Two weeks till the house!!

Things are really warming up here--it must be at least 40 degrees, and the humidity, ugh! It's unbearably hot and steamy... can't wait till it breaks and the storms come. Having a top floor classroom is the pits!

Aside from that, things are going to be insanely busy in the next two months... I know I say that often, and then list off my crazy life activities, and I'm going to do that again. I just want you all to realise that I'm justifying why I haven't posted!

So, apart from the 5 assignments due in the next 6 weeks to uni in Oz, packing up and moving house, giving exams (and marking them), flying to the US, connecting to Colombia then travelling around, then starting a new summer job I have my normal social routine! Next week US visa interview---can you believe that of all possible US consulates around the world, they decided to require that foreign applicants to the one in Myanmar need to prove residency. I never have official residency and certainly not here, though it's not my fault, it's the school's (and the country, of course). Sorry, getting sidetracked: I was mantraing my to do list! There was the ANZAC dawn service this Wednesday (and if you don't know what ANZAC is, look it up, it's very important!) and the related Digger's ball on Saturday--I have impossibly high shoes to fall over in. Hopefully no repeat of last year when I woke up with my appartment door wide open, bag and everything sitting outside and an enormous rip in my dress with no memory... ooooppppsss! I don't think that's ever happened to me, it was really quite scary! I also threw red wine on an obnoxious man that I continue to see everywhere. Double oooppss! On Monday I pay my housing deposit, then there are all the farewell parties and graduation. Very exciting-I do like the life of an expat.

Phones are off here. The one at school is dead completely, so when I need to send a fax to the US embassy downtown they try for two days then I decide it's easier to put the documents in the car with the driver and send them that way! Everyone in town is moaning about being unable to get a line out to call home. What a black hole!

One teacher got a job in Lahore, Pakistan today. I'd love to go there! Perhaps I should aim that way instead of Europe, Africa, or Latin America! All the exciting possibilities.

Just got back from Dubai and Oman on Saturday. Will eventually get some fab pictures up on my new facebook page (such a better idea than flickr) to show the dolphins and off road 4WD in the desert.

Okay, need to go and do work instead of procrastinating!

Here's a smile: http://www.sibir.bg/index.php?page=videoAlbumPreview&albID=44382&VideoID=13453

Another: www.stuffonmycat.com

A story of a guy and a horse -true too!

http://feeds.reuters.com/~r/reuters/oddlyEnoughNews/~3/111875770/idUSL255358020070425

Worldwide blogs

Have spent hours this evening having good surf. Blogs mostly. Not quite sure where it started, but managed to travel all over the world. Visited Morocco, Afghanistan, East Timor, a kiwi in Brussels, and other fabulous places. There really are so many amazing people of my generation (and others) in the world. We're all out there leading our lives quietly.

One blog in particular was amusing so I wanted to share it:

It's from a woman living in Afghanistan. Her blog address is http://ahmt.dk/


Sunday, January 28, 2007

The story about the generator
Sometimes this country trips me out! Well actually every day! Even after being here for 3 years there are things I just never learn to understand. Here is a great example;Thursday our generator at the house started acting weird… It shut down without any reason so we called the service people who came out and told us that the load was too much… We couldn’t understand it – We have been running it just fine with the same load for the last months, and then all of a sudden the load was too much!? We turned off heaters, and water heaters and different things – but it still kept acting weird… But it ran and it worked… Then Saturday morning the Generator just wouldn’t start again. We called the service people who came out and once again told us that the load was too much… Stu – one of my housemates – started a search all over the house and then finally found a wire going through the guard’s room through to the neighbour house. There was also a cable running across the street to another neighbour house… Stu of course yanked the cable out the wall and cut the line to the house across the street. Then he started the generator and went back to work.A few hours later the generator died again… We called the service people – they came – cleaned the fuel filter and it still ran like poo… So Stu went on another tour around the house, back to guard’s room and guess what! The cable to the neighbour house that he had yanked out earlier was now put in again!!! So naturally he cut the cable again…Told the guards that NOBODY could enter our house etc etc10 minutes later we had half the street knocking on the door COMPLAINING that they had no power!!! I am not kidding; they actually came to complain that we had cut them off our generator. … It turned out that one of the neighbours is actually the Landlord – (which also explains why the guards would let him in) so of course he felt EXTRA entitled to the free power – and told us that if we didn’t want to give him electricity we would have to move out!They all stood there complaining… telling us how they only had 1 lamp and 1 TV plugged in! Oh man, this was insane! They just could not see anything wrong with what they had been doing!In a normal world I would assume that anyone who had been steeling power from someone else and then got caught would think; “Ooops! It was nice as long at it lasted, but now it is over and I guess I will have to pay for my own power myself!”.But these people!!! These people really feel entitled to use our generator and get free power!!! They thought that WE where wrong for cutting them off! Maybe something went really wrong when I was brought up – maybe it is just me… I just do not understand how this can be a right they really feel they have…Maybe this explains last month’s $2000 fuel bill!

Here's another one:

Saturday, November 04, 2006

Kabul (international) Airport
Kabul Airport is such a trip! … A trip before your trip.Last time I left, I had to go through the usual search routine – which basically means that the search-lady grabs your boobs – and try to steal half the stuff you have in your purse. "Chocolate? Oh – you have 2 pieces – you are only allowed to have 1! Cigarettes… Give me Give me!" Last time I had a Tampax in my purse – so of course the search lady had to take my Tampax out… look at it for a VERY long time… not understanding at all what it was she had in her hand. She asked me what it was, and I tried to explain to her – but she didn’t really copy. After a while she wanted to peel the plastic off – and I started to get a little bit desperado… So I had no choice but to show her in a very graphic way where this weird cotton-thing was meant to go! She gave it back to me very quickly!

Fun links

Our computer teacher does some fun projects--these are some of his demo pages.

http://www.yiec.netfirms.com/angelinaOver.htm

http://www.yiec.netfirms.com/matrix_movie_posters.htm#top%20of%20page

http://www.yiec.netfirms.com/FindingNemo_movie_poster.htm

The main reason I was showing these links is because of this one: The second image is of the foyer area of the appartment complex that I live in. The bottom one has my view from last year! It's really cool-- move left to right and zoom in and out. It's pretty cool--and I promise that if you wanted to, you could DO this. If my students can, you can! These ones were done with a program called Stitcher, and then saved as a .mov or .mpg file.
http://www.yiec.netfirms.com/panorama_demos.htm

New Blog layout

Instead of working on my assignment this evening I was distracted by all the lovely possiblities within blogger. I've chosen a new template (to be honest, I didn't really like any of them, and was doubly limited because I want it to be as wide as possible, so had to have the pics/links/etc at the left side.

This decision to change was a bit hasty and I discovered I had to reload all the links and redo all of the formatting. Actually there wasn't that much formatting thankfully. Am starting to like the new blogger, even if it does take me about 10 tries to log in (for some reason it keeps taking me back to the login page).

Then I spent at least another hour creating the flickr badge, and got very annoyed because the pages weren't loading properly so had a bit of a computer cleanup to try and improve speed on my poor old beast of a computer. I've managed to put in a video stream as well, which might allow me to search on youtube from my blog (youtube was blocked here and I keep getting links forwarded to me that I just can't see!).

Then I decided to try and change my flickr account to PRO so that I'm not limited in the number of pics it can store. What a nightmare that was... they are an evil corporation and make you register with paypal, which I'm already a member of, but it wouldn't let you in. (Imagine me working on this where each and every click takes 2 minutes to load and you can see my frustration!). Anyway, I gave up in the end, so if anyone wonderfully generous is reading this, I would adore you forever if you gifted an upgrade to me so that I can continue to share all my lovely pictures. Pay the $23 and this country won't have foiled me again!

I'm still going to try and figure out a way to change the silly boathouse image they have posted in the corner. I also want to try and change the background color, but those will come with more time. Nothing loads properly here, so of course little lines of words are spread over the pictures from earlier posts. Ugh! I'm exhausted right now, and hungry too... I didn't stop to eat dinner!

Summer Plans

I've finally figured out my summer plans! I've had a vague idea but it really seems to be materializing now! So after I've left poor Georgina in our new house, and hopefully finished all my assignments, I've got three weeks before my job in Massachussetts.

At the moment I'm thinking of flying to Seattle (cheap flight on Eva Air via Taipei!!), where I'll pick up a new ticket to go down to visit Hayley and Stu in Colombia via perhaps El Salvador. I haven't been to Latin America, so that's a whole new world of experiences for me!

Perhaps on the way down to LA to catch the flight, I'll rent a car and drive through exciting west coast places that I haven't been like San Francisco, visiting friends along the way. Can you see this grand scheme boiling in my brain!?

Then after all this (my last exam will be somewhere in there, too, which I have to find a testing center for), I go to Madison via Chicago to get fitted for a bridesmaid dress for Amanda's wedding.

I'm working for Johns Hopkins Center For Talented Youth again. It's such a fun job! I'll be in South Hadley for 6 weeks, which will be nice and relaxing and I can do lots of shopping for my new house. My current computer is also playing up a lot, but it's had a long full life, so I'm in the market for a new one of those too!

I leave there on Aug 4th, and I've also managed to conveniently "slot in" Sarah J's wedding in my transit hours in Seattle in August on my way back here. It just worked out perfectly!

Something to give your money to!

I have now found a place where I want to sink all my money! I would love to work here, live here, love these fantastic animals!

Sabai, my cook

My cook, Sabai finally left for Singapore a few weeks ago. She's earning some pitifully small wage for a lot of hard work. We were a bit worried she'd end up in a brothel somewhere, but she seems okay. She's earning $200 Singapore dollars a month with two days off. But she won't actually get any pay until she's repaid the job agent for their recruiting fee, and for her airfare. That'll be at least 6 months, poor lady. Her family is still here, being taken care of by her lazy alcoholic husband.

Meanwhile, I'm trialing her friend as my new cook. I thought that Sabai's English was bad. Sheesh! This lady just manages to babble about, but at least her written English is good. It does lead to some amusing items, however. She confused Chickpeas with Chicken and had no idea what Vegetable Stock was! It could have been disastrous but actually was quite good. Tonight we have a book club meeting and she's cooking for the host who lives at the hotel across the road at my place because I have an oven. It could be very interesting when we move and have an electric oven! She made kebabs without skewers, and I get mountains of food that I don't have time to eat. Still, I'm living the life, eh!?

Blood Diamond

Went to see Blood Diamond on Sunday at the cinema across the street. It only just opened here (very impressively recent for Myanmar) and of course the tickets were all sold out to scalpers. This was quite amusing from my perspective, but I guess it shows what dire straits this place is in. The most expensive ticket is normally about .90c (1000 Kyat)(getting cheaper from there), but the ticket scalper was asking about $1.60 (2000 Kyat). We agreed on 1500 Kyat for the best seat in the house.

It's an insanely cheap price for a movie, but keep in mind, the theater ends up being pathed in shells from nuts and trash, and people talk throughout the film. There are no subtitles (the movie the same as it's original release) so no one really understands. It's quite a family event, so I avoid Saturday nights because the kids really can't contain their excited chatter. If you hate people talking in the movie, you'd loath it here. The absolute worst, though, is the beetel spit. Everyone here has the ugliest brown teeth, and the sidewalks are lined with little red spit holes/streaks/puddles. The certainly don't abstain from spitting wherever they please, and that includes inside the carpeted theater. Woe behold the poor soul who angles their bag/foot/skirt the wrong way!

It is a very good film, with a lot of harsh realities in it along with the typical adventure/westerner storyline to hook the US fans. One of my American colleagues here said it was just another African war flick, but I disagree. So much of it was based on truth, and Sierra Leone really doesn't get that much coverage. The African lead was just a little too beefed up muscly to be real, but Leonardo DiCaprio redeemed himself in a role that finally fits him, though his South African accent slips a bit.

New photos up

Check out my flickr site--I just posted a lot of recent pics up of my new house, my social life, Beijing, etc.

Apologies for not putting them in the blog itself--it took so long just to read them that the prospect of waiting for upload twice is too painful.