Rambling On .... in and out of the Classroom

Friday 29th January 2010
Well, it is either sit here and watch more of Tony Blair talking about everything and nothing in the Iraq Enquiry or do some blogging. Which is more likely to interest me? Well, such public enquiries can be interesting if what people SAY in them IS interesting. Those who like to analyse such things will be enthralled at seeing Blair squirm in his chair. I am less so.

Now, I should warn you that there WILL be quite an element of positivity in today's blog, and compared to last time's rant it will be like sunshine after the rain. But I am sitting here having fully completed ALL my teaching here in Saudi Arabia. Yes, THAT was, in fact, completed last Monday 25th January. But ohhh – what a week it was. Have you met my students here – Al-Apathy and Al-Lethargy. Yes, they are not much fun. Now for those of you who don't get the joke, I should say that the majority of Saudi surnames are Al-.....(something). Apparently the “Al” part is only the equivalent of the definite article, “the”, in English. So their surnames could be something like, “the camel farmer”, “the market trader”, or whatever.

Even though it was the last week of teaching, it should have been an important one. It was meant as a week of final revision for the Second Midterm Exam which was on Tuesday. So you would naturally expect that students would want to come for those last three revision days and we could all study together and maybe I could help them in any last-minute language issues that would come up.

HAH! Not one bit of it! Attendance was patchy as it had been the week before and, indeed, a large number of weeks leading up to this final revision week. Did they not WANT to revise? Some suggested they might stay at home and revise in their rooms. Maybe some did, but judging by the large numbers of latecomers who said they had been “sleeping” and believed they did no wrong, this explanation did not hold much water with me.

As I had supposed would happen, this class has rather gone down in terms of its motivation to learn. It seems to be a common thing out here, though you can't compare in ANY WAY with the soldier boys from before. Incidentally, those five soldier boys who joined my class from the dissolved one some time ago …. well they are useless and spend their time with either heads on desks, not showing up, playing with their phones, listening to music, or they just sit there doing nothing because they don't have pens or the right books. Deja vu if you ask me! Useless people, and they will always remain this way. Even the one guy who had been the best by FAR in that class of mine is now a lost cause and hardly ever comes to class.

Well, with 30 people in that classroom now, I can leave them be and just go see the ones who NEED my help and happily ignore others who do not care. And anyway, my attitude was, “Well with only a few weeks to go, if you do not put the effort in now, then you do not interest me”.

Nothing much else happened in those last two weeks just gone. Gave them their last “quiz” test which was just 5 multi-choice questions. The results were pretty good with one-third of the class being in the top 25 percent of the marks. So that was satisfying for me.

There was one slight irritation these last two weeks. Well, you know how “organised” and “forward planned” these Saudis are here. More evidence of that. Well, there were fifteen weeks in this Semester 2. In Week 14 out of 15 the Dean of the College “suddenly” notices that attendance is slipping. Indeed he is right. But it is the end of the semester. WHY ON EARTH has he not acted before now? So what did he decide in his great wisdom? Well, we were required to hand in a photocopy of the class register every day at the end of lessons to the HoD. Quite WHAT he was going to do one week before Midterm Exams is beyond me, and any people who were lagging behind in attendance would surely not be dealt with now. The time to act should have been the halfway point of the semester perhaps – a more logical place. Ahh – but here you see the flaw – the words “logical” and “sensible” simply do NOT apply out here since it is NEITHER! Anyway, I duly did this.

Well, there is little more to say except about the Midterm Exam session itself. This was done in the “mess hall” which was the same location as used for the end semester military exam just before the summer. A total of 120 students were squeezed in here, and they had to extend the seating area back to the tables at the back of the room normally used for mealtimes. Was OK except it meant these students on these tables were seated rather too close together so had to be watched more closely. But overall there was little dubious activity going on and most people stayed to near the end. One thing that irritated me – the college registrar was there. Even AFTER the exam had started he was going around calling out names of people who had not yet signed in. WHY DISTURB THEM AFTER EXAM START? This continued for far too long. Oh, and also at the start the students had got in and got sat down but then were told to get up and move so they were sitting together in rows with their classmates. The idea there was so that collection of papers would be made easier but still it made no sense to disturb them JUST BEFORE the start of this big stressful exam. In such a stressful exam situation, the last thing people want is extra and unnecessary stresses.

Away from teaching now. I am nearing the “three week mark” in terms of the Exit Procedure that I am in now. In the “seven week mark” just gone I had to go inform Leave And Travel of my leaving plans and I was able to collect the first few signatures for my list. Some of them were unnecessary – I had to visit the Hospital Laundry room and I discovered for the first time where the Hospital Medical Library was. Both needed a signature even though I had never been to either before.

But I didn't mind. This kind of thing is only there to annoy and is a kind of “mission impossible” with the countdown clock progressing. The list looks long at first sight, but in fact everything I have to do is laid out clearly. On Saturday I have to go hand in my “iqama” for the processing of my final Exit Visa and I also have to arrange for Housing Inspection to be done where they check that you haven't sneaked the bath tub or TV into your luggage before departure. Anyway, I am progressing through this nicely, and the most of the action takes place inside the final week where keys, ID and all are handed in and I have to arrange transportation to the airport.

I treat it all as an amusing game more than anything else. Compared to what I had to supply for getting the Polish “karta pobytu” (residency card) some years ago, this is all a BREEZE. Ohh THAT list of documents was nearly a full A4 page long and NOTHING will ever top THAT in terms of the ridiculous bureaucracy it was. I do not object to form-filling or getting stamps or that sort of thing. It's all a game, and one which THEY believe you will not win but one that you always DO!

Another thing I have been trying to do is sell the things which I cannot take with me out of Saudi Arabia. These include my coffee maker, juice maker, MP3 player, internet USB plugin modem, unused tube of sunblock cream and 110V-220V transformer. So far I have only managed to get rid of the MP3 player, and I think that is all I will manage. I suppose I will have to leave the coffee maker and juice maker here since they are 110V mains voltage only. Even if I DID take them, somebody who did not know they were 110V might try to use them with disastrous results. And they were both cheap so it is no great loss. The sunblock cream I can sell online since it is a well-known brand. The voltage transformer I will have to just keep – it might be useful someday. The internet modem I may be able to get unlocked which will mean I can use it with ANY simcard ANYWHERE. It is made by a well-known firm so surely I can get that done somewhere though hopefully not too expensively. I made up a list to put, firstly, on the staffroom noticeboard and then decided to put it on other college and hospital noticeboards. Well, I have had precisely ONE PHONE CALL from somebody who asked if I was selling a laptop or a stereo!! So I don't suppose anything else will go. But one annoyance was that I put it on the noticeboard in the staff entrance to the hospital only to see it had been REMOVED the next day! Why? Don't know, but POSSIBLY because when I pinned it to the board it SLIGHLY overlapped with the full colour notices advertising the various conferences coming up in the hospital in the near future. And yes, I did have to go get the “official” stamp from the Security men before sticking it on noticeboards.

Speaking of phone calls, I do (as other teachers do) get wrong number phone calls every now and then. But what amazes me is that you get the SAME PERSON calling you wrongly two or three times. I have had one man call me THREE TIMES now over the space of a week asking for “Dr Ahmed”. Do they never learn?

We have had quite a problem this last two weeks with the air conditioning in our rooms. Not just a few, but we are talking about four or five WHOLE ACCOMODATION BLOCKS! What has been going on? Well, it was something they did first with the routine annual electrical supply maintenance followed by, I think, the cleaning of aircon filters which involved turning the aircon water off too. So for the last two weeks (ending the night of Monday 25th) we had NO AIRCONDITIONING AT ALL! Well, when I say “none” I mean that, yes, the aircon WAS on but that there was no cool air coming out. It was just an “air blower”, and so the room just heated up and up. They say that they did it at THIS time of year because it is winter and the temperatures are cooler. But PHEW! Sure didn't seem that way to me! The only way to survive was to sit around in boxer shorts only because if you had even a T-SHIRT and JOGGING BOTTOMS on then you were WELL OVERHEATED. Unfortunately I do not possess any kind of desktop fan so OHHH I was baking hot. Well, it was not summer heat – rather was like a regular humid midsummer day back in Europe. I alternated between having the “blower” air conditioning on and off – I needed the air to move but not to be blown by hot air.

Two things happened recently which are things I always thought MIGHT or WOULD happen some day but hoped they wouldn't. The first happened about a month ago now and it involved my keys … or rather NOT having them. Well, it was a weekday and I HAD TO go down town to the Mobily internet people since I had ONCE AGAIN run out of quota on my 5GB package (more on this later). VERY annoying! Anyway, I had called for the taxi beforehand and had been waiting. My bag was ready and my neck keychain with keys and ID card was sitting on the side also ready. OK, so the call came that the taxi was here, so I grabbed my bag and out I went closing the door behind me.

Instantly I closed the door I KNEW my keys were not with me. YES, they were INSIDE THE ROOM sitting there on the side where I had left them! I tried the door but it is a handle you can open only from inside. Shit, I thought! Well, the taxi was waiting so I had to go on and later I would have to go to Security as my colleague had done once before. Ohh, but I was SO ANNOYED at myself! I did my business in Mobily and went around Carrefour, but all the time this keys problem was in my head and I felt that I shouldn't be messing around here while I had no keys to my room. Security might be closed if I was too late back and THEN WHAT? So I called the taxi again and back I soon went less than an hour after getting into town.

Nobody asked me for ID at the main gate (just as well!), and at the second gate I got out and paid the taxi driver there. Into the room at the gate where all security men sit, and I explained my problem. As I was telling them, there was a smile as if to say, “Ohh here's ANOTHER idiot locked out of his room!”. Yes, indeed I DID feel like an idiot!

It was no big deal though. All I had to do was go with the security guy in his MARKED Security car so he could get his set of master keys, and then he took me to my room and it was unlocked and in I went. PHEW!

Now, notice how I emphasised that it was a “marked security car”. Yes, it is a BIG car with lights on top and “SECURITY” in big letters on the side. Easy to spot .... and yes I was spotted in it by one of my colleagues. UNFORTUNATELY this particular guy is one who loves to gossip and loves to make up and exaggerate details. Well, in this boring life we lead, such “creativity” adds to your dull life I suppose! And so the word got around that I had been “manhandled” or had been “arrested” or other such things – NONE of which had, of course, happened. When I got in, a short time later one of my colleagues phoned me to ask if I was OK because I had been seen, and I was happy to explain. All very innocent!

Although a little bit of gossip does not hurt, I was quite annoyed at the ridiculous way the story had been SO exaggerated. But THIS is what comes when you have nothing else better to do in your boring little life than to “make things up”. So THAT is why soap operas are so popular, is it?

The other thing that happened involved my kettle and the electric hobs we have here. And AGAIN it is a thing that is easily done if care is not taken. And it COULD have been more serious had I not noticed it in time.

Boiled the kettle for some tea and took the kettle off. The thing with electric cookers is that even when you turn them off, the hob rings stay heated and do not go off instantly as with gas cookers. What I ALWAYS do is remove the kettle and put in on the second hob ring which has been off all the time, and then I turn off at the front. Ah HAH, but THIS is what I obviously FORGOT to do THIS TIME! Electric hobs make no noise as gas cookers do, so there is no indication that they are still on except by sight. So I was drinking my tea and I was on the internet and doing other things with, of course, my back to the cooker. There was no smell or anything. But a bit later when I went back over that way I saw it WAS ON and was VERY HOT and VERY ORANGE.

My box of cereal was nearby. I used to keep the currently-open box of cereal up on top next to the cooker as it is a convenient place for it. It WAS near this hob ring and had started to go a bit brown. I turned off the hob ring straight away and took this box out of the way. There was a slight smell of plastic, though |I was not sure where from. I realised the next morning that it must be from the plastic bag inside the cereal box which had probably started to MELT.

So …. a case of PHEW! If I had gone out and left this in this way, then a fire would surely have been the result.

I don't keep cereal boxes on top now. And I ALWAYS check that I turn off the hob ring. And I DEFINITELY check that I have my keys around my neck BEFORE stepping outside my door.

If it takes an “emergency situation” to make me more careful, then these two were surely IT!

Ohh, I nearly forgot. The last thing today is all about my internet. Usually, as you know, I am on the 5GB package which is usually plenty for a given month. But recently I seem to be running out far too often and it is annoying when I have to make an extra trip into town. Such a situation happened at the start of this month. In December I had to make TWO SEPARATE trips into town because my internet had run out unexpectedly early. And there is no good arguing with them because THEY have the counter and you do not. Well there IS a counter that comes with the internet modem package but I think it only counts how much you use on HTTP connections (ie, website surfing only – NOT FTP or other downloading or uploading). So anyway, at end of December I decide to try the 1GB package just because I wanted to see how long it lasted and because I objected to paying ANOTHER big lot of money for lousy service once again. I paid and then got home to use it.

Well, in UNDER TEN DAYS it had already expired and I was barely into January!

On the same day as the “keys incident” (earlier) I had to decide what to do. I thought to myself that as I had only just over a month to go, maybe I could try one month of unlimited use. Using this, I could download what I liked and get everything I wanted to before leaving here. After all, I have no idea what internet facilities I will have access to after I'm done here.

Well, it is a LOT of money going the “unlimited way”! Having paid that, I did not much feel inclined to buy anything else, and even though I needed a haircut I did not want to pay the Rashid Mall prices.

Well, so far it has certainly been a good investment! I have INDEED got a lot of stuff done and have not had to worry about my gigabyte entitlement expiring before month end. When payment time comes around again, it will be the last time and then I WILL only get the 1GB package and will do NO DOWNLOADING at all and will ONLY do regular surfing. It will only be for a week and a half, so I should be OK with that.

Ahh, I mentioned the barber. Well, last Saturday I got the hair well and truly CUT! How long was it? FAR TOO LONG, and the last time I had it cut must've been …. well, FAR TOO LONG AGO. I intended to go just before the New Year but the barber went on holiday.

And that brings me to the last “blab” for today. Just before New Year when I was standing there outside the barber shop waiting for him, I got bitten by A MOSQUITO! Mosquitoes in Saudi Arabia?? Surely it is too dry, you say! Well, I thought so too so I was rather surprised to see these three little critters biting me. Got me a bit worried too as I wondered about malaria. But on getting home and checking online, I found there is no malaria in THIS part of the country (though there can be further south in the mountains).

OK OK this has been a rather directionless blog today so I'll stop there and not waste a MOMENT MORE of your precious time. See you next time!

AAGGHH!! I just CAN'T STAND IT!!

Monday 18th January 2010
I'm feeling in a VERY intolerant mood today. So this could be quite a rant. Watch out please! Stand back, strap yourself down and buckle up!!

Oh, you say, but you have so few weeks left! Why do you care? What does it matter? Well it DOES matter, though yes, I agree, I no longer care about what happens here.

I am just SO SICK of it! Sick of talking when nobody listens, sick of repeating what was clear the first time, sick of explaining over and over WHY it is that “absent” means “not here in class or late” no matter WHAT the excuse is. I am tired of the lethargy, of the avoidance of work at all costs on the students' part. And when they “get it real” from me in the form of a bad mark for their writing (which they DESERVE), they complain and moan and fuss like they have some DIVINE RIGHT to a full mark. Even those who DO get a good mark complain about WHY they do not have HIGHER!! No no – do NOT say it is because they are ambitious. THAT word does not enter the vocabulary to describe ANYONE living in this part of the world!

And they think they our friends. They believe they are like “brothers” with us teachers because, by doing this, they suppose that we will feel better about this apparent “close relationship” with them and therefore be less inclined to give a bad mark because they are “family”.

Every morning in my pre-clinical class as I am marking the register, some of them gather round my desk at the front. I cannot imagine WHAT is interesting in an attendance sheet since it is just names and X's. And there are certain individuals who know FULL WELL that they WERE absent the previous day of for one part of the day just gone. But up they come to take a look. Maybe they are hoping I didn't SEE that they were missing, and when they see I did, of course, mark them absent it is, “Teacher, WHY absent, Why absent??”, as if their non-presence in the class is nothing or that they have a good excuse.

I've said before and I'll say again to them. If you are NOT HERE or you are LATE, then you are ABSENT with NO EXCEPTIONS! If they have a good excuse then they should take this to the Registry and explain. One thing that they DO here is give out Warning Letters after a certain number of absences. I believe that they are allowed THREE warning letters and then they can be booted out (but, in practice, they never ARE).

After that class was done and I was going home I saw one of today's absentees. “Teacher,” he asked me, “absent today?”. “Yes of COURSE you are!”, I said. “No no, teacher, not absent, I was in the bank”.

I just kept on walking. What more was there to say?

Oh, and let's go back in time to the first classes of the day.

Two days ago, one student let it slip that apparently they have their Computing Final Exam on Tuesday. Exactly WHAT TIME of day is not clear – one time they said in the morning, today they said it was to be in the afternoon. In any case, neither the Computing teacher nor ANYONE ELSE has bothered to inform the English department. And seeing as this will go into MY lesson time then they SHOULD have informed us. Oh, and not forgetting the fact too that it is the WRONG WEEK for Final Exams – all of which should be taking place NEXT WEEK.

As always, what they wanted to do was get out of my lesson(s) for extra study time for this Final Exam. Well this REALLY annoyed me! WHY THE HELL should I lose MY lesson time for some ignorant Computing teacher who can't do the right thing and LET US KNOW?

I said to them, look, I know NOTHING of this Computing exam. If you choose NOT to come to my lesson and want to revise for Computing, then that is up to you but I will mark you absent as normal. Well, it seems that whenever the issue of being marked absent or not comes up, it is like explaining Shakespeare to a newborn baby. It DOESN'T GO IN!! Well, they and I argued and fussed about this point for half the first lesson. Round and round we went with me repeating the same fact and they saying things like, “If you mark us absent, it will affect our grades”, and, “So maybe just mark us for one lesson absent and not two” (which I actually HAD done before in a similar situation, though regretted it many student moans later). Oh, they also said pathetic things like, “Teacher, after five lessons with you we will be tired! How can we do this exam?”

WHY should I "crash" my lesson for someone else who can't communicate? We ALSO have the English Final Exam next week! I asked them if they were then not going to come to MY lessons for this same reason next week. No answer. I told them, “Look, you are STUDENTS! YOU do your work, YOU do your revision! Don't sleep, go out or play silly games when there is WORK to do! When you have something to do, YOU GOTTA DO IT! NOT in lesson time but in the PROPER time at home and during the day when not in class! THIS is what being a student is all about – ORGANISE YOUR TIME!”

Oooooohh they didn't like THAT! But these shits - they do nothing and then expect that I should sacrifice MY TIME just cos they're too lazy to do basic student things!!

There was one more thing this afternoon. At the start of the afternoon lesson, one student and his friend came and said to me, “Teacher please delete his absence for Saturday because if you do not then the college will kick him out”. I said I would absolutely NOT do this because he WAS indeed absent, and in addition he does nothing in class except sleep, talk loudly and come late. His written work is either copied from others or done with the MINIMUM thought and effort possible. “Come on, come on teacher pleeease! Do this for him! Why are you so hard with us??”. Well I THOUGHT to myself (though didn't say), “Because you are a lazy good-for-nothing bunch of SHITS!”

Well he WAS absent! And they want me to LIE for them and pretend he WAS in class. And I should do it because, "other teachers WOULD delete this in the college". I told them, “Well i am NOT those others!! You will get NOTHING from me!!

“Ohh teacher teacher WHY are you so hard??” etc. etc. and this went on. “Look,” I said, “Maybe HE WILL LEARN AND REMEMBER for next year or for his repeated year NOT to sleep, NOT to be late, NOT to be absent and to DO SOME WORK IN CLASS!”.

Why the DAMN HELL should I do any favours for a lazy SHIT like THIS?? If he was a half-decent student, then he wouldn't be IN this position to begin with!

I will NEVER EVER understand such people and such attitudes to learning and to study. And I say ONCE AGAIN …. HOW OH HOWWWW does ANYBODY last MORE than ONE YEAR in a place like THIS?

Well I think the answer to THAT is that you must be in your late 50's, with NO other job prospects on ANY horizon and with no other alternative than to TAKE THIS SHIT on the CHIN!

I, however, will NOT understand it, will NOT tolerate it and will NOT GIVE IN!

I am glad of one thing though. When we get to Wednesday, the “month count” will drop to zero and it is only a count of mere WEEKS until I am out of here and back to Normal Land. Ohh and how GOOD it will be when it is the “week count” that ALSSO drops to zero and thee will only be a matter of DAYS until the Final Exit.

And may GLORY BE ON THAT DAY!!!!!

Cheese Times and Walking-Gym Times

Saturday 16th January 2010
Once again, as I sit down to write this blog entry, two things are happening. Firstly, I am wondering what to write since there seems to be little happening of interest (but after three pages THAT will be proved wrong), and secondly, it is far too LONG since my last blog entry.

Yes, sadly I seem to be setting aside less time to do this blog thing these days. Signs of what? Well, it ISN'T that I DON'T want to do it because I DO. It has become a great way to release all that I cannot through normal channels simply because there ARE no normal channels due to lack of community, social life etc. And secondly, I so often have other things that I do in the evenings. Weekends too I do seem to find things to do that need doing. Not trivial things, but REAL things needing doing. Weekend just gone was the turn of my 2008-2009 tax return for my last period of self-employed work in the UK which ended in September last year just before my return to Poland and subsequent move to here, Saudi Arabia. I also have a number of other websites beside the blog that I work on and tinker with every now and then either creating new ones or improving existing ones.

What I have started NOT doing these last few weekends is going into town. A couple of reasons for that. Firstly, there is no real need to except for food shopping. And food shopping is less necessary now as I go to the hospital cafeteria every day for lunch now – something I WISH I had done more of from the start. You just get a better lunch there, you get a hot meal and you get a nutritious meal. Not to say I don't feed myself at home, and also I am not saying that I did not have decent lunches before. But this semester with the heavier timetable the lunchtime period is shorter since I have to get on out for the afternoon lesson session which only gives me a swift 45 minutes lunch at home if I do it that way. Having tried that way of lunching, I decided that it was not worth the rush and went back to cafeteria ways.

So that gets me to the second reason for not going to town so often – the cost of food in the supermarkets there. I have touched on this before with reference to cheese prices. Funny thing to go on you might think, but I DO confess to being a great cheese eater. No, I don't have a gourmet taste in cheese – just a nice bit of Lancashire or Cheshire or Caerphilly cheese will do VERY nicely. Well even a nice bit of good old cheddar, but I find that the ones they do here are of the tasteless “yellow hard milk” variety. So I KNOW what I like. UNFORTUNATELY my tastes in cheese eating out here ARE expensive. I mentioned this some time ago, but a typical kilo of the above cheeses costs something like 10 UK pounds sterling or up to 15 UK pound sterling at worst.

Now, I know food prices are up everywhere. But I didn't actually do the conversion from Saudi royals to British pounds till very recently and WHAT A SHOCK IT WAS! My cheese eating accounted for, sometimes, half my weekly shopping bill. And I am only talking about a 1 kilo or 1.5 kilo piece of cheese which would last me about a week and a half. Sometimes too I tried Emmental cheese which was also delicious. So that meant two cheeses in my fridge in a given week. And I would happily sit there in the evenings just hacking bits off the cheese-of-the-night choice and eating that together with some tomatoes and peanuts or cashew nuts.

Ah, the nuts! A relatively NEW addition to my evening eating. Well I decided that after such a meal as in the hospital cafeteria every day, I would not need to eat much in the evenings. Just snacks and some orange juice and tea with milk or Earl Grey. Started this “nutty habit” quite some weeks ago now at Carrefour after a conversation with one other teacher on what he ate in the evenings. Must be two months or more since I started it. So now every time I go shopping I make sure to top up on my cashew nuts jar, peanuts jar AND my currents jar which go very nicely on top of the morning cereal. Well, I haven't used so many lately and they are rather neglected just now, but it is a good intention. A sort of DIY breakfast, and the closest to muesli that I come. But maybe I could try that too ….

No porridge here unfortunately as that involves cooking and using a saucepan and such things take up valuable time in the morning routine which comes before getting out the door to classes. Well, when you wake up most days at 6.00am there is NO WAY you want to push that back even FURTHER to wake up even EARLIER just because you need to boil yer milk for yer porridge! I am NOT losing sleep over porridge I tell you that NOW!

Ohh but I DO miss a nice bit of porridge …. with milk and sugar of course. NOT the masochistic version with water and salt. YUKKKKK!!

OK, now maybe after all that waffle it's time for some REAL news about what's been going on. Well, despite the fact that time is going nicely towards the Final Exit, things ARE still happening which DO still irritate me. You wouldn't think it possible to annoy a man who is ready to leave in just over a month's time, would you? Ahh well, so you do not know this country Saudi Arabia that I am living and working in! Never does it cease to throw up some new annoyance or irritation which drives me FURTHER into a state of AAGGHH! And never does it ever let you rest on any kind of secure routine for long before SOMETHING comes up to throw you off. Maybe it's like what riding a camel is like – seems steady for a while and then the ol' beast gets narky and refuses to budge and throws you off to the floor. Well, I've never ridden such a thing, and never intend to so it might be the smoothest ride you could have for all I know. But it's the best analogy I can come up with sitting here with a headache like I have now. Oh, and I keep looking at the clock because time is coming up to my walking and gym session which I like to do at 7pm.

Yes! I HAVE started all that again! Stopped some time ago when I had the last bout of flu and never got it started again till two weeks ago when I decided that I felt rough and that I HAD TO do something to get me out of my room and try to get fit for when I am out of here. Well, I don't go to the Recreation Centre as I did all those months ago, but I go to the other gym. It does not, you may recall, have its male time/female time restrictions as it is a male-only gym (sexist!??) but this does not mean I have to remember when the right times and days it is that I can go there. All I have to remember is that it is closed for Prayer Times (which may be a bigger irritation but at least it is predictable).

So now my 7pm routine is this:- first I go walk one circuit of the compound, next I go in the gym for 15-20 minutes and do a few machines, and lastly I go out and do one more walking circuit of the compound. This way I am not just doing the boring walking-only as before but now there is more variety. Don't ask me to name these machines, and don't ask me if it is a good gym or not. Having never been in a gym before in my LIFE before here, to me a gym is a gym.

I can describe the machines I go on. The first one I sit on and it has a stool which twists around. Both arms go over a T-stick which is the thing that pulls the weights up and down as you twist around. The stool stays still while you twist your body, and therefore it works nicely with the stomach muscles. You can adjust the chair to turn it around. So you are sitting there twisting to the left and then twisting to the right and counting as you go.

This is my favourite machine as it is the stomach area which needs most attention on me. Other machines are some kind of weight lifting machine where I sit down, put my arms over a cushioned bar, reach down and pull up and down on a bar which is attached to weights. THAT one is really hard and I can't do many of those. I always set it on something like 25kg or 32kg weights and can't manage more than ten lifts.

One more, also concentrating on arms and shoulders is where you sit down and have your arms and hands on two bars which you pull together in front of your face. Again I use the same weights as before and AGAIN this is a really hard one to do for long. The bars are initially around to your side but at head height and you pull them together and let them go back. This is a new machine in that gym.

What else? Ah, another one is a sit-down machine where you are essentially lifting a weight that is sort-of behind you. That is, you sit down and reach up and grasp the bars which are kind of at head height and slightly behind you. What you do then is, with a rocking motion, you pull the bars forwards and you with it. Therefore your arms and your back and whole is going in a kind of bowing motion forwards and back and you are sitting down. Again this is very good for stomach but is quite often in use by other people. The weights I set are more than before at something like 36kg but no more.

I used to go on the exercise bike but I found that to be too tiring. Yes, it burns up the calories but I don't particularly need leg exercise as my legs are fine as they are and it isn't the part to be exercised. The walking takes care of the legs.

Well, I was going to start on the teaching stuff in this blog entry but I think I'll stick that in its own section on its own. This part has taken up enough space.

And now it's time to go exercise. 7pm is here so see ya later!

A sad demise - ANOTHER teacher down

Sunday 3rd January 2010
OK OK maybe I should've been more coordinated and done a blog on either New Year's Eve or New Year's Day. But I'm sure you can live with that.

Got a fair bit to write about today too – mostly I have MORE about how this college and its English department is sliding faster and faster into a very wide, open and fiery-looking abyss that is not very far below.

Remember I said last time about the sacked teacher? Well, he is long gone now. HOWEVER, now we have YET ANOTHER problem. And THIS one involves an existing teacher colleague. But THIS guy is acting completely out of character, or, at least, out of character to what we know of him up until now.

The man concerned is the one who arrived about the same time as me – a week later in fact. Now, up until now he has seemed like a really good bloke, a good teacher and seemed to be the obvious choice to become the Acting Head of Department when our exiting HoD leaves at end January.

But something has happened to him. Nobody really knows what. Since arriving back from his Christmas weekend in Bahrain, his behaviour is as if somebody took his place on the journey back.

A bit of background maybe. After the summer and, also, after the November Hajj holiday he came back late to the college. The reason given was that he was ill both times and apparently it was some kind of stomach problem on each occasion. So in the first week, in both cases, his classes did not start on the Saturday as they should have. His students were informed and they had no lessons for about half a week or a week both times.

To return here late because of illness once might be unfortunate. But for the SAME THING to happen TWICE with apparently IDENTICAL reasons of illness has to raise eyebrows. Now, however, it is really NOT third time unlucky. It is, to use the old saying, true that “Trouble Always Comes In Threes”.

The other teacher he went to Bahrain with said that he was basically OK on Friday evening when they got back. He asked him, and was given a positive answer. The weekend was, apparently a good one with good food had and copious quantities of nice red wine drunk. Just what they went for!

The other teacher was there as usual on Saturday with his class. This guy was NOT.

Every day last week was the same – his class turned up as normal only to be told that they were having no lesson today. It seems that our ill colleague phoned one of us in the early morning before lessons and told us to tell the class that he would not be in today. My turn in the “telephone line” came on Tuesday. It went like this – I was in the bathroom cleaning my teeth, the phone rang, he was on the other end. He told me to “dismiss his class” for the day. I asked him what the problem was and he said it was a stomach bug and that he HAD taken Immodium but it was still not good. I asked him then if he wanted anything from the shop – he had done this for me when I was ill and obviously I wanted to return the favour. No, he said, he needed nothing and he had enough water. OK, I thought, for sure he doesn't want to eat much if his stomach is problematic. Food is the last thing a bad stomach needs.

So, the phone call was over. My impression was that he actually SOUNDED OK though he coughed a bit. Well, having a bad stomach doesn't mean you can't speak, but even so, on reflection, he didn't actually SOUND like an ill man. Well, I say this with hindsight knowing what I know now.

Anyway, I duly went in and wrote a message on the whiteboard for his class and returned to my class for my day.

He did that same thing every day last week phoning different people and getting us to go and send his class home. Now, in my case, I assumed he had already informed the HoD and the English department. I also assumed that he was going to or had already go to the doctor here. Other teachers too assumed this.

In fact, he never informed anyone in the English department the whole week.

We are into a new week. Rumours are flying, and news of him and his apparent physical and mental health are going round. I don't have all the facts to hand. But what I have heard is this: he won't let anyone in his room. Those who HAVE been to see him in his room said that it was in a real mess with non-washed up items here and there, and they said it was dirty everywhere. This is NOT the man that we know – he normally is a house-proud man who likes to enjoy where he lives.

As far as his mental health goes, he HAS been to hospital though I don't know what it was for – maybe for his stomach problem. But yesterday mid-morning he was seen COMING OUT of the ambulance outside our accommodation block. He had discharged himself from hospital. But he really looked like he didn't know WHERE he was or WHAT was going on and was “wandering around” before going back in his room. He smelt really bad too, it was said.

One thing he has said when people have asked him is that it is because his best friend died. Indeed that WOULD enough to “crack” someone in a place like this. However, his best friend died THREE MONTHS AGO! So it seems less likely that this is the CURRENT cause of his problem, though the effects of stress through such an event are unpredictable.

As I see it, his odd behaviour now and his lack of caring about his own appearance and that of his room is a sure sign of depression which may or may not be drink-related. I DO know that he had been making some kind of wine before Christmas in his room. Was it badly made? Did drinking it start him on some kind of alcoholic 'trip'? Or has something more seriously medical happened to “flip” him and make him this way?

Nobody knows. But one thing is sure as of today. He AGAIN did not come in for classes, and as far as the HoD and the Dean of the college go, that is going to be it. His state of mind is all gone, and it looks very much like he will be going home for whatever medical treatment he needs.

And then? Well, we will be YET ONE MORE teacher down! What will THAT mean? Well, until the exams are over it will mean that his class will be divided up and redistributed as happened with the previous sent-home teacher. That will push my class to around 30 students in number. They are getting hard to handle NOW – god knows how I will manage with FIVE MORE BODIES in that room. Fortunately it is a large classroom. However, other teachers have much smaller classrooms so they will have a bigger problem in terms of space.

Less than six weeks to go. And if you wanted a more eventful place to work, you wouldn't have to look further than RIGHT HERE!


UPDATE 16th January 2010
Well this is a two-part update actually.

Firstly, a few weeks after the above happened, I went to see this man with another colleague of mine from the English department. He was in the hospital but I am not sure for how long since once before he had discharged himself from it. Well, it seemed that he had been there about a week or so – perhaps our HoD insisted that he went back in soon after he had let himself out.

So how was he? Well, in the hospital room he seemed OK. I hadn't seen him in his worst state but he seemed to be fairly “with it” to me. So the three of us chatted about various things, about his treatment at the hospital and about what he was going to do in future on arrival back in his home country. And what we both noticed was this – just how 'blasé' he was about the whole thing and how he played down what had happened and the impact it had had and the serious nature of it all. Regarding BEING in hospital and the tests done on him and the condition of his health, he said that they had told him that he has the “heart of a lion”. A good sign of course. His temperature, he said, had been between 36 and 38 celsius. Not sure what to make of THAT but it sounds like quite a variation to me though he didn't say EXACTLY what it had been. He also said he had been in for heart tests, blood pressure tests and no doubt some blood tests too.

On the subject of blood tests, there is one thing he has to be aware of. If they find (as they surely WILL) that he has alcohol in his blood, then he could be in serious bother. Not only the obvious “alcohol in Muslim country” thing, but also the fact that he has this inside a military base. If they wanted, the army people could REALLY throw the book at him for THIS infraction. But probably they won't.

As far as the future went, first he said that he'd be going back to his home country and would try to get a job there. Again, blasé blasé blasé with this. He also hoped to be back in this area working. No, not in Saudi Arabia but in Oman, he hoped. And he would be back to pick up the rest of his stuff. This I did not quite get since WHERE is he going to leave all his stuff while away? I wouldn't want to leave my things in a place like this with a maybe-or-not return to collect them.

And what about his things? I seem to remember him saying (though maybe I misheard) that he was GIVING his BIG widescreen TV to the department secretary. Giving?? Maybe just for safekeeping. But those things are SERIOUSLY expensive so it's a helluva big “give” if you ask me. BUT of course there is no way he could take such a thing with him – I mean, you can't exactly pack it up and ship it out easily due to its delicate nature And its weight. And regarding his other things, he said (blasé blasé again) that he knew a place down town which dealt with freight and shipping and it was just a case of getting some boxes together and loading them up and getting them sent. OMG!! They are simply NEVER going to ARRIVE! Who on EARTH would risk sending their treasured possessions home in that way except the brave or the foolhardy?

Generally though he seemed in good spirits (NOT the drinking kind!) and was rather glad he was to be free of the place. And this brings us to what he said were his reasons for all this. The first thing he said was that he was just so SICK of the place. Well, OK, that's understood. He had been growing more and more restless and moany about things here as indeed I have. However, the difference between he and I is that I have NOT kept my troubles inside me and he HAS. In addition, he so often maintains that all is well and that nothing is a big problem. And yet WHO is the one in hospital now??

Well the three of us sat and talked about various stuff for a few hours. He kept wanting to go out for a smoke and when we were about to go he wanted to come with us to “see us off” (which actually meant going outside for a sly puff on his hidden cigs!), but we did not let him. One thing he does NOT need to do is smoke himself to death any further. And finally the end came abruptly when nurses, a trolley and a rather long syringe came in for attention his way. A good time to go!

Coming out, I asked my colleague what he made of all that. He said that it was good to see the guy with better colour in his cheeks, which I agreed with. However, I had some concerns. What had annoyed me was this – OK, I accepted that he did not like working here as he had said. But there are ways to do things and ways NOT to do things if you want to get out. And the way NOT to do things is to dump a whole lot of extra and unnecessary work on people you call your colleagues and friends. I mean, we are on enough hours as it is without the extra that would be coming our way – not to mention the extra students from his class that would now appear in all our classes making numbers up to 30 or so per class. NOT a good thing. However, one thing that puzzled me was this. WHAT was it that triggered all this off? WHY start the apparent binge drinking and non-caring thing and not-coming-to-classes-any-more thing NOW? Was it simply that he had been to Bahrain with the other colleague and had SUCH a good time that he thought, “Ach, FUCK IT ALL!”, and lost it and decided that it was enough?

So on seeing him, yes it WAS good he was alright and reasonably “compus mentus”. But I WAS left with this feeling that he had done something rather selfish. However, this feeling was a mixed one because it WAS this SAME guy who had helped ME out with going to the shops for me when I was down with flu that time. He had gone out of his way for me so surely I could take a little extra for HIM!

The difference between he and I was perhaps that I WAS back at work in about three days and he was very likely finished here for good.


UPDATE (2) also 16th January 2010
A week or so after the hospital visit I was due to take the second of the makeup classes for one of his classes. That was a big mess in itself due to the information given to me being wrong in terms of days and times (pretty fundamental things!). But anyway, on the second of the days of makeup classes, there I was waiting for his class to come. I had had them the previous day, and a cheeky bunch they were too. They had me doing the same pages as he had already done, and the aim was just to check out if I would give the same answers as they'd already had. On THAT score I failed miserably, and doubly so when I tried, on the spot, to rattle off a bunch of rules about which prefixes to use with which adjectives from a choice of un- in- im- ir- ab- dis- and others. Obviously I don't carry such rules in my head but I suppose I wanted to look like I knew what I was doing. BAD IDEA!

So anyway, thee I was waiting for the second appearance of this class and I went up to the end of the corridor to see if they were coming as they were late. And THERE he was – our hospitalised friend coming in to the English department (for some reason). Shook hands and told him I was waiting for his class and told him about the previous day's lesson and what they had done. Well, with a wry smile on his face, he acknowledged that they had really wound me up something rotten and I had been stitched up like a kipper! Yeah, well I figured that! He pointed out in the book what I could be doing and then also said that they never come on this lesson day anyway.

OK so we both went down to the English department again. He sat down and wanted a pen to write on a piece of paper with so I gave it him. So we got talking. “Oh,” he said, “now what did I want to do?”, and he looked around for the piece of paper which WAS in his hand. A bit odd. Anyway we were talking about how he was and what had happened. Turns out that he has had some condition which he called a, “chemical imbalance in the brain”, for the last twenty years or so. “Does it have a name?”, I discretely enquired, and the name he gave was, quite simply, AGORAPHOBIA.

Well …. of ALL the people and ALL the things, I did NOT expect HIM of all people to have THAT sort of thing. I mean, WHAT an environment to be in with a condition like THAT! He said he had been alright generally speaking until Bahrain when he felt it coming on again. Seems he is somehow able to suppress it or it just comes and goes or something like that. So he said it had started again at and after Bahrain and, it seems, THAT had been that.

I have not experienced many people with agoraphobia, but one thing is for sure. If you get it, it is VERY difficult to leave your home. And the way he described the fear, the putting off of going out that he had done in the past, the pacing up and down the corridor trying to ready himself to go out in his times in Warsaw, Poland.

So if you have a combination of agoraphobia and a nice Christmas holiday weekend in Bahrain AND a nice stock of home-made booze to quaff, then YOU GOT TROUBLE!

NOW I understood better what he was all about and why this had happened.

It was not anything malicious or pre-meditated or selfish as I insinuated previously. I take that back completely. Just a man who has hidden himself from view for years, a man who has tried to beat a phobia which very many people DO have, and LASTLY a man who finally had come unstuck.

A lesson we can ALL learn from this I think!


UPDATE (3) 29th January 2010
Well THIS is the most incredible thing for me, but the fact is that HE IS STAYING! No no, not at THIS college but he is hoping to get another job in ANOTHER insitution of some kind in this town.

I mean, can you WORK OUT this guy? What he says is that he has "no problem with Saudi Arabia", but that it is the COLLEGE that WAS the problem!

I don't understand it! Was it not Saudi Arabia that put him in hospital? And HOW can he separate the country from the workplace?

Surely he will still have the need for "a drink", and WHAT THEN?

I'm not even sure I buy what he said on his so-called agoraphobia now. Surely THAT still remains in this vast open desert kingdom.

The last I heard was last week when he said he was going for "an interview" with another college or something in the town of Khobar which is the closest one to where we are now. Oh, and he also has some crazy "dream" about his new accommodation which is in the centre. He pointed out the "block" he is to be in if things go well. Says he knows someone who rents in there and the price is low. I reckon it is an unfurnished place, and WHAT WILL HE DO THEN? Will he take things so "light" when he has to buy furniture too? And the block itself looks like a tall, blue, glass-faced margarine-tub shape! Maybe it's better inside though.

He also said a couple of other things which were quite revealing and are surely closer to the main reason(s) why he is choosing to stay here. Firstly, he is nearly 58 years old. Let's face it, at such an age the number of places that will take you on for a teaching job (or ANY job) now is pretty limited, and that is especially so in Europe. Better stick it out here in that case. And secondly, he has been talking more recently about what he calls his "social life" here. OK, you can read what you want into that, but he is also a man who is very much "in the closet" if you know what I mean, and one also who is slowly but surely "coming out".

Such things are rather frowned on here. In fact, they are more than just "frowned on" but they are illegal. I don't know exactly what it is he has "found" here, but last week when he, I and another colleague went into town together in the taxi, only the two of us returned .... WITHOUT him! So draw your own conclusions about what this "social life" is. I just hope he is careful.