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Mar. 31st, 2003 09:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jdmkleinWe were without phones again in the unit today. I will turn off my mobile phone when I get to the office tomorrow. If the university doesn't want to fix our phones, they must not want to talk to me. Therefore, I will make it impossible for them to get me on the phone. Today, the faculty secretary called my twice on my mobile. Ain't gonna happen tomorrow. There is construction going on outside our building. A new parking lot is being put in. I think someone dug too deep and hit a buried phone line. But what do I know? I'm only a teacher.
Wednesday we will be back up to full strength for teachers. The last one is getting bored at home with his family. He is coming in tomorrow, but it will be late because of a layover in Bahrain. Should have thought to tell him to bring me in a bottle of anything but Vodka.
Tents are popping up all over Kuwait. I have no idea what they are for. I noticed new ones today in an area by the airport. Not enough to be a containment area, but more than three.
I am having withdrawal symptoms. There has been a screw up with our cable service. We have not been able to get 289 stations of war coverage and it is beginning to take its toll on me. I keep going out to the balcony to see if the guys across the street are in hand-to-hand combat with the locals. Master said the Saudis are no longer allowing the U.S. military to fly in their air space to send off the cruise missiles. So if we want to sit out some night on the patio, we may here the jets flying over on their way to Iraq. The nights are becoming warmer. Maybe one of these first nights we can sleep out under the stars and the droning of the B52s, B1s flying over with their cruise missiles.
As calm as it appears to be here, we are still in a dangerous area. Yesterday the Assistant Administration Director came by asking me to lock the classroom doors and the door at the far end of our hallway when classes are over for the day. It seems someone put up posters in the foyer there that are inappropriate. They were in Arabic and very crudely made and printed. The Assist. Admin wouldn't tell me what they said, but I have the feeling they were anti-American posters. I have not had one student make me feel at all unsafe or unwanted here. I think the Assist Admin Dir. was very upset. He is such a nice man and works very hard to make the lives of the foreigners in our faculty as easy as possible in an impossible culture. It was a rude awakening. No harm was done, but it was a reminder that we can't become too complacent about where we are and what we do.
Wednesday we will be back up to full strength for teachers. The last one is getting bored at home with his family. He is coming in tomorrow, but it will be late because of a layover in Bahrain. Should have thought to tell him to bring me in a bottle of anything but Vodka.
Tents are popping up all over Kuwait. I have no idea what they are for. I noticed new ones today in an area by the airport. Not enough to be a containment area, but more than three.
I am having withdrawal symptoms. There has been a screw up with our cable service. We have not been able to get 289 stations of war coverage and it is beginning to take its toll on me. I keep going out to the balcony to see if the guys across the street are in hand-to-hand combat with the locals. Master said the Saudis are no longer allowing the U.S. military to fly in their air space to send off the cruise missiles. So if we want to sit out some night on the patio, we may here the jets flying over on their way to Iraq. The nights are becoming warmer. Maybe one of these first nights we can sleep out under the stars and the droning of the B52s, B1s flying over with their cruise missiles.
As calm as it appears to be here, we are still in a dangerous area. Yesterday the Assistant Administration Director came by asking me to lock the classroom doors and the door at the far end of our hallway when classes are over for the day. It seems someone put up posters in the foyer there that are inappropriate. They were in Arabic and very crudely made and printed. The Assist. Admin wouldn't tell me what they said, but I have the feeling they were anti-American posters. I have not had one student make me feel at all unsafe or unwanted here. I think the Assist Admin Dir. was very upset. He is such a nice man and works very hard to make the lives of the foreigners in our faculty as easy as possible in an impossible culture. It was a rude awakening. No harm was done, but it was a reminder that we can't become too complacent about where we are and what we do.
