I'd first like to apologize for abandoning my blog recently. I've been so busy the last few weeks and I never felt like I had anything substantial to talk about since my daily life here is fairly mundane. However, now I have a desk job with very few job responsibilities so I have a surplus of time on my hands to write. Lucky you. :)
Yes, I am finally working. My seven month job hiatus left me extremely bored and lazy so I decided to pick up a temporary job at Fiance M's work where I am replacing a girl going on maternity leave. I am working at the Australian College of Kuwait in their business department and I am an Administrative Supervisor. Therefore, I'm a supervising secretary haha. All the secretarial work is done by the secretary under me and I basically do the special registration cases (for the failing students), make sure the senior students have their graduation requirements done, deal with sick notes, staff leave, etc. It's a nice little buffet of administrative duties which I can glorify and expand on my resume to make it sound like something worthwhile. But to be honest, I really enjoy the job. I am working with foreigners (Australians, English, and Americans mainly) and it is nice to be back among my peeps. I also really enjoy administrative organizational work so this job is fun for me. Plus, my duties really only take up about 30 minutes of my day so I spend the remaining 7 1/2 hours facebooking, looking for new recipes, reading other blogs (baking blogs are my favorite), and talking to fellow staff members. Pretty cool eh? I'm not getting paid much (about $1500 a month) but I go and come with Fiance M so I don't have to deal with transportation and it covers my rent and gives me something to do with my life!
Speaking of the fiance, yesterday was Valentine's Day and it was the first Valentine's Day we've actually had together! As they say here, bakeer!!! (which sarcastically means early or finally) Fiance M let me pick the place for dinner so naturally I chose Maki which is my favorite sushi restaurant since I haven't had sushi in so long. When we arrived, there was a huge bouquet of white lilies wrapped in lavender and pink paper (my favorite colors and one of my favorite flowers) on the table waiting for me. Apparently, the fiance had left work during the day and arranged this ahead of time. If you know my fiance, you know this is quite an impressive task since it involves planning which he usually leaves for me to do hahahahaha. But anyway, it was an amazing surprise and an amazing dinner and amazing day.
I've had quite a few orders for my sweet shop over the past month which has given me something to do and make some extra money on the side. So many people have asked me to open a shop but I refuse because I don't want to stay here permanently or even for an extended period of time. However, it has given me confidence that I do have a talent and I could pursue this when I finally get back to America.
Speaking of the land of the free and the home of the brave (yes, clearly I have more talent remembering lyrics than Christina Aguilera...which made headlines even here), we received an email from the Embassy last week. Don't get excited. The email said something like this:
"Dear Mr. _____,
Please send us a history of your travels for the past ten years.
Sincerely,
PIECE OF SH** Department of Doo Doo"
Well the ending was a little embellishment of mine but needless to say Fiance M has been busy this last week preparing the 176 travel entries that he has from three of his past passports (since it goes back to 2001 and Lebanese passports are renewed every 5 years). We just finished it now and are waiting for final approval from our attorney. Our attorney made a few edits and also told us that based on how much travel Fiance M has done in the past ten years, it is probably the reason why the background check is taking so long. But I can't really think this is a bad thing because in the end, Fiance M did obtain visas from all of these countries and we have explained in detail the reason for each trip (harmless). I just hope this is a sign that they are indeed working on our visa and may be closer to finishing the background check.
I was reading a magazine here at work yesterday and came upon an article about a champion bike rider who conveniently has the exact same name of my fiance and is also of Lebanese origin and also residing in Kuwait. Also, there is a commercial on TV here of a guy who won a car from one of the local networks from Saudi Arabia with the exact same name as my fiance. If there are two blatant forms of this in my face everyday, I wonder how many other men have the same name as my fiance which is causing such a ruckus. Moral of the story....NEVER EVER name your child Mohammad....EVER. We can't change last names, but seriously....his name is more common than the equivalent of John Smith or Jesus Garcia in Albuquerque. BAHAHAHHAHAHA.
Devil Puppy is doing well. He has been spending time alone and hasn't chewed anything so I see this as progress. Furthermore I am working to break him of his barking habit...which is SO annoying when you are sleeping and he decides to hear something....anything which he deems as threatening.
Fiance M's nephew's first birthday was this past week which was fun. I taught him how to blow out candles so that was really cute. I made brownie cupcakes (a favorite of Boston Best Friend D and Fiance M) and they were a huge hit. We bought him a little baby tricycle that he can strap into and he really enjoyed riding around on it. He still doesn't know many words but sticks to "Bah," "Na (He calls his mom Nana, her nickname," "Ma," and "Mai" (word for water in Arabic). The other day I was with Fiance M's mom and playing with the nephew and he spotted a banana (one of his favorite foods) and pointed at it and screamed...literally yelled "BAH NA NA" and Fiance M's mom and I looked at each other and couldn't believe he put that together. So that was cute. It also made me think of my sister...whom I used to rhyme her name with this fruit (which she never appreciated).
My birthday is coming up next week and Fiance M has made plans to eat with our friends at our favorite steak restaurant called Meat Co. It is a South African high-end steak restaurant and all the servers and staff are South African and they play the bongos for your birthday so naturally we are excited haha. I'll let you know how the bongo experience goes.
Well that's about all that happened in the last month (minus news about my little trip to Cairo during the beginning of the Egyptian uprising...which I'll post an entry for later).
Happy belated Valentine's Day to all of my friends and family and readers.
With love and peace from the Middle East,
R
Yes, I am finally working. My seven month job hiatus left me extremely bored and lazy so I decided to pick up a temporary job at Fiance M's work where I am replacing a girl going on maternity leave. I am working at the Australian College of Kuwait in their business department and I am an Administrative Supervisor. Therefore, I'm a supervising secretary haha. All the secretarial work is done by the secretary under me and I basically do the special registration cases (for the failing students), make sure the senior students have their graduation requirements done, deal with sick notes, staff leave, etc. It's a nice little buffet of administrative duties which I can glorify and expand on my resume to make it sound like something worthwhile. But to be honest, I really enjoy the job. I am working with foreigners (Australians, English, and Americans mainly) and it is nice to be back among my peeps. I also really enjoy administrative organizational work so this job is fun for me. Plus, my duties really only take up about 30 minutes of my day so I spend the remaining 7 1/2 hours facebooking, looking for new recipes, reading other blogs (baking blogs are my favorite), and talking to fellow staff members. Pretty cool eh? I'm not getting paid much (about $1500 a month) but I go and come with Fiance M so I don't have to deal with transportation and it covers my rent and gives me something to do with my life!
Speaking of the fiance, yesterday was Valentine's Day and it was the first Valentine's Day we've actually had together! As they say here, bakeer!!! (which sarcastically means early or finally) Fiance M let me pick the place for dinner so naturally I chose Maki which is my favorite sushi restaurant since I haven't had sushi in so long. When we arrived, there was a huge bouquet of white lilies wrapped in lavender and pink paper (my favorite colors and one of my favorite flowers) on the table waiting for me. Apparently, the fiance had left work during the day and arranged this ahead of time. If you know my fiance, you know this is quite an impressive task since it involves planning which he usually leaves for me to do hahahahaha. But anyway, it was an amazing surprise and an amazing dinner and amazing day.
I've had quite a few orders for my sweet shop over the past month which has given me something to do and make some extra money on the side. So many people have asked me to open a shop but I refuse because I don't want to stay here permanently or even for an extended period of time. However, it has given me confidence that I do have a talent and I could pursue this when I finally get back to America.
Speaking of the land of the free and the home of the brave (yes, clearly I have more talent remembering lyrics than Christina Aguilera...which made headlines even here), we received an email from the Embassy last week. Don't get excited. The email said something like this:
"Dear Mr. _____,
Please send us a history of your travels for the past ten years.
Sincerely,
PIECE OF SH** Department of Doo Doo"
Well the ending was a little embellishment of mine but needless to say Fiance M has been busy this last week preparing the 176 travel entries that he has from three of his past passports (since it goes back to 2001 and Lebanese passports are renewed every 5 years). We just finished it now and are waiting for final approval from our attorney. Our attorney made a few edits and also told us that based on how much travel Fiance M has done in the past ten years, it is probably the reason why the background check is taking so long. But I can't really think this is a bad thing because in the end, Fiance M did obtain visas from all of these countries and we have explained in detail the reason for each trip (harmless). I just hope this is a sign that they are indeed working on our visa and may be closer to finishing the background check.
I was reading a magazine here at work yesterday and came upon an article about a champion bike rider who conveniently has the exact same name of my fiance and is also of Lebanese origin and also residing in Kuwait. Also, there is a commercial on TV here of a guy who won a car from one of the local networks from Saudi Arabia with the exact same name as my fiance. If there are two blatant forms of this in my face everyday, I wonder how many other men have the same name as my fiance which is causing such a ruckus. Moral of the story....NEVER EVER name your child Mohammad....EVER. We can't change last names, but seriously....his name is more common than the equivalent of John Smith or Jesus Garcia in Albuquerque. BAHAHAHHAHAHA.
Devil Puppy is doing well. He has been spending time alone and hasn't chewed anything so I see this as progress. Furthermore I am working to break him of his barking habit...which is SO annoying when you are sleeping and he decides to hear something....anything which he deems as threatening.
Fiance M's nephew's first birthday was this past week which was fun. I taught him how to blow out candles so that was really cute. I made brownie cupcakes (a favorite of Boston Best Friend D and Fiance M) and they were a huge hit. We bought him a little baby tricycle that he can strap into and he really enjoyed riding around on it. He still doesn't know many words but sticks to "Bah," "Na (He calls his mom Nana, her nickname," "Ma," and "Mai" (word for water in Arabic). The other day I was with Fiance M's mom and playing with the nephew and he spotted a banana (one of his favorite foods) and pointed at it and screamed...literally yelled "BAH NA NA" and Fiance M's mom and I looked at each other and couldn't believe he put that together. So that was cute. It also made me think of my sister...whom I used to rhyme her name with this fruit (which she never appreciated).
My birthday is coming up next week and Fiance M has made plans to eat with our friends at our favorite steak restaurant called Meat Co. It is a South African high-end steak restaurant and all the servers and staff are South African and they play the bongos for your birthday so naturally we are excited haha. I'll let you know how the bongo experience goes.
Well that's about all that happened in the last month (minus news about my little trip to Cairo during the beginning of the Egyptian uprising...which I'll post an entry for later).
Happy belated Valentine's Day to all of my friends and family and readers.
With love and peace from the Middle East,
R
Great blog :DD
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