ChaseComer.com

12/31/06
Well here are a few unexpected Christmas gifts. I got for one just 2 days after Christmas. It snowed which is unusual because it hasn’t rained very much here, just twice. After that I got to play risk for 3 nights straight. For 3 nights a bunch of us got together and played in 3 different homes. It was great. My most precise gift was coming home one day to find my front door wouldn’t open. I could turn the handle, but it would not open. Luckily I had my leather man on me so I took off the cover plate to look inside. Just as I suspected it would turn but still nothing. So I looked at it, took 2 steps back, and ran at it using my big number 10 key to open it up. It was great. I had my boots on. Then I acted like the police and ran through the house shooting people. Oh it was great fun. Only one problem. Now I have to fix the door because I broke the wood frame. And when I took the mechanism from the door, a small screw 1/16th of an inch long fell out. It was responsible for all my troubles and joy.

12/26/06
Christmas came and went just like everything else this last semester in school. It seemed like any day I was going to be totally lost and confused. Well, I was most of the time, but I have to say the last year was pretty successful. Before last year I could hardly tell the taxi drive where to go and now I can argue with him about the best way to go. It is still broken Arabic and he knows I am a foreigner but I am defiantly better off. I have not really achieved much toward all that I want to accomplish other than education. I just have tons more knowledge than before and a better understanding of how this world interacts with its self. I only wish there was less ignorance in this world. That seems to but the worst enemy for most everyone even my self. Before I had the knowledge I have now, I would have made some terrible decisions. So I know I must learn more. The wise man knows he is weakest when he thinks he knows everything. Funny– the conversations with my friends like this one: once we were watching a TV channel totally devoted to broadcasting destruction in Iraq and at the end of it we were convinced that the other guy had a head full of cement. At the end of that you have gotten no were so what good have you done? Have you just added to the confusion?

Anyway Christmas was nice. I got to talk with a lot of my family, I had a few people over and was in a few people’s homes and elsewhere. A few things I would love to see for the next year would be 1. Finish school so I can “start to learn Arabic” and 2. Before school ends I would like a better focus on my plans after school like “where” specifically.

God bless all of y’all.

12/16/06
Well one great thing about growing up in west Texas is I never had to rake leaves. It was an experience that never happened because the wind would just blow them away into the fields. I did have to rake up sticks in my yard and weeds that we had pulled in the yard, but in those cases we would just put them in a big wheelbarrow that we called the cart and then we would dump and burn them. Now who would think that I would have to travel half way around the world to a land considered a desert and rake up leaves and stuff them in sacks. I didn’t realize how dirty that job is. When you try to push them they just crumble. A pile twice the size of the bag completely fit. I was thinking if you ever want to save on wrapping paper for Christmas presents you could use leaves. They fall around the right time.

12/10/06
Yesterday I was in a guy’s home for about 3 hours and we talked about where gold could be found in this country. Apparently going to a cemetary is what you are suppose to do. Anyway the interesting thing was we had 2 kids about a year old just being passed around and everyone was feeding them their coffee. Mom don’t worry I refused to.

12/2/06
Well I got a blender finally and made some hot sauce with it. I also discovered something. You can make cheese dip in the microwave. So, Dad, to avoid that hard to clean cheese dip pot, the bowl in the microwave is all you have–so no problems.
I also learned today that we have to go one more day to school but I don’t see what we will do on that extra day. Right after that we have graduation.
And I made biscuits again. They were great this time. They came out a lot better, I think, because I finally had backing powder and baking soda. Some of them I dipped in butter and then in sugar and cinnamon. I loved them but my friends didn’t like them. Tomorrow morning I am going to make gravy and have them for breakfast.
Man it is so nice to have a home. I mean just to have a place to call yours. You can mess it up and clean it up but it is yours. It is so comfortable.

12/1/06
Well the president was here and that has to be the closest I have ever been to my president. He was in the Palace grounds and I was riding a bus right beside it. The cops stopped the bus and everyone had to show their papers, but there was only one problem. A Syrian guy and I didn’t have them. They pulled the Syrian guy off and questioned him for about 30 min. They just looked at me and I gave that look like I am just a tourist and I don’t speak any Arabic so they didn’t even ask me a question. They questioned some other guys too but then we all got back on the bus and off we went without the Syrian. Whew. Another funny thing –usually they fly the flags of the dignitaries that come, but nope, not a single American flag. If you heard of the protest that went on, that was actually put on by the government. All of the people in the protest were government employees and had to be there or they would have been fired. Or that is what my friends are telling me. Watching the people you might ask yourself, “Your not in a tizzy?” I am sure there were some that wanted to be there, but it was another one of those things the government must do to quell the people. But the King sure was busy in the past 2 weeks. He has met with the Singapore president, the Kazakhstan president, the U.S. president, 2 leaders from Iraq and some dignitary from Palestine. Then he’s going to India.