YAY!

I'm leaving earlier than planned today, because the road to Sana'a was closed yesterday since a storm washed it out for part of the day. Apparently it caused some major problems in some villages, so we don't want to get stuck ourselves. L is going to walk me around the Old City in Sana'a today, and that should be interesting.

I'LL BE HOME SOON!!!!

Dragging

Despite the little victory last night, and the ensuing happy dance, I was *wiped out* this morning. It is fortunate, indeed, that I start my journey home tomorrow, and I think I will be sleeping almost the entire time. As it is, doing something more active than staring off into space is tricky.

So, do you know what’s embarrassing? Having someone come in to see you shortly after you’ve fallen stone-cold asleep at your desk. Oops.

I’m sitting in my hotel room now, and it’s almost completely packed up. I’m sure that I’ll have to do a little reshuffling when I get to the hotel in Sana’a tomorrow night, but it’s kind of strange to see it without my books and pictures and the things I brought to make it look slightly more homey. But, since I never confused it with “home”, I think I’ll get over it.

In 48 hours, I’ll be sitting in a hotel room in Dubai, getting ready to head back to the airport and hop on a plane to New York. Finally.

Warm Fuzzies

Wow, I just can't wait to come back here. Well, at least I still get two weeks at home.

Argh...

I have to admit to feeling a little demoralized this morning. I have been reviewing the work I’ve been doing with TL and it *still* needs a lot of revisions. I understand that I’m still learning, that I’ve never done this before, all of that – but I keep hoping that there will come a point where I’ll catch on, and discussing things like methodology for land use predictions won’t have me saying (repeatedly): “Wait, this doesn’t make any sense to me, I don’t understand what you’re basing this on…” and things like that.

I realize that this is, essentially, vanity, because I don’t like feeling stupid, and I don’t like not knowing how to do things. But let’s indulge my intellectual vanity for a bit, shall we?

It’s good that I like what I do, although I’d like a word with my cruise director these days, but this has me realizing just how much I still have to learn, and sometimes it really is like pulling teeth. TL is, for the most part, very patient with me, but sometimes he gives me a look as if to say “how can you not understand this?”, which is frustrating, because I’m usually thinking the same thing.

~~~~~~~~

As an update to the above, I have just finished doing a happy dance because I *finally* figured out how to do what TL was trying to explain to me! (This particular happy dance involves a haphazard combination of the Cabbage Patch, the meringue, random jumping up and down, and a little booty shaking.) The problem earlier was that he made too many guesses for me to understand, but NOW I can predict future land needs based on actual numbers that I figured out myself – which means I’ll actually be able to support and explain what I’m going to be predicting! I realize that this makes me either look like a total geek or someone who has totally lost her mind. However, since both are completely true, I’d say it presents an accurate picture.

This has made me *so* happy that I’ve almost forgotten about the agony of trying to edit something I received from someone today. Someone who didn’t know that you don’t use the first person in formal writing. Or that you don’t use en dashes where you should use commas (seriously – I had to correct 30 pages of that). Or that “not negligible” is not the most “not illiterate” sounding way to say “significant” in the context in which it was used. Or that you don’t selectively (and, apparently, randomly) bold words and phrases for emphasis in formal writing because your words alone should convey your meaning, and things that add a conversational tone are inappropriate.

Hey – I said almost.

And tomorrow night I get to do something *awesome* - pack to go home!!

Ooh…I feel another happy dance coming on. If you’ll excuse me…

(As a p.s., I told TL about my major accomplishment, and he wasn't nearly as excited as I was. But that's okay, I know *you* guys are proud of me, right...?)

How 'Bout That?

I was sitting in my room this evening, working away, when I heard a knock at the door. I was fairly certain it wasn’t TL, because despite his boisterous voice, he’s quite a timid knocker – perhaps he’s afraid that I’ll be sleeping and he’ll wake me up? I don’t know. But the point is, it was a loud knock and I knew it wasn’t him. I heard an unfamiliar voice in the hallway say something unintelligible, and opened the door. Well, what he was saying was “night service!”, because apparently, the hotel does a turn-down service at night, complete with a yummy little chocolate. Well, I took the chocolate and turned down the offer of turn-down service, but I just thought that was funny. I have, thus far, stayed at this hotel for a grand total of nine weeks. This is the first time I was aware that they did this. Have I mentioned before that service is a little inconsistent sometimes?

However, given the other options in town, I am very glad to have this hotel option, and I am also very glad that the staff here has been, without fail, very nice and friendly and accommodating. Makes it a little easier to be here.

It’s almost 11 pm and I’m writing a pilot zoning ordinance. Who wishes they were me??? Since I’m getting sleepy, I’ve got my glasses on. I can see just fine without them, but they’re nice to have when my eyes get tired. Plus, I look cute in them. Not that I really want anyone here to notice that, I suppose.

I’ll stop talking now. The sleep deprivation is doing all the talking for me anyway.

What’s that, you say? How many days until I’m home? Well, I’m glad you asked! FIVE DAYS!!!

Not that I’m excited or anything.

Just In Case

Just in case I was starting to get the idea that maybe I’ve been unnecessarily uncomfortable and that things aren’t that bad here, I got a nice little reminder today of why that’s not true. Getting into the car to head to lunch, I saw a man out of the corner of my eye. He was driving a car, but was leaning out the driver’s side window to stare at me. Whatever – a lot of people stare, I just try to ignore it. But then, he started yelling at me. He actually stopped his car in the middle of the street to yell at me – some things were questions, some weren’t, judging by his inflection, but none of it sounded remotely pleasant. Everyone in the car was trying to ignore it, but L almost grazed the car in front of us trying to get away quickly once everyone was in. So much for trying to be positive – that kind of ruined my attempts for the day. Thank GOD I leave for Sana’a on Wednesday.

I heard from a friend in Karachi today – apparently things aren’t too great there, either. Although, as weird as this will sound, from a personal life perspective, I’d rather be there than here. At least there I had some friends, I had a kitchen, and I could get out of the house. Here, it’s the office and the hotel and that’s about it. It’s hard to say which place is more dangerous – I think that has a lot to do with the particular area of the country in question and the current political climate – it’s probably a toss-up. But the professional aspects of life here far exceed those of Pakistan – so I suppose this is better in terms of future benefits I might realize. But I have to admit, it sure would be nice to hop in a car with Lois and head down to Okra for dinner, complete with our bottle of wine that they’d serve us in a teapot.

Never really thought I’d hear myself say that I’d rather be in Pakistan. Although, that’s probably got something to do with the fact that I never thought I’d be sent to Yemen.

It’s getting to be that time, though. That time when I’m up late, getting up early, and working, working, working. Or at least trying to. Unfortunately, this “everythingneedstobedonenow” rush that tends to come shortly before departure also coincides with a major case of “oh look! A shiny object!” I will almost go out of my way to procrastinate – I swear it’s a pathological thing. I know I’m only making it harder for myself. I really, really, really do know that.

Does that change anything? Um…no.

I suppose, then, that I’ll sleep on the plane.