walk

I am looking forward to the next few days as my work week will be ending. I et to go out into town and walk around and see what there is to see. I have heard that there is a huge market that is full of indians and pakistanis and other guests of this country that is just utter chaos. It should be fun to get in there and mix it up a bit with the other foreigners. Other than that it has been a pretty slow week I go to work at 7 am and either tech or not(more often not) from 8-1140. Get lunch then wait for 330 to roll around so I can clock out. I tend to go out for a walk in the evening around the hotel where I stay and so far I have seen almost everything that there is around here. I get dinner at 7-8 and come home and read or study. Its a simple life but I am enjoying it for now. There is enough to keep me occupied but not enough to make me stressed. Though the University is of course poorly run and I receive 6-10 emails every day from different departments and that is a hassle but most of them are simple things like tests will be ready at 730 or training has been changed to 215. Simple stuff. Thinking about it now I am glad they keep me informed instead of just leaving me to the wolves.

sleep

This is the first time that I can remember that I have been affected by jet lag. Usually I just power through the first tired time and then I am fine. This time I have not been able to sleep. I try to go to bed early and I just lay there waiting. I doze off for an hour or two and then I lay awake for the rest of the night. I am not tired during the day so perhaps jet lag is the wrong term. I just seem to be able to go on a few hours for right now. I would like to sleep for an entire night, not because it would make me feel better but because I love to sleep. I guess if it isnt hurting me then I cant complain.

finally

though i have been going to work for three days now I finally got to step in front of the classroom again today. It has been a really long time since I got to be in front of a class and I must confess that I still really enjoy it. I was a substitute teacher today for a teacher that was gone yesterday as well and thus the students have fallen behind. I got them caught up some and managed to have a lot of fun in the process. It is kind of odd being in front of a class of 25 boys that are all 18-19 years old. I actually had one of them ask why my father didnt buy me a car. Why did i need a taxi. So bizarre the ideas and entitlement that people have. I think the job itself will be fine the students seem excited, eager and energetic. It wont be a problem getting the to talk as it sometimes was in China. other than that life is fairly routine with the glaring exception being that I have to work on sunday. I get two days off in a row they just fall on thursday and friday. So my weekend is full of no football, no highlights just call to prayer. I will live but it would be nice to go to a bar and have a cold one and check out the big screen.

work

not that i do much but it is in fact work. Today i sat around for 8 hours learning the alphabet and #s in arabic. There is little to do at my job because I have no class assigned to me so I am on cover and have to wait for any teachers to call in sick which of course does not ever happen. If it were in theory I would cover their classes and have something to do for at least 3 hours. The other 5 I am just to be in the school. Its fine really I get time to study. I am looking forward to working again with students of my own.

time

so i went for a long walk through the city and found a bookstore wher i bought a few books for the study of ababic. I will have lots of time on my hands as I need to spend 8 hours at school even though i will only teach 3 hours per day. I will try to study some basic arabic in order to make life a bit easier. The city is in no way impressive, just a flat low dry place. Money everywhere but little culture or beauty. But that is just my first impression. I will give it a chance and perhaps it will get better.

nurse...oh nurse

So even after having to get a full physical from the US. I arrived here in Saudi arabia and on my first full day in the country I found that I needed to go and get a sort of mini physical with their doctors. Now all day I had spent on the male campus and driving over to the doctors office I noticed that there were no women, and on the streets there are no women, so basically it is kind of a sausage fest here in the worst way. At any rate in the doctors office there are of course all men patients and I went in with another new teacher and we were sitting and waiting. The first thing was to get blood drawn, have i ever mentioned I hate needles, so I go into the room and lo and behold a woman doctor is waiting. Just bizarre. She was of course covered from head to toe but still what is going on how does she get to work (women cant drive in Saudi) how does she do her job (women are not supposed to speak to men other than their families) how does this happen? But the strangeness wasnt finished, I next had to get a chest x-ray, the guy who was driving me and translating tells me the next doctor is strange, you know not normal. I just said ok expecting god know what, turns out the x-ray tech was effeminate, very much so, strikingly so. And Again I wondered what the hell, here is an educated man who can leave go to any number of countries and not have to live a life of either lies or in fear of beheading(homosexuals are killed here) just one of the mysteries of life I guess. turns out I am still healthy after the flight. or at least the female doctor and effeminate x-ray tech claimed i was.

kingdom

I have landed in the land of cheap gasoline and veiled women. As I boarded the flight to Saudi Arabia I began to look around. It was my 28th hour of travel and I was getting on a smallish plane from Dubai to Riyadh and the gate agent was taking passport to look at the person and their ID. Ahead of me was a family, a father two young boys and a mother and I guess an aunt. the mother and aunt were completely covered. Head, hands, feet, shoulders, face everything except the eyes and I wondered what exactly is the screener looking at? Can he tell who s under there is that safe? Of course nothing happened on the flight nor am I saying it was going to, just if the point of handing him the ID is to authenticate the bearer shouldnt something be done to actually authenticate him or her. So after landing I made it to immigration control where they take an eye scan as well as finger print and photograph you. I waited my turn and approached the officer. He did his business on the computer and then told me to place my right hand on the finger print scanner, after a few seconds I said "OK?" and he said "No." I looked at him and he called over another guard. They argued in arabic for about 30 seconds and the the first guard looks at me shoves me my passport and says "GO." I am not sure what happened but I know that none of the usual process for entry were followed. Just nuts. The hotel that I am in is nice I have a big apartment style accommodation which though not my style is furnished and comfortable. The job seems like it will be a breeze with little to no reason to worry and already I have found a dinner joint down the street that serves a bowl of chickpea soup and flat bread with a really nice tea for very cheap. There are of course all the regular western restaurants here from KFC to McD, pizza joints to dunkin donuts. I plan to stay away from the western food for awhile but already I can here the Dunkin calling my name. I cant have a beer so I deserve a delicious cup of coffee right? Right. Looking forward to getting started working and trying to pick up some basic arabic. Should be fun

plan

I am starting to make longer term plans now. I think it is time to try a new approach to this thing called life. It isn't what everyone else would do but then again I am far from everyone. I am considering getting some money together and going back to school. from the beginning back to school. I think I want to study landscape design. So this is the new plan. I leave for Saudi in 19 hours. Last moments of freedom.

texas

I have finally gotten my flight and everything ready to leave. I feel good about this next part. fresh and clean, shorn of things that i had been dragging around. Alcoholics Anonymous may be onto something when they say one day at a time, but for me it isnt about sobriety so much as living in the now. Tomorrow will happen, yesterday already has happened, my focus is on this moment and living it. So no more wanting or judging, I am just going to relax and enjoy the ride.

rocks

Having to deal with getting paperwork done is an incredible pain in the ass. Not in the best mood to deal with it to begin with wish I had some good news to report but these have not been smiley days for me.