After much discussion, the consensus was the main downtown Houston fireworks display-- as long as we tried to find a place outside the actual Buffalo Bayou park. I balked at paying $6 a head to get into to see a fireworks display. Not just because I'm cheap-- though I am, and these days am especially so-- but more on principle. What happened to giving back to the community? Maybe this is what happens when your U.S. Independence Day celebration is sponsored by BP-- that stands for "British Petroleum". Is anyone else finding this at all ironic?

In the end, we didn't finish eating and laughing at VH1's "I Love the 80's" show (Kristin finally had to turn the TV off sometime in the middle of 1987 in order to get the boys off the couch) until almost 9:00, and the show was due to start at 9:25. Needless to say, between the time crunch and the inevitable Houston traffic, we didn't quite make it all the way down by the bayou, and finally we just parked it on the overpass where we were gridlocked, and then dragged the blanket out onto the grassy slope in the middle of the interchange cloverleaf. The oohs and ahs ended a little sooner than expected, however-- we were back in the car and pulling away by 9:45. So much for the much-publicized "30-minute" display. But we all had to agree that it had been a very good Fourth. Fun, relaxing, good food, great friends... and we were back at Kristin's within half an hour of the last sparks fading out of the sky. Who can beat that?

Kristin's 15-year-old brother was in town last week, and plans were in the works to go bowling on one of his last days here. The outing was never realised, and I can't say I'm too disappointed. The thought of trying to bowl left-handed with a six-pound ball (in which the finger holes would inevitably be too small) was not exactly thrilling-- and my therapists were none too keen on the idea either. Even left-handed.

A couple of friends from college are driving down on Thursday, and so it looks like I may have plans for the Fourth after all. My observances of the past few years have been decidedly dim-- two of the three weren't even in the country (not that I'm complaining)-- and the idea of grilling and shooting off a few fireworks with a small group of friends is very appealing. There's discussion of going downtown or out to Galveston, but I think I'd rather avoid the crowds.

Immobility breeds immobility. I know this well. And yet at some point it becomes far easier (in the short-term) to slog mindlessly along rather than make the effort to drag myself out of this morass of stupefying inertia.

And that pretty much sums up the past several days of my life.

This seems to be a lamentably easy state of affairs to achieve (if "achieve" is at all the appropriate word to describe such a slimy and slippery descent into lethargic hell) when one is living with one's parents.

Sometimes you have to take a step back in order to see clearly enough to move forward.
Right now I'm just trying to figure out which direction forward might be.

But the week I spent in Oklahoma was a good start. As the second installment in the "Prove I Really Am Alive" tour, it was quite a success. (A couple of my friends think that we should print up t-shirts: Sarah Potter, Alive and Kickin' in 2003. Have one of my more spectacular x-rays screenprinted onto the back of the shirt. Bring in some bands to do benefit concerts.) And being there and talking with people softened the horrible aimlessness and fear of the future that confronts me every day. There are desirable possibilities. Many of them. Or several, at least.

Time spent in the orthopedic surgeon's waiting room is always a good chance to regain some perspective. By this point I look fairly normal-- I can sit in a chair for more than a few minutes without looking (and feeling) extremely uncomfortable-- and so I almost feel like a fake, needlessly consuming time and space in a place where the real injured bring their pain to the altar in hopes of being healed. Of course, a simple reach with my right arm for a magazine on the table next to me, or the recollection of that painful twist in my upper arm resulting from attempting to steer with both hands while in the parking lot, is enough to reassure me that I too have the unwelcome and unrequested right to be here.

Still-- I have no cast or bandage or wheelchair, and my bright pink scars are concealed beneath my clothing. What do these others-- the "real injured"-- think as they see me sitting here, apparently whole and healthy?
Suck it up. You're not that bad off. Clearly.

But I left Egypt because of this, a selfish inner voice protests. I have tragedy too.

Yeah. Well. Suck it up. After this appointment I will get in the car and drive myself to physical therapy. Tomorrow I drive alone to Fort Worth, and then on to Norman on Friday.
It could be worse.

I am in... have been in... the doldrums of recovery. There's my excuse for not posting. It's just been difficult to believe that anyone would care to read dismal postings about the repetitious pettiness of my current existence.

But today, hamd-el-allah (I miss saying that), is a definite improvement over the past week and a half or so. Life doesn't seem quite so drainingly bleak as it has most often lately. The prospect of my trip to Norman this weekend contributes to that, I'm sure.

I think I'm finally regaining a bit of my late-night self. Getting back to more of a normal (for me, at least) sleep shedule at last. The slight down-side to this is that I have to get up every morning at 6:20 to take my mother to work. But then that leaves me the perfect excuse for an afternoon nap.

I'm really beginning to miss my meals of Egyptian rice and cucumber-and-tomato salad. So I decided to indulge in some late-night grocery shopping. Gd bless 24-hour grocery stores. That's something I really do love about the U.S.

I've had a surprisingly social past week. Surprising, because other than my immediate family the only person here whom I really know is Kristin. But a friend from college was in town last week to visit his parents, and beginning with my birthday last Tuesday I seemed to acquire quite the social life. It was nice. Gave me some interaction outside the house (besides physical therapy) to look forward to.

I miss speaking Arabic. I have the name of a woman who works with an ESL program in the area, and rumour is that my Arabic skills could be put to use. Now that I've worked out medical arrangements and started a fairly regular therapy schedule, I'm hoping to find out more about helping with that.

People here are very interested in where I've been living for the past many months. Interested on their terms, that is. They ask a lot of questions, most of which seem not quite relevant to my life there, thus making them very difficult to answer.
I try not to get into political discussions.

Things here are familiar, but the familiarity seems to be a bit out of focus. I haven't yet had any major heart problems over seeing people wear shorts in public-- in fact, I've worn them myself once or twice already. Nor has seeing the large houses and lawns and cars and the general extravagance of this enclave of self-satisfied Suburbia caused me any more stress than previously. I think I'm compartmentalizing all that. It simply is different. Doesn't even go under the same heading as where I lived for the past eight months. Still, there is a part of me that wonders at all these things. But it is a detached wonder.
A lot of things seem detached these days.

Kristin came over last night to help me rearrange some books. I walked into my room last Wednesday afternoon and was floored by the number of books on the shelves. I'd forgotten. My mother, bless her, unpacked them all for me sometime last fall. They're in a bit of a disarray (somehow Pascal's Pensees ended up in the middle of the linguistics section; I found Norman Mailer's The Gospel According to the Son rubbing shoulders with various Bibles and holy books-- there's definite humour in that), but it's good just to see them all. Like greeting old friends.

_________________________________________________
Written Tuesday, 6 May 2003:
Eight months ago this evening I arrived in this country. Tonight I leave it.
There is an irony in the precision of that timing that makes me smile. And as a small bonus-- one month ago today, seven months after I came here, was my surgery.

Goodbyes have been said. Bags packed. Finances settled (insha-allah). And in slightly less than 24 hours I should be in Houston.

I don't know that there's anything else to say at this point.
_________________________________________________

And now I am actually here. In Houston. At least I think I'm here. That doesn't seem quite possible. I think I'm still reeling. It could take me quite some time to sort through this past month. So much has happened and changed.

A couple good points of being here: I have a stereo. No more Metallica eeked out through headphones. And the toilet paper is very soft.

One-handed typing is extremely frustrating. But I'm going to try to start posting again. A little bit at a time.

Major accomplishment of the day: I wore a shirt with both arms actually in the sleeves. Versus the one-armed humped style I've been favouring recently.
Tomorrow's excitement: my staples and stitches are supposed to come out.

I'm sitting here wrapped in an afghan and holding my computer on my lap, which means that all of me is warm and snuggly and comfortable... except my feet, which seem to have morphed into the usual and banal blocks of ice. I could go put on other pair of socks, but I'm either too lazy or too stubborn-- I'm not sure which right now.

I've been sick of hearing about the war since the second or third day of it, so all I'm going to say about that is that life here is proceeding pretty much as normal. I'm not allowed to go into certain neighborhoods, and unfortunately all of my local friends live in those areas, but other than that things have already settled back into the former schedule of classes and lessons and meetings.

The other day I was looking back over some of my posts from the last few months, and I realised that for quite some time now I have no longer felt I can write about anything beyond the most superficial levels of my life. I don't like that. I'll have to think what I can do about it.

Someone called during my lesson this morning to let me know it was okay to go out and buy food. That's what I was told. My rather liberal interpretation of that permission allowed me to make the few minutes' walk up to look at the sea-- which I hadn't seen at all since last Monday. Everything seemed very normal, and the people with whom I spoke were as friendly as ever. No problems.

For at least two months now it has been a part of my morning ritual to check the news to see if war has begun while I slept. After so much time, this morning's news that the attacks had finally started seemed almost surreal. And those moments of trying to assimilate the news seem several days away now. Per instructions and warnings, I haven't been outside much over the past two days, but today was the first day of actually being unable to leave my building. From my balcony I could see the sun shining and the girls in the school across the street going to and from their classes, and I could hear the shouts of the vegetable hawkers and imbuba suppliers rise from the street below. Everything seemed perfectly normal. I did hear on the news tonight that there were some protests and demonstrations today in a few cities here. One in the capital ended in violence when the riot police came to break it up. The real test is tomorrow, when everyone gathers at the mosques for the holy day.

Still, everything seems very calm, and I expect to be able to go out again in a couple of days.

It's difficult to believe that it's been nearly two weeks since I last posted. It doesn't seem that long at all. But I look back over those days and realise that I really have been rather busy... which has been a good thing. Besides the continuing language study (and these days I actually have homework too), I've been out visiting, and in this country a short visit is a mere five hours long. A couple of weeks ago I met two girls (who are actually women, since they're married, and that's the dividing line in this culture) while I was out searching for yarn, and since then I've gotten to meet their family... lots of family.

An interesting difference I've found here: in the US, the more "country" people are, the slower they speak. Here, the more "country" people are, the faster they speak. This family speaks Arabic with the speed of an experienced auctioneer with a well-oiled jaw. And, as I told someone else, "they don't speak a lick of English."
Speaking of country.

Which law of physics is it which states that, given that I have a desire to catch a taxi, as I approach the street but before I am within hailing distance I will see at least three empty taxis fly by, but as soon as I arrive at the corner there might as well be a tumbleweed blowing across the road while a steel guitar moans from somewhere off stage left? Or, alternatively, there are still taxis rushing by-- but all are occupied. Tonight I stood on the seaside road for nearly five minutes, clutching my several bags of groceries et al. and squinting to see through the sandstorm that had arisen while I was inside, only to watch dismally as taxi after taxi flashed by, transporting those luckier than I to their desired destinations.

And then, of course, there's the lesser known but equally frustrating natural law which states that all taxi drivers except mine will disregard one-way street signs. Apparently each one gains some sort of instant law-abiding conscience as soon as I climb into the taxi. My building is hidden within a warren of supposedly one-way streets and confusing switch-backs and dead-end roads. Tonight I discovered that yet another street that I had formerly assumed ran in both directions (since traffic flow on it had always seemed to indicate such) is in fact officially one-way-- in the opposite direction from which we needed to go, of course. That's another inevitability. One-way streets always run in whatever direction is most inconvenient at that particular moment.

I'm back home again after another quick trip. The birthday party last night was a great deal of fun-- food, presents, and music. And music is inevitably accompanied by dancing. One of the American girls had recently acquired a drum in a village she visited, and so they passed around the drum and took turns playing, with everyone else joining in singing. (Everyone, that is, except the ignorant Americans who didn't know the words.) That led to the inevitable dancing (which always makes me think that it's no wonder they make the women cover)-- and then after a while someone decided it was time for the "English dance". [warning: the following may expose generation gaps] Evidently, at a party a few weeks ago (which I unfortunately missed), the girls had asked to learn an American dance, so Brandi and Melissa taught them the Electric Slide. But that wasn't what they really wanted-- as one of them put it, they wanted to dance like people dance on television. So Brandi put in her Skillet CD (that's a band) and they started moshing. (If you don't know what that is, think rock concert, right in front of the stage. Better yet, talk to someone my age (or my father); they can explain it to you. Ask them to demonstrate.) I spent most of the first song doubled over in the floor laughing. The whole idea of it-- being in this country, with friends from another, neighboring country, having a birthday party, moshing to Skillet-- was simply too much for me. Eventually the first attack of hilarity passed and our "mosh pit" really got going. We even convinced the mom and the aunt to join in for a few minutes. The neighbors probably thought we were tearing the apartment apart. In the States they would have called the police.

I meant to be in bed about an hour ago, but then I picked up the guitar.... I have class in the morning, and after last night's excitement and late bedtime, I'd better try to get a decent amount of rest tonight.

My visits with old friends were wonderful-- it was very refreshing to see them again and to know that some sort of impact has been made through my living here thus far. Two of them have birthdays this week (they're sisters), and since I have to be back in town for a meeting Friday morning anyhow, the birthday party will be on Thursday night so I can be there. And hopefully sometime in the next couple weeks they'll be able to come visit me here.

I spent Saturday afternoon with my former grammar tutor and her family. She traveled to the States back in mid-November-- actually, my last lesson with her was the day I found out I was being reassigned, but at the time I didn't really know yet whether I would be moving and was having trouble processing the news anyhow... so she didn't know I'd moved until she came back in January. Amazing what can happen in two months. By that point I was already feeling settled in here.

I finally started school yesterday. It's a small school (there aren't a lot of serious independent students of Arabic in this city), so there will be only one other woman in my colloquial class, and my classical Arabic lessons will be on my own. So it should still be all pretty much at a pace I set-- but I also really think that the added structure will help me catch up a bit after the time I've lost over the past couple months.
And I always think it's exciting to get new books.

I went with some people today to visit a friend who lives in a small town not too far from this city. Our trip there and back required multiple taxis and micro-buses-- that was a cultural experience in itself. Definitely an exciting way to travel. Never a dull moment. Most of our visit was spent in preparing food, most of the rest of the time in eating that food, and the last bit in walking on the beach. It's difficult to imagine a better agenda for a visit. The turquoise blue of the sea today was so intense it looked as though the water had been dyed. Who knew that water really could be that color?

I travel tomorrow to visit some old friends that I haven't seen since our Christmas party the day before I moved here. That makes it two months, almost exactly-- I'm excited to be able to see them again.

Much silence of late. I have no explanations to give.

I realised the other day that my time before moving to this city seems as though it was only a short time of transition and preparation for living here-- odd, since when I came to this country I had no thought of living anywhere but there, at least for quite some time. But life now, since moving just before Christmas, feels much more settled and normal and real. Even with the ongoing language learning limbo (though I did have another meeting with the school director this morning-- insha-allah, next week...) and my difficulties in meeting people here. For some reason I can more readily believe that I live here, that this is my home. Perhaps that's mostly a result of having lived in this country for nearly six months now. A natural adjustment to the total length of time, rather than a consequence of any differences between this residence and my former abode.

Things continue to feel very much the same out on the streets. Maybe sometimes people are a little more emphatically friendly, as if they're trying to make a particular point or overcome a suspected assumption by the force of their welcome. My watching of the news has rather noticably decreased. I'm still interested, I still know want to know what's happening, but the daily contrast between the ominous harbingers of war and the pleasant hospitality of the people here was causing undesirable schisms in my thought life.
Life makes slightly more sense this way.

An addendum to my last post: Today my language helper asked me if I'd seen the snow the other night. She asked the question in Arabic, except for that one all-important word, and that she said in English: "snow". I laughed a little, especially remembering my own wishful comparisons, and tried to explain the difference. The problem is that there's only word in the local Arabic. The word telg refers to any frozen water (and maybe other frozen liquids too; I'm not sure), no matter if it's hail falling from the sky or frost clogging up the freezer. So snow (and presumably sleet and freezing rain and other such fun gifts of an Oklahoma winter) is also telg. And since almost no one here has ever seen snow, and my Arabic isn't quite up to elaborations on the crystalline structure of frozen H₂O or meteorological lectures on the formation of such precipitation, about the most mutual understanding that was achieved, I think, is that pieces of snow are much, much smaller than pieces of hail.

It's hailing. That's kind of like snow, right? Like sleet and other forms of winter precipitation? At least in that it's frozen? I'm not sure that it actually makes launching into joyous renditions of "Winter Wonderland" or "Let It Snow" anymore apropos, but one can pretend. One has to pretend. This is by far the most winter I'm going to see anytime soon.

My language helper is wonderful. She has no grandiose ideas of trying to keep me "on track"-- she'll let me rabbit-trail off into whatever digression I choose, so long as I continue speaking Arabic. This is good, in my opinion. Lesson plans and outlines are for grammar classes.

Busy days... and yet if someone asks what I do all day, I'm stumped. But people keep reassuring me that's quite normal here.

I do have my first official language lesson on Sunday morning-- that's certainly something for which to be very thankful. The proposed trip to the zoo last Wednesday morning was unfortunately never realised, due to inclement weather. Rain. Lots of it. Monsoon-style, almost.

I've met a German couple at the international fellowship I attend here, and there's been much mutual pleasure in my attempts to speak German. "Attempts" is definitely the correct word for it. I can understand most of what they say, but anything I try to say starts out in Arabic, fades into German (with a great deal of effort) around the middle of the sentence, and then slips back into Arabic by the end. Fortunately they've studied some Arabic too, so they at least can still understand me, despite my garbled speech patterns. But I've also found that if I do anything much in German, whether it's speaking to this couple or reading at home, then German creeps into my Arabic a bit... and very few people here know any German. In fact, I haven't yet met anyone who does. It really confuses people. I've been known to utter sentences such as, "Mumkin, ich 'aiza die shanta sehen"-- which exactly alternates between the two languages, word by word. And is, around here, simply incomprehensible, though to me (and I suppose also to the German couple) means, "Please, I'd like to look at that bag."
At least someone understands.

A few whirlwind days later, I'm back, safely ensconced in my own quiet apartment, enjoying the company of an inquisitive white cat who, like my own dear Emily, finds my activities in front of the computer of perpetual interest. Fortunately this one (who answers to "Kitty") has not yet become actively jealous of my close relationship with my laptop, though clearly she too thinks it a shame that such an object should so monopolize a perfectly comfortable lap. She's only with me for a couple weeks while her owner travels out of the country. Hopefully the competition between cat and computer will not grow too fierce in so short a time.

My trip to the capital was mostly good-- at least the majority of my time there was spent pleasantly. The meeting I attended was nightmarish, but I've come to expect little else. Despite my impression of busy-ness during those two days, looking back on them I feel as though I'd wasted a good deal of time. I saw very few people I needed to visit and accomplished none of the errands I had planned. Probably I'll have to go again soon.

The stupendously-stupid-Sarah moment of late: last night I stuck a marshmellow on a fork and roasted it over a gas flame. Nothing unusual about that. I did that during college. This time, however, I had more than the usual trouble removing the hot toasted marshmellow from the fork, and in my struggles I inadvertantly clamped my mouth down around the fork itself. Was the metal still hot? Let's just say this: from the blister patterns on my upper and lower lips one could quite easily deduce that the roasting utensil in question was four-tined.

The cat has decided to compromise rather than fight-- at the moment she has curled herself up in the narrow space left open in front of the computer. And has quite promptly gone to sleep with the front half of her body draped over my left forearm. I expect that hand will soon go to sleep.

Tragedy of the day:
This morning I sliced strawberries and a banana, pulled out the box of really great granola cereal, opened the refrigerator, and found... NO YOGURT. Milk was not a worthy substitute. Rather disgusting, actually. No longer the breakfast of champions.

And now... the rest of the story.

This morning I made the trek back downtown to make my second attempt at picking up the package my mother had sent me. Now familiar with the building, I walked straight upstairs and underneath the rattling conveyor belts to the back corner cage-- which, I have now learned, is where they send the international packages that come with insurance. My friends were, of course, ecstatic to see me, and we spent a few minutes in pleasant chit-chat before getting down to the business at hand. Forms were filled out in quadruplicate, notes were made, my passport was examined again, and finally a whole sheaf of papers, supposedly all relating to my (by now surely infamous) package, was sent upstairs to some unknown dark cranny of an office. The ladies made tea and we settled in for what promised to be a not-insignificant amount of time. Conversation moved from the weather to how much I like this city to their children-- at this point I found out that the older daughter of one of the women is named Sarah, which explains at least part of the instant liking they took to me. Names are very important here. About half an hour later, the go-fer man returned with a few sheets of official-looking and heavily-scribbled-upon forms. A few minutes scrutiny of these forms revealed that the total tariff due on my package had been reduced to a fifth of the originally quoted price. An absolutely unlooked-for blessing. This is completely unheard of. People will be talking about this for years. I'm happy, my friends are happy (it's due entirely to their efforts that this drastic cut in duties has been obtained), a couple other people wander into the cage and they're happy too. We all laugh and talk for a few more minutes, and then I am allowed to help as the day's newly arrived packages are opened and inspected and tagged and reported upon. Nothing of very great interest, except for the disgusting tar-like substance they use to reseal the opened boxes. On Tuesday I had almost tripped over a bucket full of the stuff. It looks at least slightly toxic and quite possibly lethal. I'm still cleaning it out from underneath my fingernails.

But back to the warehouse---- At this point we are still waiting for the final mysterious paperwork to descend from the exalted heights of the upper-floor offices. To pass the time, one of the women helps me read through a couple of the forms lying scattered around her desk. I'm extremely pleased with the number of words I recognize, small though it is. This is definitely a vocabulary situation I have not yet encountered in lessons.

Finally the required forms arrive, and I'm handed the slip of paper I must take to the cashier in the next building over. The insured-packages-cage go-fer will carry my package for me. Goodbyes ensue, and about five minutes later we've all ma'salaamed each other for the last time. At last I negotiate my way through the lines and the windows and pay my money. The package is mine. I have socks now. A new sweater. A wonderfully warm afghan. And, of course, two very important tubes of cork grease.

Last night's (Monday's) town hall meeting, sponsored by the American embassy, was disappointingly bland. No explosions or gas masks, no hysterics, none of the raw emotion I was so hoping to be able to observe.

I was sitting at home afterwards, pinching myself to stay awake until a reasonable hour rolled around at which I could finally go to bed, when my boab knocked at my door with a package notice in his hand. The long-awaited afghan-containing package from my mother. Ensuing discussion established that the place where I needed to go to pick up this package was very far away, near the main train station downtown, and that it must be a very large package and consequently would probably be expensive. (Duties are charged on all things shipped into the country.) My boab was terribly sorry, he wouldn't be able to go with me in the morning, but his sister's husband would come by at about 9:00 (which by the end of the conversation had moved to 10:00) before he was going to pick up something from the same place. If I liked, I could go with him and he would help me.

I woke up this morning and immediately wanted nothing more than to roll over and spend the rest of the day in bed, but the thought of my package forced me up and into clothing. By 10:30 I had decided to seize fortune and go by myself-- mostly so that I could get back to bed as quickly as possible. My boab gave me detailed instructions on what to tell the taxi driver and where to go in the building itself, and before I could leave he made me repeat all of it back to him three or four times. Surprisingly, the trip downtown was extremely uneventful, and I was soon standing in front of a dingy old multi-stored building that I might have at first glance have assumed was abandoned, if it weren't for the multitudes of people milling back and forth and in and out of the lobby of the place. Still following the directions of my boab, I went up two flights of stairs to the "first floor" and entered a vast warehouse of a room, crisscrossed by clanking conveyor belts and chutes that dropped down into huge cages filled with clerks and packages. A woman looked at my package notice and escorted me to the far back corner of the cavern, where after exchanging the usual pleasantries with the smiling woman behind the table I managed to get down to the business of obtaining my package... a business that lasted an hour and a half... thus far. I still don't have my package. Negotiations required multiple trips to another floor and several other offices, frequent and perplexed consultations of a few post and customs manuals, and many expressive hand gestures. Apparently no one around spoke English, and the situation at hand was admittedly a bit of a stretch for my Arabic. Which is, of course, the fun of going alone.

Eventually we were able to agree on a few things: yes, I would accept (and pay for) the package in question, despite the rather pricey tariffs placed on the socks, but no, I could not obtain said package today because they were still not sure if the medicine was legal. Medicine? I didn't remember my mother saying anything about sending me any medication. And she didn't declare it on the customs form attached to the package, a form I had now had ample opportunity to peruse. Maybe, suggests one man, it's vitamins. This, I think, sounds at least somewhat plausible. She's worried about my calcium intake again. So I agree, yes, maybe they're vitamins, and this prompts a discussion of how worried my mother is about me, since I live so far away from her. She doesn't think I eat right at all. Maybe they're vitamins. Finally we decide that I can come back on Sunday and maybe then my package will be cleared for pick-up. Back downstairs to the warehouse, where the two women who were originally helping me there welcome me back like a long-lost cousin and decide that I can see the contents of my package, even though I can't take it home with me. They like me; they know I'm curious. So we open the box and pull out socks, a sweater, an afghan, and... two tubes of cork grease, which I have been desperately needing for the thirsty joint corks of my clarinet. Ah, I think. The medicine. The mystery of the medication may now be apparent to me, but unfortunately explaining the solution to my new friends is a little more taxing. Very few people here have heard of a clarinet (and even those who have require visual aids for identification and recognition), but I manage to get some of the idea across-- I play a musical instrument similar to the flute (true, but ouch-- that hurt) and these inexplicable white plastic tubes are for that. Ah. Despite my poor explanation, I can see a spark of understanding. By this point everyone is utterly charmed by me, so the two women say that they will resubmit the paperwork on my package and will explain that these are my clothes, for me only, and that I am a poor student here. insha-allah this will reduce the amount of money required to free my package. Back upstairs, where we (I with the help of one of my friends from the warehouse cage) explain to the director that this is not medicine, it's for my musical instrument.... Ah. Well, in that case, the director will speak to her director tomorrow, and then I can come back the day after that and retrieve my things-- insha-allah, of course. Closing pleasantries, and at last I am outside and hailing a taxi to go home. To bed.

Note of interest: impatient and persistent ringing of my doorbell while I was in bed this afternoon finally prompted me to struggle out of bed and to the door, where I found that the impatient door-ringer had exited, leaving a package leaning up against my door. A package mailed from the States. Delivered to my door, still sealed, with apparently no tariffs assigned to it. Containing a book and a CD (and CDs are not very common here) from my friends J.r and Heidi. The difference? I haven't a clue. Logic of any Western type at all hasn't applied to my life in months. Maybe the post office liked Heidi's handwriting more than my mother's. Who knows.

Not much happening these days. I mostly keep my nose buried in books, mostly of the literary or linguistic variety. Still waiting to be able to start language lessons again. Waiting, for a plethora of diverse events, seems to be a major part of my life right now. The state of the world today, both on a local and a global level, is a great breeding ground for patience. Or impatience, depending on how positively I'm reacting at any given moment.

I should be thankful. It's a refining process.

Tomorrow night there is a so-called "town hall" meeting here-- entrance requires an American passport. I'm really curious to hear the reactions of others to recent events. And to know what possibilites they're considering for the near future. Deadlines of all sorts are approaching, and I seriously doubt that in the end the way things pan out will be as anti-climatic as Y2K. Too many forces are already in motion.
All this will make a great story some day.

Living here I have to wonder: is the only reason I have been assumed to be American for the greater part of my life that I have lived that greater part in Oklahoma, where clearly, unless given much immediately obvious evidence to the contrary, the most legitimate assumption is that nearly everyone is, in fact, American? (Feel free to write and comment/complain on the length of that sentence. I'll gladly refer you to Faulkner.) Because here, if I never admitted I was from the U.S., evidently no one would ever guess. I am most of the time German, very occasionally British (that usually only if the person inquiring has heard me speaking English), but almost never American. It's probably been almost three months since the last time someone guessed I was American. Certainly there is a noticeable population of Americans here, so it's not that meeting one would be anything of a rarity. One theory is that these days everyone here is hoping that you're not from the U.S. People here, in general, like foreigners and wouldn't want to have anything immediate to hold against any of them. And as world tensions rise, this may become even more often the case. But that's not the excuse for me. I've been German since I stepped off the plane back in September. I'm pegged as a European even when I'm in the company of people who are immediately reconizable as Americans.
It's an interesting phenomenon to me.

For the past several days I've been in an odd funk, and though I had occasional moments of clarity and light, I was unable to dispell the mood for very long. This afternoon as I was walking to the tram stop suddenly the cloud lifted. All was better again. Impossible to predict or understand, but immediately I was once again contented at the thought of being here, invigorated by the challenges of cross-cultural living, and excited by the knowledge that every tram ride is a potential opportunity for meeting someone new.

This evening I went with one of my friends (American) to a cafe. She had brought a book to read, and I pulled out a notebook and started working on some Arabic verbs. Amy watched, fascinated, as I began listing the verbs and then writing sentences using them in different tenses. I was evidently quite a distraction from her book (though for those of you who know her, you also know that she doesn't need much external help to become distracted)-- she kept remarking on how impressed she was that I was voluntarily and independently studying Arabic. Finally I laughed at her and explained that in the past two days I have, in some way or another, used four different languages. Language study is, for me, nothing impressive or remarkable. It's simply what I do, given any chance at all. A function of my personality. An odd quirk I possess. Really, I thought that the unusual aspect of the situation was that Amy was reading a book.

Did you know that one might play a game with some other object than winning in mind? I had heard that such people might exist. But I couldn't really imagine it. Why play if not to win? I'm not talking about a cut-throat, devil-take-all, no-blood-no-foul mindset (I reserve that for Spades and Risk), but just in general-- isn't a desire to win a natural part of engaging in competition?

Apparently not for everyone. Apparently some people play games with only the goal of enjoying the company of other people. Nothing more. These are usually the sort of people who decide to be nice at some point and bend the rules so that someone doesn't feel bad.

????????????????

Such tactics (or lack thereof) catch me off guard, throw me off balance, cause me to loose my footing in what would otherwise be a fairly natural setting for me. Much more natural, at least, than mingling and standing around pretending to be interested in whatever superficial banalities people bring up in an attempt (usually unsuccessful) to provoke semi-stimulating discussion. Ah, a game. Something to wrest us all from small-talk-induced somnolence. So I would usually think. But when you throw into the mix a need to be nice to people, to spare their feelings at the cost of a true spirit of competition, then I'm left perplexed and uncertain of myself. My uneasiness shows itself as my behaviour erratically swings from quiet withdrawal to overly pushy comments and suggestions.

You can choose your friends, but you can't choose your co-workers, I guess. No doubt they find me just as difficult to understand as I do them. At least as difficult.

I realised sometime today that there had been a signficant lapse in my posting. It seems impossible to me that nearly a week has gone by already. How easily the days do pass. It's been an eventful week; I do have my reasons for the silence.

This morning I had a meeting with the director of the school I'll be attending, and, assuming that schedules work out favourably, I could be starting that by the end of this week. I've been determined to prevail in the quest for what I need in language study, and so at the school I'll be spending my time in a fairly even split between colloquial and classical Arabic. They're nearly two different languages (actually, I'm not always so sure that statement needs the qualifer "nearly"), so this will require noticeably more study and practice on my part. I found out today that I won't be able to start meeting with my conversation helper until almost the end of this month, so at least I'll have some time to settle into the new school curriculum.

Of course, there's always the chance that by that time I won't even be here anymore. Depending on how the high-and-mighty punjabs of the world decide to move their game tokens between now and then.

In other, more exciting news, I made a near-perfect pot of rice tonight.

I'm back from the retreat and can now look forward to at least a week of staying here in this city. Today we finally began to make measurable progress towards getting me into language study again. By this time next week things should really be rolling in the right direction. I'm glad-- I can tell that I've lost a significant amount of speaking ability over the past month, due to an unfortunate combination of no lessons and too much time with Americans.

But even more exciting than the progress on my language learning was the late-breaking news about music. I borrowed a guitar today, because I'm going to start practicing with another girl about once a week, and while picking up the guitar I was told that if I wanted I coud probably start taking some music lessons-- most likely classical guitar or 'ood (a tradition instrument closely related to the lute). If I wanted? And in addition to all this, I was told that someone will very soon be loaning me an accordion for as long as I will want it. Good news for me, though maybe not so much for my neighbors.

Everything's working so smoothly this morning-- perhaps I've finally worked out all the kinks. I'd hate to think that it was just a simple error in my archive template that was causing so many problems for so long.

I've five gazillion eggs to boil today so that I can devil them later. Must get started.

Last night for New Year's Eve I decided not to barge in on the family celebration to which I'd been invited (invited by a couple who was also going-- I had never met the family). After the excitment of my trip back to my old city and back (more on that another time) I wasn't at all sure I'd be able to stay awake until midnight, and I certainly wasn't sure I had the mental clarity left to be sociable with strangers. One of my friends was sick and hadn't been out of her apartment since last Thursday, and two of my friends moved here on the train with me yesterday (closely related to the aforementioned excitement), so we decided to have a quiet night of pizza, Chinese food, and a movie.

As I left my apartment building on my way to join my friends, my boab (doorman) stopped me and told me that I needed to make sure I came home early that night. You need to understand that there's a definite class system here, and trust me, it's far from normal for a boab to give one of his tenants an order like that, however polite his tone of voice. I thought I must have misunderstood him. (He doesn't speak any English.) So I asked him to say it again, and he started explaining to me that I must be home by 11:00, because it was very bad to be out on the streets after that time. I was flabbergasted. Apart from occasional harrassment from too-friendly men and the crazy style of driving here, this is probably the safest city I've ever lived in. I thought perhaps he was trying to protect my reputation (women aren't usually out late here), but I told him that it was the new year and I had to be at my friend's house until midnight so we could all welcome the new year together. He smiled then, and said that would be fine, as long as I didn't come home until 12:30 or after. By this time I was thoroughly dumbfuzzled, but I said goodbye to him and went on my way. Fortunately, a couple of my friends were able to clear up that mystery for me. (They've been here a lot longer than I have.) In this city, in addition to setting off the usual firecrackers at midnight, people welcome in the new year by throwing glass and plastic bags filled with water into the streets from their balconies. So yes, it's very bad to be on the streets from about 11:30 till whenever everything quiets down again... usually by 12:30. We, of course, had to join in the celebration. The girl at whose apartment we were didn't have any glasses or plates she was willing to toss into the street, but we filled nearly a dozen bags with water and slung them off her balcony, watching each of them explode with satisfying splats on the concrete far below. Glass and flaming fireworks rained down from the apartments above us, and we took care not to stick our heads too far out from underneath the shelter of our balcony ceiling.

By about half-past, the streets were quiet again, except for the clatter of the occasional rogue firecracker, and so I set out for my apartment. I thanked my boab for his warning and dragged my weary body up the stairs and into bed.

Funny... maybe it worked after all. Of course, since I am still unable to publish anything to sar5ah.blogspot.com, I can't implement the oh-so-simple method of communicating a URL change-- posting the updated address on the former site.
Life is hard.

Christmas has passed, was duly celebrated, all that. New Year's Eve looms in the near future. It looks like I'll end up being a hanger-on at a family party. Anything for pizza and board games. I hear that Dead Heretics will be attempting to watch the worst movie ever filmed. Now that sounds like a party.

Today marked the start of another week here-- what I had wrongly assumed would be my first "normal" week in my new city. But no. New's Year Even seems small in comparison to everything else-- I leave in the morning for my former city, to meet up with some people and then help a couple of friends move up here on Tuesday. Then beginning on Friday I have a four-day retreat. Complete with craft time. (I'm still hoping that was a bad joke.) So it looks like another week until my schedule opens up enough to start really settling in here. At the moment I'm still more than content to roam the city by myself, investigating neighborhoods and shops and streets. Without any internal need to start meeting new people just yet, I'll have to push myself to reach out. It can be done, I know. But it does take more than a little effort to overcome that first bit of static friction.

I find myself entering some sort of no-man's land between languages. I hadn't realised until my (former) flatmate's mother was staying with us exactly how much Arabic slips into my normal conversation. Commonly used words require no translation in my mind; they simply are. And all the foreigners I know here know at least as much Arabic as I do (most of them a great deal more), so until Brandi's mother started staring at me with an expression devoid of any comprehension, I had no idea that my speech was so laced with Arabic words and phrases. In one way I'm pleased that I'm employing what Arabic I know so easily and unconsciously, but it's also a tad disconcerting not to be immediately aware what language I'm speaking. I've always before picked up hints of this trouble during my travels, but this is an extreme I've never felt before.

I am unexpectedly swamped with exhaustion. Looks like it'll be an early night here.

Still trying to avoid finding a new site for blogging.... I thought I'd found a way. It seems not. But I am not defeated yet.

I've been trying to post the same thing since last Friday night, and I still can't get it out and actually on to my blog. Probably this won't go for a while either. But for when it does....

I successfully moved into my new apartment on Saturday night and since then have unpacked and arranged and fidgeted just about everything into place, I think. At least for the moment. Most of the knick-knacks which came with the apartment are now hiding in a dark corner inside the wardrobe in the back bedroom. And have subsequently been replaced with books. There is, after all, nothing else with which I would rather decorate.

My major mission for the day is baking two pies, one apple and one strawberry-- my contributions to the Christmas feast tomorrow. Tonight there's a multi-lingual midnight mass downtown, and some of us will go sing in Christmas day at that.

Locally Christmas happens on January 7, according to the Orthodox calendar. I'm curious to see what, if any, accompanying changes appear around here. Probably still no Santa Claus or canned Christmas lounge music. What an utter shame.

I awoke grudgingly this morning, and as I lay in bed trying to convince myself that yes, I should go to the service and yes, it was necessary to get up in order to do that, I heard the unbelievable sound of a car driving down a wet street. That pulled me out of bed quickly enough. I sprang to my window to see what was the matter. And lo! it had rained. Even more than the other day. This looked like the result of a fairly major shower.

The rain held off until the service was over, thankfully, since at this fellowship the services are held outside, and we were too late to get seats underneath the cover of the tent. (A mark of the winters around here: these services are held outside year round.) But afterward, as everyone milled around, mingling and chatting, the rain began again, and those who did not quickly scramble under the tent were, if not drenched, at least quickly and uncomfortably wet. As the rain continued, however, the tent proved no real sanctuary-- the saturated canvas began releasing such mammoth drips that it was actually more comfortable outside in what was by now only a faint drizzle. By the time I arrived home I was damp and chilled, but happy all the same. I thought it was glorious weather.

Tonight we had some friends (local, not American) over for a Christmas party. After preparing and eating a large meal (since food is the center of hospitality around here) we turned out all the lights and sat in the simple glow of candle light and listened to the Christmas story, told first in Arabic and then in English. More than listening to the words, I watched the others' faces as candle light and various expressions flicked over them. Some, like me, smiled at the familiarity of the oft heard and much loved story. Others looked unsure and then intrigued by turns. Technically a part of their religion, yes, but not so often read or talked about. Afterwards we explained the tradition of gift-giving and then had a time of wrapping-paper-shredding and oohing-and-aahing that rivaled any family Christmas in the States. As I glanced around the room at the happy faces, the scattered remnants of wrapping materials, and the "Christmas tree" (a large house plant draped with a strand of lights), I felt a deep sense of peace and contentment at being here. A night of shared traditions and discussions, yes, but also a holiday celebration with friends, with loved ones-- not so different after all.

I move tomorrow... technically today, I suppose, since it's after midnight. My last night here-- am I sad? Some. There are friends I will miss, and though I will see them again, it won't be as often or the same as it has been. But mostly I'm too excited and hopeful about this change to feel much regret. Perhaps the sentimentality will hit on the train tomorrow.

Did I mention that I will be living by myself in my new apartment? A blessing I never even dared hope to realise here. Only a few more days....

Last night was my great sally into the chaos of packing, and astoundingly enough (for me, at least) by midnight I had completed my task, with the exception of the few things I was keeping with me for the rest of the week and my flannel sheets that I wanted to sleep in between for one last night. I'll probably be slightly chilly tonight-- yes, I know it's not truly cold here, but neither do we have any heat-- and I have only an afghan, no real blanket.

So my room is stripped bare again, emptied of personality and comforts. A small cross to bear considering how little I myself will have to move on Saturday. A backpack only-- the rest of my things will be waiting for me in my flat. Despite the addition of things I've managed to collect since arriving here, I packed it all into my original containers, though I have to admit they would have been overweight by airline standards. As usual, I packed for efficiency of space only, without considering the amount of energy required to move such weight. My taxi driver was kind, though, and without complaint he hoisted two lockers up into the luggage rack on top of the car. I'm sure his back is feeling it now. I paid him well for his sacrifice.

Friday night I got a call about a possible apartment, so Saturday morning I caught the 8:00 train--- this time I was asleep almost before the train pulled out of the station. That particular apartment was a no-go, but we ended up seeing a couple others later on in the afternoon, and ham-del-allah one of them was satisfactory all around. So I stayed the night and signed a lease yesterday-- and this coming Saturday I move. Before Christmas, just as I had been hoping. el-ham-del-allah indeed.

My taxi driver Saturday morning coming from the train station was obviously a very religious man... white gallibeyah, traditional prayer cap, even a big bushy beard. I wasn't sure if he was going to talk to me beyond what was necessary, since I am equally obviously a Western female, which equals infidel in the worst way. But a few minutes after I got in he veered off onto a side street and stopped in front of a small store. Apologizing for the delay, he asked if I wanted anything and I of course replied that it was no problem and I was fine. But he came back a moment later bearing two bags of food and handed one to me as he started the car again. Inside were two sandwiches, fuul (spiced beans) and falafel. The fuul was probably the best I've had since I came here. I was reminded again how important hospitality, even to strangers, is in this culture, in his religion... and how often the lack of such hospitality is apparent in my own.

Winter must have actually arrived here, because today it rained. Enough to wet the streets, enough turn the ubiquitous dust into damp sticky mud, almost enough to make puddles in the potholes outside my apartment building. A rare, rare happening in this city, but in my new one, where the storms roll in off the sea, winters are usually rainy, even occasionally stormy. But it's nice that I was here long enough to see rain.

I move on Saturday! Really, I should be packing right now. Or at least sorting through some things. Almost everything will have to be packed by Wednesday so that it can be transported up in someone's car-- unless I want to struggle with all of it on the train on Saturday afternoon. But procrastination is an art form, and in my case a finely honed skill. There's little need to begin now.

I went to another wedding tonight. This one was in someone's flat, and while the living room was admittedly very large (more than half the size of my apartment last year) it was still crowded with guests. A space near the door had been left clear for dancing, but we arrived during a lull in the music, so there was the obligatory drop in volume as everyone turned to stare at the white people. Our friends (who are definitely not white) quickly began introducing us and finding us seats, however, and the mild roar of the guests' chatter resumed. The music started again a few minutes later-- mostly recordings of various local songs, plus a pseudo-techno/rasta version of "Tequila" in Arabic (if you can imagine) that I hope never to hear again.

About an hour after we arrived the live music began. The inevitable drums appeared, and someone else wheeled out a small keyboard. The singer began warming up with a series of peculiar ululations. Another man, wearing a tweed sports jacket and furry leopard print slippers, conjured up an accordion from some back room. I hadn't seen an accordion since I said goodbye to my dear Forrest back at the end of June, so I watched him eagerly as he wheezed through a few tentative notes. Gradually he picked up the volume and the tempo, and the other musicians followed. This was music worth dancing to. The guests responded appropriately, embellishing the music with clapping, shouts, and those strange jackal cries. To be fair to those who have in the past made so many derogatory remarks about the sound of an accordion (and you know who you are), as the music picked up it was occasionally difficult to tell what was accordion and what was feedback from the questionably rigged sound system. But we danced on anyhow.

In unrelated news, I found out yesterday that my friend Steve got into dental school. Quite an exciting thing-- as we say here, "a thousand blessings".

A cold front came through last night. Around here that means that today's high was only 68 degrees Fahrenheit. Only. Is it really almost mid-December? According to my language helper it's getting very cold. This doesn't bode well for my hopes of a noticeable winter. When I told her what the temperatures are back in Oklahoma and in some other parts of the States, her eyes opened to twice their normal size. Clearly she questioned the plausibility of anyone being able to exist in such desolate conditions.

To accompany the change in the weather, a cold front of a different kind swept through my head and throat last night, and it appears that I'm sick again, seemingly with the same thing as last time. I hope this isn't becoming a pattern-- one week sick, one week well, one week sick, one week well....

Ah, well. By grace I came here and by grace I'll stay. Something else to keep me humble.

Last Thursday I made my escape and fled north to visit my new city for the first time. I boarded the train with a quivering sensation of anticipation and, after being misdirected several times, found my seat and perched impatiently in it, tired but unable to sleep. It had occurred to me in the wee hours of that morning, as I desperately tried to still my circling thoughts, that I had not been outside of the city for two months. Eagerly I awaited my first sight of a horizon not defined by the roofs of the buildings across the street. I spoke briefly to the boy next to me, but my mind was too distracted by the excitement of my trip to be able to make much conversation. The train eased by the dingy buildings and crowded streets and at last began to pick up speed as the concrete walls fell away and the sky faded from smoky brown into clear blue. I wasn't able to fall asleep for almost another hour, so entranced was I by the groves of orange trees, punctuated by tall palms, and the colorfully dressed peasants on their jogging donkeys. And always the sky.

That afternoon, after my arrival and some lunch, my friends took me to the palace gardens, where we strolled around the grounds enjoying the cool green-ness and then wandered on out to the shore, where we sat on a wall above the sea and watched the water. Definitely not a lake in Oklahoma-- this water shifted through every imaginable shade of green and blue, and below me I could see down to the rocks on the bottom, through water clear enough that I could not tell how deep it was. For a long time I stared out over the sea, stretching my eyes to where the water blurred into sky, wondering at the expanse spread out in front of me.

My days there passed quickly, and all too soon it was Saturday evening and I was boarding another train. I said my goodbyes and turned my face back towards the snarl of concrete and humanity whence I had come, all the while comforted by the thought that this now was temporary.

Another late night, but this time it's pressed by the knowledge that I must wake up and then immediately get up when my alarm goes off in the morning. I bought my ticket this morning and tomorrow (insha-allah, of course) I catch a train to travel to my new city. Just for a visit, this time, but I hope to make some progress towards plans for moving while I'm there. I hear there are some spare rooms floating around up there-- I'm very much okay with temporarily crashing someone else's apartment. I don't even require a bed.

Tonight is the Night of Power, an important night of prayer during Ramadan. Supposedly the prayers should last all through the night, beginning at about seven o'clock in the evening, but given the crush in the streets right now I'm not sure who could actually be praying. The entire city seems to be out and about, maybe trying to get to family's houses or mosques, I don't know. Traffic is at a stand-still most places.

As I came out of the Metro station tonight I caught the delicious scent of freshly popped corn wafting through the air, overpowering the usual smells of car exhaust, garbage, and heaven only knows what else. The smell was particularly enticing since (due to some wonderful drugs) I have in these past few days been able to smell for the first time in weeks. Irresistably drawn by the aroma, I wandered over to the small cart in which a man was skillet-popping corn over a gas flame. Catching the eye of a woman waiting there, I tried to strike up a conversation with her-- apparently she did understand my Arabic, but even so I could get no farther than learning the Arabic word for popcorn. (Maybe my height is intimidating.) When the pan of corn had finished popping, she and her companion accepted their bags of popcorn and quickly departed, leaving me standing there surrounded by young men... and no more popped corn. Having already paid, I was under some obligation to wait for the next pan (added to which, by this point I really, really wanted some popcorn), and so I did, this time supplied with all the conversation a girl could wish for. Too many minutes later, after several compliments and only two proposals (I must be losing my touch) and after some inane political commentary on Bush and a few even worse jokes about Osama bin Laden, I escaped with my hard-won bag of popcorn... compliments of the house, of course.

Someone just buzzed our flat-- the building door is locked, and unfortunately my key doesn't open it. So I'm locked in for the evening, and everyone else is locked out. A fire hazard, you say? mafeesh mushkella-- We live on the first floor and every room has a balcony. Really, it's a blessing. I won't be bothered by the doorbell for the rest of the night.

I caved yesterday and went to the doctor. Bacterial laryngitis. Probably it set it in as a result of my bout with the flu last weekend. Two days bed rest, no talking, swallow these pills and call me on Wednesday.

When I am sick, even (or perhaps especially) when I have passed into the forced-convalescence stage, I do not want people. I do not want their sympathetic words or their proffered help-- I merely want to be left alone. And just now, when I am denied even speech, even the ability to assert my desires and rights, I want that all the more. So this time it has all been especially difficult-- house guests through last night, and then the girls coming to do laundry here today.

I have such hopes for moving. Such high hopes for relocating. Maybe I haven't done things right here-- I'm not sure. I don't think that's the case, but I have no perspective yet. More likely, though, I've done things here exactly as planned, because it was ordained all along that I would make this move at this time. Ah, there's the Calvinist in me resurfacing. Things begin to realign.

It is December. Who would believe it? Time is a wisp of smoke, a puff of spore blown out on the wind. There no catching it, keeping it, holding it back. Willy-nilly, it slips ever onward, ever away.

Tonight I was very pleased to be able to attend a performance of Handel's Messiah, sponsored by a local university. Relaxing into the familiarity of the music and the power of the words, I was able to let all the tensions and frustrations of the past few weeks slip away unnoticed. After the applause had finally tapered off, I frantically pushed my way up to the front and accosted one of the cellists. Even if he couldn't completely understand my fumbling plea, eeked out in a mixture of bad English and even worse Arabic, he could at least see the desperation in my eyes, and willingly he surrendered his cello to me for a few minutes. Three months is a long time, the longest I've ever been without playing. Like an ex-smoker who's coping reasonably well until a chance whiff from another's cigarette sends him scrounging for one of his own, tomorrow when the reality of the many months still to come sets back in I'll regret tonight's impulsiveness. But for now I ride the high and defy the consequences.

Redesigning my blog... a blissful temporary escape from the stresses of life here. Anna Karenina was getting a trifle heavy. I needed a break from my break.

I've been attempting to get out some sort of newsletter... as in an actual email, sent to actual people... for almost two weeks now. I've even partially written one-- unfortunately it's sitting in my "Drafts" folder, unfinished and nearly forgotten. Exciting things have been happening here lately... a blow-up within the group precipitated a major restructuring of our jobs and lives. I'll be moving to another city sometime in the next couple months-- maybe sooner, maybe later, no one really knows at the moment. I'm hoping for sooner.

I'm very tired today and have been forced to spend far too much time around people (almost entirely Americans) lately. My reserve of words (and patience) is sorely depleted. So that's all the news for now.

A recent email from my friend Shouna mentioned the advent of Thanksgiving decorations and Christmas shopping now that Hallowe'en is past. I was at least partially aware of that holiday-- we had a sleepover, during which we stuffed ourselves on pizza and candy and watched horror movies-- but somehow it didn't really sink in as Hallowe'en. And we certainly don't have turkeys or pilgrims or fir trees or red-suited fat men crowding the stores around here. Nor is the weather cool enough (and definitely not rainy enough) to be classified as "fall". I'm in utter calendar shock and denial right now. Near as I can ascertain, I'm perpetually stuck somewhere around August... though that's not right either, because it's not that hot. But I don't feel as though the summer really existed for me, and fall has yet to arrive. I don't know when I am.

But it is holiday season here. Ramadan began this past Wednesday (my two-month mark), and here that changes the entire life of the city. Shops and homes and streets are bright with colorful and sometimes gaudy lanterns, strings of carnival lights, and glittering streamers. Work and school schedules shorten and shift to accomodate the all-night meals. Well-wishes and blessings abound, and on the Metro on Thursday I heard a woman deliver a 5-minute lecture/sermon on appropriately respectful behavior to a group of giggling and chattering school girls-- who immediately stood up and conducted themselves with the utmost solemnity for the rest of the ride... except that sometimes I could see their eyes still laughing in irrepressible exuberance as they glanced sidelong at each other.

Yesterday evening I broke the fast with some friends. We set out the dishes on a sheet on the floor and sat around it, tearing off pieces of flatbread (right hand only!) and using those to scoop up the various foods. The men of the family ate in a separate room. Though the meal itself was not very long-- probably only about half an hour or so-- we stayed for hours afterwards, talking and drinking tea and then coffee. This coffee, incidentally, is wonderful-- very strong and sweet, brewed with a generous helping of ginger, and served in tiny handle-less cups. It's a specialty of their people, brought with them from their native country, and has to be one of my favorite discoveries here.

Right now I'm listening to the OU-Texas A&M game. A&M just tied the game (no fear, it's only the end of the first half). Hard to believe that I'm sitting here so far away... listening to the roar of the crowd and the familiar voices of Bob Barry et al. and the banality of Braum's commercials I can almost forget that I'm not in Oklahoma. It's easy enough to find ways to remind myself, though.

I haven't posted in quite a while, and probably I would continue procrastinating for a bit longer except that today marked two months that I've been here. And that seemed to be of enough import to spur me into writing. Two months is a funny milestone. I'm not quite sure whether that's still only little time... or actually a long time... or something in between. Most likely something in between. (Aren't most things?) So it's a strange point of evaluation because I'm not entirely sure what I should have accomplished by this point. I have a tendency to think that surely I should be doing more than I am. Surely I should know more than I do. But two months is only two months... 9 or so weeks... 61 days... not so long after all, perhaps.

I've come to the conclusion that the most culturally inappropriate thing I do here has nothing to do with my hair or the length of my sleeves or how late I'm out at night. It's very simple and much more difficult to control. I laugh and smile. In public. Out on the street. When men are around. I can't help it. Things strike me as funny. The simplest task can become so ridiculously difficult here. Taking a 15-minute taxi ride can quickly turn into a riotously funny adventure. Not to everyone, maybe, but I find that my first reaction is usually amusement rather than anger or frustration. Praise Him for that. I pray every day that I don't lose my sense of humour here. Even if it does mean inadvertently smiling at inappropriate moments.

Last night I went to a wedding with some friends. The going was a long and involved process: they picked my flatmate and me up from our apartment at 4:30 in the afternoon, and we didn't actually get to the wedding until almost 11:30 that night. What happened in the meantime? A excursion to the hairdressers, a run-in with security at a Metro stop, and a bit of wandering lost through the streets of a not extremely nice part of town (especially so late in the evening). All intermixed with the usual relaxed pace of life that pervades this culture. (Americans would say we wasted a lot of time.)

The trip to the hair salon was definitely a highlight of the day. Consider: in the States when women make themselves up for a fancy dress party, dance, what-have-you, they have a stylist pile all their hair on top of their heads in french twists and beehives and other more elaborate concoctions. But here, in a place where generally women's hair must be covered, or at the least pulled back from their faces and tightly bound, women go to a stylist to have their hair straightened and brushed down around their faces, or curled into long sausage curls that bob down past their shoulders. Even after this older women will often still cover their carefully arranged loose hair for the evening. But it doesn't matter. That's how you do your hair for a party.
My friends insisted that Allison and I do the same. But here some complications arose. I would be willing to place a fairly large sum of money on a bet that we were the first foreigners (Westerners) ever to walk through the front door of that hair salon. This in itself caused a stir. But more amusing than this-- our hair simply isn't like theirs. Allison wasn't as bad off-- her hair is thick, and she decided not to have it curled. But my hair is fine, very fine, and tangles at the slightest provocation. So this poor man, who I'm sure is quite competent in his craft, was completely baffled by my hair. Everytime he tried to do anything, it slipped out of his hands, off the brush, out of the clips, and then became (in his eyes) inexplicably snarled. Everyone was quite frustrated, and I know that none of them were satisfied with the end result. Which in some ways added to my discomfort at walking through the streets... at night... with my hair blowing about my face. It felt wrong. And I've haven't even been here two months. Imagine how I'll feel after two years.

The wedding itself was great. "Wedding" is a bit of a mis-translation into English, I think. The ceremony is not actually public, so to picture where I was think of the biggest reception you've ever been to... outside... with carnival lights... and a throne for the bride and groom that has for a backdrop an eight-foot tall fan-shaped extravaganza of air-brushed hearts and rainbows and clouds... and a live band (whose repertoire is definitely not that of The Wedding Singer; this was a Sudanese wedding) playing music pumped out of speakers at such volumes as might be heard if you were leaning up against the front mains at a Metallica concert (my ears were still ringing this morning)... and hundreds of people laughing and talking and clapping and singing and dancing-- and warbling the odd traditional call of celebration that sounds rather like a jackal mourning his dearly departed mum... and then throw in some more noise and people and color just for effect... and that might be something like the wedding I attended last night.
It was wonderful.

When I woke up this morning the swollen ball of pain that had been lodged in my throat for the past two days had dissolved enough to allow me to swallow. At the time it seemed an improvement. After twelve hours of dry coughs that threaten to tear out my much-abused throat and leave it in a bloody heap on the floor, however, I'm no longer quite so sure that it was such an improvement. Maybe the knotted lump was better.

As a celebratory gesture towards being out of bed and able to stand upright for more than a few minutes at a time, I worked on rearranging my room this afternoon. My goal is to shape it into something that at least resembles a place in which I might voluntarily live. So far I haven't had much success, though today's efforts did bring at me least a tad (a skosch?) closer. Of course, I do have to realize that by my standards it will never truly be home until at least one wall is smothered in books-- and that's simply not going to happen here.

Still, despite the aesthetic and literary inadequacies of my flat, it does feel surprisingly like home. Maybe that's partially because after nine (or maybe more?) moves in the past five years it doesn't take me long to settle into a place. But the feeling of home-ness extends beyond the walls of this apartment and out into the streets of the city. Returning from Cyprus earlier this week gave me a quite shocking sense of homecoming, of regaining the familiar and secure. Granted, I only have to walk out into the street and try to talk to someone (female, of course) to have at least some of that illusion swept away. But the sensation is there none the less.

After two days of imprisonment I'm eager to go out tomorrow and conquer the world. Or at least watch some of it go by. But my desire for freedom is in some part quelled by my body's sudden and insistent craving for more sleep. Perhaps I shouldn't have moved all that furniture on my own this afternoon. Maybe I simply need to drink more orange juice. Whatever the case, I betake my weary self to bed.

I spent the past few days in the mountains of the island of Cyprus, enjoying the trees and the quiet and the fresh air. I even enjoyed the company of the nearly 200 women there for the retreat-- though during the first evening the waves of estrogen and emotion threated to overwhelm and consume me completely. I shudder to think how many trees had to die in order to provide tissues for these past five days.

Our end-of-the-session final exams begin tomorrow and continue for the two days following. They won't be difficult. In fact, I would relieve myself of any burden of studying at all except that I've neither heard nor spoken Arabic for several days now, and at this point in my studies it's easy to lose the edge. Like a poorly learned habit, my ear and tongue quickly slip out of practice.

But there is a thing that makes returning to school tomorrow morning bearable-- after Thursday, el-ham-del-allah, I am finished with school. I switch over to community based learning as soon as this school session ends this week, and from there I fire on ahead at what I hope is a faster pace. One of the best things about the retreat was the opportunities to discuss projects for my second year-- sooner, if I can reach the required level of language proficiency before then. I believe I can. And positive thinking is half the battle, right? The sooner I finish my language studies (the formal part of it) the sooner I can go live in a mud hut. That's motivation for you, eh? Yet that's exactly what I want.

Dropping out of school also frees up about three hours every day. Most of that comes from transportation time. And this should make my life at least a little less frantic, leaving time for some important things that have fallen by the wayside during the five weeks I've been here. Like eating. Sleeping. Reading. Writing. I might even be able to post here a little more often.

It rained yesterday. Rained. As in water fell from the sky.

This was no sudden downpour, of course. And it wasn't even a gentle shower. It was no more than a sprinkling of drops, never so much that one became unable to distinguish individual splotches of water in the dust that covers everything here. But there were raindrops nonetheless, and I felt their coolness on my cheeks and hands as I stood with my face turned up to the clouds. Real clouds, too. Not just the usual smoggy haze.

With this the heat broke. After at least a week in which temperatures every day stretched up to break 100 degrees, even the life-long residents of the city were crying uncle. We're hoping that was the last heat wave of the year; things should be cooler from here on out. Till next spring, at least.

I am fascinated by the Metro.

Here the car doors do not slide shut with dignity and decorum. No soothing voice broadcast over loud speakers urges you to "please stand clear of the doors". There aren't even signs warning you to "mind the gap". The doors slam shut, separating those inside from those outside with an abrupt finality that plants questions in one's mind about death and the meaning of life and the Great Beyond. Woe to anyone who is caught in limbo at that time of judgement.

The school year (both for public grade schools and for universities) started on Sunday, and suddenly the morning streets are teeming with throngs of uniformed school girls and boys. Watching their antics is fast becoming another source of amusement in my life here. Yesterday as we rode the Metro to our school I bechanced to see one such school boy pulled up short in a struggle with the infamous doors. Boys are allowed in the women's car until they are about 12 or 13 years old, which is a daring and awkward and thus hugely entertaining age. This particular boy had taken a running jump into the car just as the doors started to close, and while he personally escaped the snapping jaws unscathed, the small backpack which dangled off one of his arms was not quite so fortunate. The doors caught it squarely and fairly, and he spent the next few moments tugging at it, his forehead wrinkled in dedicated concentration. Finally he gave up and waited patiently until the next stop, where the doors grudgingly slid open and released their prey.

I've passed my two week mark now. Strange, my time here seems so much longer than that. And yet at the same time the days have passed very quickly. Perhaps the routine of school has helped with both those impressions. Already I have established somewhat of a routine, so that I feel settled in, and I'm busy enough that the days fade into one another with astonishing rapidity.

I'm still impatient a great deal of the time. I have to force myself to look at the progress I have already made in Arabic... otherwise I tend to feel discouraged that I can't say more to people... or understand more of what they say. Patience. That's a scary thing to ask for. Usually it's taught to me through lessons I would rather not have.

And my impatience is not only with my Arabic. I have yet to find my place here, my place in the work, my place on the team. I came here not knowing, and my two weeks' worth of impressions has certainly not clarified that-- if anything I feel more overwhelmed. But my focus right now really should be on language learning, and that I can handle. And in the meantime-- I have made friends. We slowly and painfully eke out our conversations... very little English, very little Arabic, lots of hand gestures... and with this the relationships grow. Amazing how little common language is needed for friendship.

Friday morning as I reflected a bit on the week (Friday being the holy day here-- no school) I realized that I really had to be thankful that we had started school on Monday, whether or not I like class or want to continue with it. Without language school I would have spent the week wondering how on earth I was supposed to find my first language helper, I would have been much more in our flat with little to do, I would still have almost no Arabic, I would have less experience in getting around the city... in short, it would have been a rather dull week, in reality much more frustrating than anything has actually been thus far. Because of the necessary amount of time I have spent in getting from place to place this week, my flatmates and teammates are much less nervous about me being out on my own, and as a result of that I have a far greater amount of freedom than I think I would have otherwise. So, oddly enough, I have to be grateful for language school.

This does not, however, mean that I really wish to continue with it in the long term, and yesterday I spoke to my leaders about this. mafeesh mushkela, as we say here-- no problem. There is some question as to how long this first session of school actually runs... I have so far heard four, five, and six weeks.... The problem with asking questions here is that everyone wants both to be helpful and to save face, which means that if the person you ask doesn't know the answer then he'll make something up. (It's rather like talking to my sister Missy.) This is particularly a problem when asking for directions around the city; in general it is best to keep asking different people until you've gotten the same answer at least three times. Otherwise it's quite likely you'll end up going in completely the opposite direction. I have already experienced this a few times.... Anyhow, however much longer this class session lasts, there should be no problem with me moving to CBL (community based learning) afterwards.

This morning on the way home from my language lesson (not to be confused with language school... this is something different, just one teacher and one student) I was watching a man attempt to ride a bicycle down the major street near my flat. This was entertaining to me in many ways... first, because traffic in this city is chaotic and anarchic at best, and I simply cannot see how anyone with any bit of common sense would dare to attempt to bicycle around. To make things even more complicated and dangerous, it would be somewhat of an understatement to say that his wheels were out of alignment, and neither wheel was exactly round. And the tires were very flat. And on top of all these things, he was constantly muttering, whether to himself, the bicycle, or Allah, I don't know. Possibly all three. I stood for a moment and watched him as he weaved along and occasionally rolled over his trailing galibeyah.

It is at odd moments like these when suddenly I catch a glimpse of understanding that I am here. Here. Just as quickly it is gone again, but I am left shaken by the idea, by the realization, by the sense of distance, both geographically and culturally. And after a few moments my head clears and everything appears as it did before. Still this is not very real to me. Perhaps I am expecting too much of "real".

Seen from above the Metro during rush hour must look like one of those tile games where one square is missing and you slide the others around one by one until you've reconstructed the picture, or put the numbers in order, or whatever. There is constant movement in some part or another of the car as the women slide in and out, wriggling their way through the crush in a callously persistent effort to reach the doors in time to disembark at their stop, or scooting ever closer to a row of seats, waiting for someone to stand up so that they can slip into the vacancy, sometimes rather like a baseball player sliding into home. But slightly more dignified. For most of the line the car remains so tightly packed that it is completely unnecessary to hold onto a bar (even if I could reach one); when one sways, we all sway, and when one stumbles, we all stumble. A strange picture of unity. Slatted wooden shades are pulled down over the windows to block out sunlight and dust, and this only heightens the cattle car impression.

Thankfully, especially since the Metro is crowded at most times of day, the front car is reserved for women only, and between about 8 am and 4 pm the second car is also. We never ride anywhere else. If the throng in the women's car is uncomfortable, it's certainly not more crowded than the rest of the train, and sharing body heat and breath with Muslim women is always preferable to sharing them with Muslim men, who think that American women want only one thing (and it ain't diamonds or love).

We decide that tomorrow we must certainly leave by 7:30 at the latest, in an effort to beat the 8 am rush. The ride home in the afternoon is nearly as crowded until we pass out of the center of the city, and then we each manage to find a seat for the last 20 minutes of the ride. The wooden shade at my window is jammed open, and dust billows in through the opening. By the time we reach our stop my shirt is soaked through on my back with sweat, but the women across the aisle look completely untouched by the heat, despite being shrouded in polyester long-sleeve shirts and long skirts, with their heads tightly wrapped in huge scarves.
It must be in their genes.

Jet lag has struck with a vengeance.

One would think that given my last few days in the States, with their complete lack of anything remotely resembling a schedule pertaining to sleep, I wouldn't be having such troubles here. But this morning I was excited because I managed to sleep until 6:50-- that's almost two hours later than the morning before! But that's my most awake part of the day in what was formerly my normal residence (8 hour time difference), and so it continues to be the part of the day during which I am most awake... which makes me-- gasp-- a morning person. Oh, the shame!

But otherwise things here go well. After much protesting, wheedling, and assuring we would be quite safe, we (the four newcomers) convinced our other teammates that we could go out into the city today without being babysat at every moment. (This ended up meaning we only had to have one chaperone instead of four or five.) So today we wandered through the large market here in our city-- and I have successfully purchased Metro tickets and hailed and directed taxi cabs, thereby impressing several of my teammates with my derring-do and city smarts. Didn't take much.

And now I'm very, very tired, which hopefully means I will sleep long and well tonight. Not too long, however, since we're leaving at 7:15 tomorrow morning... for language school... where we will start language class. Plans for language learning have been altered a bit, it seems-- though I did finally determine today that after these first four weeks (for which we are already enrolled) I should be able to bow out of attending any more formal classes, if I so choose. As I probably will choose.

Much sleep is required before another day begins. So I betake my weary body to my very inviting bed.

Was Monday really the last that I wrote? Actually, I suppose that it's not that long ago. But it seems like it. So much has happened this week....

But at the moment all I will say is this: I am here. My (at least temporary) destination. My home for most of the next two years. I still don't think that it's quite real, but I think that seeing some of the city tomorrow will help. All I saw on the ride from the airport to my flat was the back side of my backpack and the bottom of the guitar case. It was a wee bit crowded.

But I am here. This is what matters.

Tonight I ran along the bayou, steadily ingesting hordes of small insect life for about a mile, till finally I could stand it no longer and forced myself to slow to a walk. A walk, it seems-- even a fast-paced walk-- allows time for the exacerbating little creatures to avoid at least my mouth. Really, I suppose it was my fault for running at dusk along the bayou.
[Author's note to non-Houstonians: The bayou, in this case otherwise known as Mason Creek, is merely a waterway... concrete-lined, like so many I grew up with in Oklahoma. Nothing so spiffy as it sounds.]

I'm hovering. I'm treading water. If I thought I was in limbo two and a half months ago, I was wrong. That was nothing compared to this. That was a mere ripple in the ocean of displacement. I've been pulled down by the undertow since then. I don't live here, I don't belong here, and there's no point in trying to settle in. I only exist, waiting, watching, wandering through each day in a vague hope that the date on my tickets will someday arrive. That I'll get on an airplane and go someplace else, someplace different, someplace far away. That those seven weeks of torturous schedules and sessions and convenant groups were not an end in themselves.

There is more than all this, I know. This is an in-between time. And I could go into the cheesy illustration of the trapeze artist, but I won't. Suffice to say, I'm feeling disconnected. Neither here nor there.

I grow tired of waiting. But I dare not ask for patience.

I think it's time to go.

Not that I'm packed. Oh, no, far from that. But in ways other than readiness of material possessions, it is time to go.

So what do I do for the next week? A good question. I'm not exactly sure. Pack, obviously. Keep saying goodbye... over and over and over again. The knowledge that I am leaving soon seems to lay heavily on everyone except me. Typical. The person most concerned is the person least involved.

I spent a great deal of time on the phone last night, talking to people back in Norman. And I'm glad I had the chance to, but I feel as though there is only one conversation I left, and with everyone to whom I speak it is this same conversation, with only very slight variations. Yes, I leave in a week... a week from Thursday... no, I'll be working with a language helper, a native speaker... orientation was good... yes, I'm excited about going... not really worried... not really any more dangerous there than it is here... yes, I'll have email access... I'll keep you posted on how things are going........
There is only one conversation, repeated infinitely many times.

One of my teammates sent around a list of books that she's packing-- she wanted to make sure we didn't waste space by all bringing copies of the same book. Funny, I'm not bringing any of the books on her list. In fact, with one exception, I don't even own any of the books on her list. I'm supposed to send out a list of the books I'm packing, but (even if I knew for certain which books those were) I have to wonder: how likely is it that any of my team would be considering packing any of the books I might bring? How likely is it that they would even own any of those books, or that they would be interested in reading them?

I'm not slighting them. But sometimes I am very aware of the differences that stretch between each of us... and sometimes I am very aware that many of my books are not usually considered 'appropriate' reading. Oh, sure, probably few people would actively disapprove of Faulkner or Dickens. But that's probably because they've never really read them. And Faulkner and Dickens might be considered the 'safest' of my books.
And then there's my music....

I seem to require many safe people.

A couple of days with Kristin and I'm feeling much restored. I think sleeping most of the weekend helped too. Quite possibly.

I have this vague idea that I'm supposed to be packed and ready to go in about a week, but I have very little conscious or coherent idea of why. Or of where I'm going. Occasionally I receive emails from people who are already leaving, and then my fog of confusion clears a bit and I think, Oh yeah, I'm moving to north Africa. Otherwise I'm not really aware of it.

It's so amazingly wonderful to sit in this house and know that I'm the only one here and everyone else is at work and won't be home anytime soon. Astoundingly wonderful. It's quiet. No voices, no laughter, no music. Just the clack of the keyboard and the tick-tock of the clock on the wall. And I know that if I allow it, all thoughts and concerns and emotions will fall away, will slide off and puddle around me like discarded clothing, till nothing remains but the core of me, a tranquil emptiness. A purity I have not found in weeks.

Restoration and balance.

At last... orientation is finished and I am out of Virginia. And it's storming here in Houston-- a welcome change from the haze of Richmond. Right now, however, I'm so exhausted I can hardly walk a straight line (actually, I'm not sure that I can at all). It's now been been almost 36 hours since I've slept, except for those few uncomfortable moments of delirium and loss of consciousness during my flights today. Hopefully after a couple of days of sleep I'll regain some modicum of thought-capability and find some much needed perspective on what's happened over the past seven weeks.

Until then.

Things are much better today. Not that I'm no longer sick of being micromanaged and shoved into group time at every moment of the day, but only that my natural ability to withdraw to my own safe place (mentally, at least) has reasserted itself. And even better-- I was able to stay up late last night, knowing that when I went to bed I wouldn't have to set my alarm at all. (That did, of course, require skipping the dreaded weekly group talk, but I'm well beyond feelings of guilt for missing that.) And today we have nothing else except personal interviews-- mine is about to start-- and the wonderful freedom of a nearly empty schedule has buoyed me up considerably.

INTP-- prone to sudden and violent outbursts of emotion if pushed too far. Yup. I'd say that holds true.

My interview is starting.

I am finally and truly sick of being here. Everything I have done today has been a backlash resulting from my extreme frustration (bordering on anger) at the controlling atmosphere in which I have been imprisoned for the past five weeks. I'm tired of being expected to come up with questions and comments-- questions and comments which no one can answer because "it will be different wherever you go". So why are we still discussing it?

Ahh. The release of complaining. And now I'm going to take a nap. And practice avoiding 'reality' for a while.

We're in the midst of regional leadership time (RLT) right now. Which is great, because while our region has nearly 40 people going through orientation right now, that's still nothing like sitting through classes filled with 140 people. Or worse, almost 300. That's draining. The sheer volume of people is exhausting. So RLT is a much welcomed respite. But it also makes me impatient-- RLT is designed to give us training and information specific to where we'll actually be living, and that shifts my focus more to going and how much I want to be there now. Especially since we're into our fifth week here, and my mental hard drive has definitely already reached capacity. Not too mention that I long ago overtaxed my RAM. These days in classes I practice Arabic far more than I listen.

I've suddenly run out of thoughts and words. I'm off to bed.

My weekend hasn't felt like much of what most would consider a good weekend-- Friday and Saturday were spent in training to become certified to teach ESL/EFL. All in two days. I did get to sleep for part of this morning, since Erin and I had made an 'executive decision' and decreed that HC would start at 11:00 and go no later than noon. We were all in need of a break. Rehearsals for this evening's service started this afternoon at 3:00. We had a 15 minute break to eat dinner and then a couple of frantic run-throughs with all the auxiliary folks before the service started. But now, at long last, my duties are complete and I've a couple hours to read or write or do whatever before I go to bed.

However much I enjoy most of my time here, I have no doubt that I'll be relieved when this is over. Courtesy of my ESL training seminar, I found out Friday that the emotional need for my particular learning style is freedom from micromanagement. There are days when I think this place is one big attempt at micromanagement. (I say 'attempt' because I am, of course, too wily to be enslaved by such obtuse tactics as those employed here.) So I apply many of the same strategies I used in college and I come through looking like the golden child. With the ever-present and hard-to-overlook touch of cynicism.

Smile a lot and don't ask many questions.

I achieve balance.

Tonight I finally snuck out the back gate and went for a run alone in the blessed dark. Nothing but fields on either side, and only the stars overhead. After muddling through two days of insanity and group activities (that was probably redundant) and cowering under the impending doom of at least two more, I needed to escape. To have my existence defined by nothing more than breathing and running. No thoughts, no questions, no words. One foot inexorably in front of the other, pointed straight down the dark line of road.

I achieve balance.

Many thanks to Average Woman for the lines from Paradise Lost. Contributions are much appreciated (or at least chuckled over).