and in the end

Did you imagine in January you’d be back in the desert by December? 

Well, there was nothing else on the radar.  I interviewed for this current post in February though I didn’t know I’d have to wait until October to get here.

In retrospect what were the highlights and lowlights of this year?

I am still surprised to be alive.  Not that I put myself in harm’s way, I just didn’t think I’d see 50. 

So, being alive and turning 50 is a highlight?

I’m not into birthdays.  Am I just too modest? Living at the lodge and waking up with the Himalayas at my doorstep for five months is the best medicine for a longsuffering, tagging along soul. A definite highlight.  Turning 50, hmmppt, not a highlight, not a lowlight, it just happened.

Was leaving Nepal a lowlight?

Sure, I’d been there for ten months, I knew I’d have to leave eventually.  But my time there was good.

You plan on returning?

Sure, but I don’t know what my role there will be anymore.  The lodge is an investment without a return.  I’ll always have a room and I know I’ll always be welcome but when 50 appeared I feel as if I have to do what I can to keep myself off the streets when or if I am like really old. There’s no way I can stay in the mountains indefinitely unless forces unseen pull some strings.

So you left the mountains in May, returned to the flatlands of the heartland.  Highlights? 

Seeing family was good.  I’m not sure family knows how to deal with me.  I haven’t conformed to anything normal. My sister’s home was a sanctuary, nestled in the trees, a lake in the back, it was very quiet and there were good books to read.

And then you went to upstate New York and volunteered at a homeless shelter for three and a half months or so.

Getting into the low and dirty, the real broken and lost, humanity at its most pitiful.  It was a depressing place and yet I knew I had to be there, I was fortunate they invited me to work with the Catholic Worker.  They are a gritty bunch.

And then you left, returned to the desert.  A highlight?

I am grateful to be working.  If the university chose not to send me a ticket I would have remained in Rochester and for what it’s worth I would have been alright but I am still able bodied, I can still work.  I had to go.

So, any predictions, resolutions, for the next year?

I hate that we measure everything.  I would like to live in a state of mind that is free from all constraints. 

Where would that be?

Who the heck knows?  But this last three months has felt like house arrest.  It’s strange but in Rochester I made a small weekly stipend but it wasn’t enough to enjoy the city and what it had to offer.  Now I’m here and I have money but the city offers nothing. Nada. 

Folly la la

 

Hope is a good thing, it must be the only reason we keep going.  But what is hope if what we hope for is simply not meant to be, what kind of hope is that?  Should we know, really, that hoping for something irrational is not hope at all?  And where is the bearded old man in all this, trust God, love God and let's hope we can persuade, persuade? yes, persuade God to change the irrational hope into something wonderful.  I know, a predetermined view of life means God does not change what is already so, unless, changing ones stars is part of that predeterminism.  Should I really continue to hope irrationally?  Aren't I boxing in the almighty creator if I conclude some things just weren't meant to be in my life?  Where will my hope lie?  In the obvious?  Is my hope only tied to my performance?  It kind of takes faith out of the picture then.  What is faith without hope?  What is hope without faith?   

Christmas morning is cold, relatively speaking.  When there are no furnaces, when there is no insulation, when the fleece isn’t within reach, it’s cold.  Yet as soon as the sun rises we are warm, we don’t need to hope for that, right?  The sunrise is reliable.  Who ever imagines the day the sun will not rise?

So, what do I hope for today?  No students?  Good students?  A good lesson?  They’re burned out, all your classes are in English and you’re not a native speaker.  It’s tough, half the classes were absent, there is talk now they will all stop coming after next week.  The students pull the strings here.  If the collective bunch impose demands for the end of the something it will end.  We as the teaching body, scratch our heads wondering what in God’s Christmas day name are we doing here.

No one is happy.  I am not happy.  Oh, but wait, I’m grateful.  Considering an outing to Dubai may save three or four hours but what I save in time, I will lose in money.  But why delay the gratification of owning some new books.  The price to get there will offset the contentment you’ll have when you crack the binder and disappear in someone else’s imagination.  Sigh. 

Why not wait until next week, the next bloody year.  What’s wrong staying in this good for nothing kitty box.  I’m obsessed with saving money, that’s what it is.  I’m so happy, right, I can’t get my driver’s license. Look, you’re saving at the expense of moving around.

Wimp.  Tomorrow, take a taxi, cross the border, take a bus, check into an Indian hotel, spend half the day in taxis and on the metro, buy a few books, look for the vitamins and then return, cross the border pay another unscrupulous taxi, come home, wish you hadn’t left, turn on the tv, read the empty walls, pray, light a candle, wish you were present with God, light another ciggie, and go to bed to start another absurd week of folly.  That’s all life is.  Folly.  Folly la la, folly folly loo loo. 

heavenly coconut tree

 

 

An officer at traffic police said my Michigan driver’s license had to be one year old in order to apply for an Omani license.  Before I left the flat this morning I had a sneaking suspicion there might be an issue but I didn’t guess this one.  This is demoralizing.  I think I can still rent a car with my US license but I won’t be able to cross the border.  So?  Any attempts now at getting to Dubai have been squashed.  I don’t know if I’ll find grapefruit seed extract there anyhow.  The organic store that used to carry it has long departed. 

It’s hard to do any work now.  I’ve got to come up with a lesson plan for next week, introducing the thesis statement for a five paragraph essay the students will need to write.  My mind is blank, a full moon, the winter solstice approaches, Christmas approaches, and there are reminders of places I’d rather be.  And where would you rather be? In places I don't know how to remain, except for the land with coconut trees.  Surviving for reasons unknown.  Lots of ideas fizzle, adrift in a cosmological quandary.  If my only hope is found in an ancient chant, what kind of maddening hope is this? Imagine spirits waiting for thousands of years.  Ok, it’s easy for them, they’re not constrained by time.  A thousand years is what five minutes?  That is depressing. 

If it weren’t for the media we wouldn’t know how awful life is for millions and billions.  The Syrians,  the CAR, the generational poor, a third of the world’s very poorest live in one country, India.  What kind of hope do they have?  When is so much suffering too much suffering.  Where is the hope for heaven on earth for the longsuffering?  That 'heaven' on earth is a relative and completely abstract space the worst of humanity will never see.  If you experience heaven on earth because of love, because of transcendent nature, remember it’s temporary and  illusionary while a million others live in hell.  Where’s the compassion, where’s the justice?  Enjoy life while others suffer, well that’s easy to remedy, I won’t think of others and that, according to the Golden Rule, is wrong.

The full moon rises in the east.  What would I give to be content.  Mother Theresa, the saint of darkness.  And she was content?  She knew her calling, who wouldn’t, experience a vision and you’d follow, right? I can't get that woman's experience straight in my head.
 

I can’t wait for 12.22.13. 

 

 

 

The big grotto

Two hundred and twenty papers graded in the past two days.  How does it happen?  How can I stay awake?  One coffee, eight hours of sleep, keep stress away.  Wait a second, doesn't a mound of papers produce just that? 

This week I blew off getting photos and stuff copied for the inevitable trip to the police station to obtain a driver's license.  In two weeks time I'll be out of reading material again and Dubai is just closer than Muscat. 

Another week here at the raucous jolly rancher comes to a close.  An American interested in working here asked me online what I thought of the joint.  You need patience, you need to be flexible, you need a sense of humor and you need to keep your expectations to a minimum.  I didn't advise the candidate on the necessity of keeping a rosary, that would have sounded like you're putting your life into someone's hands every time you walk out of your dusty door. It's not a dangerous place at all.  It's just one big grotto.

I'm falling into the lazy habit of taking the rosary to bed.  I usually can't finish one decade before I'm out.  But that is a good way to close the day, right? the very last words in head are pleas for mercy and forgiveness. 

A Christmas convoy to Sohar's Crowne Plaza is being discussed.  An hour's drive and a buffet (belch) for 17 OMR, or under fifty bucks.  Fifty bucks!  I don't know.  And we have to work the following day.  Christmas Day.  I'm not much for the holidays anymore, it's a family thing, not for singles who only use it as an excuse to drink.  Ok, I'll go. Ok, maybe not.

I am grateful for Beatles full albums on youtube.  I've tired of listening to the same music I've carried around for the last four years.

Here's a thought that is hard to understand yet it's so simple.  Contained in one second of time is the past, present and future and they fly by us so fast you'd say it is almost impossible to distinguish between them. 

And if you look at each second of time the trio occurs simultaneously and it has been doing that since mankind found the need to measure it.  So you're saying time is immeasurable and looking at all three coinciding with each other will somehow make your life better?  I don't know how to accept the three as one if I keep looking back.  And I prefer not to look towards the future.  To live each moment in the now, to not worry or fret of the past and the future, well that would be a good thing, right? 

So what are your plans for the weekend, speaking of a future I shouldn't be concerned with?  A two week old copy of the Economist, clothes to wash, maybe sweep the flat, sleep a little more, eat a little more.  And more tv.  I watched Gladiator over the course of three nights and one morning.  Is this anyway to live?  It could be worse. 

 

The Honeymooners

 

            The newlyweds board the 7:20 train from Pennsylvania Station enroute for Cleveland.  Married for a week the 20 year old bride leaves New York City for the first time.  The entire northeast is a frozen tundra in December of 1945. With the Bronx behind her and her handsome young sailor man alive and in one piece next to her, it could have been minus 90 and it wouldn’t have mattered.

            They check into the Carter Hotel and later dine at Borsellini’s Supper Club.  In the restaurant three salesmen with alot of time on their hands notice the young man in uniform.  They call him over and ask if he wants to make a few quick bucks.  They play a game called horseracing where each participant ignites a point on a napkin with their cigarettes.  The first trail to pass a finish line drawn on the napkin wins.  The sailor wins a few ‘races’ and impresses the salesmen.  The groom asks the fellas for a favor; he’s looking for tickets to the NFL championship game between the Cleveland Rams and the Washington Redskins.  The men buy drinks for the couple and instruct them where to get seats for the game.  The following morning the sailor finds a bootleg liquor set up located in the backroom of a men’s shoe store and purchases two tickets at $4.80 a piece on the 50 yard line in section 9, row 10, seats 9 and 10.  He also picks up a liter of Southern Comfort.  The forecast at gametime is going to be really cold. 

            He wears a heavy navy peacoat over his white uniform and she dons faux fur with open-toed shoes for the game.  At kickoff time the temperature is announced at -2 degrees Fahrenheit.  By the end of the game one columnist writes enough imbibing went on in the seats that the temperature had risen to 3 degrees above zero.  The newlyweds do their part to stay warm, finishing off Tennessee’s finest.  They return to the Carter, warm air hits the bride with such force she passes out and has to be carried into her room.  The groom takes her shoes off, covers her up, and heads down to the lobby for a smoke.

            The next morning comes, the sailor returns to the lobby to get some coffee for himself and his bride.  On the ride up the elevator, another passenger comes into the car.  Seeing the uniform the young man in civilian clothes introduces himself and thanks him for serving in the armed forces.  The groom is honored and tells him he just married a few days ago.  The dashing individual in the fedora hat and gray pinstriped suit offers to meet the new bride and offer his congratulations.  The groom sheepishly admits she drank too much trying to stay warm at yesterday’s game and wasn’t feeling very well.  The gentleman exits the elevator and wishes the couple the very best of success in their marriage.  When Charlie returns to his room Norma slowly rises from bed.  He asks how she feels and she mumbles her need for strong black coffee.  “I made a friend in the elevator and was going to bring him up to meet you, but I didn’t think you’d be up for it.”   When she asks who in the world he met, she slaps his arm and tells him not to lie. Almost 60 years later my mother still shakes her head from such news. Frank Sinatra wasn’t in that elevator.

oceans of harmony

Am I swimming in thin water, just ahead of the tide that’ll drown me in a pool of mediocrity I don’t know. Time as usual will tell.  But I look around and see the sea of obfuscating pedantics it’s hard not to get caught up in it.  Working alone, seeking advice, looking for agreement, confirmation, I’m asking those who know no better than I and I am left to my own devices.

I listen to rock and roll and the rebellion builds but at the end of the day I am no different.  It’s all about having a plan.  Plan to rebel but do so knowing where you’re going.  The clock ticks and everyone looks younger by the minute.  And yet I don’t feel old.  Except for fragile eyes and breaking teeth I could be twenty years younger. 

The cleaner enters the room emptying the wastebasket, leaves the door open, afternoon gaggles of girls walk by causing commotion with no effort.  I am grateful to be here, but is this it?  What must I do to rebel and be happy?  Contentment is a fleeting ideal.  Get the wife, a few kids, a couple of dogs, and go through each day hoping for something else. 

I returned to the desert with a plan that is so filled with doubt I am ready to go again and where may that be but south.  In the land of monsoons, coconut trees and oceans of harmony.  Not necessarily in the walls of my occupation but outside it.  A quality of life filled with nature.  The balance between the mundane and ordained.  Well, if it is meant to be, it will happen.  I’m never feeling strong about anything unless it’s survival, what’s a plan if it fizzles.  Restlessness has to end.  I have to find a home. 

 

She had a good heart and through terrible moments she came to the surface and is now in good hands.  I think.  She has her daughter and she paints.  A talent is there I didn’t know and she probably didn’t either but the right circumstances revealed a gift.  I didn’t know I could take a decent photo until I was awakened to it. 

A candid conversation:

Teacher:  So, tell us something about yourself.

Student:  Well, I have three mothers and 21 brothers and sisters.  We all live in the same house.

Teacher:  Whoa!  And what does your father do?

Student:  He doesn’t work.

Teacher:  I should think not.  Where are you in the order?

Student:  Number twelve I think.

Teacher:  Can you name your brothers and sisters?

Student: Ha, please teacher, don’t ask this.

Teacher:  But you’re happy, right?  Everything is good?

Student:  Ah yes, I am happy, everyone happy.

Family.  Family is supposed to be your place of happiness, right?  Unless of course you’re stuck in a mean family.  I was so fortunate to grow up in a happy family.  Sure there were moments of dysfunction but something kept pulling us out of the terrible no good moments.  It’s been nine years since the parents left us.  Time heals the loss but the memory continues and oh thank you God, Om, whoever the hell you are.  Those who are dead are not dead they’re just living in my head. 

The spirits sure want to see something happen, don’t they?  Do they live a restless life as well?  Every day for thousands of years they anticipate something.  That is a bummer. 

blow the land clean

It is unfortunate but the only quality of life in this town is having the means to get out of it.  And two days in the capital was good, a bit pricy but I don't know how to get around that one.  The five hour bus is ten bucks each way.  I could hitchhike.  The room was 31 OMR a night after taxes.  That's about $78.  I could sleep on the beach.  I'm embarrassed to say I visited Starbucks five times.  And I walked an hour for a McDonalds breakfast.  Meals added up.  Beer added up.  I'm such a lightweight these days.  Four pints and I'm headed for room 521.  Sigh.

Mid term exams continue here at the not so jolly ranch.  All the teachers have left.  That's one of the few things they got right here.  Keeping teachers for eight, nine hours when they can do their work at home isn't good.  So why are you here?  Because I don't have a computer.  And all I'd do at this time of day is sleep and putz around.

I finished Barbara Kingsolver's "Flight Behavior" a little too fast.  Rednecks and Climate change.  Sometimes I get this feeling I am supposed to be reading something at any given time.  I do not think about climate change and anything significant happening this month or the next month ad nauseum. 

Nevertheless if I don't spend money my quality of life will depress to no end.  I can drive.  I can get out.  Al-Ain. Dubai.  Even walking around with something to look at is better than straggling along in this oversized truck stop.  Yesterday the students did their speaking exams and they sure are a candid bunch, those who can speak that is.  I pressed a few of them on the country's lack of investment in this border town, and really, how can one not compare it with the greener than grass space on the other side.  Some say it's money.  I don't buy it anymore.  The latest stats show Oman has 4 million people, 44% of them are now expats, and the average salary of the Omani has risen in the last four years to 1,170 OMR, more than three clammers a month.  The place is just a forgotten and disputed stain on the country.  Why they didn't sell it to the Saudis makes me think that's the problem right now.  They did sell it to the Saudis and they ain't doing a damn thing with it. 

Well it's certainly not a place to remember.  Like a desert wind it will blow the land clean.

a flicker and fizzle

A week ago I was writing about an imminent storm and then BAM, the power was knocked out and the school sent us all home.  Today clear skies, pleasant sub 100 temps and a four day weekend waits.  I booked a room in Muscat for two nights.  Thanksgiving is in two days.  How will I remember it?  If there's a football game on, if I find a can of cranberry sauce.  We'll see.  The holiday simply isn't the same anymore.  That is, unfortunately, of my own doing.  Ten years ago I made the big meal and invited almost twenty friends to share the meal.  It was good, nothing went amiss.  The following year I did it again, my tiny Italian oven barely managed a 17 pounder, grease flowed out of the pan.  The apple and sour cream peach pies were a hit.  The mash potatoes, greens, rolls, I don't think the rolls were made from scratch, everything was good. 

It's a time to be grateful and I am.  While I whine and wallow in my own absurd internal pity party, on the surface I am ok.  Things could be so worse.  On the third floor of the A building I can see the Al-Ain mall and there breathing deep I smell Starbucks.  The quality of one's life ought not to be connected with consumerism, right?  It isn't the coffee I do not have access to, it's the freedom from having access to it and that desire, does it improve my quality of life? Freedom, in other words, gives quality of life and here, bloody hell, we're caught between a dusty rock and a hard empty place. When I lived in Salalah and Sarangkot the quality of life was content because of nature.  Mind you having a beer once in a while was simply that, and I was grateful to have money, most of the time, to buy a beer on occasion. But to walk in the Himalayas was pure and one didn't need a coffee or a tablet.  Walks along the Indian Ocean do the same.  God is so easy to find when nature is so big.  Here, you're at your wits. 

So, for two days I'll indulge in things Americans and others take for granted.  I am concerned though that coming back will leave me depressed.  How can I stay here for two years?  I'll walk along the beaches, cooler temps make the capital city very easy to manage.  I'll also go shopping for grapefruit seed extract, books, and that's all.  And I'll eat something different for sure.  Cucumber, tomato and cheese pitas are beginning to tire.  I haven't had a ramen soup for the last three nights, I've just tired of it.  And with nothing other than a sauce pan I cannot cook a darn thing.  What will I do?  There is always the shwarma.  Buraimi is a city of auto repair shops, barbers, and the 300 Baisa snack, chicken, tomato, cucumber and most deliciously, tahini. 

The teachers leave.  I am alone again.  Keith Green is still nice to listen to.  He doesn't convict me like he used to when I first heard him a few years after his death in a plane crash 30 years ago.  I guess I really wasn't a good Christian, right?  That's why people are convicted when they listen to his music because it's in your face stuff.  Today, I listen to the Prodigal, and I don't weep or cry and don't see myself needing to return to anyone.  I talk more to God now than I did then.  Are we ok?  Well, it could be better.  God knows trying to love God the way a man can love a woman is impossible and unfair.  If only I had that kind of relationship with anyone, God, female, tree, mountain, ocean.  Instead we've got a flicker and a fizzle and there's silence, and God, well, I ask and pray and what the hey, nothing happens.  God wants love, give me someone, you...you...ok I'll be nice and grateful for my health, a job, what else, shelter, basic sustenance.  It could be worse and I'm grateful for having been spared.  It's all about mercy, right?  Oh Merciful Creator, have mercy on me, a sinner and a singer. 

 

you got it all

I signed my contract today.  Sigh.  I looked at an investment company on line.  Retirement plans for 2030.  Holy cow, this sucks.  I can't imagine being that old.  And it isn't about being alone at that age.  It's just being old.  I feel duped.  Throughout the Catholic liturgy there's this blessed hope, the holy expectant receiving the second coming and taking us, even those who don't think like us but whose hearts are right freaking on, to a better life.  But really, the apostles thought he'd return while they were alive.  And by the time the 12th century smoldered along and the writers of the second half of the Hail Mary penned their lucid addition, they didn't believe they'd be singing Maranatha either.  Neither did Francis of Assisi. 

Hail Mary
Full of Grace
The Lord is with Thee
Blessed art thou among women
and Blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus
Holy Mary Mother of God pray for us sinners
Now and at the time of our death.

At the time of our death?  Yes, Johnny boy, we're all gonna eat the grass.  The Tibetan Buddhists were right, humanity has to suck it up for long long time, meanwhile we suffer, oy we suffer.  Look at the islands around Cebu.  Such is great faith there, and ya know while we're here I get real tired of any Americans, mostly tea party Republicans and their wanking apocalyptic gibberish.  As if the US had a direct influence in matters that occurred on the other side of the planet 1700 years before we ever ate sliced cranberry jelly.

Last week I went to Muscat for a day and it took at least a week for my neck and shoulders to feel better again.  Taking an uncomfortable bus was only endured with Leon Uris and the rosary.  Speaking of the rosary is it still effective if you say the prayers out of order?  I think it is, too.  It's all about the intention, right? 

So now another week ends.  Tomorrow I'll wash my meager clothes, grateful I have meager clothes to wash. Last night I picked up four shirts and trousers from the laundry service and the collar of my striped Lands End dress shirt was completely shredded.  That wouldn't have happened if I washed it in the sink, dude.  I'll read the Int'l NYT and the Guardian Weekly newspapers I bought last week, maybe we'll see a little tv, maybe we'll sleep a little longer, and smoke fewer cigarettes.  Next week I will look at getting a driver's license and then will look at renting a car.  We have a four day weekend at the end of the month and I consider getting a laptop.  I don't wish to bring work home, but what if by God's unselfish act of dominion-hood I were inspired to put together what I've written and do something with it.  Inspiration fades fast here, like the smell of clean socks. 

Finally I remember my favorite dancer, growing up on the big candy mountain.  I miss the kid and her family, such clean air, such heavenly views.  On countless occasions I told Maya how rich she was, with family, with a home, a business. I am not rich, I implored, without family I am poor, poorer than you ever will.  For in such riches are those who you love and love you in return.  You got it all.

my defaulted profession

Last year in Nepal I took more photos in the month of November than any other month and nature sure made it easy.  And with the greatest mountains in the world at your doorstep meditation was as easy as making cherry brownies. 

I miss the boys: the Anapurna clan, Lamjung and Machupuchere.  Standing tall, resolute, no one messes with divinity I tell ya.  And no one knows how to cut you down to size than the mighty Himalayas.

So, last night, like many nights I try to plan the rest of my life.  Without world's end I have to find myself in it when the time comes I cannot teach or worse, cannot walk, though that would be unlikely as long as one is moderately healthy.  Nepal presents challenges that only a lot of money could deal with.  And to have a lot of money I have to stay in the Middle East practicing my defaulted profession. 

But does Nepal want me?

This week we have a three day weekend and by tonite I must decide whether to go to Muscat and search out books.  I'm almost out and this is one city I need to read.  Holy cow, there is absolutely no social life, it's as if we live on the moon here.  What to do except watch tv and read.  I've slowed down on Hesse's Narcissi and Goldmund and have one Uris title left before I am plum out.  There's a seven am bus that leaves and takes five hours plus to the capital city, and then it's shopping time.  I hesitate if only because any religious holiday may ask places to close and I really like a stop or two in Feeney's Irish Pub for a pint or two and a steak sandwich.  But books are the reason I'm going. 

And if I can't find anything I want it'll have to be a trip to Dubai and I'll need more time to do that, for now though.

the stupidity of saving money

A month ago I returned to the desert, unsure then, as now, how long I'd be here.  I knew I'd be only miles away from the city I called home for ten years, the last four of those years I had the cushiest job and the easiest one to walk away from.  It won't be easy walking from this one.  Now that I'm AARP eligible. 

I know of a few flats I'd like to check out, yesterday the drain pipe that runs south outside in the kitchen's caged terrace starting leaking bad and I had to duck back into the kitchen and slide the door closed.  Even the bug-eyed gecko who hangs out every morning was spooked by the torrent of water.  And then this morning I opened up the sliding door to the larger terrace off the tv room, looking east, a sublime sunrise, spoiled by refuse covering the enclosure. 

I like this location and everything almost works.  The washing machine doesn't have a rinse or spin.  The oven has three burners that work, that's good.  If I buy any pans I could cook a few things at once.  There are no mirrors in the bathrooms, which I don't mind except when it's time to shave.  I do have this small vanity mirror, cracked, that I use for such an occasion.  I think I'm just lazy and it isn't that bad.  But still, you should look elsewhere.

It feels too early to go anywhere, and perhaps at the end of November I'll have a need to visit a bookstore or two in Dubai.  I almost finished Leon Uris' "Topaz" in one sitting yesterday. Good grief, when a book is good, what is there to do.  Density and speed,  could I ever write anything like that?  Hardly.

So, the days slow down.  I'm saving money.  I have two broken teeth.  I figure I'm gonna need that money then.  When they get infected.  Why wait until they get infected?  Because I can still eat without pain, that's why.

I'm really put out knowing I have to travel 20km to get an exit stamp from a checkpoint and then turn around back to where I live so I can cross the border.  The stupidity of it is saving me money, though that means instant coffee prevails.  Poor cigarettes prevail.  I have gone a month without a beer, though, and that's good, right?  My weight is stable and that means no indigestion.

On Tuesday we will give the 220 whippersnappers their first quiz.  I don't mind being a coordinator so far.  I'd prefer sitting at a desk for a while instead of teaching.  I do have 14 hours a week, visiting the seven classes twicely and showing them how to be a better student, illustrating some basic study skills.  A man somewhere in California once said the secret to finishing the job, studying, was to remain in your seat until you were satisfied.  Stay in your seat until you know your stuff, dude.

I remember an old friend with a photo here.  He has dumped me down the big toilet of regret.  It's my bad, all my bad.  I wish we could talk, but really, if I were he and he were me, I wouldn't call me either.  God bless you anyways, you dumb polak. 

Critical Shrinking

Seven years ago or so I attended a conference on critical thinking.  These were my notes. 

A monk asked Yueh-shan: “What must I think about in zazen?”  Yueh-shan said: “Think non-thinking.”  “How can I think non-thinking?”

Yueh-shan said: “By non-thinking.” Zen Mondo

                                        

I climbed into a plush chair in the last row of the auditorium and the keynote speaker from Scotland looked tiny: 

“A thinking child is a learning child”

I remember thinking when I watched the Three Stooges what would happen if I poked my brother in the eyes with two fingers, or whacked a big toe with a claw hammer, or put my sister’s head in a grip vise, and wondered…would I be here today if there wasn’t a little bit of law and order in the house. 

 It’s a good thing I sat close to the exit. The auditorium’s balcony ceiling sticks so far out ahead of me like a huge maroon tongue with tiny white spotted bacteria.  I saw half the screen that descended from somewhere above the stage and upon which the lady from Scotland showed transparencies on a portable OHP she snapped closed and carried off later.   No IT training over there for this transparent generation of teachers?  And look, about 133 scattered about are rapidly writing down everything she’s saying…ok, I will too.

“Write down five things that you think of when you think of the word thinking”

1. Me’s thinking I drove 160km an hour because I thought it would take two hours to get to Sharjah’s City Hall.  Instead I arrive right on time and wolf down stale pastry and instant coffee with chalk powdered cream to hear someone I didn’t originally plan to see and now …

2. I’d like to know what in God’s name the two local ladies two rows ahead of me are feverishly writing page after page.  I think, therefore, I think. 

      3. What the hell do I think of the word thinking when I think about it?  Does this have a little circular reasoning feel to it, a tinge of yingy yang twang:  think about the word thinking, and think about thinking of things we are thinking of, things you see, to think up, or thoughts we thought of, that is, the word think. I think I need a drink. 

Activity Memory Creative Intelligence Language

Well, I’m a bit slow this weekend morning and before I know it she gave us this piece of intrigue:

“In England thinking skills have been incorporated into the national curriculum”

I’m new to this discourse.  Why is England doing this at all?  Students today aren’t thinking like they used to? The facts state math and reading and writing skills are falling across the board and the thinking skills hypothesis is an admittance that many are not thinking the way they ought to be thinking because…

No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear

Edmund Burke

 

Teaching thinking skills in the Middle East require an arena of freedom to present multiple options in problem solving at the earliest stages.

 

1.  Circle True or False

 

Thinking skills are innate in each of us.  It is the environment that nurtures, destroys or completely rewires thinking skills.  We learn because we want to.  We don’t learn when we don’t want to, or we don’t learn when we can’t or won’t.  And when do we want to learn and when do we not want to learn and when can’t we learn?  Can we ever not learn?  Well, that kind of depends now, doesn’t it, on a lot of changing variables, and what we’re defining these days as “what is learning?” and this color is kind of irritating to read after a while.

 

2.  Circle True or False

 

If it weren’t Thursday morning and a holiday to boot, I wouldn’t have been the most casually dressed attendee in the big hall.  It’s a good thing I’m still in the back.  I think I’ll take my Tevas off. 

“The Spanish school children know immense pieces of information.  But what is all that knowledge if they don’t use it?”

 

If children have the information and aren’t using it, it isn’t therefore a question of attaining the skills to think, which one needs to simply activate the information they aren’t using.  How many teenagers thirty years ago in the United States never used their thinking skills but today are educated and hold respectable jobs and live respectable lives, relatively speaking.  The woman’s observations seem like a back-handed compliment if there ever was one.  What the Scot has she got with her neighbors?  What are the kids doing in Spain with all their information, betting on football?

The OHP’s are absurdly small, even at 15 font, and I’m 1200 yards away from the basketball court size stage, so I wonder if she knows people far away can’t see her visuals. Wouldn’t a lap top have been easier?  While I wondered and pondered, an American woman suddenly appeared and squeezed by me. I laughed in a barely audible loss of wind because I looked out ahead and there was fifty-seven yards of empty chairs since the two local ladies left. I can’t see the screen back here.  I crouched down like I was looking up for a foul ball:  “it says Bloom’s thoughts of cognitive education, and it spans the transparency like the Dead Sea Scrolls in six font.  Didn’t you read Mr. Bloom in Grad school?” Is the world becoming cognitive free?

“Please look at the following:

Dog--Duck--Frog

 

The odd one out?  Why?”

All can swim

All breathe

I’ve eaten all of them and yes, enjoyed each one

I’ve never owned a dog, duck or frog.

 

I’m getting to think this lady is some kind of European-animal racist.  She harps on the misplaced Spanish and has something out for three...ok.  The odd one out.  Oh, a dog has fur. Ok, and a duck has a bill, and a frog has, what, an STD? 

 

“A simple activity generates the wheels in a child’s head.”

I get it, that’s great.  I’ll have to try it with my own occasionally creatively minded collection using VTL words with six and seven syllables.

 

“Brain friendly activities

Brain unfriendly activities

Alternate the focus so you are brain-friendly”

 

Well, I’m all for brain friendly activities, but if a young mind out there in the classroom is here for reasons that aren’t hers or his in the first place and if all motivation and persuasion hasn’t convinced them that a second language is for the better of the nation and for personal growth, we’re gonna have an unproductive activity regardless of all the bells and whistles I use to wake them up.

“We can train our ways to think differently.  Experiencing the world and interpreting it require we are open to change.”

And I’m open to experiencing a different world and resisting the unnecessary conformative in a society that lets change change.  The history of critical thinking in this country is in its infancy.  For the first time in many families education is making a significant play for the future of the people.   A culture of critical thinking hasn't existed because there never has been never a need for one in the classroom.  All testing and development of a new curriculum for today’s students must consider the earlier it is implemented the better chance the nation will see the next generation ready to enter the university and become active members of their society. 

 

holiday over hurrah

My nine day holiday ended, mercifully, and back to work I am.  While it is relatively quiet, storm clouds hover around the academic horizon.  Will the copy center one day open again?  Will I be completely prepared to teach study skills without handouts, without the use of overhead projection systems, without a textbook.  I don't know.

I have to say the more interesting parts of life are recorded in my journal.  Transferring the scribbles to here is not something I look forward to doing, if that is, I ever do it.  But if I had to summarize what I did, which wasn't much, I could be brief, leaving out the theological discussions that raged in my head and landed on paper. 

I read the eight magazines I brought with me.  I'm disappointed I read them so fast, but hey, it's too hot to walk around outside. 

I watched a lot of television, movies I've seen ad nauseum over and over, but I watch them because they were interesting the first and second time.  Which movies?  Ah...A Mel Gibson movie, an Adam Sandler flick, on it goes. 

After sunset I left my oversized grotto for walks, usually to a supermarket.  I did walk all the way to the other border crossing, past the new Al-Massa Hotel, which like the one in Al-Ain, is dry.  Nothing interesting in the two hour walk, this city is a collection of auto repair shops and barbers and that's it.  There isn't even an Indian restaurant here.  Yawn!

And I started reading "The Word" by Irving Wallace.  It came out 41 years ago and it is frighteningly good.  What would be the biggest story ever?  What one story does the press wish it could cover?
In the book, the Second Coming would be the biggest story ever, yet we know, don't we, that it doesn't work that way.  It will happen in a blink of an eye.  Pat Robertson won't be there, CNN or BBC won't be on hand.  It'll just happen.  And that'll be it.

Wallace says Jesus's followers all expected him to return in their lifetime.  Funny to think 2000 years have passed since, and who expects anything to happen now?  Is it the translation or a faith with expected hope, that something would actually happen in our lifetime?  St.  Francis didn't expect it to happen when he was alive.  Mother Teresa didn't expect it to happen in her lifetime.  Ask an evangelical though, and they think it's going to happen in their lifetime, but generation after passing generation proves them wrong.

The saints knew nothing was going to happen and it is a waste of time to think of such matters.  And yet, I do.  Lord have mercy of my scrawny neck.  I'd like a beer but it sure is going to be difficult getting one around here.  Imagine no beer in this town.  Don't think too hard, it's true.  I wonder if the Saudis own the place.  yawn

 

An Eid that doesn't impede

Tomorrow begins a nine day break.  The second Eid, Eid-AlAdha, is upon us, and I'll have so much free time we'll be climbing the pockmarked and scruffy walls.  I look forward to coming in to the office, it's the start of eight and a half hours of doing something that doesn't include watching television.  What's wrong with writing lesson plans, surfing the internet with poor visuals, going to lunch in the college restaurant at noon, all meals 1RO, (about $2.60) and then returning to the empty flat by 4:30pm?  Should I be in despair?  Should I be depressed?  No internet for nine days? 

On this last day of my first full week teachers have nowhere to make copies for their lessons.  I have nowhere to go to make copies for my study skills lessons.  If the OHPs' work in the seven classrooms I should survive, but if they don't and I haven't been able to make copies to give to 215 students well, should I be in despair?  Should I be depressed?  Should I buy a lap top? 

A laptop may take priority over a car.  At least then I can continue thinking about the jobs that face us at this new, very new university.  In our meeting yesterday I learned there is no testing committee and no curriculum committee.  We'll be putting together quizzes and mid-terms in piecemeal and hoping they look and deliver in a professional way.  It's hard to gauge who if any will give a hoot, except the students. 

I am trying to get motivated to make a border crossing during the nine day ceasefire, though it will take some effort.  I must hire a taxi have him drive me to the Jizi checkpoint, 20km east of Buraimi, along the Sohar road, to get an exit stamp and then return to the border, where I live three kms away from.  When I return to Buraimi I will have to return to the Jizi checkpoint to get another stamp.  Why are they doing this?  Who the blank knows, it's lazy politics, is what it is.  For whatever reasons they have they're not legitimate and soon change for the better or worse because of someone's penchant for the absurd. 

If I don't go I will simply stay put.  Every day will be the same, would you like me to tell you of such an itinerary?  I will wake up around six am, eat breakfast, read and watch tv until it is time to eat lunch and then I will continue reading, going outside for any length of time in the afternoon isn't too cool right now, maybe I'll take a nap, and then around 7pm I'll go out for dinner.  During school I eat my lunch on campus and dinner is at home, for two weeks ramen noodles and a couple of pitas filled with cheese, tomatoes and cucumbers drenched with hot sauce, suffices.  So a different place to eat will be something to do.  Maybe I'll write about it here. 

Tonight the plan is walk one km to the oldest hotel in the city for a beer, if that is, they still have a bar to serve it.  I'll be bummed if they don't.  Imagine taking a 4 hour bus to Muscat for a beer, or the four hour bus and an hour flight to Dubai, for a beer.  Such absurdities aren't that absurd if you consider you have all the time in the world at your fingers. 

In the mornings I read a Padre Pio prayer and it's all about asking for something, by the grace of God, I need this and that.  I don't know what to ask for, except for the grace to be a good teacher.  Asking for companionship, for love, for riches, we're so fraught with guilt, expecting anything that could make me happy is selfish, all I can ask is to be a better teacher.  How can I survive here for five years?  Getting old like this isn't too fulfilling when all I have to speak to is God and God remains silent.  Aren't those of us who talk like this really in the end too crazy for this world?  By what means do you go on?  I'd like to know.