The last day of the month that I should only have spent half of here.
WHY THE HELL AM I STILL HERE??
The answer to that lies only, I feel, within the walls of the Saudi "Ministry of Work" (or whatever they call it).
However, this is an impenetrable wall if ever there was one.
OK, last Friday (23rd January) I decided to phone the people at the UK end of this Saudi operation to see what they could tell me about the situation.
You know how we say, "No News Is Good News". Well this could be true in both ways of the meaning of the expression, ie, no news AT ALL or being told that they don't HAVE any more news.
It was possibly the longest phone call in which I learnt absolutely nothing at all and yet I stayed on the line in the hope that something useful might suddenly make its way into my ears.
What can I say about the phone call I made to them? Well not a lot. I went on and started with the pleasantries - the, "How are you? Nice day!", kind of chat. Then straight to the point - "Any News?". No, there was none. My contract WAS still in the Saudi Arabia Ministry of Work (I forget the word they used but no matter). Could they find out what its progress was and how long it might take? No, they have no access inside those walls. BUT another two weeks .....
Deja vu ...... didn't I hear THAT two weeks ago? Actually it was LONGER than that - 17 days to be precise since I was phoned while walking around in the Kentish Town area looking for an optician's (I didn't find it). Then it was because I'd been sending emails quite consistently the last 4 or 5 days and maybe they got sick of them. I WAS kind of reassured by that call - it showed they WERE concerned (a bit) and they wanted ME to feel a bit better - which I did ..... a bit. But with hindsight it told me nothing positive.
Are we getting a pattern here? "Two Weeks" together with "Properly Knowing Nothing". Well you can't say they're not consistent!
Is it time yet to point any finger of blame? Or to look back and wonder what I did wrong to get myself into this situation?
No. I know what it is.
I WAS CHASING THE BIG BUCKS AGAIN!
"Again?", you ask - you who is reading this now (maybe for the first time). Yes, it happened before about 6 years ago when I foolishly was tempted to go to the P____ L_____ school in Katowice, Poland. Ohh the money side was GREAT! BUT for that I had to endure the two WORST YEARS of my entire twelve years in teaching. Yeah it was paid well but the pain equalled this financial gain. What would the mathematicians and/or psychologists make of THAT?
But WHOOAAHH! HOLD ON THERE! It WILL work out and soon I WILL be rolling in it and looking back on this blog entry with a "Pah!" in my voice and a, "Huh! WHY did I worry?", tone of voice.
Won't it?
My mood this week has darkened considerably. It's a combination of many things. Not having money, not having anything to do, and being TOO BLOODY LONG in this place I LEAST want to be in more than ANYWHERE ELSE in this world. The place I was happy to be getting out of back in September last year, 2008. And now I appear to have gone in a kind of vicious circle or nasty time warp jump back to the past. I NOW feel just as I did back in the months BEFORE that triumphant exit to the glories of Krakow and my life there (OK OK, there were money probs there too but in the end it came good .... just before I left!)
"So," you are thinking now, "Why not go somewhere else?". Because, oh know-it-all reader, I need to be here so that when the work visa papers DO come I am in a position to instantly react, get them filled in and sent and be OUT OF HERE to the sun and sand.
I have thought that I could be back in my house back in Poland. At least there I WOULD be somewhere I DO want to be and it would ease things and make this delay bearable. But then that would make that 'reaction time' longer and further delay things.
So what can I do?
I found, on one day this week, that I was able to make one day more bearable by listening to my music while skypeing at the same time. That way the time passed more quickly and it kind of felt more productive too. Then the next day my MP3 player's battery needed charging up and that took around three days as I did not have my proper charger here but had to do a charge-by-Mac. So no music then :(
Tomorrow we move into February. Apart from its obvious progression in time, it is MORE of a teeth-grinder because I have to change the calendar in the bedroom. And THAT means looking at the February picture that I assumed/hoped/thought I would never see. Oh yes, I HAVE looked already - just before I hung the calendar on the wall at year-start. But it was in a kind of, "Ah So That's What I'm Going To Miss!", kind of way ..... or a, "So That's What They'll See When I'm Gone!", way of thinking.
Ohh I was going to tell you about the progress of other jobs I've applied to this week. But no point now. It was the week when Plan B came into operation but then became kind of pointless. And in any case WHY replace one dragging bureaucracy with another??
Basically this Saudi job IS that proverbial "Goose That Will Lay The Golden Eggs". Except that this goose doesn't know it's a goose yet. No, but seriously, I HAVE TO believe that it WILL soon come good.
Don't I?
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