I was sick as a dog with worry over my grades this semester. It has been a crap semester and i let myself go in the academics department. I mean, i totally let myself go. I was struggling in Intro to Broadcast (yeah i know it's my major and i am appalled by my performance in that class) and in History of the U.S. and i honest to God thought i was going to get an F and a D for the two.
I finally checked my grades today. They've been out for about four days now, for the first two i was in Dubai and then the student data site is only available at certain times in the U.S. and i had to work out the time diff and log on at the right time and i finally got it today. I passed. Everything.
I've never gotten a C before but this time i got two. Not brilliant, i know. I'm gonna have to do far better than this, those are not good marks, but i was so grateful i didn't fail, i really didn't care about the C's. I got two A's and a B for the rest of my classes. All in all my GPA is 3.0 Distgusting performance, but at least i can pull it back up to something decent. I want to graduate magna cum laude or however you spell those. So i have four more semesters to get my stuff together. But thank you God i passed. I'm sorry i am not praising you enough for allowing me to pass though i know i ddin't deserve it. Thank you so very much Jesus, i really really am humbled by this and i do appreciate it. Magna Cum Laude or not, thanks for having my backside always. I'm not worried anymore.
Saturday, December 24
Friday, December 23
Dubai
So we just got back from Dubai, my favourite place right now. I had to go renew my vusa to the states so they would let me back into their stupid country. Anyway, we spent the week in Dubai and it was three kinds of amazing.
We got there on Monday morning and had a time trying to find a National Bank of Abu Dhabi because for my interview at the American Consulate in Dubai, i have to show up with a bunch of documents, and one of them was a receipt showing i have paid the fee and it had to be that specific bank. So we landed around half past noon and by the time we got out of passport control, baggae claim and got a cab, it was around one fifteen. So we are looking for this bank yeah, and the driver takes us to the Abu Dhabi Coomercial Bank. We realize we are in the wrong place and go around looking for the bank. Which is closed. They close at one thirty. Ok, so we make a plan to go early the next monring though my interview is at seven thirty in the morning.
We found a hotel, the Hallmark Hotel. It was...quaint. Clean. They had cable. What else do you need really? Then we went to our usual haunt, City Center Mall. So that only confirmed how much i hate malls and the people who go to them, they do not know how to bloody walk. The kids are demented or something and just charge at you or run right in front of your trolley and scream bloody murder when you run their ignorant asses over. And people are like sheep, stupid stupid creatures with no sense of direction or consideration. I hate malls.
The week was great, i loved being back in Dubai, ther whether was fabulous, like summer in a regular climate. Their winter is everyone else's summer weather and their summer is the stomach of hell. A few funny things happened. We switched rooms, on day because my brother and dad hadn't arrived in Dubai yet cuz Farai was writing exams. Anyway, we moved to the same room, one floor lower. So one day mum forgot and she went to the second floor and unlocked the door and walked in on these arab guys sitting there in shock. It was the funniest thing ever. Then on our last night there, we were going to buy something and our cab driver had some sort of gastro-intestinal issues and kept farting out loud. I mean like, long, high pitched farts. Every few seconds. ANd we were caught in traffic. So we had to endure such for like half an hour. He was shameless, and we could not laugh cuz it was silent (between farts that is) cuz he had the radio off. It was a nightmare but so incredibly funny at the same time.
Ok, i really am not in the mood to blog today. I'm gonna stop now.
We got there on Monday morning and had a time trying to find a National Bank of Abu Dhabi because for my interview at the American Consulate in Dubai, i have to show up with a bunch of documents, and one of them was a receipt showing i have paid the fee and it had to be that specific bank. So we landed around half past noon and by the time we got out of passport control, baggae claim and got a cab, it was around one fifteen. So we are looking for this bank yeah, and the driver takes us to the Abu Dhabi Coomercial Bank. We realize we are in the wrong place and go around looking for the bank. Which is closed. They close at one thirty. Ok, so we make a plan to go early the next monring though my interview is at seven thirty in the morning.
We found a hotel, the Hallmark Hotel. It was...quaint. Clean. They had cable. What else do you need really? Then we went to our usual haunt, City Center Mall. So that only confirmed how much i hate malls and the people who go to them, they do not know how to bloody walk. The kids are demented or something and just charge at you or run right in front of your trolley and scream bloody murder when you run their ignorant asses over. And people are like sheep, stupid stupid creatures with no sense of direction or consideration. I hate malls.
The week was great, i loved being back in Dubai, ther whether was fabulous, like summer in a regular climate. Their winter is everyone else's summer weather and their summer is the stomach of hell. A few funny things happened. We switched rooms, on day because my brother and dad hadn't arrived in Dubai yet cuz Farai was writing exams. Anyway, we moved to the same room, one floor lower. So one day mum forgot and she went to the second floor and unlocked the door and walked in on these arab guys sitting there in shock. It was the funniest thing ever. Then on our last night there, we were going to buy something and our cab driver had some sort of gastro-intestinal issues and kept farting out loud. I mean like, long, high pitched farts. Every few seconds. ANd we were caught in traffic. So we had to endure such for like half an hour. He was shameless, and we could not laugh cuz it was silent (between farts that is) cuz he had the radio off. It was a nightmare but so incredibly funny at the same time.
Ok, i really am not in the mood to blog today. I'm gonna stop now.
Sunday, December 18
Heroine Addicts
I just saw a piece on how Afghanistan has become the largest cultivator, producer and distrubutor of heroine in the world producing over 87% of the world's heroine. That is so shocking.
There was a man passed out in front of our apartment building here in Iran the other day. He looked half dead, blood coming out of his nose and just lying there in fron of the building. My family, oblivious to the goings on, were concerned, trying to get someone to call the police. Every Iranian that passed by was ignoring and walking past with disgusted looks on their faces. There is a boy up on the fourth floor who speaks English and he must have been embarrassed on the count of our family being foreign, but he was trying to get us to just leave it. My mother being the persistent woman she is, she kept pressing the matter. He could have died right there on the front steps and that would have been gross and really disconcerting. So finally the guy from the fourth floor's mum yells out the window and tells us he is a druggie. But still, it's not right just to leave the man dying in his own filth is it? It was sad.
I saw a piece earlier this morning called "Who's Afraid of AIDS?" about young kids in Latin America struggling with HIV and TB and Aids. It was sad but looking at the women (and it usually is women, men are uncaring idiots) teaching them and caring for them was really thought provoking. I mean these women devote their lives to these kids and the kids really love these women. It is a very fulfilling livelihood. Is journalism fulfilling? I suppose if you are reporting news overseas ( i don't find anything American worthwhile really. My prejudice i suppose) about worthwhile things or if your report can bring chnage and help people. Humanitarian news. That sort of thing. Hmmn. I dunno. You have to have a passion for it to the extent that you do not even realize that you are working or that you are overworking. How do you know you have a passion for something? Is it something you inherently know? DO you figure it out after five years of hating your job? Or do you realize in school? When and how do you know what your real passion is and that you are not just settling for safe and practical and something you think you may be halfway good at?
I hate the twenties. It's only been 2 years but i don't think i am doing them right yet. How do you get through the twenties and love them?
There was a man passed out in front of our apartment building here in Iran the other day. He looked half dead, blood coming out of his nose and just lying there in fron of the building. My family, oblivious to the goings on, were concerned, trying to get someone to call the police. Every Iranian that passed by was ignoring and walking past with disgusted looks on their faces. There is a boy up on the fourth floor who speaks English and he must have been embarrassed on the count of our family being foreign, but he was trying to get us to just leave it. My mother being the persistent woman she is, she kept pressing the matter. He could have died right there on the front steps and that would have been gross and really disconcerting. So finally the guy from the fourth floor's mum yells out the window and tells us he is a druggie. But still, it's not right just to leave the man dying in his own filth is it? It was sad.
I saw a piece earlier this morning called "Who's Afraid of AIDS?" about young kids in Latin America struggling with HIV and TB and Aids. It was sad but looking at the women (and it usually is women, men are uncaring idiots) teaching them and caring for them was really thought provoking. I mean these women devote their lives to these kids and the kids really love these women. It is a very fulfilling livelihood. Is journalism fulfilling? I suppose if you are reporting news overseas ( i don't find anything American worthwhile really. My prejudice i suppose) about worthwhile things or if your report can bring chnage and help people. Humanitarian news. That sort of thing. Hmmn. I dunno. You have to have a passion for it to the extent that you do not even realize that you are working or that you are overworking. How do you know you have a passion for something? Is it something you inherently know? DO you figure it out after five years of hating your job? Or do you realize in school? When and how do you know what your real passion is and that you are not just settling for safe and practical and something you think you may be halfway good at?
I hate the twenties. It's only been 2 years but i don't think i am doing them right yet. How do you get through the twenties and love them?
Saturday, December 17
The happenings
So. Life is fun again isn't it? Bloody wicked it is.
I think i want to be a dancer. Ok, so there is another one of my mental masterbations, but still, it's a pleasant thought isn't it. Seriously though, i do want to take a ballroom class finally. I have always waned to but this time i think i will. ANd i am going to work out this coming semester. So i can not look so scrawny nd at least get some muscles to compensate. Look like a dancer perhaps. We'll see. Plus that Nigerian guy i met in the library that night said he'll be my trainer. Ha. We'll about that too ey?
So there is no one i miss. That is pathetic isn't it? I mean, i didn't have any friends in Texas and though me and my relatives there get on, it's not that sort of "oh my gosh i miss you like London misses the sun" type deal. That is horrid. I am a horrid person. Ah well, i'm with my family and i appreciate the fact that though people have been coming and going in my life, i can say they are always here. as annoying as they can sometimes get. They're constant. Enough about that.
Iranian guys are such pervy loons. They can't get enough of staring and following and all that jazz. I am easily irritable. The poor bloke today didn't realize this. He was being an obnoxious jerk, staring at me and following me and saying "Hallo!" he only bloody English word the annoying sod knew. I was good, i ignored the bastard until he decided to get in my bloody way and tried to touch my face. Crazy lunatic. I slapped his hand away and called him a retarded little shit. Don't think he quite understood, but he got the message and i was in a sour mood the rest of the way to the Kodak place. Bloody poncers.
The pollution here has gotten so bad. I mean really bad you know? I could actually see it, i'm not kidding. And you can't even see the mountains on the horizon anymore. The mountains are about a fifteen minute drive away. What is that? It is all those bloody cars on the roads. Iran is your typical Middle Eastern country with horrid traffic, about five billion cars on the roads at all hours of the day and.... oh it's just a mess here, an absolute mess. The driving is horrid, my rents will not drive here and we've been in so many near death experiences, i don't even flinch anymore when the cab diver drives onto the curb or on the wrong side of the street on a highway, dodging on coming traffic. They are used to it and it doesn't faze them and i have become that way too. Denise would pass out, she freaks at the tiniest thing i do when driving. Let her bloody come here and see this.
Anyway i think i'm gonna go to bed now. It was mum's birthday today. We went out to dinner and had the whole cake thing and then we did the presents bit. It was nice. I think she enjoyed it as much as mum really enjoys her birthday these days...well years in fact.
Laters.
I think i want to be a dancer. Ok, so there is another one of my mental masterbations, but still, it's a pleasant thought isn't it. Seriously though, i do want to take a ballroom class finally. I have always waned to but this time i think i will. ANd i am going to work out this coming semester. So i can not look so scrawny nd at least get some muscles to compensate. Look like a dancer perhaps. We'll see. Plus that Nigerian guy i met in the library that night said he'll be my trainer. Ha. We'll about that too ey?
So there is no one i miss. That is pathetic isn't it? I mean, i didn't have any friends in Texas and though me and my relatives there get on, it's not that sort of "oh my gosh i miss you like London misses the sun" type deal. That is horrid. I am a horrid person. Ah well, i'm with my family and i appreciate the fact that though people have been coming and going in my life, i can say they are always here. as annoying as they can sometimes get. They're constant. Enough about that.
Iranian guys are such pervy loons. They can't get enough of staring and following and all that jazz. I am easily irritable. The poor bloke today didn't realize this. He was being an obnoxious jerk, staring at me and following me and saying "Hallo!" he only bloody English word the annoying sod knew. I was good, i ignored the bastard until he decided to get in my bloody way and tried to touch my face. Crazy lunatic. I slapped his hand away and called him a retarded little shit. Don't think he quite understood, but he got the message and i was in a sour mood the rest of the way to the Kodak place. Bloody poncers.
The pollution here has gotten so bad. I mean really bad you know? I could actually see it, i'm not kidding. And you can't even see the mountains on the horizon anymore. The mountains are about a fifteen minute drive away. What is that? It is all those bloody cars on the roads. Iran is your typical Middle Eastern country with horrid traffic, about five billion cars on the roads at all hours of the day and.... oh it's just a mess here, an absolute mess. The driving is horrid, my rents will not drive here and we've been in so many near death experiences, i don't even flinch anymore when the cab diver drives onto the curb or on the wrong side of the street on a highway, dodging on coming traffic. They are used to it and it doesn't faze them and i have become that way too. Denise would pass out, she freaks at the tiniest thing i do when driving. Let her bloody come here and see this.
Anyway i think i'm gonna go to bed now. It was mum's birthday today. We went out to dinner and had the whole cake thing and then we did the presents bit. It was nice. I think she enjoyed it as much as mum really enjoys her birthday these days...well years in fact.
Laters.
Tuesday, December 13
Home for Christmas
I am here. I got here around 1 in the a.m. on Tuesday. My parents were there and mum had a bouquet of flowers for me and hugged me forever. It was nice, really nice. I was home again.
The trip was....disconcerting. I flew from Dallas to Frankfurt, about nine and a half hours. I flew Lufthansa, the German airline. I have decided that Germans are evil. OK, perhaps not all Germans, but they are not the nicest people on the planet. Especially the air hostesses. Evil, evil women they were. This one stewardess, this freakishly tall, blonde, mannish looking thing, was so mean to me. There i was minding my own business trying to put up my heavy carry on suitcase into the top compartment which was about fifty feet from the ground. Ok, so not all of us are freakishly tall and this cabin was higher than most. I was struggling, i admit but i would have eventually got it. She sighs in an exaggerrated way and grabs it from me exclaiming how she iddn't understand why passenger packed bags they could not handle and that i should not pack like this. I was looking at her like she has turned five different shades of insane right in front of me. WHat? Did i ask for your help? No, i was perfectly fine without you chum. Evil cow.
Then i get the Frankfurt and am trying to meet up with my gran. Of coarse they won't let you out, even just for a second, past security (even if you are going to remain in the airport) without a visa. I knew that, i was just asking to see if i could get somehting to my gran or something. Pah. Ok, they are so inept, i dunno why they call themselves the informtion desk. I asked them where the Flyers Bar was, my gran had told e she was able to go there and i should meet her there. They had no clue what a flyers bar was. So i walked around for two hours and finally gave up. I did however find a Haagen Daaz. Ah Haagen Daaz. The one thing the Germans did right. I had my classice rasberry sorbet and was in a happy place again. Then i had t resolve myself to the idea of waiting anouther eight hours for my next fllight. See, this is the trouble with cheap tickets. Bad seats and long layovers.
I made though. I got onto my five hour flight to Iran and got here safe and sound, life was peachy. I missed my family. I missed the way we do stuff. Together. We actually set the table every night, say grace and have a proper supper. I haven't done that since the last time i was here. We even prayed together after dinner, like proper prayer session and all. And the laughing. I never laugh as much as when i am home. Mum and dad are so kooky and Farai and Stephanie are such little idiots. There is always a story here. It's great.
They got a fishtank. Somehow that seemed important just then. And i'm back to watching four different INTERNATIONAL news stations with CNN International, EuroNews, BBC World, and Sky News. It's brilliant. Oooh. Mum was wearing a black leather jacket when they got me from the airport. Yup, identical to the one i just brought her from the States for Christmas. Damn. Well that is going to be fun. I might get a chance to buy her something else in Dubai.
Farai is writing board exams. His last one is on the 21st. We were all supposed to go to Dubai on the 19th or something. Now it looks like only me, mum and stef will go. That sucks. Unless we go after Christmas. But then that would mean postponing the whole gifts thing and Stef just will not hear of it. Speaking of the little bugger, she's almost as tall as me now. And she just turned 13. She might be another Aunty Debra. Really really tall. Mum is also quite tall actually. I dunno why the first borns never get the tall gene. I could be a model by now. Well...in theory.
I woke up this morning at seven and cried for an hour. I am really happy to be home and all, it's nothing of the sort. I just realized that what i am running away from is not geographically confined to any one place. It is haunting me wherever i go. I thought i could come home, leave it behind an move on with my life. But like a ghost that haunts you, you never really get rid of it, it just has to decide to stop plaguing you with despair and fear. Or you get so used to it that you forget it is there with only occasional reminders every now and then. Lingering in the past, i've learned, is the best way to accumulate these ghosts. I need to focus ahead. Just thought i'd throw that in there.
The trip was....disconcerting. I flew from Dallas to Frankfurt, about nine and a half hours. I flew Lufthansa, the German airline. I have decided that Germans are evil. OK, perhaps not all Germans, but they are not the nicest people on the planet. Especially the air hostesses. Evil, evil women they were. This one stewardess, this freakishly tall, blonde, mannish looking thing, was so mean to me. There i was minding my own business trying to put up my heavy carry on suitcase into the top compartment which was about fifty feet from the ground. Ok, so not all of us are freakishly tall and this cabin was higher than most. I was struggling, i admit but i would have eventually got it. She sighs in an exaggerrated way and grabs it from me exclaiming how she iddn't understand why passenger packed bags they could not handle and that i should not pack like this. I was looking at her like she has turned five different shades of insane right in front of me. WHat? Did i ask for your help? No, i was perfectly fine without you chum. Evil cow.
Then i get the Frankfurt and am trying to meet up with my gran. Of coarse they won't let you out, even just for a second, past security (even if you are going to remain in the airport) without a visa. I knew that, i was just asking to see if i could get somehting to my gran or something. Pah. Ok, they are so inept, i dunno why they call themselves the informtion desk. I asked them where the Flyers Bar was, my gran had told e she was able to go there and i should meet her there. They had no clue what a flyers bar was. So i walked around for two hours and finally gave up. I did however find a Haagen Daaz. Ah Haagen Daaz. The one thing the Germans did right. I had my classice rasberry sorbet and was in a happy place again. Then i had t resolve myself to the idea of waiting anouther eight hours for my next fllight. See, this is the trouble with cheap tickets. Bad seats and long layovers.
I made though. I got onto my five hour flight to Iran and got here safe and sound, life was peachy. I missed my family. I missed the way we do stuff. Together. We actually set the table every night, say grace and have a proper supper. I haven't done that since the last time i was here. We even prayed together after dinner, like proper prayer session and all. And the laughing. I never laugh as much as when i am home. Mum and dad are so kooky and Farai and Stephanie are such little idiots. There is always a story here. It's great.
They got a fishtank. Somehow that seemed important just then. And i'm back to watching four different INTERNATIONAL news stations with CNN International, EuroNews, BBC World, and Sky News. It's brilliant. Oooh. Mum was wearing a black leather jacket when they got me from the airport. Yup, identical to the one i just brought her from the States for Christmas. Damn. Well that is going to be fun. I might get a chance to buy her something else in Dubai.
Farai is writing board exams. His last one is on the 21st. We were all supposed to go to Dubai on the 19th or something. Now it looks like only me, mum and stef will go. That sucks. Unless we go after Christmas. But then that would mean postponing the whole gifts thing and Stef just will not hear of it. Speaking of the little bugger, she's almost as tall as me now. And she just turned 13. She might be another Aunty Debra. Really really tall. Mum is also quite tall actually. I dunno why the first borns never get the tall gene. I could be a model by now. Well...in theory.
I woke up this morning at seven and cried for an hour. I am really happy to be home and all, it's nothing of the sort. I just realized that what i am running away from is not geographically confined to any one place. It is haunting me wherever i go. I thought i could come home, leave it behind an move on with my life. But like a ghost that haunts you, you never really get rid of it, it just has to decide to stop plaguing you with despair and fear. Or you get so used to it that you forget it is there with only occasional reminders every now and then. Lingering in the past, i've learned, is the best way to accumulate these ghosts. I need to focus ahead. Just thought i'd throw that in there.
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