Category: odds and ends

I’ve changed my website again. The home page is still at isaharr.com, but now it’s just a navigation page to the other blogs. You can get to the Blogging in Yemen page directly by going to http://www.isaharr.com/blog/page27.php.

I have decided to separate out my Blogging in Yemen from my general ramblings. I’m going to strip out the general stuff and put it in the new one that will now be found at www.isaharr.com. I’m not exactly sure what’s going to happen with the RSS feeds, so those of you using those, you might want to go to the new home page (which will be up soonish) and redo the rss settings in your readers… We’ll see how this goes.

I’m going to my cousin’s wedding up in Connecticut so I won’t have good internet access until after the 4th. It should be great up there, looking forward to seeing the family and a great wedding. I’ll be back soon!

I am indeed back, and things are fine, very fine indeed. I’m still walking around in bit of a daze over how easy everything is here. I am soaking up the quiet. I haven’t heard a horn since I got back, I told Rick that I couldn’t believe how quiet the traffic was, even when we hit a backup on 95.

I weighed myself on the same scale I had been weighing myself when I was fighting for weight loss. On my first day back, I came in at 193.5 pounds. That’s from my heaviest of 237 on thanksgiving 2 years ago. I’m pretty happy about that but I’m worrying quite a bit about a “bounce” since I got back. I’ll just have to watch myself and keep the weight under control.

What else… Haven’t really seen anyone yet. I will miss Olga, I won’t be back up to DC in time before she leaves, have a good trip! I think I’ll be spending time down here in Gloucester/Matthews for a while, not really sure when I’ll head back up to DC.

Anyway, I hope to get out of my daze sooner than later and get back to writing. If all goes well, I’ll be writing quite a lot over the coming weeks, not all of it will make it to this blog though. Mom pointed out that the title of my blog doesn’t really make any sense anymore. I’m going to leave this blog as it is I think, but I’ll probably add a new one, or maybe several. We’ll see how it goes… Right now, I’m going to eat something and then go over to dad’s later. I’ll blog more in a couple of days…

I’ve noticed someone from Pittsburg is hitting my site quite a bit. That’s good, but I wonder…. I have only really known one person from Pittsburgh, John Carson. John and I hung out quite a bit in college. We sorta, kinda kept in touch for a few years and then he fell off the face of the earth. I always figured that he’d move back to Pittsburgh, he loved that place. Anyway, John, if that’s you, drop me a line. All of us have been wondering what the hell happened to you and there’s more than a little worry floating around. If it isn’t John, could you ask around Pittsburgh and see if you can find out what happened to him?:-)

This is driving me crazy. I’m tired all day, but I can’t sleep at night. I figured that I was settling into a good old fashioned depression, but things are looking up. I went to get my work schedule for the new term the other day. Initially, they only had one class for me. Going to one class from two would have cut my money in half and I think that I would have had every right to go into a funk over that. Surprisingly, I didn’t. As cranky as I’ve been, I actually looked on the bright side and decided to make good use of my extra time, somehow…

As it turns out, they got me another class to teach and that made me even happier. I guess that’s good, it means that I’m not actually depressed, things do cheer me up. On the other hand, now I don’t have a good explanation for my sleep/tiredness issues…

My schedule of trying to go to Arabic class everyday and then rushing down to work just wasn’t working. I wasn’t getting any homework done and I wasn’t showing up to class a lot of times. So I decided to change things around a little and see if i can get more Arabic done. I now do not go to Arabic class during the week. Instead, I will go to class for 5 hours on thursday. Now that’s a lot of Arabic all at once, but i think I can now handle it. I’m not really getting much accomplished in my 2 hour classes anyway, I hope that an extended time in class will allow some more in depth studies. I’ll also be starting at 11 in the morning, that’ll help both my ability to get to class and my ability to think once I’m there.

On addition, during the week that I have off from work each month, I will go to class for 4 hours a day. This all seems like a good idea now, we’ll see what I think about it after my first 5 hour day tomorrow…

Ugh, I got a rather nasty GI thing the other night. It had all of the usual things you expect with that kind of illness along with a fever and being incredibly weak. I seem to be over it now, but my stomach is still a bit queezy. I thought it was something I ate, but Ryan and I had the same food and he was fine. I must have just picked something up from somewhere. It’s a miricle I don’t get them more often, hygine here is rather questionable at best… Anyway, I’m feeling much better now, hopefully it’ll be a while before my next go round with that sort of thing.

Both Tami and Karl have left. This was Karl’s second tour here, we’ve always enjoyed each other’s company and we love talking with one another. I’m missing you again Karl! Tami is the person that I have been closest to during this entire stay in Yemen. I am now quite literally wondering what I am going to do here. We were always together, now she’s in Seattle. I’m beyond bummed. With any luck we’ll meet up again, Seattle is a nice place, right?:-) Tami, you’re on my mind, and you’ve had a really big impact on me. How am I going to do all of this stuff by myself? SIGH, I guess some people do actually get on with their life, I might have to do that myself one day…

Karl, let me know what you think about the election. Tami, I hope you remember Yemen fondly, and good luck with your classes!