Something To Work On

Got some stuff to fry up for a meal. It's been a struggle to feed since I'm in Baghdad and Nahida's still at the plantation. Nostalgia's good. I'm working my old laptop now. Most of my blog has been done on this little one. It's hard disk growls these days, angry that it's been woken up. I hate my other laptop that I've been using for the past year and so. It's got Vista. It's also larger, heavier and has bad speakers.

I wonder what I would have blogged ten years ago. My life seemed like a big mess around about back then, and it's funny to see after all this time, I'm suddenly finding myself in a big mess again with no idea what to do with myself. I know I'm going to do something silly over the next four months or so. But for now, I've turned myself back into a glorious sloth again.

The electricity is back and it's time to start frying food...

Still no improvement on my puff pastry frying skills. The pastries nearly look burned on the outside but there's a big layer of pastry on the inside that isn't getting cooked.

I Love My Dad

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Beans

It was a long harvest, 30 days long. Thankfully, heavy rains didn't come pouring down till the night of the day we finished. Sure enough, I was on my way back to Baghdad the next day. After doing some quick sums, it looks like our sales of our crops are going to double this year.

Coming back to Baghdad after such a long time at the plantation made me notice a few changes. Such as the traffic is now even more horrendous than before I left. It took me over an hour to drive into my own neighbourhood and to my house the day I arrived.

Od arrived from Lebanon the same day as me to hear that one of his classmates got shot while riding with someone else who seemed to be the target. He also got engaged to what seems as like someone that can cut through his bullshit which is a good thing. Every guy needs a woman like that.

It's very early in the morning now, I'm hungry and I think that Qaddori's opens at 6:30 AM. So I better hurry up this post to get there and eat some beans. One other change that's taken place in Baghdad is the popping up of small take away pizza places. There might be two or three in my neighbourhood. Up until now, nearly all burger/pizza restaurants have had sit-in areas. They still have a lot of room for improvement when it comes to the pizza however.

Ever since coming back, I've kept myself busy. During the day I've been getting things done. The first thing I did was go to the phone company to pay my phone bill which for last month was about 160 bucks chargeable to the plantation. The girl that prints out the bill is so cute. She looks like she's in perpetual mourning because she's been wearing black for the three months since I started with my billed line. She was also not wearing any make-up and she doesn't need to because she has pouty lips and rosie cheeks which is something somewhat rare here. She was the first pretty woman I got to see for over a month.

There's something wrong with the SIM cards we get. They've got no theft protection at all. You might know that if you type in the wrong PIN number several times that it'll then stop asking for the PIN number and won't work unless you type in the PUK number. I've learned that the PUK of all 078 numbers is eight zeros, thereby defeating the purpose of the PIN number and there's no way to change the PUK number either.

For a change, I'm not feeling bored. Instead, after coming back, I got swept by a big sensation of loneliness. I guess I've been lonely most of my life and that most of the time I'm just used to it. I'm thinking that as soon as I've cleared up all immediate work related to wrapping up the rice season that I might go take a vacation and see my family back in England.

I'm getting too hungry to continue this post. I'm going to roll myself a joint and go get me some beans.

Ba Ba Bored

The harvest is nearly over, we're on the last stretch, about 25 hectares of partially collapsed rice to harvest. The rice collapsed because of its heavy load being blow down by strong winds. No cool crop circles here unfortunately.

Going out to the harvest has become a routine affair. I wake up, get me a bite to eat from Nahida. Call up my advisor and head off to the fields. If the day starts early I come back home for lunch. The day ends after sunset and I drive back home. I watch the movies, animes and series that Nais has loaded onto my portable hard drive, have my dinner and after a couple of joints go to sleep.

That's not to say that it's all routine. A couple of days ago, a farmer protested against letting a second combine harvester into his land. A couple of his relatives then came in and shot at one of my agents. When things go awfully wrong I've got several numbers to call on: my cousin the sheikh, the dude that's in charge of all the government offices in town, his assistant and my dad. But I couldn't get through to any of them.

I took my agent in my car and we headed to the police station who sent us to the court house that then sent us back to the police station with some. We then had to go back to the court house but we needed witnesses to testify. We called on my other agent and the driver of the combine harvester and they didn't come fearful of any repercussions. It was around this time that my cousin got through to me. He told me that I could go back to the harvest, that he'll get the cops to hurry up and that he's sending a guy we know and who is a relative of the shooter and the farmer to the harvest and who he wants me to put on the line when I see him.

I left my agent at his house and went onto the harvest met up with the guy and we were about to listen to the farmer's side of the story but I had to tell him to get rid of the automatic rifle he had slung on his shoulder (My dad once told me that a farmer must not bear arms during the harvest). After we heard his story, I told him off a little more. We held onto his share of the harvest as instructed by my cousin, the purpose of which was to get him to hurry up with resolving the matter.

By the evening of the same day, I visited my cousin to explain to me what will happen. He explained to me that it was agreed that the next day the farmer and members of his family will apologize to the agent as well as myself in each of our homes and pay somekind of compensation fee of nine-hundred thousand dinars to my agent for the bullet shot and six-hundred thousand to me for messing with an agent of mine whilst doing his job, but that it wouldn't be appropriate to take the sum owed to me. My cousin told me that it was important that such things be dealt with as fast as possible and that they'll come to me even though he wouldn't be able to come. I told him I had no clue what the heck to do, so he agreed to postpone their apology to me to the day after so he could attend.

And so today, at ten minutes to two in the afternoon he came to my guest hall and told me about some website on the net to check the weather on and a couple of minutes later the guest hall was filled with about thirty or forty guys as if they had just come off of a bus. My cousin called for tea and explained the actions he took and some other things I didn't understand and then called on the farmer to say hello or 'peace onto you' which he did and was followed by a bunch of the elders some of which I was well acquainted with, others I had just seen around. The whole thing was over within twenty minutes.

That was pretty much the highlight of this year's rice harvest. The rest of it has been well boring. Especially these nights when I get back home.

Bad Luck Tapping

Seems as though this time of year can be just plain bad luck for me. Something I'll check by reviewing previous posts.

Last night, somebody tried to get passed the PIN protection on my dad's phone and screwed it up. For no good reason at all, I tried sliding in the my dad's SIM card into my Sony Ericsson phone. Turned on my phone and nothing came on except for a little blink from the infrared thing.

This morning I woke up with a wet dream. The last time that happened it wasn't a wet dream, it was chlamydia. But I haven't slept with any prostitutes in a long time, so there's no chance of that. It's still a nuisance. The strange thing about a wet dream, is that I usually get a chance to wake myself up before it climaxes. This morning I chose not to wake up.

I had to go to Diwaniya this morning. I thought that perhaps there I'd find myself a replacement battery and that would do the job. But there was not a single Sony Ericsson phone in sight. I need a phone for work and I'm not going back to Baghdad for another couple of weeks, so I bought a new Nokia. I don't like Nokias, I don't know how to setup the internet on it and I can't find the blog function.

Driving back to the plantation, I drove over a dirt bump that's supposed to keep people from driving through. They didn't quite make it high enough to stop cars from going over it and I drove over it on my way earlier in the morning. On the way back however, I must've been driving too fast because it hit the car from underneath and when I got home some guys took a look and handed me a piece of plastic telling me this must have fallen off.

It was mid day by then and realising that my luck so far has been very bad, I reluctantly went out to the harvest. Surprisingly, everything went smoothly until we got to the last farmer of the day. That's when my scientific calculator which I've set constants to calculate my share of the harvest.

24 hours have passed now and I should be safe now.

Drugs on the farm?

I've been hearing about a flower that people plant for its nice smell and that is also a drug. This is the first one I've seen. There's a story of a little girl that ate some of these flowers and died. The farmer's could also be pulling my leg.

A Day at the Harvest

Why do the people look so small in the picture? There are a lot of these women dressed in black, about thirteen in sight right now. They come and collect the stalks with rice that the combine harvester misses. They collect the stalks in a bag and beat the bag with a stick to thrash the paddy from the stalks.
A few also come to ask for some of the paddy that the combine dumps that the farmer and I split. So we give then about fifteen kilograms from each pile.
There are alot more than there were last year. I thought it was because we had poor crops last year, but I'm told that there women that come from far away places have gathered here because this here is one of the few places that managed to cultivate in spite of the drought.
There was one guy that had been following us since the first day and would walk off at the end of each day with a big bag. It's good to see he's not here today. He got me wondering how much is enough.
Oh no, it's started to rain again. We didn't harvest yesterday because of the rain. It's also started to get cold. I might now need to switch my white summer dishdasha for a winter one.

Harvest will Start

The harvest starts tomorrow. I'm nearly ready and will make an effort to blog from my phone during the harvest. I hope it's not as exciting as the last harvest. I also hope that the farmers don't have much to complain about either. The thing they annoyed me the most about last time regarded getting a 'shovel' (big yellow vehicle with a big scooper in the front). A lot of them got that taken care of after the last harvest. Some will complain that I'm compensating a little less than they expected for the 'shovels'.

After this harvest is through, I'm going to have to start thinking of how I'm going to spend my first twenty million. It's going to totally change the way I think of spending my money. No longer will it be worth my while to spend money on expensive restaurants and the occasionally nasty prostitute. I could try saving my money and travel instead. I'll try to get a job too, but I definitely have to travel even it's to piss in a foreign country and fly right back.

No orn

I haven't wanked in a long time. Having my dad around has made me feel uncomfortable about doing, his room is just across the corridor from mine. He's taken over my room at the plantation and now I'm sleeping the living room and I think it's time I move that bottle of vodka out of sight it's been lying around on a drawer in the corner for a week. I should not be leaving that around for my dad to see. It is a half-bottle of absolute, maybe it doesn't look so suspicious. Let's see, (thinking about wanking) I do need a shower too.

I might as well drink the vodka, there's not much left in it anyway. Never mind, I don't have anymore but I've got plenty to keep me high. Getting high so much is beginning to make me feel I've lost my focus on controlling my life. The good news is that I'm still making the changes I decided I need to make before feeling that I've lost my focus on controlling my life. Maybe I could say that I was in 'boss me' mode and that I'm now in 'do-er me' mode now. Drank the vodka, and the result is that I had so little there's no effect.

This laptop doesn't have any video porn! They got accidentally deleted a while back and I haven't copied anything new. Maybe that's why I haven't been wanking. But back in Baghdad, I've found a bunch of stuff on my old laptop some of which I didn't even know I had. Should have copied some. Porn sites have also lost a great deal of their appeal these days too. I'm definitely wanking tonight no matter what.

I did get turned heavily turned on last weekend though, my dad and I visited some family. That was the most fun I ever had during a family visit, because they Wii at their house. And I got so horny after coming back from their house. They had a very cute sixteen year old daughter. Yes, it's wrong. Fortunately however, she was off my mind the next day and thinking about her now isn't doing anything to me.

Getting a Cut

Autumn started the day of my last post. Ever since the weather hasn't climbed over forty Centigrade. The weather's been lovely ever since. There was one rainy and windy day in the plantation when I was in Baghdad. That day was my birthday. When I came back, portions of the crop had been knocked down by the wind which was a sore sight.

I had a bunch of issues to go through with my dad. One thing that he caught onto quickly enough was that he should play down his authoritarian attitude with me about how things should be done. He now understands that I like to do things differently and that it works. A few days ago, my dad agreed to giving me a portion of the profits. We haggled until we agreed that I get 30% of the profits. That's about 20 million dinars ($16,000) for the last wheat season. I'll also be responsible for paying for my own expenses in Baghdad. The most annoying thing about having my dad around is that he keeps waking me up early in the morning.

Both my father and I are doing better now that we agreed on a cut for myself. He was very apprehensive of the idea at first, but we finally sat down to talk about it he quickly become more receptive. He couldn't sleep that night and the next day after a bad night's sleep he did accuse me of trying to weasel as much money as possible. But after a good rest, he switched to a good mood and now I'm a bit worried that maybe he's figured that he got himself a good deal and that I got ripped off.

Kiki's thinking of coming back. He's still in Malaysia and finally got a job that was passed down to him after the friend he went to Malaysia with flew off to America. He asked if he could stay at my place which of course he's always welcomed to. It would be really nice having him back. It would bring back the spirit of the old times. He was always the one that I was sure to find when I used to visit during summer break when I was living in Lebanon. My ex-neighbour's been here for a month, and Kiki asked if he was staying at his old house. But ex-neighbour is cooped up in grandma's, I told Kiki that he did think about moving back into his old house. It would be great to see the old gang grow back.

Wine from a Tea Pot

Woke up with a slight sore throat. Must have not covered myself well last night as well as smoked too much. Yesterday, was my birthday.

After a morning going round the local offices with my dad to distribute gifts, Nahida popped out the cake she had prepared the night before. Dad remarked by the time he was twenty-eight he was already into his second marriage.

From there I drove back to Baghdad, bought some wine and went over to my ex-neighbour's place. Another friend from school showed up a little later and we went out for dinner where we were served wine in cups out of a tea pot!

Clarification on a Point in Previous Post

In my last post I started off with:

How do these people tolerate their miserable lives in this country? Why does it feel like I'm the only one who is so unhappy with things and in other words why can't I find myself a normal girl to sleep with. It's not just that really, but then again it might be just that.

But to clarify, what it is that bothers me is that people men and women don't socialize in public. It's alright for a guy and a girl to phone each other now that there's no risk of any of the parents picking up the phone or chat on the internet. As long as it's out of sight of the judging eye of society.

Why is it that if people see a guy and a girl out together that they have to come to the conclusion that they're dating. It would be nice if I could someday go to a classmate's house, say hi to her parents and go have some lunch or dinner.

What I'm trying to get to is why can't guys hang out with girls just like guys hang out with guys. If a guy sleeps over at another's house it doesn't mean they're going to bum fuck each other, so why shouldn't it be the same when a girl sleeps over. That is an extreme analogy, but it gets to the point.

I don't think it's just society and its judgmental attitude that's to blame. The guys and the girls are to blame too somehow. Guys here in general have a disrespectful attitude towards girls. Girls on the other hand think of themselves as so precious. So precious, that she would only go out with a guy if she was indeed on a date with him, which ultimately supports society's view of a guy and a girl out together.

In the end, you end up with two halves of society that don't take the chance to get to know each other so that they may respect each other on a personal level and not necessarily thing of each other as something to sleep with or marry.

Since I'm a guy, I should defend my camp. It's so hard to have a personal relationship with a girl that when one does finally get to do so with a girl, that girl gets the focus of his urge to procreate. As for the girls, I'd like to see them explain themselves without blaming us guys.

The Things That Bother Me With My Life

How do these people tolerate their miserable lives in this country? Why does it feel like I'm the only one who is so unhappy with things and in other words why can't I find myself a normal girl to sleep with. It's not just that really, but then again it might be just that.

My dad's coming in just a few more days. I'm very angry and I'm going to direct most of it at him. Usually he's the one that gets angry at me, but I've got so much anger piled up that I'm not even going to give him the chance to have a go at me. I'll admit there's only myself to blame for letting my life lead me to where I am.

I've never felt so much anger within me. Except for a certain time and that was because I was drugged up. Anger can be utilized as a good motivator.

Ever smelled the wonderful scent of a dead rat? It is horrible! It's worse than the smell of a few days old corpse. That's what the kitchen and the corridor here at my place at the plantation smells of right now. I'm surprised the smell is never followed by that of vomit. That smell is like a bad memory, I mean just remembering it smells bad.

I'm also angry at the government. They make my job so much harder because of their incompetence and bureaucracy and their idiotic methods to stifle fraud. Every single farmer as well as I feel that the government is trying its best to make things harder on us.

For example today, I had to go through about eleven people to get a government document permitting me to purchase new wheat seeds from a mixed sector seed company.

Will continue this later...maybe

Don't Like Sleeping Pills

Spoke to dad today, just to ask him about his visit's itinerary (he's coming next week). I haven't been speaking to him ever since the wheat harvest. Last month, I spoke to him twice both times ending with me getting very angry and hanging up in his face. Whilst discussing collecting rent for our storage rooms my dad pointed out that our financial status isn't good. This coming from a man that's spent his life saving pennies to accumulate a lump of savings with he prides himself.

The truth is that since I'm in a position to be well aware of what our finances look like. We didn't ride any post-war gravy train like most people. My dad kept doing things like he knows how, making sure he's got a good rate on his saving's account. But the last year or so has been bad. The mill was a failure and he had bought some property in the nineties that it now turns out were sold with forged documents and upon which we had built and another part of sold.

My father's very old and it must be very disappointing for him to see his fortune just slip away towards the twilight of his life. It does however seem that he's taking it quite well. My brother told me he's going to go on a cruise in the Caribbean and to not say he told me. I do feel I have reason to be pissed off at my father for that, considering I had an argument with him the last time he came when I asked for a vacation in Europe and he told me that all we could afford for me was a two-week vacation in a cheap hotel in Lebanon or some other neighbouring country. Then again, it's his money and he's entitled to do whatever he wishes with it.

All my life I've more or less followed what my dad told me to do, except for the many years which I spent getting high at university abroad and he's been covering all my expenses for most of my life and the past year hasn't been an exception. But after working for over a year on the plantation, I've pocketed nothing yet except the nice car he gave me as a 'graduation present' but more for the sake of helping me do my work. If it was up to me, I'd charge the car on the plantation. Actually, that's a good idea. But now my dad's ship is sinking, I think it's time for me to jump off.

I'm going to have to try to have a proper sit down with him and hope he takes me seriously for a change. He should also be aware that I'm ready to start taking care of myself and should have some idea of what he can offer me. I do however, want to clear out a lot of nonsense between us, layout a new framework for our relationship and discuss with him the way I perceive things.

Tomorrow I want to go visit a bunch of government offices, it's past three in the morning now and I haven't slept yet. This is very annoying.

It's Complicated, Lots of Factors into Play

Earlier I took a Ritalin pill and smoked the last of my hash. My stash ran out a long time ago, but Od's been passing me bits from his share. How long has it been since I've started smoking up regularly again? Maybe six to nine months. I didn't think I'd stay smoking for this long. I wonder if it's affecting me and my life negatively. Maybe it's been good, maybe I needed it. My life has become a great deal more stressful since I graduated from college during which I didn't smoke up. Over the past few months, I've been to a urologist, a dermatologist and a guy dressed up as a cleric that does hijama (blood letting using a vacuum technique), and they all told me I need to chill out.

The plantation's doing well. I'm a bit behind on the accounts which is holding me back from focusing on doing some fixes. One of my two guards who is also a farmer on the lands (and not a good one at that) walked into the living room today with the biggest and stupidest smile. In his hand he was carrying a black plastic bag with some long green leaves sticking out. He pulled out the leaves to display the stalks of rice loaded with grains he picked on his way to show them to me. I guess that it's a very good sign when such stalks of rice appear so early.

I just had a farm idea. And I've jotted it down so I could carry it out later. Just to give an example of what my work is sometimes like I'm going to explain it. First off, we have irrigation canals, which weeds can clog. Therefore during the water intensive rice season we need to keep cleaning the weeds out of the canals. Previously on my plantation, it is expected that each farmer cleans the canals that are adjacent to his plot. My farmers however, don't. So I end up paying for workers to come and do it and then when harvest time comes I'll take grain from the farmer's share in compensation. There are however, segments of the canals that are not adjacent to the plots of any farmers and previously we've paying the bill for those segments ourselves without any compensation from the farmers. This year however, my cousin the local tribal sheikh said that the farmers should bear the cost of these segments too.

Today, I was sitting with the guys that do the cleaning to help me distribute accordingly, the costs of all the irrigation canals on the farmer's list on my super duper excel worksheet. And it has just occurred to me, that I've had to distribute the cost of a long segment of canal cleaning to a relatively small handful of farmers in one area that aren't doing so well (some of them are lousy farmers and their new water pump got installed late). I'm thinking it's not very fair on them to pay so much, so what the new 'farm idea' is to make them pay no more than the highest average for any other area and I'll accept to pay the remainder. I just need to see how the numbers look when I get around to it.

Anyway, I'm fed up with the plantation. I've been spending so much time scheming lately on ways to get out of here. It's like my own little quagmire and I need to work on my exit strategy. I need to get this plantation performing properly as well as give my life a new direction all of which seems unfathomably complicated right now.

Nearly Everyone Else's Eid

I woke up very early this morning, opened up Facebook and everyone was Happy Eiding everyone else. I was so happy, all I had to do was take a shower, shave and get ready for the arrival of a bunch of kids to come to the mudheef and to hand them out candy. And then around lunchtime I'd make my getaway to Baghdad and enjoy some festivities.

Come seven in the morning, and the date evaluators are in the mudheef waiting on me to come out so that we can finish off the date evaluation of each farmer which we had planned to finish after Eid if Eid was tomorrow. So while nearly everyone else is celebrating, the guys down here are celebrating it tomorrow. Which means that I'm down here for an extra day and I'm missing out on another day of Eid.

Yesterday, we went to Karbala for dinner. It was cloudy, maybe it will rain this winter which would be so good as long as it doesn't rain during the harvest which isn't for another couple of months. When we got to the restaurant, Durra al Nasrawi (or something like that), which was quite good the guy at the door recognized Fozzy and Nahida. It turned out he was the guy that lived and guarded the house opposite our own. It was surprising so much affection exchanged between the two at this random encounter considering I think they found him annoying at the time he used to live on our street. But in retrospect he was a lot simpler than the new people that moved in.

I'm quite fed up with my workload at the plantation. The amount of accounts that I have to do is ridiculous. Data inputting what each of over 150 farmers has received in terms of seeds, fertilizers, plastic pipes (which they end up tossing away anyway), cost of land repairs, cost of canal cleaning (the last two of which I haven't done yet). Then there's categorizing all the costs of which there are plenty such as operating, fixing the water pumps, diesel, handling the seeds, costs of selling the yield, administrative costs, fixing things such as step-down transformers.

There's also the adding up all the rehabilitation projects, such as building a bridge or installing a new water pump, of which I have to pay back my dad a third from the profits I make from the land I'm supposedly renting from my uncle and from which I have yet to pocket anything. But I do spend freely from my dad's money. I think my dad's going to try to cut me off next time he visits and so I'm trying my best to spend as much money as possible while I still can.

I'm going to get a Visa debit card to buy myself a Blackberry. But unluckily, Iraq's government has decided to impose duties on imports as well as on stuff that's sent through DHL and the likes. They're even trying to take duties on books from people arriving at the airport.

From what I hear the government's trying its best to mess with the work of parcel courier businesses. Something about trying to get a state enterprise to monopolize the handling of all stuff flying in and out of the country, so for example, I go to DHL give them a parcel, they then have to hand it to the state enterprise that will then fly it off to a neighbouring country from which DHL will then take back the parcel and take it where it's supposed to go. As inefficient and ineffective as state enterprises are, you can only imagine how bad it can get and how late and how lost your stuff will get.

So right now, I'm hoping a friend of mine who would also like to buy a Blackberry to see if his boss will allow him to use his APO (US military) mailing address to circumvent the whole problem. Leaving me to hope his boss doesn't take them for himself. (Quick edit: Just checked and online shops don't mail electronics to APO addresses, not only them, but Play.com (UK) don't mail electronics abroad either, for security reasons! That leaves me only one option: Western Union some money to mum and have her buy it online for me because the high street only sells them on contracts.)

I read the preview section of a book about Iraq's economy in the thirties through to the fifties on Google the other day. It looks like a good read, but for $190 bucks, I'm not so sure. It does a great job describing British attempts to control the economy and how hopeless the Iraqis are at running things on their own. I've got to get myself these history books one day. It really does help make sense of everything of what is going on today. Because at the end of the day it all begins to seem like one big re-run, leaving one to wonder if it can all work out right this time.

Od and I were hoping that things will get better by the time we graduate, and in some aspects they have such as in security and the availability of prostitutes. Though I'm still trying to regain the stupidity of giving it another go after my previous bad experiences with them. I told Od that next time we have to insist on some quality. Then there's the availability of hash which is good too, it certainly does help. But I much prefer grass. Hash satisifies the urge but isn't so pleasurable.

But on the other hand, it seems that the more the government gains its own say on the way things should be run, the more likely it is to screw up. The aforementioned parcel service nonsense or the big idea to censor the internet 'for state security' for example. Sounds like you'll soon get in jail for saying 'down with the government'. With their attempts to practice censorship, they step right into the scenario where moderate reformists are silenced and radical extremist's wills are strengthened, something which should be obvious. But then again, it's all good for those in power even though the people will suffer.

I don't know why I'm becoming pessimistic all of a sudden. I've always thought that as long as some democracy existed there will be hope for things to get better, but it does seem that those in power are trying to burn the bridge for change...

I had a good idea of exactly what I wanted to say next but Nahida brought me dinner. It was something like: Why can't this country gain sovereignty without shooting itself in the foot?

I know it's not me to talk of politics but does anyone see any sign of improvement in writing? I've been practicing.

Oohh Humbug

It's Ramadan again. I just noticed that the visitors to my blog have doubled. Seems that if you google: "i hate ramadan", my post with the same title is the first result on the list. I read that post today and I ought to make one correction: when I go to a restaurant with my friends who are fasting, I get the impression that I'm the hungriest one among them.

This year is completely different from last year's however. Where as last year people were smoking, drinking and even eating at restaurants on the sidewalk. This year the government has done a 360, making all the above outlawed.

Not everybody fasts! These days the weather is very hot. There plenty of old people that don't. There are also those that are sick. What's a person coming from a province and needs to do some kind of medical test supposed to do when the doctor tells him or her that he or she needs to drink or eat something.

Restaurants aren't allowed to serve food during daylight hours and they can't even give out take-aways till after three in the afternoon according to a friend of mine who was desperate for some lunch. Before the war, it wasn't allowed to do so and so in public too, but at least the restaurants were allowed to stay open as long as people on the street can't see the customers eat.

It's as though the government is imitating the Taliban. The government also wants to block internet porn too. It's not going well at all. On the bright side, the government does seem a great deal whimsical and Ramadan next year will probably be a different deal altogether again.

Why does it seem like I'm the only one hating Ramadan on the net? I don't mind if the whole world went fasting on Ramadan honestly, it might be a little inconvenient but there's no reason why I or anyone else should have to starve too.

---added later---

I wrote this post without actually seeing with everything with my own eyes. Now I'm back from Baghdad and most of it is kind of true. I later found a neighbourhood with a bunch of restaurants open. So it seems the rules have been applied more leniently in some parts. When buying Kanafa from one of the local sweet shops, I was told that the least I can order is half a kilo until futoor and that otherwise it would create a hassle for the shop.

Big Plan

Need to learn to write faster and where else to do it but here on my blog. I ought to plan that which I want to write. Skipping that stage this time, or maybe I could come up with something to talk about.

I've been extremely lazy today. I didn't even go out of the house. I'm having trouble with the 'E' key on my keyboard. It's driving me nuts. I just slipped a tiny piece of cardboard paper under the letter and it now works well. Good things do happen after all.

I've got enough hash to make one last joint. Will smoke it as soon as I'm done with this post. Was supposed to go back to Baghdad today. Perhaps I'll go tomorrow. I need to take Nahida back there to get food.

I should've signed out my messengers before starting this.

Life's been quite good of late. Not very sure why, but I get the impression that it has been. I'm very behind on work, but I'm beginning to have some perspective on my life. I'm still getting my act together, and I'm making progress. My actions are goal-orientated now.

I'm not sure if I've gone over this already or not, but the big plan for me is that in a year. The time required of me at the plantation should be so minimal that I'd have the free time to get a job. I have no idea what kind of job, but a job is what I want.

To not be here at the plantation full-time. I'd first have to set up a well-structured management. Put to practice the things I learned at college. But before all that can happen I still need to sort myself out, which I'm doing at my own pace.

Music for the Death

'I WANT TO SEE YOU BLEEEEED!!!'

I'm at a death metal concert. I don't listen to this stuff. Still fun.

The Bloody Pincher

This is my toilet at the plantation. There was a crack on the seat that used to pinch my bum as i'd try to get up. I then fixed it by stuffing in tissues. Eventually we got it replaced (it's the one in the pic, see the crack?). It took less than a week to crack too. Ended up stuffing tissues again. A few days ago, i realized that I hadn't been stuffing tissues and haven't been getting pinched either. Until today, it pinched my buttcheek so hard I bled.