd is that it's difficult for most people to sink in the idea that I've got every intention to build my future here in Iraq in spite of nearly everything.

Well it might be interesting and it will seem to be more trouble than it's worth to go see her. I think she's changed her mind about the subject already. I'll make sure to ask her next time she's online. I'm really not that excited about the thought of going to her university, it's just too much trouble and it's too hot.

Mum should be coming any day soon. She'll be visiting my grandma and will stay for about a couple of weeks. I don't plan on spending much time with my mum because I'm supposed to be studying. Had I had enough notice I would've got her to get me a new keyboard and battery for my laptop. But she should be getting me some Fusion razor blades among other things such as clothes. I've been using the same Fusion blade since October last year, maybe that isn't hygienic.

Electricity is even worse than last year. I think I'm getting an hour a day of electricity a day at the most. I should maybe bother checking what the Brookings institute or whichever think-tank it was that measures progress in Iraq and see what the megawatt levels have been this year.

Up until last week I was trying to write a paper for my economics teacher for some bonus marks. Inflation is a problem in Iraq at a level of about 30% (prices of petrol aside) from what I read (which in some way is offset by an appreciation of the Iraqi Dinar versus the dollar, I wish I understood the implication of that). How everything relates to another doesn't make much sense to me yet. But the weird thing I understood was that to control inflation the government is going to have to restrain spending; and I don't think there's any issue of a budget deficit and that on the contrary the budget is on the surplus (I might be wrong on that). But supposing that the budget isn't in deficit, wouldn't it be weird to choose not to spend money on government services such as hospitals and schools for the sake of controlling inflation? Understanding economics should become one of my summer projects.

While I was in class today I got several missed calls from an unrecognized number. For several months now the mobile networks have been screwing up and I as well as others have been receiving missed calls from strange numbers and when we'd call those numbers back they'd say that they had never placed the call in the first place. I had forgotten about the missed calls until a while after I got home. So I decided to call just in case it was really for me. So I call and say I had received missed calls from the number earlier in the morning and the man at the other end of the line tells me that the number I'm calling is a Ministry of Interior number and he then asked me my name and I just gave him my first name and told him that I did not know that. He said that it was probably the 'net' screwing up and that was that. Except he used the technical word 'net' instead of the Arabic word 'shehbeka', which I take to be a reasonably good sign that the guy was safe. It was just a bit creepy to wind up calling the Ministry of Interior.

I should start studying for my finals. Today I haven't studied anything. Today was a holiday, as of tomorrow I will begin to dedicate time to studying for my finals.

Dump Me

Today, was a cool day. It even rained, which was a welcome surprise. There were lightening storms a little earlier. I had a test at college today and for some reason the teacher didn't let me finish the test. While I was taking the test, the teacher made fun of a punk trying to cheat from me. Then I acknowledged the punk, the punk asked me what the answer was to a question; I wasn't going to give him the answer to that specific question simply because I myself didn't know the answer. And then the lecturer comes and takes my paper. All I wanted to write was one more sentence and without much of a fight on my behalf I walked off. I've got to remember to go see him and ask him what the hell was up with that.

Later on Suzy and I were in the library. Suzy's been making an extra effort to make things work between us by trying to get us to spend more time together at college. Whilst I, on the other hand, have been playing along but without any sincere intent. Today I goofed up well enough however, when two classmates (her friends) came in and sat on another table, I ditched Suzy without a word and sat with them to study with them. It was a very blatant ditch maneuver and it really ticked off Suzy.

On my way home in the cab we got stopped by a checkpoint whilst entering my neighbourhood. The soldier that stopped might have been barely eighteen. He asked what was in my backpack, I had to repeat 'books' several times till he understood and then he asked me to open it up for him. Then he had the cab driver open up the trunk. After we were cleared and the cab driver got his engine started a couple of soldiers approached and one yelled to the kid to check if there was no booze found. The cab driver drove off and I began to ask him about what had just happened and what would've happened if we were carrying booze. I've already heard a couple of stories about people getting beaten up by checkpoints for carrying booze. It got me worried enough to ask Nahida's brothers to bring some to me last time. A week ago, I saw that same checkpoint harassing an seemingly drunk old man. The cab driver explained that the soldiers want the booze for themselves and would threaten to give you trouble if you don't give some of it to them.

Dad called later. It's quite rare that he bothers to call me. He might call me maybe once a month to check up on me and give me the lecture about my future at the farm. He started the conversation by bringing up my antagonism towards Nahida. I explained to him that if I were to act nice to her that would invite her to get closer to me and thus give her the opportunity to stress me out. He understood where I was coming from and said he'll deal with it. He also brought up the marriage issue in the context of my future with the farm. He mentioned that if I didn't find myself a girl that he had loads he could introduce me to. Of course, we agreed I wasn't ready for any of that yet. The rest of the conversation came back to dissing my mum and my brother a little too.

Later on I called Suzy, she didn't answer. I sent her an SMS and tried calling her a little later, this time she answered. For the first thirty seconds she was as cool as usual, and then she took a deep breath and I made a silly remark and her temper raged out. She told me that she would never forgive me for what happened today. I kept on saying she was totally in the right throughout the rest of the conversation. She said she didn't want to have anything to do with me anymore. I told her that I've been wanting us to go back to friends for a while but that I was afraid. She ended the call by calling me a coward.

It was a bit of a struggle to sound sincere and focused throughout the call. But I'm really glad to be over and done with it. It took about ten minutes to reminisce the good parts and I feel a bit of sorrow for a few minutes. It was a lousy relationship: my pseudo-girlfriend and me. I know it meant a lot more to her. But at the end of the day, I'm sure it was just puppy-love on her behalf. Someday she'll meet somebody she'll really love and who would really love her back. Now I've got to wait till Sunday to see how pissed off she'll choose to stay to be at me.

Steam Yeah Baby

I bought a steamer for 50,000 ID and my pursuit for nutritional independence from Nahida perseveres. It's my first cooking appliance. It's a wonderful way to start considering it's impossible to burn your food with it. And the vegetables are tastier.

So far I've cooked three meals with it. The first I didn't eat myself and instead gave it to Atiya to give it a go. He said it came out alright except that the potatoes weren't cooked well enough. Today I gave rice a second go, the first time I tried rice I didn't add water. This time I don't think I added enough water but it came out alright anyway. And what's great is that I don't have to deal with rice stuck to the base of a pan as I would with the normal way of cooking rice. Come to think of it, it is really weird that Iraqis haven't adopted the use of rice cookers in the masses.

Have to admit it's time consuming cooking with it but the result I guess are worth it. The only annoying thing about the model I bought is that the LCD timer display takes about 20 minutes to work after I've started steaming. It's great to be able to break away from cheese or chicken sandwiches and fried eggs with the optional basterma.

Nahida is helping me out with the vegetables since I've yet to learn how to buy them, maybe I should go with her next time and learn. It's wonderful to see veggies in the fridge now. Right now, I've got a cauliflower, a green pepper, peas, carrots, tomatoes, and I'm not sure what else right now. I noticed that Nahida's slipped in an eggplant. I hate eggplants, but who knows it might be tasty... but no, I don't like them.

I've been struggling to figure out how to do a couple of reports for two classes taught by the same nutty lecturer. After spending all of last night browsing the net looking for something to write about I gave up concluding that I haven't been taught enough to make a decent critique of anything to do with banking or economics. I wanted to talk about inflation in Iraq for example, and I realised that I have no idea what steps should be taken to avoid hyper-inflation. I've got a test on Monday too, and it requires me to memorize a dump load of stuff in Arabic. Well I'm kind of used to that now, but it's a drag and I haven't started yet.

Suzy is getting awfully boring these days. She's just so incredibly empty and void of imagination. And I'm feeling that I'm beginning to feel that I've become her pet. She often ends our phone conversations with 'habibi' or 'hayati' (meaning my darling and my life). And it's weird because I'm not reciprocating all those cuddly words. And it is a trap of sorts, isn't it? I don't love her, and I'm not liking/loving her anymore than I did at the beginning of the scholastic year. I can't wait for the summer, that way I'd have an excuse to break contact with her. Because I know she doesn't write e-mails. She wouldn't even know how to. She has a hard enough time conjuring up a conversation over the phone and instead just yaps at me for being quiet and orders me to talk. So I've tried getting her to talk, but she's not interested in anything in particular. She's never even read a book. That was a shocker, she has never even had to read a book at school.

I just had an idea... why don't I just throw the idea of becoming friends again at her? Would I do it over the phone since 99% of our conversations take place over the phone or should it deserve being done face-to-face? How badly would she take it? I'm betting that it wouldn't change much except saving me from continuing to live in a lie. But it would be interesting to see her reaction.

Marriage is a topic that's been on my mind lately. The way it works in Iraq is that you're best chance of getting a good wife is if you pick her out of college. Like one of my classmates was explaining to me, college is a great place to find a wife. First of all, at college you can find all kinds of girls and second of all you can get all the dirty information about her, because you wouldn't want to have a wife that's been messing around before she met you if you were a typical Iraqi guy. My brother's wife is a girl he met in college, probably in his last year too. And my bro got laid with a countless number of girls when he was in college here. I'm still not convinced he married her for who she was but instead that he was feeling the pressure of his age. He was 29 at the time.

What are the alternatives if one was to not pick a wife out of college, well there's daddy's and mummy's match making skills. My dad's tried to hook me up with girls twice already. They both came onto me really hard and freaked me out. And neither seemed worth getting to know. My dad's come to the conclusion that I need a wife that's more like me and not your run-of-the-mill Iraqi bred chick. Nahida tells me that he's mentioned to her that there's a girl in Canada that he could introduce me to, i.e. send me over to Canada to meet. But what girl in her right mind would want to move back to Iraq with me in the first place.

The other alternative as described by the classmate I mentioned earlier was meeting a girl 'in the street' (that was the expression he used). The first problem with that is they're far and few between and he explained that one wouldn't be able to dig out all the dirt out of her past to check whether or not she has messed around previously.

There's always the last ditch resort: get a wife from the farm. A wife from there, how do I begin to describe that? What can one expect someone who's been brought up somewhere that's been more or less has been detached from modern civilization. Somebody that probably hasn't ever read a book either and has never experienced the internet. A wife who has poor cleaning and cooking skills. Essentially a woman that's just good for screwing for a few years before she happily lets her body go to waste. That said, the guys at the farm have explained to me that by marrying a local girl would help me out a lot with the running of the farm. It would create a relationship between myself and the family of the wife. The family of the wife would thus find it in their interest to assist me in the administration in my farm which for a great part is done through personal relationships. Personal relationships which I don't have and which are very difficult for me to acquire since I haven't grown up with the locals.

It's getting hot here. I mean very hot. It's not fucking hot yet. The difference between very hot and fucking hot is that when it's very hot a fan does the job of cooling you down. Fucking hot makes a fan just blows hot air in your face. The problem I've got is that I've only got one fan. I really ought to go get another one or two. The odd thing about my house is that when my dad renovated the bottom floor a few years back he choose not to install ceiling fans in any of the rooms except the kitchen under the assumption that electricity would flow normally and that air conditioners would be all we would want. Well I'm not a big fan of fans either, I used to hate the feeling of air blowing onto me and so that was cool with me. But I guess it was hard to imagine that since the beginning of May this year that we'll have only maybe 5 hours of electricity at the most.

The good news which I think I forgot to mention in my previous post is that Nahida's got us a generator line. In Baghdad there's two alternative electricity sources: your own electric generator in your backyard that runs on petrol and if it's a big one diesel perhaps. Well getting your hands on petrol or diesel is a big hassle considering the constant fuel crises. The other alternative is getting a few amperes of electricity from a neighbourhood generator. A neighbourhood generator would be larger than one used by just a single household. It would be run by some guy in the neighbourhood that would take a monthly rate for providing X number of amperes over a cable to your home. The number of amperes are just enough to turn on lights, fridge and water cooler but not enough to operate an electric kettle, microwave or air conditioner. The extra cool thing about the generator line that Nahida hooked us up with is that operates around the clock whereas most just operate during the evening, from sunset to maybe one in the morning. The thing that sucks about it is that sometimes it causes the lights to continuously blink on and off gently and it's messed up my UPS which keeps ticking along with the pulsating lights. But heck, it must be admitted that just having lights alone cools you down compared to sitting in the dark in the heat where it's impossible to distract oneself from the horrible heat.

Fozzy came from the farm today. It's been ages since he last came. The news is that terrorism has reached the farm. The head of the municipality, who's a relative of mine, had his house hit with an RPG from across the river that blew a hole in his guest hall. Well that kind of sucks. That was probably just a threat, next time it'll be for a killing unless he ends his involvement with the government and so on.

I should try to get to sleep soon. I've got an OR test tomorrow morning that I haven't bothered studying for. I wonder how I'd do considering it's the only subject I'm supposed to be good at.

Burn Up, Drink Up

It's getting hot outside. Fair to say the summer's kicking in now. It rained earlier this week but I think that's going to be the last time, there's nothing but blue sky and the blazing sun.

Mustn't forget to get some smokes before it gets dark.

After a couple of whiskeys I've decided to have some fun with a glass of water and my nose. Trying to drink through my nose. Left nostril good, right is kind of blocked. As close as I'm getting to going to the pool. It's been two years since I've been to a swimming pool.

India's got me trying the Grateful Dead, they're not bad. But I would've appreciated them more back in the days when I listened to Jimi Hendrix and The Doors. But it ain't that bad listening to whilst drunk in the garden. These live recordings have a great open air sound.

Slowly munching on a jar of Turkish-made cornichons. 350 grammes jar for one dollar, a bargain compared to the real French stuff. French stuff is tastier though.

My ISP guy called asking me to come over and help. He needed my English skills to communicate to his new ISP to ask if they'll do the cross-polarization today, whatever that means. Got smokes on the way back home. I must say it was nice to leave the house. A few hours ago, when I got back from college and started posting, I thought I was stuck at home for the rest of the day.

Oh great my internet just died. That's a bit odd, well if I really wanted to I could use my modem since my laptop is already attached to the land line. I'm drunk. That was what I decided to do to do when I got home. It just sucks to be drunk alone. Internet's back.

Where to go when drunk and bored... Yahoo! chat rooms, maybe I'll find a horny chick to chat to. I'm trying out the French chat rooms, try and learn how to type in French.

No luck in the Yahoo! chat rooms. But I did get to meet a couple of friendly bots. It's getting hard to keep my eyes open. It's warm, I should take a shower.

I've been reading a novel called The Kite-Runner. It's a horrible book, it describes a beautiful place prior to the Soviet invasion. And well these days everybody I speak to seems to have lost hope in Iraq.

Mouth Ulcer Painful

It's been a bit of while since my last post, and the whole while I've been making mental notes of all the things I want to jot down.

Last week the weather changed as our encyclopedic stock management teacher pointed out to us. Winds have begun to blow from the south carrying along with them dust and humidity. The teacher pointed out that as soon as that wind comes into contact with meat, the meat rots. This is the same character that tells us that bottled water isn't as clean as we'd like to believe making reference to the high Total Dissolved Solids mark on the bottle is triple that what it should be. He also says that he doesn't use local tap water to brush his teeth, but has now installed a super duper water filtering system at home. And so, he said he was in a bad mood because the southern winds were blowing. The weather isn't so comfortable no more that's true, but I'm glad that the skies still have clouds.

Ever since the Sarrafiya and Jadriya bridge bombings getting to and from college has become a nightmare. I don't make use of the Sarrafiya bridge and the next closest alternative is the Adhamiya bridge which I don't use. Not until today that is. Sarrafiya bridge has collapsed but the Jadriya bridge is fine. Last week Monday, I was driving home at around five in the evening and decided to take the Jadriya bridge. I ended up getting caught in a two hour traffic jam that had no end in sight all because the government had the bright idea of placing a checkpoint splat in the middle of the Jadriya bridge and to let one car pass at a time so as to avoid any further bridge carnage on what was a free-flowing bridge that used to take five minutes to cross.

Not only is it a ridiculous hassle to place a checkpoint in the middle of a three lane bridge and only let one car slowly pass through one at a time and create a bottle-neck of traffic that takes two hours to get through. And the cars can't handle the heat and the jam, the last time I was on the Jadriya bridge four or five breakdown and it's not even summer yet when every car is on the verge of overheating. But the royal stroke of stupidity goes to actually putting the checkpoint in the middle of the bridge as opposed to just before it is sheer stupid. If some dude's going to let the blast off, he's obviously going to do it at the checkpoint and if the blast's strong enough that's bye-bye bridge number two along with all the people caught in the jam. And in effect, the government has done the terrorists' bidding and has rendered a bridge useless.

So with the two bridges less, and the consequent increased traffic, security forces feel nothing and continue to unexpectedly block other bridges like the two that are by the green zone or even the roads to drive in and out of my neighbourhood. I've made some changes in my lifestyle, I've ditched the car for good. I'm better off taking a cab and in the case that a road is blocked I could just get out and walk on past which is good exercise that I need. The other change I've made is I now carry my stuff in my backpack instead of in my hands which is what all the other kids at college do. It's a hell of a lot easier to walk with my hands free. The only resulting hassle is that since I'm the only guy walking the streets with a backpack, I occasionally get told by a soldier or a cop to open my backpack from a distance to assure him I'm not going to spontaneously explode.

Our house got searched twice last week-end. The first time I was asleep and didn't have to wake up, a couple days another bunch came and this I was awake. Nahida said that Iraqi army and the Americans were in the street at first and then she said it was just the Iraqis. I was asking, because if the Americans were coming along with the Iraqis I felt it would've been better if I took off my t-shirt which read "I don't have a drinking problem, I drink, I get drunk, I pass out... No Problem!".

So three Iraqi soldiers came into the house, as soon as they stepped in they said that they knew we were from Diwaniya which is true in my case but not Nahida's. Nahida replied by saying our grandfather's grandfather's were from Diwaniya. We felt it was a bit odd that they had that kind of info on the house and volunteered it. The leader took off his helmet and sat his ass down and Nahida began to ask him why we were being searched a second time. The leader said that his bunch were the only ones allowed to do searches in the neighbourhood and that we weren't supposed to be searched by the first bunch. One soldier took Nahida's brother upstairs to guide him through and the other asked me to show him the downstairs bedrooms.

The soldier asked me to open the closet doors of my bedroom, the first one of which had my books neatly arranged. I took a little gasp when I noticed that the corner of my British passport was sticking out. The soldier just took a glance and asked me to open the other closet doors and began to explain to me that they can tell the bad guys just from their faces and that it was obvious to him that we didn't have such faces. I tried saying that it was good that they're able to do that now, suggesting they've acquired the experience. Only three things caught his attention: my guitar, a Gerber knife and an army belt the latter two I had got from Bab-Al Shargi, but he didn't ask.

Nahida was still chit-chatting with the leader and offering pomegranate juice to him and the other two, she had brought out a box of little cartons of orange juice and told me to offer to the guys outside. So I picked it up with both hands and walked out to find an Iraqi soldier and three Americans. I offered the juice by holding out the box, the American who seemed to be the leader because he was acting the most serious declined and said thank you in Arabic. The other two also declined and one said that he liked my t-shirt, I just made a dumb smile and walked back in without having said a word.

Sure enough it would be fun to chat to someone in English for a change, but it's not worth appearing chummy with the American in front of the neighbours or the Iraqi army guys either.

A couple of days ago, the head of my department called for me. He's heard that I'm losing hope on passing, so he listened to all my problems and all that. The one teacher that I have this year that teaches me a mathematical subject (Operational Research) and therefore no trouble with repeated that I had told him that I felt conned since when I first joined I was given the impression that there were a lot of subjects that would be taught in English and indeed this year there are two subjects (that I'm failing) that are supposed to be in English but this year are taught in Arabic and so this year I don't have a single class in English.

The head of department wondered how did I manage to pass the previous two years despite my language problem and I explained to him how this year situational circumstances that didn't exist last year or had exacerbated this year have made it so much harder for me. For example, I was able to stay at a friend's house and with study at his till later than I can now. He told me not to give up and that he'll try to get the teachers to give me some freebie marks to get me by, and that I should maybe consider focusing on some subjects and leaving a couple so that I re-test them during the summer.

During the past few days I've tried to pick up the pace and I've spoken with the teachers that I'm having trouble with. I've even written a five hundred word report in Arabic which I had simply translated material from one of my old college textbooks from Lebanon and then had corrected by my Arabic tutor.

On one hand I know I could've studied much more than I have, but on the other I can't be blamed for under performing with so many things stacked against me. It's just such a waste. I've never got this far in college before (this is my third college).

I had a couple of weird war dreams yesterday. Throughout my life I remember having the weirdest war dreams. Like a detonation of a nuclear missile in the sky followed by sensation of scorching heat on my skin, or masturbating on a couch in a hall dug into the side of a mountain with a large glass wall with a view of my army fighting below in the valley. The couple of dreams I had this time involved a Caucasian who I'd be talking nothing intelligible to and then he'd split and get into a car on the road. In the first dream he catches a car with a bunch of dodgy guys with a camcorder and in the second dream he gets into a car with another bunch of dodgy guys this time however they're carrying rifles and he points a gun at them and tells them to drive on.

It turns out my guitar tutor's on vacation in Erbil, Kurdistan. So I was kind of stuck with nothing to work on. But then Konfused Kid who is abroad taught me how to do the intro "The Man Who Sold The World" song, I've still got trouble with the rest of the song. Switching from chord to chord on that song is hard especially since one of them is a F bar chord and I've got no clue how to strum. Konfused Kid suggested down, down/up, down/up, down/up; but that's not working out, he says that the strumming is supposed to just flow out naturally. My guitar tutor better come back. Worst case scenario, I go there during the summer and see him, he better have a guitar on hand there.

Oh and out of the blue I've got the most incredibly painful mouth ulcer. Something I had forgotten existed. And it really hurts when I eat or brush my teeth.

Peanut Butter

I'm watching way too much TV these days. It's getting chronic. And there's never anything really worth watching either. I've only got eleven satellite channels to watch and only one of them is a porn channel. Sometimes get startled by the chicks with dicks when flipping to that channel. I wish I had more documentary channels. There's something calming about watching animals in the wild.

I missed college today. I left home an hour late and the traffic was horrendous, not only that but the cab took what I assume he thought was a short cut. After over an hour riding with him, I gave him his fare and just walked home. I needed a walk.

Found some decent crunchy peanut butter on the way back home. The last jar of peanut butter I bought was from a different shop and they don't have anymore, and the jar before that was from another shop and they don't have anymore either.

I think I've found myself in another imperfect state of equilibrium. I'm getting through the days but I'm incredibly unproductive. I don't understand what's wrong with me, I do near to nothing of anything that would give me a sense of moving forward in life, and I've got no compulsion to change.

The above might be slightly exaggerated. I've made changes in my life over the past six months, but they were so slow to implement, I could've achieved the same in two intensive weeks.The big idea from last year was to move out of Nahida's floor of the house and move all of my stuff downstairs along with me.

So far, I've got most of my stuff downstairs. All that's remaining are a bunch of old CDs, most of my clothes, my bench and weights. There are two pending issues to be resolved, the water heater downstairs doesn't work so I still have to shower upstairs but as soon as the summer warms up I won't need to warm up the water. The other issue is the land line phone, the thing has got to move upstairs since I never use it but Nahida does which gives her an excuse to come downstairs.

Step by step I've got to eliminate reasons for Nahida to want to come downstairs. But each one is more of a psychological barrier for me to overcome rather than a practical thing that needs to be done. For example, I've finally convinced to cook my own food, but I've yet to begin cleaning my own dishes. But as long as I keep identifying these barriers and imagining how I'll overcome them, I should finally be able to get past them.

I Found Blu Tack

Yes I found it... what has been to me the holy grail of all things sticky: Blu-Tack.

I was a stationary browsing through all the potentially useful things I could find. I found a Staedtler self-adhesive white board thing smaller than an A4 piece of paper that was really cool too. He didn't have a label maker but he did recognize what it was when I was describing it and said that it was old. So as I was paying the guy I noticed an aged pack with "Power-Tack" written on it hanging from the shelf behind him. I asked him what it was whilst pointing at it. He said he didn't know, he handed it to me and I opened it to show him what it was. The shop owner went on about how so many things that he'd pull out from the old American boxes that surprise people.

And now I'm happy because I've got the power of Blu-Tack. Building a new Iraq now seems possible. I'll spread the word about Blu-Tack and give hope to all.

Well so far the only use I've found is sticking my pick to my guitar. I think there's one problem, I think Blu-Tack starts to melt into chewing gum in the heat.

Chicken

Having spent nearly a whole week at home it was great to get out today and go to college. I was in a good mood and people were happy to see me with a haircut. And a couple of the girls in the class said I lost weight.

Some guy whose name I don't know told me that there are rumors that Suzy and I are a couple, and I actually paused to brain storm how to respond something that's very rare for me since I'm usually to lazy to think. I denied it and answered we just hang out and so on. Suzy doesn't want the world to know we're going out and that's true for any girl here. What's pissing me off is that she's the one that's made it blatant not me and she'll get pissed off at me if I were to tell her. This could be a good oppurtunity for me to break up with her.

After college I choose to go get some food from Al-Lami's and eat it at Od's place. Od came back a couple of days ago from Syria. He had intened to see his family in Yemen but they didn't give him a visa. So I ordered a couple of meat shawerma's and a chicken burger which I just wanted to taste to see if it's any good. Did some shopping, bought some basterma meat and ice-cream. The chicken burger took ages to make so I chucked everything in the car and went back to wait for the damn burger. I finally get my chicken burger and I'm walking towards my car and in my view a gentle explosion goes off further along the road just ahead of the intersection next to the Baghdad University campus where some minivans park up (opposite neighbour's grandma's home).

I don't think many people died or got injured, it was a small explosion to start off and I only saw one technical and one civilian car driving away with injured people. I had to go through the intersection to get to my house and with all that commotion taking place there I decided to just solemnly eat my shawerma sandwich by the restaurant. I'm not sure how long I waited for them to open up the intersection, eventually I just drove ahead and there was an alley to go around the intersection. By the time I got to Od's the meat and ice-cream had melted. And that chicken burger sucked.

I chatted to an Iraqi girl on-line yesterday and she told me that she the same thing happened to her regarding the change of birthplace when she got a new ID and that she was told it was a Saddam thing. And that she got her ID a year ago I guess makes it more believable than the story that it's a new order from the council of ministers.

Yesterday, Nahida brought me a pan and some eggs so that I could fry myself some eggs for breakfast. I think it's the second time I ever tried to fry eggs because I remember screwing it up once. I pulled it off and made myself fried eggs and I'm so proud of that that I'm telling everybody. Yesterday I bought some chicken breasts and today I've cut a bit of it into strips and I'm going to try cooking that with butter and Tabasco sauce for dinner. I'm finally going to end my daily subsistence of cheese sandwiches.

Born In Baghdad

I'm now born in Baghdad. I went to the ID centre again today. I heard it from the administrator there that I have to change my place of birth because of orders from the council of ministers. So I got it done. In the process I had to sign a paper that described my want to change my place of birth that made reference to a 1999 order from Saddam's revolution council or something like that. The guy who had me sign denied that my having to change my place of birth had anything to do with a new order with from the government and that these orders came from Saddam's while pointing at the the paper I had signed.

At one point I had to hand over my papers to some kid so that he could supposedly hand it over to the big guy to sign, the kid asked me what year I was born and the name of my mum (I goofed up and gave a slightly different name of my mum's) he told me to wait outside. Now what I'm guessing is he's the one that ended up signing in whoever's stead and asked me to piss off so that he can get away with it. I forgot to get them to add my blood type on the thing.

Nahida and I also went to the passport office. According to the police man outside they're closed till the 15th because the main passport centre on the other side of town is too busy and because Nahida tells me that over 40 employees have been nabbed at this passport office and they're gathering a new bunch to take over.

Suzy's pissed off at me because I didn't wish her Happy Easter. I tried calling her and she wouldn't pick up. I don't know if it's something endemic or true everywhere, but girls here often have an urge to pick a fight. I'm pretty sure the guys here do it too. I don't know what the hell is up with that.

And why the hell do I get so sleep in the late afternoon? It's really annoying. Got to walk to the shops and buy some cigs and fruit juice.

Quicksand

Walked to the place where they issue IDs this morning with Nahida. Got the forms, had them filled in and handed them in without a hitch. We were told the ID would be ready in the afternoon and that Nahida could pick it up in my stead because I was going to busy with my Arabic tutor.

Walked back home and finally got a haircut. People will be celebrating. Did a little shopping too, got some crisps, peanut butter sandwich crackers, pomegranate juice, toothpaste, gel, bread, cigs and ate a kebab sandwich on the way too. I'm eating way too many of those kebab sandwiches and they're getting stingy with the vegetables. I need those vegetables.

After I was done with my tutor, Nahida had already got back and repeated the same story as last time about me needing to change my birthplace again and added that the civil worker there showed her a memo was sent from the government cabinet telling them to make everyone's birthplace Baghdad which Nahida explains is a government ploy to permit Iranians to infiltrate the Iraqi population.

I just don't believe it. I'm going to go there tomorrow and try to talk to the administrator. I've thought up of another good reason why I need to keep my real place of birth on the ID, which is that it could convince a checkpoint if it has doubts that I'm Iraqi by showing that I was born abroad. I'm also having to consider calling the British Embassy to check if it would be any problem if my Iraqi passport had a different birthplace when at a passport control. I don't know if they're the right person to ask but I can't think of anyone better to check with.

I'm really trying to understand the ramifications of changing my birthplace should if I'm eventually forced to. My aunt thinks it's a good thing to change it to Baghdad just in case a crazy ruler like Saddam comes into power and removes the rights of people who aren't born in Iraq.

This crazy story has got my paranoia working up. If things were to go the way of the powers that be all my Iraqi documents would state that I was born in Baghdad. And to what purpose?

After having a fit with Nahida, I went on a munchie rampage and fell half-asleep on my couch for a while. I stayed up very late last night chatting to Suzy on the phone. I've forgotten to mention that things have somewhat developed between me and her. We're now playing the roles of a couple, we occasionally stay up late at night on the phone and I blow kisses on the phone and I'm getting away with a lot of perverted talk too and exchange those mushy words too. And I can't believe that she's pointed out that I'm very shy about public displays of affection. That's actually a problem I've had before but how can it be a problem when she also makes it a point that she doesn't want the guys at uni to know about 'us'. A large part of me wishes that I could get out of this relationship but there's no way out, I have to wait another year and a bit.

I'm surprised that sky is still cloudy at this time of year. Most of my memories of Baghdad have a clear blue sky and a scorching sun. Maybe it's normal to have clouds at this time of year but then maybe not I'm not sure. Whenever there's talk about the environment on the tellie of late I'm often wondering what the effects of global warming are on Iraq could they possibly good or are they really bad?

There was a short feature on CNN about banking through the use of mobile phones in an African state by a company called Wizzit. It's such a great idea and would be a great quick solution to the problems that Iraq faces with the banking system which has a knock on effect that produces high levels of absenteeism among the Iraqi army (they leave work to get their wages and give it to their families). It's amazing how there are so many quick fixes to a lot of Iraq's problems which can be cost effectively implemented to improve the situation here. At college nearly all the students in my class have an internet connection at home but my college which boasts about its IT departments doesn't make any use whatsoever of the potential available.

Bridge

A mind that farts thoughts that's what I feel I have sometimes. They usually have the same smell too. Regular diet of baked brain beans does that maybe. Tediously boring exhaustion, remember when exhaustion was accompanied by a sensation of achievement. Life made bland by a remarkably unreal situation. The fruit tree drops its fruit and they're not ripe yet. Can't be free all on my own and I'm the crazy one. Water isn't pure but you better believe it is. Don't need TV to numb my head, it's numb enough already. It's getting harder to imagine. A river run dry perhaps. Night comes and curtains are pulled. To keep people from looking inside and to keep me from seeing the moon or a star. I've heard that a mortar or two landed in the neighbourhood. A boredom so spectacular.

Can't Think Of A Title

I think I might have to come to terms with the fact that's impossible to fix my sleeping schedule. Thursday morning I woke up at seven in the morning just like I would have to had I had college that day. I have classes at college on Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. But by the time the week-end is over I'm sleeping at one or three in the morning and waking up at around midday. So when Sunday comes it's a nightmare to wake up and when I get home I'm flat out exhausted and spend the rest of the week sorting out my sleeping schedule.

Yesterday was a crappy day, and it seemed as if just about everyone I spoke that day had a crappy day too. It started off when I chose to go to the petrol station and got stopped at a checkpoint. Iraqi army guy stops asks me where I'm coming from, I tell him from my home in the same neighbourhood, then he asks me if the car's mine. I stutter a bit and tell him it's in registered in my dad's name. And because I stuttered he told me to pull over to the side. He then proceeds to open my boot on his own whereas usually the soldier would ask me to open it for him. Then he opens the door to my car and starts fidgeting hastily through my stuff and underneath the seats. First thing he asks me is where do I work with a notable degree of apprehension. I tell him I'm a student and show him student id he takes a look at it says it's old, I explain that they haven't issued a new one. Asks me what my iPod was. I tell him it's an mp3 player and showed him how it's connected to the car stereo through a CD car kit. At this point I notice another soldier standing behind him. Then he asks me how much it costs, I lied and told him I got it as a gift and don't know how much it costs. He then takes the car documents and my ID and asks me if I've got a legal document permitting to drive my dad's car. I've heard of checkpoints asking about that, but it makes no sense. I told him I didn't and with a laugh asked him if he had one when he drives his dad's car. To which he answered he did as if he was speaking the truth. So I finally exclaimed while still laughing about the situation that that would mean I stole my dad's car. To which he said no and let me go without an apology.

It pisses me off to know that these guys get away with such harassment. Most of them are pretty decent and polite and excuse themselves. But every once in a while, I get stopped by a buffoon. And because I'm not fluent in Arabic I can't go and raise a fuss because then I'd raise some suspicion because of my heavy accent. And I haven't heard of any official channel through which people can complain about such issues. The truth being that if such a channel existed it would easily overload and it would be too much of a task to deal with.

Well that experience pissed me off for the rest of the day. When I got to the petrol station the queue had veered off from the main street and into the side streets, so it looked to me as if wasn't worth the wait. And I then came back at around midday and the queue looked the same. And so I ended up spending two and a half hours in the queue. I had forgotten to buy some cigarettes before getting into the queue, but luckily I found a couple that I had take from Od (who has gone off to see his family in Yemen) a couple of days earlier. When I reached the end of the queue I had a go at a couple women drivers. They get their own queue since they're women. I let one slide ahead of me and then the next one wanted to go ahead of me too so I had a go at her and told her that since I let one woman go ahead she should take her turn and go behind me. She whined and said that the other drivers don't let her through. And then another woman got ahead of her and I had a go at her and told her that the other woman was ahead of her in the line.

I was hungry so I decided to go to a restaurant and see a nearby doctor to check out the bump on my wrist. When I got there it surprised me to see that they've placed junk all along the main road to prevent people from parking. I drove to a little parking lot on the main street that was full and spoke to the guy in charge, he told me the parking lot was reserved for the doctors working in the building and that I should park my car in a side street and inform a shop keeper that the car is mine. So I did that, and had to promise a couple of times that the car won't explode.

Went to the restaurant, they had no more shawerma left, so I walked out and spotted a new restaurant and decided to give it a shot. It was a barbecue restaurant with kebab and tikka etc. I had myself a half portion of meat tikka, it wasn't bad. What was nice was that there was plenty of little hot green peppers in the pickle dish served as part of the entré. I've catagorised the barbecue restaurants into two types there are the ones that serve hummous and those that don't. And then the better the hummous the better the restaurant. This one didn't have any hummous.

There was a new grocery store next door to the restaurant which I checked out. It was disappointing to see another relatively big store with the same range of products as a store half its size. The sanctions are over but traders are still too scared to operate and bring in a greater variety of goods. And it pissed me off to see yet again the guy at the cash register permitting himself to get distracted instead of dealing with each customer in turn. All I wanted was a pack of cigarettes and some juice and not to listen to some chick trying to haggle over the price of a phone card or some other person trying to get the price on some fish.

I then went over to the dermatologist doctor that I regularly see. He checked out the bump on my wrist. He said it's a muscle thing and not a bone and he asked me if I worked with a screwdriver a lot I explained I was learning how to play the guitar. He made fun of me for leaving England coming to Iraq and learning how to play the guitar. He gave me some pills to take and said if it still bothers me he could stick a needle into it. He also gave me some ointment to use on my chest which has this chronic rash. These day it's not as bad, but there are times when it really starts to bug me so it was cool to have something handy.

When I got home I hit the bottle, and got slightly wasted. There was nothing better to do. I sobered up around midnight and made a couple of phone calls. My operator's got this new deal that allows you to pay for the first three minutes and the rest of the hour is free. Which is pretty cool. What sucks about my operator is that unlike the others it still doesn't offer GPRS or WAP. But when I was at the doctors I noticed a little 'G' next to the signal strength indicator, but when I got home it was gone. So maybe they're working on it.

I've nearly finished learning the guitar exercises my tutor gave me to do last January. I'm such a slow learner. So maybe this coming week or the next I'll go see him and get told I'm doing it wrong and get a new bunch of exciting exercises.

A few days back my gang from the class went out together after college and had some falafel in the Karada district and shopped through the market stands on the street. I bought a pair of sunglasses for a couple of bucks, dodgy as hell since there's no guarantee they have UV protection, but I don't know if that means they hurt your eyes more than if you were not to wear them. Got some Zippo flints for less than a buck that I've been trying to get my hands for a very long time but which whenever I see them are part of a box set. Luckily for me the guy was willing to take one out of the box set and sell it to me individually. And I finally got a DVD copy of the new James Bond movie for about a dollar and a half. I also saw a Playstation 3 there, unfortunately that wasn't in the same price range as all the other stuff I bought, it was priced at 800 dollars. I told the guy it was a good price and he said it's being sold for the same price in the UK. I laughed to myself about the sucker who was going to buy it at that price. I myself am looking forward to buying a Wii, but Nintendo isn't a popular brand here like Sony is and so the Wii has yet to make an appearance here.

I spoke to my dad on the phone last night. He's getting married. It's been over twenty years that he's been wanting to do it and he's been engaged numerous times. But it looks like he's finally going to do it. He's had the 'Islamic' marriage done and he's soon going to get a civil marriage done too.

I had to speak to my dad about this new problem I've got. Nahida had got my dad a new civil ID card but couldn't get one for me. They told her that I have to be present and that I'd have to change my place of birth to Baghdad.

What doesn't help is that for some reason I've got another ID that I got ten years ago which is called 'The Proof of Nationality' I think that says I was born in Baghdad. I hadn't noticed the discrepancy until a couple of years ago and when I asked Nahida about it who was there when we made it, she said that the official at the time advised us to do so just in case.

Just in case, something like what my auntie told me about a couple of months ago happens again? She told me how Saddam had wanted to purge Iraq from all the Iranians that had previously gained Iraqi citizenship somehow. So that if you couldn't prove you were a true Iraqi you'd be treated like a second class citizen or you'd get thrown at the Iranian border.

It wouldn't be such a problem but when I make my new Iraqi passport it too would then say I was born in Baghdad and so when I show up at passport control with two passports (one British and one Iraqi) with two different places of birth it would look fishy.

It's midnight now and I'm feeling a bit drowsy maybe I could go to sleep earlier than I did last night. I should call Nahida's bro tomorrow and tell him to take my car and fix it up some more. It's already started to screw up in a bad way. I better study tomorrow too. I'm hungry, I'm going to steal a piece of bread that Nahida bought yesterday. If it's in my freezer I can take it.

Oh yeah and it's my brother's birthday today. I called him up, he was happy today because his sugar reading was healthy today meaning that he's learning to control his diabetes. And the half-Iraqi chick won the Star Academy contest. I really don't care, someone just messaged me about it right now and it's somewhat of a topic people like to talk about. It's one in the morning and I still can't think of a title to the post. I give up.

Blast From My Ass

Got diarrhea once again. Haven't had it in ages. Maybe it's because today I stopped taking those antibiotics I started taking last month. Or maybe my lunch at that restaurant was dodgy. I always have tummy problems after eating there. Last night it looked like that zit on the inside of my thigh was about ready to pop. Now it looks like it's just going to disappointingly fade away.

Miz came back from Egypt. He stayed at Kala's place. He was supposed to buy an apartment for his parents and his little brother to move into. But after arriving there with his brother his parents told him that they had changed their minds. That certainly pissed off Miz. And so Miz came back with his little brother that he was supposed to leave behind had he bought a flat.

I slept over at Miz's place last week end. Before leaving, India had fortune of spending a sleep over at Miz's. I remember India telling me it was a dreadful experience, but I just couldn't for the life of me remember why exactly. His parents moved abroad a couple of years ago and the place was the filthy. But everything was fine until I needed to take a crap.

Turned out Miz doesn't have a toilet seat in his house, instead he's got a traditional hole in the ground. I'm not accustomed to the hole in the ground thing and I re-discovered that it does require some skill and dexterity. The other surprise was that Miz doesn't have any running water in his house except for a weak running tap in the garden.

Miz got me a bucket of water to flush with and a jug of water to wipe my ass with and left me to deal with the situation. After some mental preparation, I got to the task at hand. I pulled down my pants and squatted over the hole. The delivery was satisfying enough, even though I was sure if I was on a real toilet I could've probably pushed out a bit more. But then I had to wipe my ass with the water jug and it was too heavy for me to pour onto my backside without losing balance. And I noticed how very dangerously close my linen trousers were to the hole and the likelihood of some of the water flowing off my backside could drip on it. So I took off my trousers and then proceeded to wipe my ass successfully. Put my trousers back on and called Miz to show me how to wash my hands, he showed me the tap in the garden and the ordeal was over with.

Enie and Zaif, both of whom had left to Syria during the summer came this past week. I saw Enie at college today and I've yet to see Zaif. It's good to have Enie back in the class, he's much more alive than the rest of the guys. When Zaif arrived I spoke to him on the phone and he explained to me how he and his friends are planning to rent a place near his uni since his neighbourhood is too dangerous to commute from on a daily basis. He's a bit worried that it might be considered suspicious for a bunch of guys rent a place together. I knew my cousin was planning to do the same thing, so I told him that there must be a lot of guys doing the same and so it shouldn't be that suspicious. I know he knows my cousin, so I tried to tell him that he could maybe find a place with him. Zaif then connected some dots and realised that one of the friends with whom he's trying to find a place with is my cousin.

My bro who quit smoking just a few weeks ago has found out that he's got diabetes. It was my dad who also has diabetes that figured it out when he caught my bro pissing a lot. He's so bummed out about it. The doctor told him he has to lose ten kilos if he wants to fix himself up to not have to take pills or needles.

Nahida's found me an Arabic tutor (two actually) to teach me Arabic grammar. The first one was really good and he gave me two lessons which went very well. But since he's in such high demand and tutors groups, he's not affordable. So he hooked me up with another with whom I've only had one lesson so far and who inundated me with information. The second one ain't so great but I hope it works out with him anyway.

My car spent the last week being repaired by Nahida's brother. The choo-choo train sound from the engine is gone and is now making a beautiful hum. Acceleration is doing great too.

I'm still holding out against Nahida's food. I'm having lunch at restaurants and dinner has become a 'la vache qui rit' sandwich nearly everyday. I don't think I'm spending more by eating out every day, because a lot of the time I end up eating out before coming home from college anyway. And the food Nahida usually makes me is somewhat expensive and the amounts are wasteful.

I haven't had a shower for a week until this morning because the electricity has been missing that whole time. So after a week of building up a good smelly and well itchy body, and I would've gone on if I didn't have college today, I finally took a cold shower. But then after I got back from college the electricity came back for an hour or so and I just wished it had come one day earlier. But the cold shower was pretty nice, it also convinced me to use the downstairs shower next to my bedroom because the water flow is stronger. Which is exceptional because I had grown accustomed to using the upstairs one which even after I moved downstairs I continued to use. The upstairs shower has an indoor water heater but a weak water flow whereas the downstairs one is the opposite, it has an outdoor water heater which is harder to warm up and a stronger water flow making it more ideal for a cold shower.

Elated

I'm feeling somewhat elated this week-end. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not, maybe I'll crash in a couple of days.

I've spent most of the week-end in my bed reading about some of the subjects I'm studying in a couple of old A-level textbooks. It's a bit odd to see that the A-level books go into more detail than the what I'm studying at college. Well that's Iraqi education for you.

Got a massive zit building up on the inside of my thigh. It was a little lump for the past couple of months until last Thursday. It's a case of folliculitis. Not the first time it happens to me. To avoid any further friction on the spot I'm covering it with a nicotine patch. I've finally got the hang of sticking one on without having it fall off. If it pops and I don't clean the mess straight away I could get another.

The nicotine patch is also having some effect. I've cut down from two packs to only one pack a day. I know it's wrong to continue smoking while on the patch, but I'm not trying to quit. I have to admit it's nice to relax those worn out lungs a bit.

The fight for independence from Nahida is still going strong. I haven't had her make me a single meal except on Thursday morning when she made me a heavy breakfast of eggs and basterma because I was to get a new filling and wouldn't be able to eat on that side of my mouth for the rest of the day. Today for example I had drove out to get a Lahma bi Ajeen (translates to "meat in bread" and is like a light minced beef pizza) in the morning, on the way home I also got some bread and had a big peanut butter and jam sandwich. And for dinner I had a tuna sandwich.

The fight against her bad vibes is also going good. She says that what I'm going through is a result of the change of weather and that'll pass as if it's something bad. Where as I'm feeling a lot more comfortable and motivated than I've felt in a long time. I'm actually getting some studying done in my free time for the first time since I've come back from my summer trip, I'm sleeping better and I'm not over-eating anymore.

We've had rather cool weather during the weekend and today it rained which I think is a bit odd considering that it's mid-March. I just hope that the coming week ahead isn't going to be a whole lot hotter than last week. And this zit I've got better not decide to pop while I'm at college.

I should say that I finally must admit if I haven't already, I must be a bleeding hypochondriac. Every week, I find something wrong with my body. There's that lingering rash on my chest that I've had since 2001 or 2002 and I still haven't checked out what's the deal with that bump on the underside of my wrist. The thing can hurt sometimes. At least I got that filling that's been waiting for nearly a year to get done. I just got to go to the dentist one more time to take care of the final touches.

I was about to start reading the last bits of the economics chapter that I set out to read since yesterday but I picked up the phone and called Suzy. She finally asked me a question that she said she asked me before: whether I 'fancied' her or was 'in love' with her. I told her that she was a best friend to me that I was also physically attracted to. She wasn't very content with the answer saying that a physical attraction must be accompanied by feelings of love. I elaborated by saying I was in between 'fancying' her and 'loving' her. She sang a line of a song that described that she regretted meeting me. I then asked the same question she had asked me and she said she more than fancied me but less than loved me. So if what we've said was true to our feelings we've got a mutual thing going on. I asked her if I could still give her a kiss over the phone, she said it was fine.

One thing Suzy previously pointed out was that since we're in the same class it's harder for us to disconnect. It's true, and we've got a small class too. I do regret having moved on her too. I might have been more willing to try my luck elsewhere if I wasn't stuck in this cozy and no fun relationship with Suzy. And with summer starting up, I'm going to have to deal with the sight of her chest hair which I caught a reminding glimpse of a few days ago.

Oh bugger! I just noticed the electricity came back on, so I turned off the generator off. And the electricity just went off. I should just go to sleep anyway. Where's the off switch for this elated state I'm in?

I'm Not Hungry Anymore

Ten days since my last post is why I'm posting. I'm not in a talkative mood these days. I'm feeling more burnt-out than usual for no apparent reason. Sitting in some of my classes, I'm wondering why I'm not making sense of what the lecturer is saying.

At home, I've made Nahida understand that I don't want to hear her voice. She talks so loud and once she starts it feels las if she'll never stop. I've got such a hard time understanding her a lot of the time because she beats around the bush and she over uses pronouns. Now if only I could block off the sound of her voice coming from upstairs.

Last Sunday, I got my midyear exam results. I've failed four out of eight subjects. I was more or less expecting that. At least I know which subjects I've got to focus on now. Today I began reading some material. It might be the first time I actually get home and read something. I'm usually too tired by the time I get home. But today I felt pretty good. I had a good night's sleep last night, I had lunch with some classmates after class and I came home by cab.

Yesterday, I went to see one of my lecturers to talk to him about how I could improve my average. This lecturer belongs to another department at the university and I got told off by his head of department when he, the head of department, saw me with my shirt untucked and unbuttoned. And somehow he made it a safety issue. That I could be targeted for not tucking in my shirt. That's ridiculous I say. But I then tucked in my shirt and buttoned it up and went back to the man to say I'm sorry.

Things have been picking up with Suzy after I told her that I was sexually attracted to her. She thought it was a nice thing. But now I'm regretting it because she might have understood it as saying I'm in love with her. I'm just bored and don't have any one else to flirt with. It's all really silly since we could never get a private moment. And now she's got a new habit of leaning against me in class. It looks pretty awkward.

For the past week or two I've been working hard on guitar exercises. I think I might have plateaued. I'm having trouble holding on to bar chords for more than a couple of minutes and I just can't seem to speed up my picking with my wrist.

And to demonstrate how much I don't want to hear nahida's voice, I'm not getting any dinner because that would involve me talking to her. But it feels pretty good to not have her cooking any food because for one I'm sick of the stuff she cooks for me and second of all my belly has been growing and growing for the past six months. As I was crossing the street the other day, some guy in a car told me to do some exercise because my belly was getting too big.

I wonder how long I'll be able to keep this up. Ideally I don't want it to stop. But I know I'll grow weak and I'd yell: "Shaggy's hungry!" and she'll get all happy because I would've finally submitted to my dependency towards her.

Broke Sweat Today

Not in the mood of posting, but doing it anyway. Last week my class agreed to take a week off from college and start attending today. But not all of the usuals showed up and those that showed up decided to skip class. The day would've gone by if Dudu and another didn't get caught by the economics teacher. Which just happened to be the most boring one.

The odds and evens rule is being enforced again. I got used to using my car everyday for the past couple of months and now I'm back to taking cabs. And they can get quite expensive these days. I was passing by the bab-alshargi market and I realised that it was a great chance for me to check out some Nintendo DS games. So I told the cab driver to drop me off and he reluctantly took the full fare for my trip home. He needs the money more than I do and I never give money to beggars.

It was very sunny today and I was overdressed and I was carrying my college notes and books in my hands. For some reason, backpacks never caught on over here. And considering the security situation it'd be very suspicious if someone was seen carrying one. But there is a general trend among Iraqis to be willing to sacrifice practicality for the sake of adhering to social norms. Maybe someday they'll get too many books to carry in their hands and they'll be forced to take on backpacks.

I passed through the shops I knew used to stock DS games but with no luck, but there were plenty of PSP games. I ended up finding one shop that had a handful of old games. I bought an odd brick dropping game just because I didn't want to leave empty handed. I wasn't in the mood of browsing through all the DVDs in the market, so I just went into one and asked him if he had a proper copy (not filmed in a cinema) of the new James Bond movie. No luck there either, he said the proper copy had just arrived on the internet today and that he should have a copy soon. Translated: there's no decent copy, don't bother checking the other shops, and here's a bullshit excuse to put your mind at ease. There's one shop that sells semi-decent pirated audio CDs so I got me a couple of those. The nice thing about them is that they chuck in previous hits of the same artist in the remaining space on the CD. But the dodgy CDs don't always copy to my hard disk well.

Last Thursday, I bought a new wireless access point but the thing won't attach to my grid even with an adapter cable. So on the way back I stopped by the shop to see if he'd be willing to take back the thing. He couldn't believe that the cable from my grid ends with a SMA connecter, I told him I'll take a picture of it. So he told me to go back home and check if I could maybe unscrew the SMA connector off and reveal the normal one. I asked him if it would be okay if I returned the thing if that doesn't work and I think he said that it'd be okay. I hope he doesn't try to get me to swap it for a D-Link wireless access point. But the shop guy strikes me as the relatively gay type that understands that good services brings good revenue as opposed to the usual computer salesman that's intent on holding on to those couple of bucks he made on that sale no matter what.

I didn't feel like paying for another cab now that I was only a twenty minute walk away from home. And on the way I stopped by a kiosk to buy a drink that to my surprise was run by what looked like a handicapped person to me. He was awfully joyful. Seeing him work, reinforced my stance towards beggars as just pesty con artists.

Even though I was very hungry, I stopped by the kebab place I usually get a sandwich from when I'm hungry and can't be bothered to wait for Nahida to cook me a meal when I get home. The old man and who I suspect to be his son greeted with me a bigger smile than usual. The son asked me where I've been all this time. They've only got one thing on the menu: kebab sandwich for about a dollar and a half. From what I've heard it's been around for ages and has a branch or two abroad. Even though it doesn't show, it's one of those relics from the good days.

So I eventually got home and I checked the stupid cable and there's no chance that there's screw on adapter to take off. I'll go to the computer market tomorrow and go to that shop that hates me for returning another access point I bricked while updating, and ask them if they've got an adapter cable for me.

Then I took a nap and when I woke up, Nahida sent me off to some guy that lives a few blocks away and works at the state seed company. He's a really nice guy and very cheerful. But today his cheerfulness was often interrupted by bouts of despair and complaints of how life has become. I told him that my dad had sent me an e-mail a few days ago mentioning that I should prepare myself for spending the summer in the farm. I explained to him how daunting a task that would be for me and that on the other hand the rewards could be good. He pointed out the treachery, dishonesty and corruption of the Iraqis all of which I still don't know how to deal with, but if I was able to overcome all of that, then that would be the reward. And from there I could start my own militia perhaps and then begin my campaign for world domination.

Miz by the way has flown to Egypt today to chuck his little brother there and to buy an apartment for his parents who are in Amman to move to. He's delegated me to assist Kala's parents in case they have any internet problems. He's supposed to come back in ten days.

One Side To Chew On

Today I finally saw a dentist to fix the broken filling I've had since May of last year. And she's really good too, she didn't hurt me at all. I've got a temporary filling now that I can't stop playing with with my tongue. I'm not supposed to chew on it till tomorrow. But how in the world am I not? I eventually did while I was eating sunflower seeds. Of the one hundred sunflower seeds eaten I had to chew one on the wrong side.

The dentist also taught me how to brush my teeth. I've been brushing my teeth with horizontal movements while according to her I'm supposed to do so with vertical movements. Now I can't remember when my next appointment is, I hope Nahida does. I just know it's next week Thursday.

Filled the car with petrol today before seeing the dentist too. Just after Nahida and I got into the queue her brother called and told us to meet him at the beginning of the queue. And so we ended up cutting the queue thanks to her brother who had already been waiting in the queue before us and let us get in ahead of him. I'm still feeling a bit guilty about that. But in my defence I never buy petrol from the black market. A long while back, every time I put black market petrol in my car it screwed up the fuel injection system, but I'm told it's not so bad any more. And while we were at the dentist, I finally had the wheels balanced so that the silly car won't wobble at 90 km/hour.

My internet service hasn't been working well for the past week and a half. Last night it stopped working completely. I got my internet provider to check it out today. It turns out my SMC wireless access point isn't working any more. The stupid piece of crap. The internet provider guy was nice enough to lend me one of his until I get a new one. He also left me a portable USB hard disk of his to copy all the films and music I've got on my computer to.

The guy's hard disk is infested with viruses. I started to get virus alerts on my laptop. And I inadvertently began to delete a few of my files instead of repairing them. Realising that the viruses weren't going to stop coming, I decided to ditch the people I were chatting to to do a boot scan of my hard disk and his. Mine took a while, but his seemed like it was going to take several hours so I didn't bother finishing scanning his.

Other inadvertent thing I did today. After the internet provider guy came over, Nahida's other brother came downstairs and brought up Nahida's paranoia about having a stranger (the internet provider guy) in the house. And I said jokingly, "We've let you in the house haven't we?". In hindsight I can't make much sense of why I said that. Well anyway Nahida later told me that it upsetted him a lot since he feels that he's imposing his stay on us.

He's one of those people that have become 'internally displaced'. His wife and kids are staying with his wife's family and he's been staying with us every other night ever since. I enjoy having him over, and I didn't mean to hurt his feelings. Nahida's told me I've got to call him tomorrow morning to say I'm sorry. I wish she told me as soon as he began to trip out. So that's it... first thing to do tomorrow is deal with someone's sensitivity issue.

Od's Back Home

At eight o'clock last night, Od's mum called to say that Od came home and to pass the news onto Nahida. A couple hours later I called Od but didn't speak much with him because he complained about his throat about to burst from talking too much. He asked how I had heard he'd been caught and how did I hear he'd come home. He's already had a fight with his mum. His mum wants him to leave the country where as he wants to stay. He said he got treated very well and that they didn't hurt him at all. I wish Nawf was here so we could beat him up ourselves.

Yesterday I woke up with a bone or hard bump sticking out of the underside of my wrist. And the evening before the occasional gentle pain, that I had been getting ever since an Iraqi doctor gave me some weak treatment for that tick bite, began to move upwards. So I got myself the antibiotics that are recommended for treating lyme's disease in its early stage. If only I got the swelling checked out when it first appeared in the UK, I wouldn't be so hypochondriac about it.

I was planning to start to make healthier choices after I was done with my midyears. But getting into gear is still a work in progress. I've got to stop eating copious amounts of rice for example. Hanging out with Miz was part of the plan. Classes at his college resumed last week and he didn't show up till yesterday to find out he has a test today but he's not going to take it. we were supposed to start going to the club to check out the swimming pool and play tennis. But the punk is always too busy and keeps telling me he'll pass by tomorrow.

Mum e-mailed me yesterday to say that my cousin's wife has given birth. So I called him to congratulate him and stuff. He asked me if I had heard about the suicide bomber that hit so and so university. I told him that I hadn't. He then went on to tell me that he was there taking an exam when it happened. It'd would have really sucked if the poor guy got killed the day after his son was born. And it was around about this time last year that his dad had died from bad health.

I wonder what I'm going to do today. Probably nothing like the past few days. I'm going to play Scrabble on my mobile phone now.

Od's Been Taken (Part III)

This morning I went back to Od's place. His mum was on the phone smiling. She was talking to his dad. Od had just called to say he's fine. She was told that he'll be released as soon as the 'first lieutenant' or something like that comes back from his break and signs him out. So hopefully Od will be released tomorrow, knock on wood.

Od's Been Taken (Part II)

I went to Od's house to find his distraught mother her eyes still tearing. I didn't say anything, Nahida did all the talking with her, I just listened.

Yesterday the police were going going through his neighbourhood looking at the cars in the neighbourhood. They checked my friends car because it has 'Al Anbar' province plates. He was at home alone at the time, and they give it the all clear. Then his family, mother and uncles, arrived.

After the police finished going through all the street. They came back to his house, emptied the university handouts and stuff from his car and took him and the car. His mother described how she and him looked into each other's eyes during the moments that he was being taken away.

She didn't get the name of the officials. The police said that they were part of the explosives division and that she didn't have to worry, that they were only going to take him in for interrogation.

After a couple of hours later, Od called his mother and told her he was in a nearby neighbourhood. And then other acquaintances later called her too telling her that they'll get Od back. But she's being told by different people that he's being held in different places.

Nahida told his mum to go to the offices of a certain political party and to seek help there. And told her that if Od doesn't come back by tomorrow that she'll try calling up our own connection to help get him out.

On the way back home I got stopped by that same checkpoint that had been stopping nearly everyday for the past week. It's very close to his house, so I was hoping that they'd be the same guys that were there yesterday so I could ask them about those that took Od. But the guys manning the checkpoint had changed.

At this point it's anybody's guess if he's being detained just for the sake of an interrogation in which case he'll be released promptly or whether he's being taken under the guise of an interrogation to have him tortured and then killed. But I'm hoping and expecting him to come back soon enough.

I asked Od's mum for her phone number but since she didn't know hers and didn't have any credit on her phone she couldn't give it to me. So I gave her mine, so that she can call me after she tops-up her mobile up. But I should have taken Od's uncle's phone number at least so I could at least pass it on to Nawf and Sida.

Od's Been Taken

Nawf who left to Qatar or Bahrain a week ago sent me a SMS message around one in the morning today. Which I just read when I was awoken by my alarm at five in the morning. It said that Od and his were taken from his home by police commandos yesterday around four in the afternoon and asked me to try to find him. Nawf and Od are best friends.

Od is the last of my high school friends that I see. I don't want to lose him. His mum had arrived just a week ago. He's about to start his exams, he's studying to become a doctor. This is the first time something like this happens to someone close to me. It feels so horrible. I called Nawf and he tells me that he heard it from Talga. Nawf told me that all we can do now is try to talk to someone in the government to release him.

I'm going to go to his house soon and check the story out. After that I'm going to pass by the checkpoint which has been stopping me all week and see if they have anything to say but Nahida thinks that's a bad idea and she'll probably start her sabotage routine.

Improved Blogger I Am

The punks at Google have forced me to switch to the new Blogger early than I was planning. Well it's done now and even though it only took a couple of minutes to do. I wanted to wait till I was ready to post my 250th post. This one is number 245 but one or two might have been left as drafts. That's a lot of posts I'd say. Most of them long winded and some of them short and sweet. I've got maybe one last sip of whiskey left and on the occasion of my 245th post (minus one or two) I raise my glass and take that last sip... I'm out of booze now. Life couldn't get much worse.

Maybe it's time for me to change the layout of my blog. I can't be bothered to make a custom one of my own, it's too difficult for me. Maybe I'll find a new layout to replace the one I'm using now. Crap just dropped the can of sunflower seeds.

I'm getting stopped at checkpoints way too many times these days. There's one checkpoint that seems to have the impulse to check me out at least once a day and sometimes twice. Most of the time they want to check what's in the boot. Sometimes they check if my car is mine. At another nearby checkpoint, one of them asked me what my iPod was. People usually assume it's a mobile phone. Maybe they're looking out for a black killer car like mine... or maybe I just look like a terrorist in my own country.

I love my car. It imposes itself on the road. On the outside it's beaten up, it's scratched and the rear-right door is dented. One end of the front bumper is hangin off. There's a couple of badly covered bullet holes too. Sadly it's in dire need of repair right now. It needs so much repair. Most of which I thought would be carried out during my summer in the UK, but didn't. The acceleration in the car is awful right now, and I can't drive faster than 90 Km/h because the damn wheels need to be balanced. Last week I saw a couple bullet-proof versions of my car, they were so sweet. I wish I had one of those.

So I'm drinking and I've got another midyear exam tomorrow. Well screw 'em. I've had it up to here with these damn tests. Today I got so angry, boiling blood sort of angry, when I read through the questions of today's test. The teacher of the class had lectured three times since the beginning of the year, two of which I wasn't present for. He had given us one handout and highlighted specific lines for us to study (memorize). And I memorized them really well before the exam. The crap I memorized didn't provide the answer to any of the questions.

And that's why I'm in such a bad mood. Tomorrow's test is no better. The teacher of tomorrow's test has given us three handouts with a hundred lines lines to memorize by the word. Nahida tells me not to worry because she's spoken to someone that works at the university and that person tells her that there's an agreement to pass us anyway. Right now I'm waiting to see what my marks will be, because I'm considering just giving up on this year. It's too much of a hassle if things stay this way. I could maybe find some other way to waste the year away.

Bleeding Midyear Exams

It's been a heck of a past few days. My midyear exams started on Tuesday. And unlike previous years, we've got one test everyday as opposed to a test every other day. So after a test I go to Dudu's, we go over the material until around four in the evening, then I drive home and go to sleep. I wake up around midnight and continue studying. Then I leave home two hours before the test to make sure I get to my test on time.

Getting to college should only take just over half an hour before rush hour, but it's taking even more time now since they've placed serpentines using concrete blocks on both ends of the Bab-AlShargi bridge. Crossing that bridge used to take five minutes at the most, now it takes about twenty or more.

Yesterday they closed it a few minutes before I was about to reach it. And so I then crossed the other busier bridge which hasn't had serpentines added to it yet. To find that the road to college from there was blocked off. I then took a side street and ended up in an unfamiliar part of Baghdad the name of which I didn't know. Luckily there wasn't any traffic in this part of town. And when I asked for directions, I was greeted with a smile and very simple directions for how to get to college. That day it took me over an hour to get to college.

As I drove around yesterday, I kept noticing people looking at the sky as a plane was roaring about. Even the forces at the checkpoints had their heads fixed upwards. I thought it was odd since a bomber jet isn't a rare thing. But as I was on the last couple of stretches on my way home I caught sight of it. The thing was either flying very low or was massive. I had never seen a plane appear so big in the air (aside from air planes landing at an airport). And unlike the usual F-something, you know the Top Gun kind, this thing was black. By the time I got home and got Nahida to find my camera the stupid thing had disappeared.

My first exam on Tuesday was my easiest since it's a mathematical subject, but I'm bound to mess up the rest since they're in Arabic. I did so bad on the other two this week. I answered most of the questions, but whereas I'd answer with a couple of phrases, the others in the class are filling up pages. I can only hope that the teachers are going to be generous with me.

On Thursday everybody cheated except for me. Even the exam supervisors invited me to move my seat so I could cheat. By the time I was done with the exam, the only other two left were the uber-nerdy girls fusing their knowledge to get that perfect mark.

Unlike everybody else in the class, I've been brainwashed into to think that cheating is wrong and shameful. When my classmates asked me why I didn't cheat after the exam, I told them I was too tired. But the truth is that I hated them so much for cheating that I didn't want to join in.

Fozzy's gone back to the farm and without giving me my money. Instead he's given it to Nahida who has yet to hand me some serious cash over. I know she's trying to sabotage my plan to get two healthy whores to spend the night with me. She says I'd squander my money too much. I've got to start bugging her until she breaks and gives me my money.

It's five in the evening now and I haven't started studying. Instead I've been watching TV and the animes that Miz gave me the day before the exams started (what a splendid way to sabotage my motivation to study on his behalf). Miz who studies at the university that got hit a while ago still hasn't still hasn't resumed classes. I'm going to flunk these exams with flying colours. In the week ahead I'll have an exam everyday. Five exams day after day. It's ridiculous. I'm probably going to end up having a car accident from sheer exhaustion.

Last night I chatted to Kiki, he says he's going to go India in a week. He tells me his cousin Duraid is there. Duraid's the guy that gave him the idea of going to Malaysia, where Kiki spent a number of months hoping to pursue a master's degree. Duraid's also the wanker that wiped Tie Fighter off of my hard disk back in 1995.

Okay so I'm going to start studying now. That or watch another anime.

We Got A Gun In The House

My mid-year exams are going to start on Monday. And so far I've studied a few pages. I just can't be troubled to study. I'm going to get terrible marks. So instead I've been doing my guitar exercises. I'm having trouble picking really fast. My teacher's given me sound clips of how the exercises should sound and they're ridiculously fast. I'm supposed to pick by moving my wrist but I can't help moving my whole arm. I'm not sure if it's something I'll get better in time slowly or if it's something I ought to master now. Well whatever the case is after I'm done with all the other kinds of exercises I'm going to go see him and see.

With all the free time I've got on my hands these days. I've spent the past couple of days going into Yahoo chat rooms looking for chicks to chat to. It's something I do every year or two. I got myself one Iraqi, one Syrian and one Indian added to my Yahoo messenger contact list.

I thought I was going to get more studying done by going over to Dudu's place every day and have him explain all the material to me. But the bastard wakes up at around midday and I'm supposed to get back home early (around three in the afternoon) leaving not much time to get any studying done. Maybe I'll go to his place tomorrow. The other thing that has been discouraging me from going to his place was petrol. The petrol crisis isn't over yet. It's not as bad as last year, it might take an hour to get petrol on a good day, but I can't be bothered to wait that long.

I did fill up the car today though. Nahida and I left the house ten minutes before the Friday afternoon curfew finished. We even crossed a checkpoint and I think there was still five minutes to go and we got stopped just so they could check the trunk. We waited perhaps fifteen minutes in the queue at the petrol station.

These midyear exams I've got coming are a piss take. Some teachers have assigned material that they haven't even lectured to us. There's one subject in which the only way day he chose to lectured us, I wasn't able to make it to college.

Suzy on the phone told me that chapter three of some subject was included. I don't remember anything about chapter three. She then explained that the day he began to lecture us about it only her and three other girls were there and that one of the girls at some point told the teacher that he's doing a lousy job at explaining (which he does) and then the teacher loses it, stopped explaining and said the third chapter was included and that it was up to us to understand the rest of it. I don't get how the teachers are pulling this off, they know that we can't always make it to class.

I've also been spending a lot of time going through forums to figure out how to improve my audio drivers in my mobile phone. There's a new method now to customize my W810i that doesn't require bruteforcing. I can also do things like remove the annoying noise the camera makes when taking a picture or remove the operator logo. But it's all a bit scary in case something goes wrong and I might end up with a bricked phone. So far I've managed to access the files and folders where all the fun takes place but I still don't have the confidence to apply the strokes that'll change my phone. I'm still not sure if I have to go through the trouble of backing up everything in there either. And there might be some checksum thing that I might have to be aware about.

Oh and about tidying my stuff. Haven't done it. I think I finished planning it or I nearly did. I'm so damn lazy. I can feel a new 'me' emerging ever more carefree and lazy. I feel like a nirvana of laziness is overcoming me. It's wonderful.

I spoke to Kiki yesterday. He's been living with his sister in Amman without a residency and he's trying to figure out a scheme to get asylum some place. He says the UNHCR office there is open only one day a week for Iraqis and only for a few hours too, if you're lucky enough to get an application you'd still have to wait for months and months for an uncertain decision. I don't know what the UNHCR is supposed to do but it sounds like a sad deal if getting just an application is a challenge. He's also got a new idea that involves going to India to study Microsoft and Cisco networking. Which is a great idea. But Kiki is an idiot, and as much as he loves computing, he doesn't really have the head for it. And those are hard courses as far as I understand. It's typically him to think of pursuing some pipe-dream.

India on the other hand is getting a tooth removed for seven dollars in Sweden. Seven dollars! That's the price of an emergency dentist session for an asylum seeker in Sweden. And if it totals into twenty-eight dollars then he'll be fully compensated by the Swedes. Surprisingly to me, after seeing an x-ray of India's teeth the dentist there admired the work that had been on India's teeth.

India started to quit smoking today. And so has my brother. My mum tells me that one of his kid's friends said that his dad had died from smoking at the age of forty-seven, and that's what pushed my brother to quit.

I think my mum's getting pissed that my dad's new girlfriend has moved in with him. I was telling my brother the other day about how having such a dysfunctional in the UK makes me rather stay here in Baghdad than go back there to live with them. My family is crazy, everyone in it is pissed off at the other for some reason.

Fozzy is back from the farm. He's been at the farm for ages. Ever since I came back from the UK, he's only visited two or three times. He's here to get fix the deal so that we can receive rice grain from the government so we could mill it for them. But for me his arrival means that he can withdraw money from my dad's accounts and hand some to me. He hasn't given me any money yet and I think Nahida's trying to make some manoeuvres to try to stop me from receiving a lump sum for fear that I blow it all too fast. But as soon as I get my money and these midyears are over I'm going to get me a couple of whores for a hundred bucks each. I'm still not too sure I can pull it off though.

Last night Fozzy said that people shouldn't be emigrating abroad and instead should be returning to their tribal villages where they'd be safe. And from there people could work to making Iraq a better place. From their villages they'd be able to have a say and influence their respective leaders with their own opinions. I think he's right, the bottom line is that nobody from Baghdad for example would want to go back to their backward living villages of origin. Two million Iraqis probably consisting of the more privileged tier of Iraqi society could make a difference, but those two million have fled.

Nearly every home has a gun in Iraq and it's been that way for ages. I thought we had a handgun and a Kalashnikov. But it turned out that the Kalashnikov went off to the farm and I don't know what happened to the handgun. Nahida's brother who often sleeps over has been telling Nahida that we ought to have a gun and I've been nagging her about it too for a while too even though I don't know how to use one. Well she finally got one and this is what it looks like...

I have no idea what it's called, there's some Russian print on it. But it looks like an antique doesn't it? Nahida's brother is saying that she ought to give it back from whoever she got it from because if our house gets searched they'd confiscate it. He says the only kind of guns that are permitted are Kalashnikovs.

I should go try to study now even if I'm only going to do it for ten minutes. And I'm hungry too.

Had dinner, and I took the time on the internet to find out what the gun is. On the gun there are several engravings: a Cyrillic serial number: БД-2729 four times, the Iraqi army logo twice, and '1945'. I wasn't getting anywhere until I began searching for World War II Russian machine guns. And I finally found it on Wikipedia as the PPSh-41.

Sober Tonight

I'm posting sober tonight! I'm not suffering from alcohol withdrawal ever since I switched to Teacher's whiskey. I'm going to stay away from Grant's from now on.

On Thursday I went to college to get some missing handouts and I'm now on a preparation holiday for the mid-year exams that are coming up in two weeks. I haven't started studying yet. My morale is really low this year. I've decided I'll start studying on Sunday. But I think that's the day Nahida's decided to take me to get a new passport.

The government and everyone else has made a big fuss about the issuance of new passports. Whatever the fuss is, my passport expired three days ago. I've got the 'M' series passport and it's already been renewed twice. So I've got no qualms about getting a new one, just as long as the government finally settles on moving forward with this new one. During the past few years I think there have been three or four different designs, each of which have different levels of eligibility from foreign countries. For example, some embassies don't grant visas to people with such a series of passport.

I've been watching lots of films these days. Miz had given me a couple ('Kicking And Screaming' as well as 'Friends With Money') when he gave me his portable hard disk. Kicking And Screaming was watchable, it wasn't exciting to watch and I don't have the sense of humour required for the genre so it ended up being a bland film for me. Friends With Money was all right and it had a nice ending. I like the idea of a snapshot of people's lives developing and intertwining.

I also uncovered a bunch of films on my own hard disk which I had downloaded for India and had never bothered to watch and had eventually forgotten about. Some of which I finally decided to delete. He got me to download some seriously unbearably sick stuff. Which I think he's yet to watch himself to this day. He's got a penchant for just collecting things that to me is just weird.

But there were some films that didn't seem so bad. So I watched 'A Dirty Shame' yesterday, sure enough it was weird, but how I wish what took place in that film could happen here. Today I saw Fat Girl, it was a French film which in French I think was called A Ma Soeur. I really liked the pace with which the story unfolded and the ending made it so very worth watching. With the few plot twists throughout the film it gives you a chance to appreciate the main character and makes sense of what would otherwise would be a twisted ending.

Before I start studying I've decided to tidy up my stuff around the house. Which involves bringing more stuff from downstairs back downstairs. It's all part of a procrastinating plan to delay studying for my upcoming mid-year exams which are ten days away. But it's crazy, I've even got a procrastinating scheme to delay tidying my stuff up. I've been planning on paper how to tidy up my stuff. Three days I've spent 'planning on paper' and I'm not done yet.

I'm thinking of pouring myself a drink now. Just one before I go to sleep. I swear I'm not suffering from alcohol withdrawal. I haven't had a drink since my last post.