flatly planted

A huge downpour last night and at six in the morning I find the room I watch pointless hours of television flooded.  With nothing but a rag and a pan I clean up most of the dirty water that came in through the sliding door that leads to the balcony looking east.  The balcony is full and when I leave the office in thirty minutes I will walk home, a forty minute walk, and bail out the balcony. 


Today we were asked to submit the leave for the summer form.  Was I going back to the US the form asked.  I've considered it.  I should open a bank account, get my stuff from my cousin's cellar, get a credit card, yikes, to rent a car once in a while.  To buy books online sometimes.  I found a dozen or so books at the big shop in Dubai but hesitated.  Who spends $60 on a book these days? 


I don't know what I'll do this summer though I know a part of the time will be in Nepal.  Another year here.  A few days ago I sent my MA diploma to Muscat to get it attested and then it will go to various ministries and then return to the college where I will then do an international shuffle with the Emiratis and hopefully within two weeks I'll have a road pass.  Yippee.  Even if I go only once a month to the city I miss, that'll be enough.   


Today Mister Obama visits the Pope and then he's off to Saudi to visit whoever.  From Catholicism to Islam touch all bases, dude, you're just a man. 


Afternoon professional development 'sessions' are going on but I remain flatly planted in my chair.  Next week is quiz one and I am finishing up the answer keys, two versions of the quiz we give because the students are absolutely the worst cheaters.  So, I'm making it hard for them to cheat with versions that will barely recognize each other.  Some students are so desperate they'll cheat off an exam if they know the questions are different.  If that doesn't define pathetic then my days are done.


And in February a professor of business was fired when he failed all of his students because of plagiarism.  The university student guidebook states very clearly that cheating and plagiarism are wrong, and the repercussions are supposed to be obvious.  But here, the professor was fired and asked to leave within days.  Well this didn't sit well with the tall bald Greek man and he hired a lawyer and went to court, asking for a year's wages and a letter in apology.  Yesterday we heard Miro won!  A miracle, he wasn't dissed and dismissed as a newcomer, a foreigner who's always wrong simply because he was here.  He won, the judge saw the travesty of an institution that one, had no right to fire someone without at least a month's notice, and secondly, firing a staff member because he had evidence of widespread plagiarism, an academic crime that proliferates, and the university doesn't even know how to manage it.  I feel bad for this place, its learning curve is an arch that reaches the moon.  I stay because I fail to find ambition in anything.  I'm stuck in default mode and I don't know how to get out.  Another year here bums me out but if I can endure, Lord a road pass will help, if I can find peace here, I'll stay.  But right now, the weekend is nigh,

tis to be green

I ran out of grapefruit seed extract last year and began using grape seed extract. At 60mg a capsule they're half the potency of the gfs capsules and I wonder if the sore throat I struggle with now is because of this. 


Well, I attended the teacher's conference this past weekend, threw in the cv to five schools and did not get one invite to interview.  I know if I were a recruiter I'd probably red flag it.  Four places lived in four years, two jobs, two years, two I quits.  If I had been invited for an interview I could have explained the jobs in Salalah and Gazientap weren't bad, really, I just wanted to be in Nepal more.


And you don't want to be in Nepal more now? 


Moving to Nepal requires calculated risks and a bank account with enough in it in the unlikelihood I must leave again.  Going there is easy, staying isn't. 


So we're in week three, there are no breaks for the next twelve weeks.  Four days of teaching, 20 contact hours, a Thursday where we are being bombarded with 'meetings' to many they are irrelevant in a place that can't provide direction.  When standards are 'moderated' it undermines teacher's efforts to be honest and soon enough we're all cutting corners.  How many of my students stand a chance of passing this intermediate level?  One in four.  The admin would probably like to see 2.5 in four, maybe 3 out of four, especially when so many are repeating.  And you're prepared to concede your integrity to get them out, to push them on, to wave goodbye? 


In two weeks I'll inquire about the road pass.  Another two plus hours and $52 in taxis to do the Jizi jig and it is the worst experience here.  I told the taxi drivers how stupid this was and I can only hope they'll continue with the oral tradition and spread the word, the minority are not happy.


So you're content staying here for another year?  With a road pass, maybe a car, yes, I think.  Where else can I go?  Ideas come and go and that is part of the problem, they go.  Returning to school is ideal but so impractical.  NYU anyone?  I don't fear debt, I fear not getting money to go into debt. 


And I almost forgot.  Today is St. Patrick's Day. No beer, sniff sniff, but we'll be wearing a green tie, from Varanasi, and my jade ring.  Ay o Lord, have mercy on us, life is too hard for too many, show us some love, make us believe it's all gonna work out in the end.  The very worst you can do is be silent.  Really. 

a younger ilk

How does one resolve the life long struggle with restlessness?  Incarceration, a mortgage, a serious injury, bad timing, a marriage, just to name a few.  Would restlessness really end with any of these scenarios?  I've always thought getting tied down to something or with someone would be suffice but my own experience questions those 'institutions' and still I drift.


This weekend is the annual teachers conference and it will be the first time in 15 years I've gone to throw in the long and gangly cv.  I'm waffling back and forth here, I should put up with this place at for at least another miserable year and save because one day I'll be passed up for a younger ilk with no experience, what will I do, bail out, go to Colorado?  Get retrained as a botanist?   Become dependent on someone, on the state? God forbid.  I just need to sit and slow down with enough income which means I have to continue working.   


Have no pity, look at the poor Ukrainians.  A professor from Princeton on Fareed's show yesterday said their own 'elite' are the cause for raping their country and leaving them open for waste.  Completely.  I don't need sympathy, look at them for crying out loud. 


I feel bad for many around here who are shackled to the extremities of ineptitude.  A teacher with heart troubles is placed on the third floor but she can't climb the stairs and no one in the administration seems to give a rat's ass about moving her class to one on the ground floor.  Their shameless laziness is close to criminal.  I advised the woman to cancel her afternoon classes after she complained of shortness of breath and throbbing in her arm and go to a clinic. 


Shameful.  Teachers want to go to this conference and they are being told no.  This place shivers from insecurities and a lack of identity.  Foreigners who live here can apply for a road pass upon arrival with their employer's approval and the 'leaders'  make everyone wait six months before signing the necessary papers.  If crossing the border makes them fear we won't come back why not improve what you got so we won't cross?  I have no plans to cross and not return but really, I have a right to exercise my freedom.  And be happy. 


The new four day schedule is brutal for teachers and students.  It's only week two but the students are burning out.  "Time finish teacher. time time"  We just started ten minutes ago for crying out loud.  And while I look for a Thursday as a day to work alone in the office doing what I cannot possibly do now during the week, a few other teachers are taking that day as an un-official official work day off.  Shame on them.  Just come to work and find something to do.  Their shameless behavior is going to affect everyone and it will simply confirm what I must do.  Leave again?  Double sigh.
Consider for one second...you left Gazientep and Salalah because you wanted to be in Sarangkot.  Now after spending ten months straight I don't have that great desire like before.  The place is well established, there are no women there for me, and I don't know.  Have I outgrown the place?  I'd like to think no.  Every day in the office I look at Lamjung Himal, the dude rocks and inspires.  Machhapuchre commands memory and we are subdued.