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!