Friday, April 17, 2015

fried dal calling



A conditional offer, take an oral proficiency exam and submit the results by the twenty-fourth of June.  Ha ha.  I took two years of Spanish but I can’t speak it.  I lived around Mexico for a year or so but I couldn’t speak fluently then.  It would take an enormous effort to prepare for an oral proficiency exam.  Am I up for it?  I feel lazy, I feel I should keep looking, looking for something easy?  No, looking for a great desire.  Once again, uncertainty, insecurity maybe, no direction is leaving me bounce from one idea to another.  It is discouraging, very much so.  And it leaves a big question on this Wednesday evening, the gifts, photography mainly, is something you can’t motivate yourself to do something with other than posting on social media.  I don’t understand.


4.16.15

Two Chennain colleagues took me and our resident priest in limbo to Sagar’s for a south Indian meal and what a meal it was, seven dishes with plenty of rice and chappati’s, oh I hurt, why isn’t there enough room when I rarely eat this much in one sitting I don’t understand. 

Eighty seven days to go and one is playing pool here but one doesn’t know the next shot so he chalks his tip, powders his hands and lines up.  There must be a deadline when I will need to decide if I return straight to the states or if uncertainty trumps the day, fly to KC Leuven.  An open door admission invites, bring all your papers, settle in the burbs for a month and make a go of it, if you don’t get in continue west.  I like this, for now.

A post mid-term gathering is planned for 23 April at our resident priest in limbo’s home and he was surprised to know it’s also St. Georges Day on the Catholic calendar, a day I reluctantly admitted was an anniversary I’m trying to forget.  ‘we should have a séance’  I don’t think so, padre, lots of questions remain six years later and I’d rather not invite a band of mischievous spirits to confuse and befuddle.  Nevertheless I am open to learning and understanding and I would like direction because I am all over the map what the hell is new you say. 

Next week is the mid-term, week eight, I informed my students, and we are half way Praise all good things come to an end.  Yesterday I told the resident priest in limbo, that…wait, can we give this someone a name, a name to protect and respect his anonymity because as you know I don’t write about people I work with unless there is one who crosses my path in an ungodly way, phonetically pronounced here, let’s call him ‘Girgis’.  Well I told Girgis I suffer from no direction and yet at times deep down I feel everything is going to be fine in the end.  “Then why worry, everything is going to be fine in the end.” Yes, I should be reassured and that is probably the reason I get through the day.  But ‘Girgis, it’s between the moments before the end that make me sick with worry.’

Tell me what’s on the table now, what’s going on.  Ok, in a nutshell, Kandahar wants someone in June, they will contact me if by their deadline they haven’t found someone and perhaps they will offer something.  Second, I mentioned in the first paragraph here, I need to take an oral proficiency exam in Spanish for a post offered in …..saying here will jinx me so I won’t.  Thirdly, the school in Salalah hasn’t contacted me though they continue to post openings online.  Look, if they’re going to wait until the first week in July that will be too late to gather papers they want, so I don’t know about them.  There are other jobs I’ve seen in the states and elsewhere but I’ve stalled with all of them.  And then there is KC Leuven, one year to publish a goal, a dream, call me heretic, no. 

And of course you’re open to whatever else comes your way, right?  Anatomy of Restlessness, a book by Bruce Chatwin, comes to mind.  Yeah, whatever comes to mind in the next eighty seven days.  I need to establish some deadlines here, but not tonight, chicken tikka, fried dal and who else are calling me to sleep.

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