Getting back into the swing of things…

November 21^st 2005, 0640B

It seems that I’m still struggling to find the motivation to sit down with this lately, but at least it’s not taken me quite so long this time to work up the enthusiasm, but given how comms with everyone at home have been lately I really need to make the effort. To say that I’ve not had much contact with anyone lately would hardly be an understatement. This is also likely only going to be a quicky before I jump into the shower, but something is better than nothing I guess & I likely come back to this later during the day.

So what’s new in the life of Ian lately? Not much in all honesty. The last two weeks in Bujumbura went fairly well, even if they got off to a rough start – my first day back I spent laid up in bed with a migraine, which was not fun I can assure you. I also wasn’t too busy while I was in town, so I had a fairly pleasant & relaxing time of it. Even if I find myself far more tolerant of the capital these days, two weeks is about as much as I can handle, so I was quite happy to get out of the place yesterday. This time I’ve deployed to Muramvya again, & while I wasn’t too keen to come back here so soon, I’d still rather be here than at Kabezi which is where I’d been scheduled to deploy this rotation. I’d wanted to go back to Mwaro again, but at least I’ll get to spend my next deployment at Mwaro, over the Christmas period, which is exactly what I’d wanted so I won’t complain.

I’ve only spent one night at Kabezi since I got here, and it’s not actually because of the place itself that I didn’t want to go there this rotation, but rather the company that’s there at the moment. I can’t actually say that I even clashed or had shit with anyone in the company either, but rather only that I just wasn’t comfortable with a number of the staff members. Nothing specific either, just one of those uneasy feelings. The chances are that it‘s just symptomatic of the general frame of mind I’ve been in the last month or two – not that bad, but certainly not the best either – but I thought it’d be prudent to avoid the “problem” & asked to be deployed somewhere else instead. My boss, being the nice lady she is, agreed even when I gave her such a lame ass reason, but couldn’t send me to Mwaro as I’d have preferred as it would have completely screwed up her rotation schedule.

So far as other work related news is concerned, I’ve still not heard anything back regarding my application for extension, or had any confirmation about the increase in our allowances. Both are still looking highly likely, but as I’ve said before here I’ve seem many a “dead certainty” evaporate like the morning mist in this organisation, so I’ll wait & see what happens. I’m still quite positive about another 6 months here, or more honestly I’m convinced it’s the best way forward for me, but I can’t really say that I’d be devastated should I get on a plane home in February and not come back. The money I’d get would really help – I’d love to say “I need it”, but I don’t really believe that, only that it would make life easier – but I’m very mindful of the time with the people who are most important to me that I’m losing by being here. And it really doesn’t help that the locals have been seriously getting on my tits these last few weeks – I really don’t know if I’ll last another 6 months here before I give in to my homicidal urges where these fuckers are concerned.

Anyway, that’s all I have time for right now. I’ll catch up again later I’m sure, but cheers till then for now ;)

0855B

Back again, one very cold shower & a little admin later. It’s still up in the air as to which is worse, the cold water or the admin – I mean, I’m exactly not fond of freezing the delicate bits first thing in the morning, but I also hate paper work with a passion so there’s not a lot of choosing between the two.

On the personal side it’s also been fairly quiet lately. Given that comms with home were so poor this last few weeks I’ve been rather out of touch with how everyone is at home, which I’m not happy about. In fact about the only people I was able to get hold of at all, other than a few emails, were Shirlz & Ash, & it’s not as if I managed to have as much contact with either of them as I’d have liked, Shirley in particular as it seems that she’s been having a rough time of it the last few weeks. I was at least able to get hold of both of them on the phone for a brief chat before I left town yesterday morning. Hopefully when I get back to town in early December comms will have improved some so that I can do a little catching up. If I’m really lucky by then I’ll also have a little news about both the extension & the wireless internet service that I’ve mentioned previously. If the wireless service is actually what I’ve been promised it will be, & the extension has been granted so that it’ll be worthwhile to spend the money, then I’ll have far better comms with home before long. I’ll also finally get to start playing WoW, which I’ve been looking forward to for bloody ages lol

I’ve been reading through the pdf manual that’s installed with the game, & I’m quite impressed with what I can gather from it. Let’s hope the actual experience of it matches my expectations though. On the subject of games, one that I’ve spent all together far too much time on lately has been Dungeon Siege II – pretty much every free moment in fact, & it’s one of the reasons I’ve not updated this blog more frequently. It’s not bad at all, quite similar to Diablo, but it’s not so good that I can tell you why I’ve spent so much time on it lately. I’ve just had this nagging compulsion to finish the damn thing, but it’s helped the last week or so fly past so I’m not going to complain lol Rob at home really enjoys it, & I can see us spending more than a few hours on it over a lan when I get home.

When I’ve not been glued to DS2, I’ve been spending my time going through the movies that Rob sent up on the external drives. There’s not much there that really grabs my interest – I’m become really fussy when it comes to what movies I’ll spend time on – but I’ve really enjoyed the History Channel stuff he included, mostly documentaries on WW2. One thing I’m very happy about is that I wasn’t a soldier then, because some of that shit is just insane – the Americans alone lost something like 2000 dead just getting off the beaches at Normandy for example, never mind how many were injured. Not my idea of a fun way to spend a June morning, that’s for sure. The world would likely be a very different place if they’d not done it though.

One thing that happened in the last few days that I’m seriously pissed about is that I managed to destroy – not merely break – my bloody sunglasses, through sheer stupid clumsiness. I sat on the damn things of all things, & in the contest between my wide ass and the durability of the frames, my ass won. I only bought them in July too, a few days before I came up here, and it’s not as if they were cheap – don’t buy Ray Bans from Edgars if you can possibly help it – so you can imagine that I’m not amused. And just to add insult to injury I’m going to have to replace them in a hurry before I start getting migraines, which means I’m going to end up dealing with one of the most annoying Burundians I’ve come across so far – the sunglass salesman who hangs around outside the camp in town. No matter how many times – and it’s often I assure you – I tell this guy I don’t want his stolen Ray Bans, he insists on shoving them in my face every time he sees me, yelling “Five dolla! Five dolla!”. And I just know that once I’ve bought one pair from him, he’s going to redouble his efforts to sell me even more of the damn things from then on. It’s enough to drive a man to drink, I tell you. Not that I need much convincing to have a drink, you understand :P At least I was able to convince the guy who kept trying to sell me a flick-knife to pester other people. This clown, as a sales gimmick, would thrust out his hand at you whenever he saw you and flick the blade out – not from close enough to pose a threat, but plenty close enough to cause consternation. Needless to say I didn’t take too kindly to this, so the next time he waved his little flick knife at me, I waved my 10” kukri back at him. I nearly got in trouble for that, but he got the point so it was worth it.

By the way, Mark, a kukri is a knife, so you can stop smirking now – I know just where your sense of humour went with that last sentence :P

Anyway, I think I’d best end this off for now as it’s starting to get a little on the long side. It looks as though I’m getting back into the habit of updating this thing at least, which I’m pleased about – it’d started to look like this was going to be another pastime that had fallen victim to apathy. Now if I can manage to start taking photos again I’ll be sorted…

Chances are I’ll be going into the capital for “town pass” on Sunday, so I’ll upload this then, and also hopefully make a few calls & get off a few emails that I owe people.

Cheers for now though ;)

An overdue update…

November 12th 2005, 0630B

Maybe I should get hold of that doc that Gareth F had resus his blog, ‘cause this one hasn’t been too healthy lately either. He at least had been really busy lately, whereas the best excuse I can come up with is that I’ve been seriously NAAFI lately, & that there’s been bugger all going on for me to talk about here. It’s been very much the “same shit different day” for the last few weeks, so chances are that this is going to be a fairly short post for a change.
The last few weeks also haven’t been my happiest in awhile, & I’d rather not bother typing anything up for this at all if all I’m going to do is bitch & moan in it, as it seems that I’ve done little else in this the last few posts. I seem to have regained some of the sense of humour lately though – mostly through the consumption of large quantities of beer :P – so I thought it might be an idea to update this thing before I completely lost the habit.

One thing that has gone a long way towards restoring my happy thoughts the last few days – and also about all news I have – is that the long awaited package with the new camera bag & external drives finally arrived on Wednesday. I’ve hardly moved from in front of the pc since then, & I’ve been having fun going through all the new stuff that Rob put on the drives for me. I reckon he could have sent more porn than he did – I could have made a bloody fortune selling copies to the guys here :P – but he did include a large collection of History Channel documentaries which will probably keep me amused & occupied far longer than porn would have anyway. It seems that he forgot to put a copy of the Sin City dvd on the drive though, which I’m disappointed about, but he did put a bottle of whiskey & a shit load of peanuts in the package, something which is always guaranteed to improve my disposition, so he’s forgiven ( There are a few other things he either forgot, or ran out of space for – and we’re talking about two 250gb drives here lol – but he can send that up on a few dvd’s in the next package, so it’s hardly a train smash.
One thing I was very happy to see on the drive was the install files for WoW, & with a little luck I’ll be able to sort out a connection of my own in a few weeks & can start to play. I had Brendon send me the account key from the copy I ordered from Amazon, so once I’ve sorted out the connection all I’ll need to do is update the game – not a small endeavour apparently – and I’ll be in business.
I was also very pleased to get my hands on the new camera bag, and I’m very impressed with it now that it’s here. I only have two problems with it, both concerning the size. Firstly, the camera section of the bag is too big for what I have here, so the Cannon & lenses look a bit lost in there. Also the notebook section is likely going to be a bit small for the new computer I want to buy, as that’s got a big bastard 17” screen & full size keyboard, but getting a tailor to modify the bag so it’ll fit shouldn’t be too much of a challenge. So far as the too large camera section goes, that also shouldn’t be too difficult to remedy as it’s starting to look very likely that both my extension is going to be approved, and also that our allowances have indeed been increased so I’ll be able to easily afford that big zoom lens I’ve been drooling over for so long. I’m going to wait until it’s confirmed that I’m staying and that we’ll be getting more money before I order either the new notebook or lens, but I should know long enough before I come home for a break in Feb that they’ll be waiting for me at home when I get back. The thought of another 6 months here is still not a very happy one, but I’ve pretty much adjusted to the idea now, & the likely increase in allowances just serves to vindicate the decision to apply for the extension.

Anyway, that’s about it for now so I’m going to end off here. With a little luck next week will be a little busier & I’ll be able to add to this a little more frequently in future. I certainly hope I’m busier than I have been lately, because this sitting around twiddling my thumbs has been getting seriously on my tits lately & I could really do without the aggravation.
Comms here have been decidedly iffy the last few weeks, but I’ll be calling as many people as I can while I’m in town – there’s nothing quite so good for the happy thoughts as hearing a friendly voice after all (

Till next time though ;)