DarrenConley.com

Caleb Tirian Conley was due to arrive in the world on April 6th, 2010. However, he himself had other ideas. He was so anxious to meet his parents that he did everything he could to get out of the womb 6 weeks early!

The day before he was born, we spent a fairly full day running errands and living life at the normal pace that soon-to-be parents take when they think their baby is still 6 weeks away. We still had many baby items that needed to be purchased, but we figured that there was lots of time. In the evening, we played some games together online, chatted with my sister, and went to bed at about 10:30pm.

I was sleeping soundly when I was awakened just after 1am by the sound of Larissa yelping and shouting that she was all wet. I jumped out of bed, threw back the sheets, and saw a huge puddle on Larissa’s side of the bed. My first thought was that it was urine, but there was a LOT, and it was clear and had no smell at all. I told Larissa to go to the bathroom, so she waddled across the room (leaving little puddles behind her on the floor as she walked) and sat on the toilet as more liquid poured out of her.

As I grabbed a mop from downstairs and cleaned up the floor, Larissa said that she noticed a bit of blood in the fluid. At this point, I was pretty freaked out. In my mind, there were 3 possibilities. Either this was urine, or Larissa’s water had broken, or something was very wrong with the pregnancy. I was pretty sure it wasn’t urine since there was no smell, and it seemed far too early in the pregnancy for her water to break, so I thought that something must be wrong with our baby. Either way, it was best that we went to the hospital, so we threw a few things in a bag and headed out at 1:30am. I also took the wet sheets off the bed.

We arrived at the hospital in less than 10 minutes (no traffic on the road at 1:30am!) and were admitted through the emergency department. The doctor confirmed that Larissa’s water indeed had broken, and that she was dilated 1cm so far. Caleb seemed fine and was not in distress, but I couldn’t help but worry about what state he would be in if he was coming out this early. The doctor decided that it would be best to give things some time and see what happens. She also gave Larissa a steroid shot to help Caleb’s lungs develop a little further, just in case he came out sooner than later.

We were checked into our room and told to try to get some sleep. By this point I was completely wired, so while Larissa lay down and tried to relax, I drove back to our villa and picked up whatever I could think of that we might need at the hospital, including our computers, some clothes, toiletries, and our baby books. It was close to 5am when I made it back to the hospital and had a chance to lay down in our room.

It was about 7am when we were awakened by room service bringing us breakfast (far too much food for each of us, but all very tasty). When we had the chance to clear our minds a bit and consider our situation, we realized that we needed a few other items from home, and that we should probably get our car seat installed. So I made another run to the villa, had a shower, grabbed some work clothes in case I decided to go into the office, and got our car seat put in. Meanwhile, Larissa called her family via Skype using our laptop in the hospital room and let them all know about our situation.

I came back to the hospital in time to hear the doctor tell us that he wanted to give Larissa some medication to hold back the contractions and see if we could keep Caleb inside for another 24 or 48 hours. The doctor said that the concern was that Caleb’s lungs might need some more development, and that the longer we could keep him inside, the better. Disappointed that we had to draw out the delivery even longer, but willing to do whatever was necessary for Caleb’s health, Larissa took the medication, and we resigned ourselves to spending the day killing time in the hospital room.

The medication took the contractions from once every 5 minutes to once every 15 minutes, but by lunch time, the contractions had started coming more frequently again, and with more strength. Previously, the contractions had not been painful, but now they were causing Larissa real discomfort. We had our lunch brought up at 12 noon, but every 2-3 minutes Larissa would have to stop eating and breathe through another contraction. “This is crazy”, we thought. It seemed as though Caleb wanted to come out despite the doctor’s intentions, or any medication to slow the contractions. We called the doctor, and she came to our room to check out the situation.

The doctors had not wanted to perform many examinations of Larissa after her water broke, because there is an increased risk of the baby developing infection when he doesn’t have the protection of the amniotic fluid. But with the contractions increasing in intensity and frequency, we had to find out what was going on. The doctor checked things out and was surprised to feel the baby’s head far lower than expected. The doctor exclaimed that Larissa was fully dilated, and the next thing we knew she was being wheeled down to the delivery room, propped up into the stirrups, and surrounded by 7 nurses and doctors. It was very sudden.

But, as it turned out, Caleb didn’t need to come QUITE that quickly. The doctor who had initially examined Larissa had felt the baby’s head, but Larissa’s uterus was so thin that the doctor had mistakenly thought that it was fully dilated when really she was only at 3cm (she’s supposed to be at 10cm before it’s delivery time). So we were told to wait a little while longer, and all of the nurses left the room while the midwife stayed to keep us company.

Now, we assumed that we had only an hour to wait (we hadn’t been told that Larissa was only 3cm by this point) so with each contraction, I helped Larissa to breathe through them and relax until the next one. Larissa was hooked up to an ECG machine which slowly printed a graph showing the baby’s heartbeat, and the strength of each contraction, and we could see that the contractions were still building in frequency and intensity.

After about 10 minutes, another doctor came in and asked us if we wanted an epidural. “Is that still possible?” Larissa asked. “We thought it was too late!” “Of course,” said the doctor. “You’re only at 3cm! You still have 3-4 hours of contractions to go!” “Bring it on!” Larissa shouted!

About 10 minutes later, Larissa was sitting on the bed, bending over, and having a needle inserted into her spine. I did my best to help her stay still, and a further 10 minutes later, Larissa had lost all feeling in her legs and was smiling like she was on vacation! She relaxed in bed and laughed at the contraction printout as it showed a particularly strong contraction gripping her uterus without any pain at all.

I spent some time updating Facebook to let our friends know how things were developing, while Larissa tried to get some sleep. I myself drifted in and out of consciousness while sitting in a chair at her bedside. After 15 minutes the midwife suggested that I head up to our guest room and sleep on the couch there instead. It sounded like a good idea to me, so I drowsily navigated my way down the hallways and crashed in our room, confident that I would be called when it was time for the delivery.

I was actually awakened by the ringing of my mobile phone about 2 hours later, when our friend Tatjana called to offer help in making us some meals over the next few days. I updated her on our situation, thanked her for her help, and got another hour’s worth of semi-productive sleep before the hospital phone rang and told me it was go time!

I ran down to the delivery room to find Larissa with her legs up in the stirrups, and surrounded by nurses, midwives, and a doctor or two. Within a couple minutes of my showing up, the staff were watching the contraction readings and telling Larissa to push as each contraction started. I took up position beside Larissa, watching to see when my baby would come out.

A contraction started. The doctor told Larissa “Now – PUSH!” Larissa looked surprised. “Push?” she asked. “YES! PUSH!” said two nurses and a midwife in unison. So Larissa grasped the handles at the side of the bed and pushed. “Push, push, push!” said the doctor. Larissa pushed more. The doctor did her best to make room for the baby to come out… but Larissa lost her steam, and had to relax for a few seconds.

The next contraction started. “Push!” said the doctor. “Really?” said Larissa. “YES! PUSH! NOW!” said everyone else. So Larissa pushed some more. As she did, I could see what was the slightly conical shape of the baby’s head just starting to make it’s way out. Wow, I thought. There’s really a baby coming out of there! Larissa pushed as hard as she could, but once again had to take a little break. I saw the baby’s head slide back inside a bit. I wondered how much work it would take to get him out.

But I didn’t have to wonder for long. Before the next contraction started, the doctor made a small cut to make some more room for the baby, and as the contraction came on and Larissa was told to push, she didn’t have to be told twice! Larissa pushed hard, and before I knew it, a pinkish/purple-ish mass of arms and legs came out and was held upside down by the doctor. Nurses immediately clamped off the umbilical cord, while somebody nearby handed me a pair of surgical scissors. I cut the cord where they showed me (between the clamps) and the baby was whisked away behind a curtain to get cleaned off and checked out.

Larissa told me “Go! Go see him!”, so I did. I felt an indescribable rush of emotions as I watched the nurses cleaning and checking my son. I was so happy to hear his little cries (signs that his lungs were indeed developed), shocked to see what a strange colour he was (and a little worried about if that was normal or not – turns out, it is), surprised to see how roughly it looked like the nurses were handling him as they used small cloths to wipe him down between all the folds of his newborn skin, still worried about whether or not he really was healthy, and concerned that Larissa was doing alright on the other side of the curtain. But the biggest thought in my mind was simply: That’s my son. Wow. That’s really my son.

I moved a little closer to see his face, his fingers, his toes. He was beautiful. So amazingly beautiful. I had to tell Larissa. I ran back over to her, where she was being stitched up by the doctor. “Honey,” I said, “He’s perfect! He’s absolutely perfect! They’re cleaning out his nose and mouth and wiping him off and he’s so tiny and cute and he cries and he’s perfect!” I was actually bawling at this point. I hugged Larissa as best as I could as she half laughed and half cried with me. “Are YOU doing alright?” I said. “Yes,” said Larissa. “You can go back with him if you like.” So I did.

I watched as the nurses gave Caleb a shot of vitamin K, and asked them if everything was okay. They assured me that he seemed healthy, but they would have to observe him in the NICU for a while to make sure. Just before they took him away, they brought him over to Larissa to see. He was wrapped tightly in a white blanket, and only his face was poking through. Larissa held him for about 5 seconds – just long enough to see his face, and then he was taken to be monitored in the NICU.

I asked Larissa again if she was okay. She said yes, and that if I wanted I should follow Caleb to the NICU. I told Larissa that I didn’t want to ignore her, so I hugged and kissed her and stayed with her for a few minutes before going to check again on my son.

Caleb was hooked up to several different monitors – one measured heart rate, one measured respiration, one measured oxygen content. He also had an IV with a glucose drip to make sure he was well-fed. Thankfully, he was breathing well, so he didn’t need to be put on a respirator. He was just wearing a diaper, but there was a heat lamp of some sort above him keeping him warm. It was painful to watch as one of the nurses pricked his heal to draw a blood sample. Caleb cried as she squeezed his tiny foot, drew a few drops of blood into a tube, and then squeezed again and again. I knew it was necessary to make sure Caleb was okay, but he had been through so much today that I just wanted him to have the chance to rest.

After 10 minutes or so, I went back to Larissa and updated her on Caleb’s situation. Larissa was all stitched up by now, but had to stay in the delivery room for the next two hours as she recovered. I sat beside her for about half an hour and started drifting off to sleep as I came down from the intense emotions of the entire event. When I felt a bit better, I updated our situation on Facebook, so that our friends and family would know that Caleb had arrived.

Pretty soon I received a call from our friends Chris and Heather, who had had a baby of their own at the same hospital 4 months earlier. I let them know how we were doing, and they actually drove over to see us and make sure that we were okay! It’s so nice to have the support of other parents! Eventually, Larissa and I were back in our room, having a late supper and talking about our baby. Caleb was officially born February 28, 2010, at 4:50pm Qatar time. His new life had begun.

We were anxious to see him and spend time with him, but we knew that he was in good hands with the nurses and doctors, and that they needed to tell us if there were any problems with his premature birth. Over the next three days that we spent in the hospital, Larissa mostly recovered from her incisions while I tried to be a good support to her. Each day we went to the NICU to see our son, and each day his situation improved.

They started feeding Caleb formula through a tube on the second day after he was born, and on the third day they took out the tube and fed him orally through a bottle. And several times each day Larissa used a breast pump to squeeze out some colostrum (an extremely healthy liquid that arrives before breast milk is produced) which I would then take in a bottle to the NICU so that they could feed it to Caleb. We watched the nurses bottle-feed Caleb, and Larissa took a turn herself. It was so good to see that he was strong enough to suck on the nipple.

On the last day that we were in the hospital, Larissa went to the NICU to try to breast feed Caleb directly. One of the nurses helped Caleb to get latched on properly, and it was amazing to see him feeding from his mom. My job, on the other hand, was to sort out the hospital bill. While the ordeal that I had to deal with in making payment could be a whole other story in itself, let me just say that in the end, we were able to leave the hospital with our baby in hand, and with the blessings of all of the nurses, doctors, and midwives that were so good to us and baby Caleb.

As we arrived home with our new son, it felt as though we had accomplished a momentous feat – bringing a new life into the world. But I knew that the real challenge was just beginning. And that challenge is the story of the rest of our lives.

Well kids, it’s time for another bunch of YouTube links that I seem to regularly visit. I find that more and more I am using YouTube as a kind of mobile iTunes to listen to music when I’m away from my home computer, as well as to check out music that I may consider purchasing in the future.

The links that I’m sharing below represent a healthy smattering of what I’m listening to these days. Why should you care? Because maybe you might like some of this stuff too. And if that’s the case, perhaps you have better taste than you previously gave yourself credit for. Or perhaps I have worse taste than you previously gave ME credit for. Either way, why don’t you give some of these a listen, and see what grabs you?

While some of these links are actual music videos, many are simply still pictures or album covers that are just filling the visual space while the music plays. I chose these selections for the music, not the video, so keep that in mind.

This first one is a song I originally heard while I was on the plane on the way back to Qatar from Canada after Christmas this past year. Imogen Heap sang a song on the Narnia soundtrack that we used in our wedding ceremony, and since then I’ve been checking her out more and more. This song is my favourite track from her latest album:


This next song by The Waiting is 15 years old, but I only got a hold of this album recently. At least two friends of mine (maybe three?) toured with The Waiting doing lighting production back in the day, and even before that connection I was already a fan of their music and especially their lyrical talents. This song was stuck in my head for about 4 days straight after I listened to it recently:


I think I first heard E-Type on the radio in Canada when I was hanging out with a crowd of people from McMaster who were far more into the club and dance scene than I ever was. I’m very picky when it comes to liking Dance music, but if it’s catchy enough I can get into it. This song is not my favourite by E-Type, but right before Larissa and I went to Zambia last summer, this song was stuck in my brain constantly:


Yeah, another dance tune. This song is absolutely juvenile lyrically, and undoubtedly about sex, but man, the beat and especially the melody on the chorus must resonate with some particular chunk of my cerebral tissue, because I can crank this song and listen to it on constant repeat without getting tired of it. I’m guessing that the title “Tony The Beat” is based somehow in Cockney slang, but I’m not sure of the meaning. Can anyone enlighten me?


The first time I heard this next song by Lacuna Coil was when I was playing Rock Band at a buddy’s place here in Qatar. As soon as we were through the first chorus, I said to myself “Self, you need to find this song and listen to it again, because it is pretty much awesome.” I dig grindy guitar, melodic tunes, and female vocalists, and this song has a healthy blend of all three elements. My only complaint about this particular video is that the audio is a bit too quiet:


Back in our late teens, my friend Jed went through a phase when he used to walk around singing this song 24/7 (or at least the chorus). At the time I didn’t really care for it, but this past year I found it on YouTube, and I gotta admit, it’s one of the catchiest glam rock tunes in the history of teased hair and ripped denim:


It’s hard to keep up with the new North American TV shows when you’re in Qatar. However, I noticed on Facebook that a lot of my friends seemed to be getting excited about this Glee show, so I checked it out. This was the top YouTube song from the show, and after I listened to it I could hear why. An awesome rendition of a classic rock tune:


This song is almost 15 years old, and I know that I heard it back in the mid 90s when it first came out, but for some reason it completely disappeared from my head until recently, when I came across it as the background song to a video I was watching about a mall in Dubai. I love the energy in this song. The only thing I don’t like about this particular video is that it ends abruptly, but I haven’t found a comparable high-sound-quality version on YouTube yet:


Enon is a band that I’ve sampled very little of beyond their song Daughter in the House of Fools, which I came across a couple years ago through Relevant Magazine’s website. But one day YouTube suggested that I check out this other song of theirs called “Rubber Car”, probably because I had “Daughter” saved in one of my playlists. As I first listened to Rubber Car, I almost shut it off about 5 times before making it to the end, thinking that it was not for me. But then I found myself listening to it again. And again. And again. By the fifth listen, I liked it. Weird, eh? Guess it’s an acquired taste. Give it a listen or five and see if it happens for you too:

So, it’s been almost exactly four years since I’ve written about dreams on my blog. By the way, for those of you reading this on the Facebook RSS feed and not on my actual website, I have a category called Dream Journals which I was planning to use to post a log of my dreams regularly. Turns out I didn’t.

Anyway, while I don’t have an actual dream to write about today, I do want to say a few words about my dreams in general. Back in this post, I said that “My dreams usually involve flying, people from my high school who I haven’t seen or thought about in 12 years, and infant children who think and speak like adults”. In the 4 years or so since that post was written, that’s still generally true. I still fly a lot, I still see people from my high school far more often then I think about them in waking life, and while I don’t dream of infants who speak like adults very often, they still sneak in there now and then.

One thing I don’t experience often (dream-wise) is nightmares. I could not tell you when the last time I woke up scared from a dream was, although the last time I can recall right now was probably sometime in the junior high stage of things. But the closest thing I currently experience to nightmares (and this comes up a LOT in my dreams) is dreams involving bathrooms.

I can honestly say, without exaggeration, that I experience a bathroom-related situation in my dreams about 3 nights per week on average. That’s almost half my dream-time. And usually it’s not a pleasant bathroom situation. Usually it involves having the urgent need to visit a bathroom, only to find that its facilities are horribly disgusting, completely non-existent, or (worst of all) out of order due to the fluctuating nature of the fabric of reality in dream-land.

Usually it goes something like this. I have to pee. I locate a bathroom. I start to pee in a urinal, only to find that it suddenly contains a banzai tree, and is causing horrible splash-back due to stream-ricochet and the awkward angle of the branches. Or the stall I’m using is suddenly right in the middle of a restaurant. Or that I’m actually peeing into a garbage can, or a sink, or onto a counter with a small drain which I can’t seem to hit because the counter is slightly too high. It can be very traumatizing.

Now, it makes sense that one would often dream about peeing. After all, aside from eating, what other activity do we do so regularly every single day of our entire existence? I’m sure that if you added up all of the time that I have spent peeing over the course of almost 35 years, the number of hours (or days… or weeks!) would be mind boggling. So certainly I won’t begrudge my brain the semi-regular occurrence of this activity finding its way into my dreams.

But why does it always have to be so weird and traumatic?! Why can’t I dream about having a really amazing peeing experience, the same way that I might dream of having a really good kiss with someone from my high school, or a really interesting conversation with an infant?

I believe that I can identify two major causes for the constant recurrence of scary bathroom situations in my dreams. First, and most obviously, is the fact that these dreams often come when I actually need to use the bathroom in real life. It’s like my subconscious (or unconscious?) brain is saying to itself “if presented with the options of letting this grown man wet the bed or informing him of the need to pee through freakin’ wacked-out bathroom situations in dream-land, I’m going to choose the latter.” And I appreciate that (although I don’t appreciate having to drag my sleepy butt out of bed to use the toilet at 3am).

The other cause, and the more deeply psychological one, I believe goes back to my childhood. You see, sometime when I was very young (probably about 6 or 7 years old), I remember being taken to Roller Gardens (a local Hamilton rollerskating rink that, sadly, no longer exists) for some sort of special occasion. I want to say that I was being babysat by my aunt. Which doesn’t seem so special, now that I think about it.

At this roller skating rink, I ended up in a bathroom stall with the need to take a pee. I don’t remember actually peeing (although I’m sure I did), but what I do remember was that when I flushed the toilet, it vomited all over the floor. I don’t mean that the water slowly rose up until it overflowed – I mean it practically exploded. And as a 6 or 7 year old (who by this point in his life had a fairly good “handle” on how to properly use a toilet) I was completely overwhelmed by the fact that a toilet COULD EVEN DO such a thing. It was this incident that created in me a slight fear of flushing the toilet.

I very clearly remember that, for many years as a child, whenever I had to pee at night, I would finish my business, push on the flushing handle, and run as fast as I could back to bed so that I wouldn’t need to see if it overflowed or not. This fear only happened at night – I had no fear of daytime flushing – and I’m fully aware that not seeing it overflow had no bearing on whether or not it actually did. But it was SEEING it overflow, like I saw it that day in Roller Gardens, that was the terrifying part of the operation.

Of course, as I grew into adulthood, I came to trust that toilets usually flush as well at night as they do during the day. But while my rational, logical mind was able to cope with my childhood toilet fears, perhaps my subconscious mind is still wrestling with suppressed nighttime bathroom traumas. And so these fears haunt my dreams.

I should mention that even now when I get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, I usually don’t flush the toilet (I flush it when I get up in the morning). But it’s not because I’m afraid. I just don’t want to wake up Larissa with the flushing noise. Yes, that’s it! HA HA HA! That’s exactly it.

Before I came to Qatar, I would never have imagined the possibility of seeing world-class tennis being played live. Mostly because I don’t care very much about tennis. However, after having come to Qatar, I’ve had the opportunity to see many international sporting competitions. Synchronized diving, for instance. Also, gymnastics. And horse-jumping. No, I don’t mean people jumping over horses – I mean horses jumping over fences and poles and stuff. I’m sure it’s called something other than “horse jumping”, but as I am too lazy to look up the actual name on Google, I’m sticking with “horse jumping”.

But why am I talking about horse jumping? What I really want to talk about is tennis. So, this past week there was a major international men’s tennis tournament in Doha, featuring many famous tennis players, such as Federer, Nadal, Davydenko, and that dude from Serbia (Viktor something?) Actually, the only reason I remember the names of those four guys is because those were the four guys we watched play in the semi-finals last Friday night.

But why am I talking about last Friday? What I really want to talk about is last Saturday, when I decided to go to the finals to see Nadal and Davydenko play for the.. uh.. whatever you win when you with this tournament. Is it a cup? I know there’s a chunk of money involved. Maybe you get money and a cup. And a camel? Maybe a camel, folks. This is Doha, after all, and they really like camels here. I have this funny story that involves some of my students secretly watching camel videos on their mobile phones during class one day.

But why am I talking about camels? What I really want to talk about is what happened to me on Saturday – the day I almost didn’t get to see the tennis finals, but did. Mostly.

It all started several days earlier, when the staff at CNA-Q (that’s where I work) received an email saying that we could get into the tennis tournament for free if we showed them our CNA-Q staff ID at the gate. The free seats were not amazing – they were actually fairly high up in the almost nosebleed section of the stadium. But here’s what made them good: they were free.

When we went to see the semi-finals on Friday night, getting into the stadium was no problem – we simply showed our ID badges, and off we went. In fact, it wasn’t even limited to CNA-Q staff – anyone who was with us (employees or not) was able to get in with us too, as long as they were with someone who had an ID badge. Larissa and I spent Friday evening enjoying two wonderful tennis matches with our friend Tatjana and her friend Jia Yu, who is the political secretary at the Singaporean embassy. She told us her job is to “talk to people at various government functions and then write reports about it” for her government. Honestly.

Wow, now I’m talking about Singapore. Seriously, I’m trying to write about tennis on Saturday. Forget about Friday, gentle readers – this post is about Saturday.

Saturday was the day of the final match, and Larissa had decided that she was going to stay home that evening (something about her being pregnant or tired or something, I can’t remember right now), so I decided to go on my own. I had an errand or two to run at one of the gigantic Doha malls (which happens to be fairly close to the tennis stadium), so I went to the mall first. I purchased two things at the mall: one, a prepaid phone card for Larissa’s mobile, and two, a box of about 500 nails and thumbtacks, which Larissa wanted so that she could hang a calender in the kitchen. She actually just wanted one nail, but you can’t buy just one nail. You have to buy 500. Why am I talking about buying nails? It’s actually relevant to the story, if you can believe it.

When I had completed my purchases, I hopped in a Karwa (that’s a taxi, for those of you not familiar with Doha public transportation options) and made it to the tennis stadium in about 5 minutes. This was about 4pm, and the match didn’t start till six, but I thought it started at five. That’s actually not super relevant to the story, but I want you to be able to imagine the whole story as I tell it. So, 4pm, I’m at the stadium, not too many other people around, there I am.

I hadn’t eaten dinner yet, so when I saw that there was a Quizno’s nearby (the first Quizno’s that I had seen ANYWHERE outside of Canada) I had to go and try it out. Their sandwich selection was not quite up to Canadian levels (no Chicken Carbonara sub, dang it!) but it was much better than the competition (honestly, people STILL pay money for Subway?! Even after they did away with the stamps you could redeem for a free sub?!) So I ate my Qatari Quizno’s sub (Spicy BBQ Chicken – very tasty), watched the end of Minority Report (it was playing on the TV in the restaurant – good movie!) and made my way to the stadium entrance gate.

When I got to the gate at about 4:30, there were (understandably) few people there, so I walked right up to the gate attendant and flashed him my CNA-Q ID badge. He smiled at me and politely said “I’m sorry sir, no more college people today.” What?! I had received an email – direct written correspondence – that I would be able to get into every tennis match with my ID! What, my friends, was the deal?! So I said to the guy “Why?” He said, “The match is sold out. No free tickets today.”

Now, the average person would have given up right then and there. No tickets, no way to get in, right? But, my friends – this is Qatar. The land where you can get anything by knowing the right people and/or exercising your sharply-honed negotiation skills. So I asked “can I talk to someone else about this?” “Sure!” I was told, “You can talk to Mr. [insert name I forget here] when he comes over.” “Is he going to come soon?” I asked. “Probably not – he’s really busy tonight,” was the reply.

Undaunted, I decided to wait it out. After all, I was friends with people who had made it into several VIP-type functions and locations in Qatar using only their confidence (and possibly their good looks) to aid them, and some of those people were coming to tennis that evening. I just had to hang around for a bit, hope that I bumped into such a person, and ride their confident, good-looking coat tails into the tennis final.

By this time I had figured out (or overheard) that the game didn’t start till 6pm, so I had over an hour to see if some sort of plan could come together. I figured my odds of getting in were about 50/50, which is not bad considering I had been flatly turned down by security, and was hoping to bump into one of 4 or 5 influential people in a sea of potentially 7000 tennis spectators. I decided to narrow my odds by calling Tatjana to see if she was coming. Turned out she WAS coming, and she was bringing 2 friends of hers who were on a 10 hour layover on their way to Spain and were waiting for their plane to leave at 1am. I told Tatjana that they weren’t accepting our school IDs for admission. She said they were coming anyway. I like that confidence!

In the meantime, a crowd of about 15 other disappointed CNA-Q employees (as well as several of their friends and family) had gathered outside the entrance gate and were complaining about our revoked free-entry privileges. As our numbers grew, some of the organizing officials started to get antsy and came out to talk to us, lest we form a disgruntled mob and storm the stadium entrance in a last-ditch effort to see free world-class tennis.

We were told that “an email was sent to the college yesterday telling them that the free passes were canceled.” Come on! Who checks their work email on the weekend?! (remember, Friday is part of the weekend in Qatar – also, when I went back to work on Sunday? NO EMAIL!) We were also told “perhaps we can get Mr. [insert another name I forget here] to come an arrange something for you,” but it never happened. As Tatjana arrived at 5:30 (with her Spanish friends in tow) most of the disgruntled CNA-Qians had decided to either pay for tickets or just grab some food at Applebee’s, and abandoned the entrance gate. At the same time, long lines of ticket-holders were making their way into the stadium, staring at those of us who thought we could get in for free, and wondering why we looked so unhappy at a tennis match.

By 5:50pm, Tatjana, myself, and the two Spaniards (who really wanted to see the match, since the one dude – Nadal – was actually Spanish!) decided to give up and try to find a way home. As we walked across the stadium grounds, I mourned the fact that we were not sufficiently confident or good-looking enough to weasel our way into the match. I think Tatjana teased me about this as well. Which didn’t help my confidence much.

But wait! What’s this? Tatjana had just caught the eye of a 40-ish Qatari man who was wearing some sort of official-looking pass over his perfectly white thobe! Suddenly I heard her telling him, “Yeah, we had been invited to watch tennis tonight, but when we went to the entrance gate, they wouldn’t let us in!” The Qatari man said “Just a moment, I’m waiting for my driver to pick up my children” (there were 3 young children playing at the feet of this man). Within a minute, a Land Cruiser pulled up and the children were hustled into the car. The man then turned to us and said “Follow me.” Like the disciples on the shore of Galilee, we obeyed these words and followed him, in the hopes that our future would be made a little brighter!

We were taken through the security check at what looked like the VIP entrance (no lineup of ticket holders) and made to pass through a metal detector. I guess tennis players are pretty high profile targets these days (?!) It was as I reached into my jacket pocket that I remembered that I was carrying a box of 500 nails and thumbtacks (see? I told you they were part of the story!) Honestly, who comes to a tennis match and has to pull a box of 500 nails and thumbtacks out of their pocket as they pass through security? Me, that’s who.

With Tatjana shaking her head at me as if to say “Dude, really?! Really. Dude!”, I handed the box of tiny, sharp, threatening objects to the nearby security guard. Our Qatari patron told me to make sure that I came back to that gate after the game to pick them up. I sheepishly nodded and continued to follow him towards the stairs to the seating area. At this point, I was pretty sure that a blog entry was going to develop.

We were told to wait at the bottom of the stairs while our new Qatari friend talked to some people on our behalf. After about 10 or 15 minutes, he returned and said to us, “I wasn’t able to get you into the box seats, but I have been given permission to escort you to the seating area above this section. Just take any empty seats that you want.” I would have kissed this man, if it was socially acceptable. Now that I think about it, it completely IS socially acceptable for a man to kiss a man in this culture, but I had just met the guy, and I didn’t want to overdo it.

We followed him again as he led us past several security people (“These people are with me!”) and up to the seating area. We were one level up from the box seats, and one level down from where we sat the night before. And we got in for free. Thank you Qatar, and your semi-easily bendable rules regarding admission to high-profile events!

By the time we got in it was 6:15, which was fine, because the match didn’t actually start until about 7 or 7:30 (funny how I can’t remember the exact time – if Dave Lapsley were with me I would ask him, because he always remembers stuff like that). We were about 5 minutes into the first game when I realized that I had to go to the bathroom. I hadn’t actually peed since I left my house, which was well before 3pm. Tennis matches often last 3 full sets, and each set requires that a player win at least 6 games, so it looked like I might have to hold it for a while.

“But Darren,” you may ask, “Why couldn’t you just get up and use a public toilet in the stadium?” To which I would reply that there are 3 reasons why I could not. First, stadium toilets, people. Nuh uh. Second, in professional tennis matches, they don’t actually allow people to walk around (or even talk) while the players are playing. You have to wait till a game ends before you can get up from your seat OR go back to your seat, if you already got up earlier. And third, since we were let in for free, we had no ticket stubs, and there were people checking ticket stubs every time you entered the seating area. I was stranded.

So I held it. For a long time. I could almost feel the urine backing up from my bladder into my kidneys, but I had waited so long to get into this tennis match that I didn’t want to blow it now.

Then tennis itself started to taunt me.

In the second set, Nadal and Davydenko were so evenly matched that they each won 6 games, and had to play a tiebreaker game. Then, even in the tiebreaker game they were matching each other point for point. 3-3, 4-4, 5-5, 6-6. It was like the tennis gods were saying to me, “I’m going to draw this game out as long as possible, just to test the limits of your leg-crossing ability!” Finally Davydenko got two points in a row, and the set ended. And so did my patience.

By this point, Tatjana and her friends were both feeling pretty chilly (it got down to 19 degrees that night, which might not sound that cold, but for some reason felt like it) so we all decided to skip the last set and head home. But not before making a quick stop at a nearby restaurant to use the bathroom. Actually, first I had to stop at the gate and pick up my nails and thumbtacks. But even before THAT, I called our driver-service and asked them to send two cars – one for me, and one for Tatjana and her friends.

The thing was, usually it takes about 20 minutes for the drivers to show up, but by the time we had made it out of the stadium, used a bank machine (we needed money to pay the drivers) got my nails and thumbtacks, and walked over to the restaurant, the cars were arriving. Tatjana and the two Spanish women (did I mention they were women?) all went to the bathroom themselves, but I noticed the drivers there AFTER they went into the bathroom, but BEFORE I used the bathroom myself. So I had to wait even longer for them to come out so that I could tell them that their driver was there, and where he was parked.

But the girls took so long in the bathroom that by the time they came out, I couldn’t keep my driver waiting any longer, so I quickly showed them their car, ran into my driver’s car, and told him to get me home quick because I hadn’t peed since 2pm (and it was now well after 9).

Well, you’ll all be happy to hear that I arrived at home with dry pants, although I ran straight into the bathroom as soon as I opened the front door. Peeing never felt so good, let me tell you. And that, my friends, is how I spent my Saturday.

I was thinking today (as I rode the bus to work) about the financial crisis in Dubai. I think what triggered it was someone else on the bus mentioning that they had visited Dubai over the Christmas holidays. That led me to think about how there might be some very good travel deals available for Dubai right now, since it needs the money, which led me to think about how I had actually heard of Dubai’s financial troubles almost a year ago, while everyone else in North America seemed only to hear about it sometime just before Christmas.

All of these thoughts led to another pile of thoughts about information, and how (despite the worldwide connectivity afforded by the internet) the places where we live still dictate how much we know about what’s going on in the rest of the world. I knew about the Dubai situation far earlier than most North Americans because I live close to it, I know people who are working there or who have worked there recently, and because many people in this area tend to go there for vacations or conferences, and come back talking about Dubai news.

What I didn’t understand was why the average North American didn’t learn about Dubai’s financial problems until recently. Most people who are semi-educated about the state of the world today have some idea that Dubai is a place of extravagant architecture, big spending, and hot temperatures. They have seen pictures or heard about the man-made palm-shaped islands that offered huge stretches of beachfront property in Dubai, and they heard rumours that Dubai was building a really really tall building. But it wasn’t until December, when the international news services reported that Dubai was asking its neighbour for some bailout money, that everyone found out that Dubai wasn’t doing so hot (so to speak), even though the real-estate market there fell out in early 2009. It took almost a year for news of Dubai’s situation to make it across the world, and yet information now travels at the speed of light.

It made me think too about how the average Canadian knows quite a lot about what’s going on in American politics, while the average American is completely clueless about what happens in Canada, a country that the USA shares the longest undefended boarder in the world with. I’m sure the reason for this is that most Americans simply don’t care about Canada (and when you think about it, why should they?), but it leads to a situation where the average American might know a lot about the USA and very little about anywhere else, while the average Canadian knows a lot about both Canada and the USA (and probably very little about anywhere else!).

Growing up in Hamilton Ontario, we had the same situation in relation to the rest of Canada. We knew a lot about what was happening in the area along Lake Ontario, between Toronto and Niagara Falls, and very little about what was going on in the rest of Canada. When I moved out to British Columbia for 7 months, I suddenly learned about the rest of Canada, but was still up-to-date with Ontario news. Conversely, people who live in Toronto often know a lot about Toronto, while even neighbouring cities like Hamilton or St. Catharines would be completely off their radar. Toronto is to Ontario what Hamilton is to Canada, which is what the USA is to the rest of the world.

Now, all of these situations assume that if you do live in some popular “happening place”, while you might not know much about what’s happening outside of where you live, you should still know a lot about where you actually are. But this isn’t always the case either. Sometimes living where you are makes it more difficult to find objective information about your own location. For instance, I had several Chinese friends who were completing their Master’s degrees in my program several years ago who had no idea that China had a reputation for human rights violations. Any newspaper or magazine article outlining such situations had not been made public in their home country.

By the same token, since the 9/11 attacks in the USA, many Americans put forward all kinds of theories about why people from the Middle East might want to attack America. Many said that those terrorists hated American freedoms. Others said that the terrorists were jealous of American prosperity. A large number of people thought the attacks were religion-based, and blamed Muslims as a whole. But very few average Americans had any idea that most of the rest of the world (including much of the world outside of the Middle East) hated American foreign policy, and that such policies were being blamed for the treatment of Palestinians in Israel, among other things.

As someone who lives in the Middle East, I can give you 3 good reasons why people in this part of the world might hate the USA. Two are reasons that are well-established, and one is a reason of my own deduction. First, many in the Middle East consider Western (American) morality to be substandard when compared to their own moral standards. The thought of allowing pornography, adultery, and free sex to run rampant without societal restraint is completely perplexing to the Middle Eastern mindset – you might as well shoot your society in the foot and still expect it to run. Second, there is the foreign policy situation which I mentioned above, which views America as the self-declared police force of the world, imposing its own political and economic self-interests on everyone else because of its own unrivaled military strength.

The final reason people in the Middle East (or elsewhere) might hate America, and this is just my own idea here, is that the USA is (arguably) the only global superpower, and if you get your kicks killing people or blowing stuff up (or ordering others to kill and blow stuff up) the USA is the most challenging and globally visible target. Attacking America shows that you have balls, gets you onto the elite list of worldwide criminal organizations, and guarantees that you’ll get big, worldwide publicity. I believe that the number one reason why anyone decides to enter the terrorist profession is because they like doing stuff that terrorists do – killing people, torturing people, raping people, blowing stuff up, getting good drugs, getting recognition for bad-assery rather than intelligence, etc., and if you can do some damage to the USA, you’re gonna have a lot of future job opportunities in terrorist circles.

But getting back to the topic of Information and Location, here’s a question. If living in some places means you’re ignorant of other places (or even of your own place), where is the best place to live where you’ll have maximum access to what’s actually going on in the world, globally speaking? It would have to be someplace that’s not too big and exciting, otherwise you’ll only be concerned with your own news and events (like the USA or Toronto), and it can’t be someplace attached to somewhere big and exciting, or you may only be concerned with yourself and the place you’re attached to (like Hamilton or any country in Europe). That leaves us with living in places that are somewhat isolated, with very little going on locally, and ready access to worldwide news.

So, in my mind, we’re left with several options: Scandinavia (Sweden or Finland or Norway), Australia/New Zealand, or (ahem…) Qatar. Scandinavia is isolated enough, and has little drama within its own boarders. Also, the few people I’ve met from Scandinavia have been excellently well-traveled, and can communicate in English better than some North Americans I know. And if you do any traveling anywhere outside of your home town, you’ll know that people from Australia and New Zealand are always traveling everywhere – soaking up new experiences and exploring the world. Because really, who is more isolated than Australia and New Zealand? And after you’ve spent a few weeks seeing the major sights in those countries, you have no other cross-cultural options but to hop on a plane and visit the rest of the world.

And finally, of course, there’s Qatar. I just note that many of the Qatari locals have done very little traveling outside of the Gulf, and few take a huge interest in cultures outside of their own. But if you’re an ex-pat in Qatar, you’re in the perfect situation to stay globally connected – You’re surrounded with English-speaking expats from everywhere else in the world, Qatar itself is so small and inconspicuous (and boring) that the newspapers are filled with news from the rest of the world, and geographically speaking, Qatar is close to the center of the (non-American) world, so it’s easy to travel from here to most (non-American) countries.

So, what started as some idle thoughts on the bus about Dubai’s financial troubles has brought us through to the motivations of anti-American terrorism, and lead us to the recognition that I am living at the hub of all worldwide knowledge. All-in-all, I’d say that I had a fairly productive bus ride today (mentally speaking).

Earlier today I was thinking about this snipit of conversation that occurred when Nate and Dave were over at my house during the Christmas vacation. It made Larissa and I laugh.

Nate: Have you guys ever had those deserts that are like coconut and chocolate, but with cherry stuff on them?
Darren: Like, coconut macaroons?
Nate: No, they’re like macaroons, but they have a funny name.
Dave (under his breath): Macaroon is a funny name.

I’m posting this quickly because I don’t know how much time I have left. You see, it seems as if Q-Tel, the local Qatari internet service provider, has some crazy-butt glitch that is causing it to randomly block my blog when I’m trying to log in and write new posts. I’m frantically trying to let people know before this very page that I’m typing on is no longer accessible.

Now, I know that Q-Tel regularly blocks pornography, racist sites, sites that are critical of Islam, and sites that are critical of the Qatari government, but as far as I can tell, none of those things have appeared on my blog. And, just for the record, the Qatari government is very nice and treats me extremely well. I would very much enjoy staying in your country and getting paid far too much to teach English – really! So please don’t block my blog! Otherwise how can I tell people how great it is here and convince them to come and visit me/move here themselves?!

So, my friends, in case this is the last that you hear from me on this blog for a long time, please stay strong and know that I will be back – so help me I will be back – even if I have to stay on hold with Q-tel customer service for a really, really long time, I will be back.

So until next time, good night, and good luck.

After taking a 15 minute nap in bed, Larissa woke up off the couch, came upstairs to tell me that I had been called on my mobile by some stranger with a phone number that was almost all 9′s, and the following conversation took place:

Larissa: We’re not doing so well with staying awake, are we?

Darren: We sleep all day and we’re up all night – we’re living the life of rock stars!

Larissa: Or factory workers.

Darren: I’m posting that on my blog!

We’re now contemplating going outdoors, just for something to do.

Jet lag sucks. It just really, really sucks a lot. In other words, I don’t like it. I would even go so far as to say that I hate it. Hence the title of this post. Here are some reasons why I don’t like jet lag.

1. It makes you really, really tired. When you have jet lag, you sleep at weird times. More to the point, you don’t sleep at the times when you’re supposed to (i.e. at night). This tends to make you tired when you want to be awake (like “at work” or “when it’s time to eat”) and awake when you want to sleep (“at night”, as mentioned above).

2. It makes you lose your ability to write well on your blog. You end up having no talent for utilizing a snappy adverb, and tend to rely on typing words like “really” several times over (see the above two paragraphs). This can be really, really frustrating (see?)

3. It makes you not start doing laundry till 10:30am. This is because you don’t fall asleep until 5am, and 10:30am is the earliest you can wake up. This sucks because in the Qatari winter, it’s important to hang your laundry outside for the afternoon to dry properly, and the Qatari upright washing machine takes upwards of 2 1/2 to 3 hours to run through the wash cycle. There are no dryers in Qatar.

4. It disrupts the pooing schedule. Generally, I make the chocolate deposit every morning sometime between 5:30 and 6:30am. This means that I’m able to shower afterward and make sure that anything not wiped completely clean by the toilet paper is washed off by thoroughly scrubbing my hindquarters. Hence, a clean ass all day. One might even go so far as to call me “Clean-ass Darren” (although thus far, no one has). By screwing with my pooing, jet lag means that I might shower before my used-to-be-morning toilet session. And that’s just wrong.

5. I really hate being tired in the morning/early afternoon. Being tired when you don’t want to be tired really, really sucks. I’m usually really good at being awake when I’m supposed to be, and sleeping when it’s sleepy time. Jet lag takes one look at my “sleeping/being awake at the right times” talent (yes, I’m calling it a talent) and says “You think you’re good at this? Let’s throw 14 hours of air travel with a 3 hour stopover at London Heathrow at you and see how talented you are then, eh?!” A side effect of this is that you end up personifying “Jet Lag”.

6. You start to repeat points you’ve already made earlier in your post. See point 5 and point 1. I better end this post now before I type it all over again using slightly-different-but-still-lacking-in-adequate-adverb-variation language.

So, to sum up, and in conclusion, jet lag sucks.

PS – the cereal called “Oatibix Bites” pretty much describes itself in its own name.

Let me preface this post by saying that Larissa and I had a wonderful time while we were back in Canada for our Christmas vacation. But let me start the actual topic of this post by saying that I’m amazed by how much Qatar now feels like home.

We arrived back in Qatar a little less than 24 hours ago, and walked into our villa to find it largely the exact same way we left it, but with an extra layer of dust on everything. Usually when we leave for an extended vacation, we get our cleaner to come in at least once to make everything nice and shiny for our arrival, but we recently changed cleaners, and he wasn’t sure what we wanted him to do. He’ll be here on Sunday to clean through the place, but in the meantime, we’re trying not to touch the tables too much.

However, in spite of the dust, it felt so nice to walk into familiar surroundings, to see the bilingual Arabic/English signs outside everywhere, and especially to walk outdoors in short sleeves and feel the cool Qatari breeze mixing with the 22 degree celsius winter sunshine. I also was very happy to sleep in my own bed again, where I have to roll two full rotations to get from my side to Larissa’s, and where our semi-expensive cotton sheets caress my body like only Larissa is allowed to.

I just finished walking over to our local grocery store (Lulu Hypermarket) to re-stock our refrigerator, and could not help but thank God for the beautiful weather as I walked over. It was also nice to see the familiar ratio of Indian, Asian, Qatari, and white people (5:3:1:1) as I walked through the store (there are far too many white-folk in Hamilton). As I completed my purchase with my excellent Qatari IBQ credit card (5% cash back on all purchases!) I heard the familiar sound of a text message on my mobile phone, informing me of how much had been debited to my Mastercard account, and how much credit I had left. Ah, the sweet sights and sounds of home!

Since few of our friends have come back from vacation, tonight will probably be a low-key evening of eating food, playing some Wii Mario, unpacking, and maybe watching a movie. We’re anxious to see our favourite people here again and find out about their adventures over the holidays, but we’re also excited about the new people that we’ll meet this semester. There’s a fairly regular turnover of employees each September and January, and while I’m sure that the new batch is the typical mix of average joes, cool folks, and weirdos (6:1:3), we look forward to seeing how all of the new friendships (and dramas) play out.

2010 may be starting quietly, but it promises to be an exciting year (especially with our new son making his appearance in April) – we can’t wait to see how our Middle Eastern home treats us this year!