Some of you might think that I am in Cyprus, right now, but I'm not. I'm on my couch. I will self-plagiarize an email I wrote to Curie earlier today to explain:
I canceled my trip. I just don't feel motivated/up to it. I think that there have been a lot of emotionally-draining things to deal with over the past few weeks (not like destructive things, but more like just THINGS occupying my emotional energy -- law school aps, your surgery, missing my family [for once! lol]) and I don't have a lot left to get excited about Cyprus. I also think (and I think if you borrow my LP Cyprus guide you'd agree) Cyprus is like THE ideal country for you and I to take 10 days and rent a car and go all over. A lot of the best UNESCO/World Heritage church frescoes are unreachable without private cars, as are some of the best hiking spots. It just felt a little forced, and not like a great trip that I was pumped about that was coming together. I'd also be missing a few academic responsibilities (meetings etc.) that I should really be here for, and that by NOT missing I'll be less stressed and not trigger the "I'm stressed and therefore paralyzed and can't do the work necessary to de-stress myself" reaction.
So there you have it. I'm in Cairo, and more or less nipping my responsibilities in the bud -- including this blog.*
By way of apologizing to some of my most valued friends who have recently emailed me, I am aware that I have been out of touch, but I am in the process of snapping out of it. Since I don't have the energy, right now, to blog about the many things on my list**, but I want to make some token gesture of connecting with my loved ones (you people), I'm printing my schedule for tomorrow (fun, right?). Please note that I don't include the personal/social things I have to do (like writing emails to you!) because that stresses me out and distracts me when making the schedule. Enjoy :)
VC
Sunday (30 October)
8:00 – 9:00 Wakeup, cleanup
9:00 – 11:00 Prepare for MEST 570
11:00 Pay Vodafone bill (check on deposit)
12:00 Request transcript from Registrar (and FedEx if available)
1:00 – 4:00 Prepare for MEST 570
4:00 – 5:00 MEST 570
5:00 – 7:30 Gym (purchase moisturizer)
8:00 – 10:00 Haircut & Dinner (call dentist)
Life List
(A) Go to Registrar for transcript
(A) FedEx transcript (if available)
(B) Get haircut
(B) Pay Vodafone bill
(B) Buy moisturizer
(C) Call dentist
Work to submit
(A) MEST 570 Week 8 Reaction Paper
(B) MEST 570 Work Plan
(B) MEST 570 Week 9 Reaction Paper
Evening work
(A) Proposal for MESC honours
(A) HIST 542 Week 9 Reading
(A) HIST 542 Reaction Paper
Predictions: Vodafone will hassle me about deposit refund or will not be open at 11AM; transcript will not be readily available; hot guy from gym will see me pre-haircut (but I cannot put off the gym any longer for this reason!); good haircut guy won’t be there; will fail at 25th attempt to call dentist.
Reminders for Monday (31 October): Get stipend, Crew meeting (3:00), Iftar & Movie (4:00-7:00), HIST 542 (7:00-9:00)
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* This is not a "responsibility" in that I'm not obliged, and I don't find it a pain at all, but more like it means something to me and rises to responsibility status because of its importance/functional value.
**A Word document called "Stupid Blog," which is a spin-off of the "Stupid Gmail" document that I created when my computer started randomly re-starting every few days, losing all unsaved info, leading me to misplace my frustration with my Stupid Toshiba [which I actually really like, for the most part] onto my email and blog accounts in the document titles of their backups) (<--how's THAT for a convoluted parenthetical!?) ++++++++++++++++++++++++ UPDATE
Well my schedule ended up being a total joke. It's 5:30PM and, only 6 hours into my awake day, I have to say that the turn of events today has been quite humorous. Start with: me waking up at 11:30 instead of 8:00, panicking, then reading the email sent to me at 7:45AM from my MEST 570 professor that she wanted to cancel our meeting and push everything back until 6 November. Phew (weird how that worked out, right?). This gave me a little wiggle room to go get cash for the cleaning lady (we actually call them "maids" in Cairo, but I'd imagine that's quite jarring to my American audience), sing a little of my favourite new Destiny's Child power ballad, "Stand Up for Love" (to be blogged-about soon enough), and take care of my Vodafone bill.
A note on Vodafone: that I only had to call seven times (two real calls and five disconnected calls while on hold), and the whole process only took half an hour, is a *miracle*. Seriously. There were the predictable frustrations (eg: them shutting off my phone, then telling me that to get it turned back on and pay my bill I'd have to dial a number on my phone that you can't dial unless your phone is NOT shut off), but the people were actually helpful and understanding, and I'm quite thankful that it wasn't the nightmare I thought it would be.
Enter the Registrar's Office: The AUC Registrar is a witch -- she is actually one of the most unpleasant human beings I have ever met, and I have no shame in telling her so. I wanted to get my Degree Audit Report officially printed and signed (the format of the actual "Transcript" I don't like), and she kept refusing, with brilliant Cairene logic:
VC: I'd like to get a copy of my Degree Audit printed and signed, please.
Evil Witch Registrar (EWR): We don't do that. It's not a document. You can print it yourself.
VC: I understand, but I would like official confirmation that the information on my Degree Audit is authentic.
EWR: No. It's not a document.
VC: I understand "no" and I understand "It's not a document," but I don't understand why?
EWR: We only print and sign things that can be forged, and you can't forget your Degree Audit. You print it from your online account, and we would print it the same way you would.
VC: Great, then please print it on AUC paper, sign it, and give it to me.
EWR: No. We don't do that. It's not a document.
At this point, after having patiently tolerated her snotty and exasperated demeanor for a full 90 seconds, I broke:
VC: Every time I have met with you, you are extremely argumentative, and I don't know why.
EWR: I'm argumentative?
VC: Yes. Every time I've met with you, you've been very argumentative.
EWR: I don't believe I've ever met you before.
VC: I HAVE met you before.
EWR: Well if I was argumentative then you must have said something to make me this way.
She is seriously 1.6 meters and 60 kilos of PURE witch. I'm still not sure how I will resolve this situation, but tomorrow I will go to the director of grad student affairs (who is AMAZING) and hopefully she can help me.
Interestingly, to get anything from the Registrar's office, you need to first have whatever you need paid for (with a stamped receipt) from a separate Cashier's office (which is also where I get paid) which closes at (I can hardly type it without feeling furious) 1PM! How they manage these long work days (4 whole hours!), I really don't know. So I was not able to get my pay, or my stamp, or make any progress with the Registrar.
I then decided to make myself feel better by rushing over to visa services to get my new passport a valid Egyptian residency visa. I sort of knew that they'd hassle me about being in the country "illegally" (your entry visa is good for 1 month + 14 days grace, and I arrived in September), but the stupid thing with AUC is that *they* (not the government) enforce visa fines that, if I just went to the airport and they saw my visa, they wouldn't enforce. I violated the stay period THREE times last year (and showed them this, today, in the office) and never paid a fine, but since today I wanted AUC's help with a SEPERATE issue (my residency status), they wanted the cash. In the end, I think that it's probably a matter of them going to the government and facing harsher rules than I face, as a foreigner, when I deal with them at the airport or elsewhere, so when they apply for me thay actually DO need the fee, but I hate (HATE!)* the inconsistency. I should also blog, at some point, about the shady HIV test requirement that they have -- basically (like in many countries in the region) that you can't live here (as a foreigner) if you are HIV+. Obviously there are a ton of issues, there, that I won't get into, now, but the really odd part is that this rule is, again, enforced at the level of the institution (eg: it's AUC that asks for my HIV test, not the Egyptian government). I sent them one when I originally applied from NYC, and when they lost it refused to get another test here (although I was tested for my OWN knowledge again in the States, later on), and my best friend, here (aka: Bombay Puppy, perhaps referred to before as Desi) refused, as a professor, to get the test, and he (like me) still EVENTUALLY got his visa (in other words: maybe my giving AUC the benefit of the doubt that it just has to deal with more bureaucracy than we see first-hand is not actually the case). Anyway, I'm now passportless for 10 days, and am a little sad that my new passport will lose its visa virginity to Egypt (the residency sticker is nowhere near as cool as, say, the sticker for Iran, or India), but what can I do?
Then I went to meet Shakira at Bon Apetit (a cafe where you can see, on a near-daily basis, the hilarious phenomenon of French tourists wearily stumbling in, hoping that it's ACTUALLY French, only to find out that the only thing French about the place is the name and the unpleasant waiters). Everything was going FINE -- I got them to give me the bug spray so that I could, myself, spray the entire sitting area, wipe down my own table, and clean the chairs (hey if you want it done right, I've learned, you have to do it yourself, because seeing tables covered in bird droppings and feeding flies just doesn't seem to encourage the waiters to clean!), which I was not AT ALL annoyed by (seriously, I was just glad to have it done by someone, even if it was me) -- until the bill came. Keep in mind that I tip RIDICULOUSLY for Egypt (like borderline insane with how big I tip) *and* I go to this place at least 3-4 times per week. The peach iced tea is made with water and peach packets, and is really week, so I ask for "extra peach" (2 packets, instead of one) and always do this (sometimes they mess up and only give one, but usually the drinks guy, who knows what I like, uses two, and looks expectantly at me for approval when I take my first sip -- glad that he cares about his work product!), and they ALWAYS charge me just for a regular peach iced tea. Today, ordering two of these "strong" ones, I was charged for 4 iced teas. Now, had this always been the case -- had it been that the first time, weeks ago, that I first ordered extra iced tea, the waiter said: "Chunk, we'll charge you double, but we can do it" then I'd have made an informed decision, but the LACK OF A CONSISTENT SYSTEM, which today surprised me with 4 iced tea charges, infuriates me. I got in a huge fight with a waiter, who (and I HATE THIS) tried to tell me that I was wrong about what I knew to be a fact: that this was NOT the first day that I'd ordered it with two packets (another waiter later confirmed this). I don't have a problem with the money, but I have a problem with these waiters vehemently defending THEIR (incorrect) understanding of what happened, when what they SHOULD be focused on (especially since it's not like the peach packets are taken out of their salary) is a regular and generous customer being happy. It's an impulse that they can't control, though, to argue, and I'm totally fed up with it.
I then go to the stationers/copy center (where I'm totally crushing on one of the brothers who owns the place and who I think, in another life, would reciprocate my crush -- I mean he reciprocates, but we don't act on it), got index cards and a new notebook for Arabic (tutoring starts in 8 November), and got a copy of Shakira's passport to fax to customs (which requires a photocopy of her passport faxed to them because they'd decided to confiscate the contact lenses that her mother FedExed to her), because I was going to the Hyatt to workout and buy moisturizer (per my schedule).
I walked to the GH, but when I got there EVERY shop (and the hair salon, which I was thinking of going to instead of my regular place) was closed, so I was only able to send the fax and nothing else (note: the hairdresser's is run by Lebanese Christians and definitely did NOT need to close for the Muslim iftar). Wanting to enjoy the afternoon sunset, knowing that traffic was impossible and I couldn't get a taxi, and hoping to burn some calories and release some steam, I walked all the way to my hair salon in Zamalek, which closed literally at the moment that I arrived at the door.
I failed to get my transcript (let alone mail it), get my pay, buy moisturizer, get my haircut, or go to the gym, and on top of that I had extremely unpleasant confrontations with the Registrar and a group of waiters.
Sometimes (and this is acknowledging that I *allow* myself to be stressed about these things) I really don't know how long I can last, here. I'm not depressed, or even all that angry, but I'm just tired of EVERY DAY encountering problems. I'm not a problematic guy, and as I think my friends from NYC (or even Kabul) can swear by, I am capable of having a day-to-day life that is free of frustration and problems...just not in Cairo.
It's now 6PM, and I am going to relax until 7 (when everything opens again, after the break-fast) by watching tennis and doing Arabic vocab cards. At 7, I will go to get my haircut, then go to the gym (which will make me feel ONE THOUSAND times better about my day), and then come home, where I will work on HIST 542 for tomorrow, and probably order pizza (at least I'm realistic! lol).
VC
PS: Per my gluco/insulin imbalanced existence in Cairo, and what I believe to be rapid mood swings that it induces (sugar level plummets after not having eaten all day, processed starch/sugar consumed -- cookies, pizza, etc. -- level spikes, hyper euphoria ensues, energetic for a few hours until level plumments again), I'm feeling less awful than I was 30 minutes ago, and am just looking forward to my haircut and seeing my pookie and friends and family again ASAP in the US.
*Hate, as a faithful reader of stuning South Asian beauty, is a very strong word, and we normally do not use it (we also don't use "ugly"), but in this case I'm defining hate as: "an emotional directed not at a person, but a system, that renders the world less efficient and more unjust," which is, I think, an acceptable usage.