It's the Final Countdown

We had two people arrive, one is an economist from my office who is French, and the other is an Indian economist from our Delhi office. It’s been fun, actually, because it’s only natural for him and D to speak to each other in French, and since I’ve been spending the morning with the two of them, it has provided ample opportunities for me to practice my language skills. I’m actually kind of happy with how much I’ve been able to follow. My spoken French is still lacking, mostly for things like vocabulary and verb conjugation, mais j’espere que, si j’avias les occasions pour pratiquer, je souvien beaucoups des mots! Plus, I have always wanted to be fluent in more than one language, and since I have so much French under my belt, I think it’s a good place for me to start. N’est-ce pas?

I went running last night, and after watching some TV with D (it’s so sad, but we’re both hooked on that “Rockstar: INXS” show, *cringe, cringe*), I went for a swim, which was great – very much a fan of the swimming at night thing. I woke up with a start at 6 am today, when, in the middle of some random dream, the phrase “I’m leaving tomorrow!” popped into my head. All of a sudden, my head was just abuzz with everything. My attempts to go back to sleep were fruitless, so I gave up after about 30 minutes. I’ve got a list of things I have to do before I leave today, and I have a feeling that it will fly by. P, the French economist, and I are probably going to grab some dinner tonight, but since he got in at 4 am, it’s not likely to be a late evening, which gives me plenty of time to pack. Ever since the countdown started in my head, things have been moving faster and faster, it seems.

I e-mailed Lois to tell her when I’d be back in Karachi, and she promptly made dinner reservations for the following evening, and we’re going to a cricket game on Sunday, after some leisurely time spent lounging by the pool – I can’t wait! I have to say, were I to go back to Pakistan, the one really good thing would be getting to hang out with people like Lois and Faruq and Samina, they’re so much fun to spend time with. I’m also going to make some time to see Faruq and Samina, while I’m there. So hurrah for that! But since I haven’t been putting in my time by the pool nearly so much since I’ve been here, my tan has faded considerably, and I might, once again, be “practically blue.” (Although I prefer the description “clear” to “blue”.) Well, it’s not exactly something about which I’m going to get overly concerned. I’m sure that I’ve done enough sun damage to my skin over the last 29 years, no need to heap more on.

I never watched “Starsky and Hutch” when I was a kid – in fact, I don’t even know when it was on, so I can’t tell if I never watched it because we were in another country, or because I was too young. Or not born yet, which would, I suppose, constitute being way too young. In any event, because I never watched it, I know nothing about the characters, except possibly their names. I know that there was a character called Huggy Bear – yes? Well, from what I understand, he was always coming up with clever ideas. The reason I can conclude this is because D’s friends apparently call her this sometimes. But what is funny is when she’ll have a good thought and I’ll say something to that effect, she says “You see? ‘Uggy Bear!” and then says something in French. Never fails to make me laugh.

Today is a weird day – in some ways I’m super focused on the things I need to get done. And in other ways, I am totally in my own little world, with my brain in about 44 different places. Part of it is daydreaming, part of it is worrying about this project, part of it is hoping that all of my travels are as uneventful as possible, and part of it is looking out at the lovely view I have from my window.

I did, however, manage to check off everything on my “to do” list for today. I’m quite impressed with that, to be honest. Hurrah!

I went for a swim tonight, and now it’s time to pack everything up. I’m trying to figure out how to fit everything in my bags…wish me luck!!!