DarrenConley.com

Often, in the morning, I'll wake up at about 5am and find that I can't get back to sleep.  The fact is, I get bored of sleeping, especially when I start thinking about everything I could be doing.  My body, however, is not always ready to match the activity of my mind at that early hour, so I'll spend an hour or so reading in bed until I'm ready to actually get up.

Lately I've been reading a book by Don Miller called "Searching for God Knows What".  I'm reading it because I enjoyed studying "Blue Like Jazz" with our small group back home, and also this book seemed to fit nicely in our carry-on baggage as we were leaving Canada for Qatar.  The book is about… actually, I can't tell you exactly what it's about, because it's almost written like a stream of thought about various topics relating to relationships and spirituality (he writes like my inner monologue sounds, which is why I'm guessing that so many people read his books), but the part I was reading this morning is about finding your sense of self-worth, and how we spend so much time comparing ourselves to others.

Don spends a good section in this one chapter describing some of his experiences when he was in middle-school, and how the competition to move up the social ladder drives so many of the dramas that pre-teens have to endure at that age.  I could relate quite well to Don as he described his own situation: Not athletic enough, good-looking enough, or wealthy enough to be in the upper-eschelons of pre-teen society, but not among the outcasts or objects of ridicule either.  For the most part, I had my middle-of-the-ladder friends, and I did little to advance or detract from my social standing.

Part of what Don was talking about was how people get their sense of self-worth from the way that others choose to assign worth to them.  If people tell you that you're cool, you feel like a cool person.  If people tell you you're a loser, you feel like you're a loser.  Even if you don't fully buy into how another person might label you, you still second-guess your own assessment of yourself based on what your hear them say.

All of this got me thinking about one particular friend that I had in high school.  I'm going to spend some time describing this person, so that you understand who they are and how I related to them, and then I'll tie my thoughts about this person into what I was saying above.

Sarah was what I would call a good acquaintence of mine throughout grade 12 and 13 (yes, in my part of Canada, back when I was in high school we had a grade 13).  She was tall and slender, and did some modeling with a local agency from time to time.  She was taller than me (much like, though I hate to admit it, my wife also is) and probably smarter than me as well.  She certainly had much better study habits than I did, and her marks showed it.  Even though I was not a trouble-maker in school, I always felt like Calvin to her Susi Derkins.

I was enamoured with Sarah for the better part of two years.  I actually got to spend a fair amount of time with her at school, since we both were taking all of the "smart people" classes.  In fact, if I remember correctly, I actually sat either beside or behind her in Algebra, Physics, and two semesters of Art classes.  I'm sure that the only reason we sat so close in those classes was because I had weaseled the seating situation to work out that way somehow.

I remember at the end of grade 12, when we had our graduation ceremony and prom, I had been dating my girlfriend at the time for about a full year, and she was (obviously) the one who came with me to the prom dinner and dance.  But for most of that evening, my focus kept drifting over to Sarah.  Sarah did not come with a date: either too many boys were intimidated by her height and looks, or she just wasn't interested in any of the boys who were around at the time.  I desperately wanted to ask her to dance, but my girlfriend refused to allow me to dance with anyone else.  I did speak briefly to Sarah at one point in the evening, and I remember she gave me one of her grad photos, with her number on the back so that we could keep in touch over the summer.  I was elated.  The rest of the evening I had to feign interest in my girlfriend, but all I could think about was Sarah and that photo in my pocket.  I called her a few times over the summer, but we never actually got together.  I was too nervous to ask her to actually spend time alone with me.  I also broke up with my girlfriend that summer.

It was in grade 13 that we sat together for so many of those classes, and my attraction to Sarah never went away.  It wasn't just that she was beautiful, and it wasn't just that she was smart.  It was that she had this quiet confidence about her that completely intruiged me.  When I first met her, I thought she was just shy, but she didn't display any of the awkward insecurities that shy people usually exhibit.  She wasn't part of the "cool crowd", but she was by no means a geek either.  She had a few girl friends that she spend most of her social time with, and while she was at school, she mainly focused on her studies.

I remember talking with her most often in Art class.  Art class lends itself to discussion, because most of your time is spent sketching or painting, and while your hands are busy, your mouth and ears are still available for use.  I also remember that most of the talking was done by me, although she was by no means completely passive in our interactions.  She would smile or chuckle at my jokes, and she would offer her thoughts about the topic of discussion, and sometimes she would look at me like I'm crazy, the same way that Larissa often looks at me when I say something completely off the wall, but always that quiet confidence remained, making me feel just a little bit intimidated through all of our conversations.

Sometimes I felt like Sarah and I really were decent friends, but more often then not, I felt like she was putting up with me.  I know her feelings toward me were more positive than negative, because I knew people she felt negatively towards, and she treated me better than them.  I'm sure that much of my intimidation was due to my own insecurities, but at the same time, Sarah gave little by way of clues to let me know how she really felt towards me.

All of this relates to my morning reading today in this: Don Miller talked a lot about social hierarchies, and how much of our lives (especially as teens) are spent in comparing ourselves to others and in trying to move up the social ladder somehow, and yet Sarah seemed (to me) to be comepletely outside that system.  I never heard her speak a word of self-comparison or envy, I never saw her changing friends to try to get with a "cooler" crowd, I never saw her put someone down to try to elevate herself, and I never saw her worry about how others were thinking of her.  And that's what made her so intruiging and intimidating at the same time.

I spent a while this morning wondering what was really going on inside of Sarah back in highschool.  Was she upset that she didn't have a date for prom in grade 12?  Did she worry about what others at school thought about her?  Did she hide her insecurities from me, but still reveal them to her girlfriends when they talked privately?  Where did she find her sense of self-worth?  Was she in need of someone to tell her that she was cool or smart or beautiful?  Did she feel strange that she was taller than most of the boys, and smarter than most of the pretty girls?  Or was she really above all of that, and truly content with who she was and how she related to those around her?

I know from my experience with Larissa that there is usually much more going on beneath the surface of people than can be seen at first (or even second) glance.  Larissa projected the same air of confidence, beauty, and intimidation as I was getting to know her that I felt when I spent time with Sarah in highschool, and I discovered later (as she confided to me) that Larissa had learned to mask her insecurities behind good posture, a confident demeaneur, and well chosen words sparingly used.  Was Sarah wearing a mask as well?  And why do I still wonder about this, almost 15 years later?

To add an extra layer of confusion to the story, at the end of grade 13, on the last day of school, Sarah gave me a gift.  To this day it is one of the most thoughtful gifts I've ever received, and certainly the most unexpected.  It was an address book, but instead of being organized by letters, it was organized by animals (still alphabetically, though), so each page started with something like "Apes", "Bears", "Crocodiles", etc., with room for peoples' names and addresses below.  What made it so thoughtful was that Sarah had gone around to everyone she could find that knew me, and had them write their names and addresses inside so that we could keep in touch.  She must have had 20 or 30 people write in it, and of course she had to tell them that it was a gift for me.

What made that gift confusing was that she had written on the inside cover "To my best friend".  To this day I'm not sure what she meant by that.  Did she feel like she was closer to me than anyone else at school, even though I felt like she kept so much of her feelings hidden from me?  Did she want to stress the fact that she was not attracted to me, and therefore felt the need to assure me that we were "friends", but nothing more?  But why write "best"?  Was she being sarcastic and saying that she thought that I thought that we were best friends, when we really weren't?  But why write something sarcastic on such a thoughtful gift?

The epilogue to the story is that I never really kept in touch with Sarah, or with any of my school friends for that matter, besides having reconnected with some of them through Facebook.  The last I heard, Sarah was pursuing (and I'm sure has completed by now) a PhD in Art History.  Part of me feels like I've reconciled myself to those parts of Sarah that intimidated me through the ups and downs of forging my relationship with Larissa before we were married.  And I guess part of me is still confused, wondering who Sarah really was and what her gift really meant so many years ago.  I'd really like to somehow get in touch with her again and ask her some of these questions.

It's strange how the past can re-write itself when you find out later what was really going on behind the scenes.  And it's strange to think about how the present will look different when we view it through the lens of the future.  And it's strange to think about how a book that you're reading at 5:30am in Qatar can bring you back to highschool and unanswered questions from another lifetime.

Alright everyone, I finally tidied up our new apartment to the point where I can take pictures and post them online without getting in trouble from Larissa for making us look like slobs.  In the interest of full disclosure, however, I should point out that there was a pile of clothes that got moved to several different rooms during the picture-taking process, and which you will not see making an appearance in any of these photographs. 

I'll do my best to post these in a logical and descriptive fashion.  If you click on each thumbnail, you should be able to see a large(r) version of each picture.  You may also get some hidden information about each picture (and every picture on this website, in fact) by hovering over the thumbnail with your mouse.  Finally, if you're reading this post through Facebook, not every picture may display properly.  The best thing to do is go to www.darrenconley.com and view this post directly.  On to the photos!

Living Room 1: This is the view of our apartment that you'll see as soon as you walk in our door.  You pretty much step into our living room, while you'll notice the dining room behind it.  Between the living room and dining room, a hallway extends to the right (see the Hallway photo below).  Right beside the entrance, to the right of this view (and outside this picture) is a bathroom which we haven't yet used (see Bathroom 1 below).

Living Room 2: This is the same room, but looking from the other direction.  The door to our apartment is at the back right of the photo, and the door to "Bathroom 1" is on the left, behind where you see the TV.  The chair beside the TV is just filling space until we buy a floor plant.  I'd personally like a tall, non-intrusive tree.

Bathroom 1: Here's that bathroom that I mentioned above.  Until yesterday, the toilet had a leak, so we haven't got it fully cleaned up yet.  There's a showering apparatus on the right wall, which has no curtain and a drain in the middle of the bathroom floor.  There's also an alternative to a bidet on the left of the toilet (unseen in this photo) which is essentially a hose with a squeeze-and-spray shower head thingy attached to it.  I'm guessing that you're supposed to point this at your bum and give it a good wash after you take care of business.  I haven't summoned the courage to try it out though.  This bum-cleaner hose is found in most of the public toilet stalls here.  As you can see, we're also using this bathroom for storing our cleaning supplies and extra water jugs.

 Dining Room: Here is a close-up of the dining room area, with a seemingly odd arrangement of our chairs.  Our table actually came with 6 chairs, but since there are only two people making regular use of the table, there was no need to crowd 6 chairs around it all the time.  One of the chairs can be seen filling space in the Living room (see the photos above), and the other two are strategically placed in the corners of the room to allow for maximum symmetry.  Since this photo was taken, these two chairs have been moved into our bedroom (though you won't see them in the photos of the bedroom below) and are being used to chuck clothes onto for future wearing.  You also get to see our water cooler here, which is hiding a box of Frosted Flakes cereal (called "Frosties" here) on its left side.

Hallway: Not the most exciting photo in the stack.  This is the hallway that leads off to the right of the Living Room 1 picture above.  On the right is the door to our kitchen, and further down on the right is the door to Bathroom 2 (see below).  On the left are the doors to our two bedrooms, and straight at the end of the hall is our office, where you'll find the en-suite bathroom (known in this post as "Bathroom 3").

Kitchen 1: The view you get of our kitchen as soon as you enter.  On the far left (outside the picture) is our fridge.  Moving to the right, you'll see our oven/stove (the stove elements have a cover over them in this shot), our sink, the dishwasher and clothes washer on the floor, and our kettle, microwave, and toaster above them.  There's a fire extinguisher on the right of the picture, but hopefully we won't have to use it.  Unless I'm doing the cooking.  The microwave might get moved between the fridge and the oven.  I'll probably not post an updated picture of that when it happens.  You'll have to look at this picture and use your imaginations, people!

Kitchen 2: Here you finally get to see our fridge, and the (possible) future location of the microwave oven.  I will have to move those water bottles to make the change, though.  Hmmm… this is starting to sound like there's a little too much effort involved.  By the way, if you look between the fridge and the (soon to be microwave) counter, you'll see our little stash of plastic bags.  We've accumulated quite a pile after only two weeks in Qatar, but that's what happens when you go shopping every night!

 Bathroom 2a: This is the main bathroom that we use, and actually the only bathroom that I've fully cleaned since we moved in.  This is the right side of the bathroom as you walk in, and you can see our toilet, our stylish shower curtain (which I installed myself – let it not be said that I have no handyman skills!) and our full bidet, which I have also never used.  I'm actually hoping that I can find a bidet tutorial online somewhere – I'm just afraid of how graphic the diagrams might be.

 Bathroom 2b: Another angle of our main bathroom, this time looking to the left.  There are no storage cabinets, so all of our bathroom stuff is piled onto the glass shelves that you see beside the sink.  There are also no electrical outlets in any of our three bathrooms, so any plug-in bathroom items have to be used in another room.  My electric shaver is currently in our office, our electric toothbrush is in the spare bedroom (Bedroom 2), and Larissa's hairdryer and hair straightener are sharing plug-space with the toothbrush.  You may catch a glimpse of the electric toothbrush in one of the "Bedroom 2" pictures below, but not the hair appliances.  They're a little shy.

 Bedroom 1a: This is the "Master Bedroom", which is pretty much the same size as the other bedroom, but has two windows.  If you're updating your mental layout of the apartment, this is the room through the door on the back left of the "Hallway" photo.  The view that you see here is how it looks as soon as you enter the room (you can actually see the door handle and keys to the room at the left of the picture).  Our bedspread will change sometime in the next day or two – these sheets were purchased quickly so as to prevent us having to sleep on an unclad mattress on our first night at the apartment.  Picking out the side-table lamps took, like, a week, if you can believe it.

Bedroom 1b: Looking at the bedroom from the other side of the bed, so that you can see our dresser.  I wouldn't want you to miss out on seeing our dresser.  Dresser affectionados the world over would be writing to me, asking to get a better view of our dresser.  You also get a better view of Larissa's many moisturizing products, found on the left side of the all-important dresser.

 Bedroom 1c: A final view of our bedroom, this time from the head of our bed and looking toward our wardrobe.  By the way, all of the furniture that you see in these pictures came with the apartment, and we're obligated to keep it and return it in good condition at the end of our 3 year contract here.  So if you don't like any of the furniture, don't blame our taste in home-decor.  You can blame us for the lamps, pictures, sheets, rugs, and dishes, though.  Not that you can see any of those things in this picture.

View 1a: I know that this isn't technically a picture of our apartment, but this is the view that you'll see FROM our apartment, if you were to kneel on our bed an look out the window that is behind it.  Actually, this is the view if you look to the right out of that window.  I still don't know the name of this street, but it gets fairly busy as the day moves on.  The street running roughly from left to right in this photo is a major commercial street, and the street where we do most of our grocery shopping, eating out, and internet cafe-ing.  In front of that street, you get a great look at a rubble field or two.  There are many of these in Doha.

View 1b: This view is from the same window as above, but looking more to the left.  The colour that most of these houses are is pretty standard for Qatar.  Also pretty standard are air-conditioning units on the roofs, along with water heaters and satellite dishes.  If you look closely, you'll see a couple of the towers that they use to broadcast the call to prayer 5 times each day.  If you look even more closely, you'll see the dirt on the window through which I took this picture.

 View 2a: This is the view from the other window in our bedroom, which you can see on the left side of the picture called Bedroom 1c.  It faces the area to the right of the photos above.  I'm pretty sure it faces West, if you want to be more specific (since the sun comes through those windows in the afternoon), but I haven't actually pulled out a compass to make certain.  One of the first things you'll notice in this photo are the big piles of rubble which used to be buildings.  Something else you'll notice is how dirty the window is through which I took this picture.  A major cause of the dirtiness is the dust from the rubble.

View 2b: This is looking a bit further to the right (North?) of the photo above.  You can still see the rubble, and you can still see the dirt on the window.  There are also some more indications of nearby civilization.  I've never explored out along the street shown here, but I'm sure it just leads through a residential area.  By the way, there is 24hr construction (or demolition, rather) going on in that rubble field.  I think they're breaking it up into very small pieces, sorting the metal from the concrete, and then hauling it all away to be used for more construction.

Bedroom 2a: Here is the spare bedroom, or, if any of you would care to visit us, the "guest bedroom".  Once again, in that hallway picture above, this is the door closest to you on the left.  We haven't bought sheets for the bed yet, but once we get a proper duvet for the master bedroom, the sheets from that bed will be moved here.  So if you want to know what it will look like when you visit, transplant the sheets from bedroom 1 in your mind.  The dresser is the same as the one in the other bedroom, and the view through the window is the same as "View 1a" and "View 1b" above.

Bedroom 2b: Another view of the spare bedroom, this time looking at the bed from the other side of the room.  There's a very nice side table, which we will keep empty so that visiting guests can fill it with their toiletries and surprise-gifts that they've brought us.  Guests are also welcome to use the drawers in the dresser, pictured above, although I can't guarantee that those drawers will be completely empty.  I also cannot speak of what might be found in those drawers on the internet.  You'll have to come to Qatar and ask me in person.  If you're wondering what's above the bed, it's the power switch and remote control for the air conditioning unit, which you can't see in this picture.

Bedroom 2c: Another view of the same bedroom, but now you get to see to the left of the dresser.  As you can see, there's a large set of storage cupboards built into the wall.  Currently these cupboards are filled with empty boxes, my spring jacket, and a suitcase or two.  I can plainly tell you what is in these cupboards, because these cupboards are not the dresser.  Do not ask about the dresser.  It's classified.  Unless you talk to me in person.  In Qatar.  In the quiet corner of a well-lit eating establishment.  Where you're picking up the bill!

Office 1: This is actually another bedroom, and in fact, this is where the bed from the spare bedroom was first deposited when we moved in.  We moved it to the other bedroom, and made this room the office.  The door that you see on the left side of the photo is the open door that was at the end of the Hallway photo, and that desk chair can be seen in the Hallway photo too.  We moved that large comfy-chair out of the living room (there was no space), and we moved the corner-desk thing (where the desk chair is) out of the spare bedroom when we made this the office.  We don't have enough books for the bookshelf, so it's currently storing odds-and-ends (you'll notice my electric shaver on the bottom shelf).  The view out the window is the same as "View 2a" and "View 2b" above.

Office 2: Another view of the office, this time standing in the doorway and looking to the right.  We have another cupboard unit built into the wall here, and I'm using it as my closet right now.  We have some more luggage stored in the top cupboard.  You also get to see our drying rack, which is not fancy, but gets the job done.  You'll notice that there is no dresser in this room.  Actually, there was, when we moved in.  But we moved it to the spare bedroom.  And now we don't talk about it.  Stop bringing it up.

Office 3: This picture is mostly just to show you the doorway to the en-suite bathroom.  You may be wondering why we didn't use this room as the master bedroom, since this is the only bedroom with an en-suite.  Well, the simple fact is, this room is pretty small.  In fact, it was so small that there was no good way to position the bed and still allow ourselves access to the dresser and cupboards.  So it's an office with an en-suite bathroom, which works out great if you stay on the computer too long, and don't think you can make it to another toilet before your bladder explodes.  Although technically, the toilet in "Bathroom 2" is probably just as close, if not closer.

Bathroom 3a: Here is the final room of the apartment: the third bathroom.  This bathroom is actually the largest bathroom in our apartment, and it gets the most natural light.  It's also the bathroom that we use the least.  We haven't actually used it at all.  It just happened that "Bathroom 2" was closer to the rooms that we use most often, so that was the bathroom that got cleaned first and outfitted with a shower curtain and toilet paper etc.  This bathroom is, of course, fully functional, but the tub and the toilet need a good cleaning before I would feel comfortable using them.

Bathroom 3b: In case you were wondering what the toilet actually looks like, you can see it in this picture.  You can also see our second bidet.  Seriously, if anyone knows of a good bidet tutorial, or if any of you have used one regularly in the past and are comfortable in providing instructions (but not accompanying photos or illustrations, please!), feel free to hook me up with the 411 on bum-washing.  I'm just not that excited about a stream of water shooting up my anus.  Ahem.  This picture also shows the bath-mat that I purchased before Larissa found a better one for the other bathroom.  Yeah, let's just focus on the bath mat instead of the bidet.  UPDATED – Found a decent bidet tutorial on this website!

Outside hall: Now you can pretend that you're leaving our apartment (through the living room) and walking out into the hallway outside our door.  If you want to get the full effect of this experience, imagine yourself leaving a delightfully air-conditioned apartment and stepping out into a very warm hallway, which looks deceptively cool at first glance.  You could then imagine yourself walking down a downright hot set of stairs to the ground floor of the building, and then through another warm hallway and through the front doors into the inferno-like furnace that is outdoor Qatar in August.

Bus: And if you were an employee of CNA-Q, you might be walking outside so that you could get onto one of the company-provided buses, the interior of which you can see in this photo.  The bus is actually the size of a very large passenger van, and seats about… 21 or 22?  Every seat has its own air-conditioning vent (you can see them along the ceiling), and is quite comfortable.  Also, it's free, and driven by someone who actually knows where they're going (most of the time – see this post).

So there you have it – Our apartment (plus some extra photos of the surrounding area) packaged and delivered in one blog post.  If you are especially gifted in the area of spacial relations, you can stare at our pictures for a while and then try to walk through our apartment in your imagination.  It will almost be like you're actually here, without the benefit of personal interaction with Larissa and I.  And let's face it, the best part of being in our apartment is interacting with us.  It's certainly not the bidets.  Ugh…

It's Friday in Doha, and the weekend has begun.  Actually, it began on Thursday night.  Because Thursday is the new Friday, Friday is the new Sunday, Sunday is the new Monday, and Saturday?  Saturday is still Saturday.

Here's how it actually works.  In Islamic cultures, Friday is their holy day.  That means that people who go to non-Islamic religious celebrations (Christians going to church, for example) will go on Fridays as well.  That's why Friday is the new Sunday.  And much like Sundays in North America, stores and malls will open much later on Friday (often not until 3 or 4pm, if at all), and many people like to spend the day with their families.  In fact, the mall that I talked about in this post has set aside Fridays as "family day" at the mall.  I have no idea what this means in practical terms – perhaps it's just an encouragement to bring the whole family shopping instead of just coming yourself.

Because Friday is the new Sunday (and the start of the official weekend, which is Friday & Saturday), Thursday becomes the new Friday.  That means that on Thursday nights, people often go out for dinner or watch a movie or both.  Just like we did last night when we got together with Dan and Andrea and watched Hellboy II, after eating a hardy meal at Chilis.  Yes, Chilis.  We haven't got too cross-cultural with our food choices yet.

And as long as I'm on the topic of movies, let me say a few things about the movie theatres here.  First, they have reserved seating.  When you buy your tickets, you choose which seat numbers you want, so you can show up for the movie 30 seconds before it starts and be guaranteed to have your seats.  I first experienced this system in Hong Kong, and I gotta say that it is a VAST improvement over what we have in Canada.  Second, the ushers actually USHER you to your seats, walking beside you with their flashlights.  It's like they actually have a JOB to do!  Finally, the seats are AMAZINGLY comfortable.  They have plenty of leg room, they do not flip up or down, and they are fully ergonomically padded from top to bottom.  They're so comfortable, in fact, that a man in the row behind us fell asleep and was snoring for about 10 minutes during the movie!

But I digress.  I was talking about Thursdays, which are the new Fridays.  I was on campus on Thursday (where I wrote this post), and as I was walking around with Larissa, talking to various staff people, it was funny to hear them talk about Thursdays the way that we're used to talking about Fridays.  They were saying things like "Well, thank goodness it's finally Thursday, eh?" or "Wow, I can't think straight today!  It must be Thursday!"  I'm surprised that the TGIF restaurants here haven't changed their name to TGIT, but I guess that with Friday being the new Sunday, the name still works.

So, with the weekend now being Friday and Saturday, Sunday becomes the new Monday.  Everyone gets up early and goes back to work on Sunday, and Sunday has to bear the brunt of all of the Monday comments that people usually make back home: "Looks like somebody's got a case of the Sundays!" or "I just mixed up the fax machine and the shredder.  That's Sunday mornings for ya."  I guess if the Bangles had been writing music in Qatar, they would have written "It's just another manic Sunday (whoa, whoa) wish it were a Friday (whoa, whoa) 'Cause Friday's my day…"  You get the idea.

The only day that gets to retain its North American status is Saturday.  Ah, good ol' Saturday.  If I could pick up TV stations here in Qatar, I would try to find some subtitled Saturday morning cartoons, but alas, our TV is still functioning as our apartment's largest paperweight.  Someday, oh TV of mine, we will indulge in electronic entertainment together…

Someday… Sunday?  No, Friday – the new Sunday.

As many of you know, we're here in Qatar because Larissa was hired to teach English at a prominent Canadian college that has a campus in Doha.  I've been let into the country because I'm her spouse. 

Now, being the spouse of an employee of CNA-Q does have its privledges: I can use the athletic facilities for free, I can borrow books from the college library, and I can make use of the shuttle bus to go to and from campus from our apartment building.  Besides this, many of you may think that my current lack of employment would afford me an easy life of relaxing all day and immersing myself in the pleasentness of a stress-free schedule.  However, allow me to correct your misconceptions:

Being a house husband is boring.

Consider this: We have no car, and walking outside can only be done in 10-15 minute spurts before the heat has whittled down your life-points to dangerous levels.  We have very few friends, and most of those we do have are employees of CNA-Q, and thus are gone for most of the day.  We have no internet access, so passing the time by surfing the web at home is not an option.  There are cheap internet cafes around, but most of them are smokey (the non-smoking laws are not as strict here as in Ontario) and they involve walking to their location (see my first point above).

I was able to pass much of my time for the first week by assessing the needs of our new apartment and going out shopping for such items, but we've now purchased 90% of what is necessary for us, and most of the remaining items are things that Larissa and I want to purchase as a couple (like sheets for the other bed), so that's no longer a viable passtime.

Something else I wanted to do was take some pictures around Doha, so that you can all update your mental images of what our life here is like.  However, as I started doing some reading about Qatari culture, I discovered that many Qatari citizens (and particularly the women) do not like being photographed, and will often take great offense if you take a picture of them in public without permission.  And since offending a Qatari can potentially lead to deportation, I'm nervous about wandering around the streets (or the malls) with a camera in my hand.

So, to sum up, being here as a house husband is boring.  I do have some other side projects to keep me occupied, but for the most part, I find I'm spending my days taking naps and reading the various pieces of information provided to us by CNA-Q.

Today, just to shake things up a bit, I decided to take the shuttle bus to the campus with Larissa and try out the athletic facilities.  I know from experience that doing a full workout after you've stopped for a few weeks can be brutal on your body, so this morning I did a light "sampler" workout, trying out each of the machines and doing one lighter set of exercises for each muscle group.  While I do miss some of the amenities of Brock's gym back home (like their elliptical machines), I believe the facilities here should be suitable for my needs.

The library is right next to the men's gym (they separate men and women in the athletic facilities and in the cafeterias!) so I came over to the library when my workout was done, and that is where I am now, typing this post.  I brought my laptop to the campus today so that I could connect through the wireless network, but it seems that the network is undergoing maintenence for the day, so I'm forced to use a library computer terminal.  Not that I'm complaining – It's just that the sound cards are disabled on these library computers, and I had some audio/video stuff that I wanted to check out online.

I also brought my camera with me today, with the hope that I can at least take some pictures around campus without offending anyone and getting deported.  I think I'll save my photography project for after lunch, though, which is in about an hour. 

I honestly have no idea how retired people (and lottery winners) can keep from going nuts with nothing to do.  Now I know why old ladies take up knitting, and rich people take up recreational drug use.  At the very least, I'm going to have to take some Arabic classes or ping-pong lessons or something. 

Oh yeah – or get a job.

You gotta appreciate the British.  First, they let Canada have its own autonomous government without having to fight a war of independence or organize a salt march or anything.  Then, they let Canada fill up the empty space on the backside of their coins by putting the queen's picture on them.  And lately, they've allowed people free access to the internet in clean, air conditioned environments in their British Council offices around the world.  That's where I am now, in case you hadn't put that together from the title of this post.

The downside is that I can't use Firefox on these computers.  Nobody said that the British were perfect.

Back when I visited Japan, I regularly made use of the British Council to check up on my email and movie news.  I still remember riding my bike down the streets of Kyoto in mid-December, catching up with the folks back home at the Council building, then stopping off at the QQ on the way back to my hostel for pasta and apples.

But this is not Japan, and it is certainly not mid-December.  This is mid-August in Doha Qatar, where the temperature is 40 celsius, and if the weather report says "dusty", you're not surprised.  Luckily, the British Council is only a 10 minute walk from where we're living now, so I only have to lose about 1/3 of my total body moisture on the way here.  My water bottle level is under half, but I'm going to fill it up at the cooler before I leave here.  Ah, British water.

There's not a whole lot more to report since my last update.  We both were on campus yesterday at CNA-Q for "cultural orientation" stuff, and I gotta say, that campus has some snazzy-looking facilities.  Every building, every piece of furniture, every nook and/or cranny looks like it is brand-new, and just installed last week.  I'm especially excited about using the athletic facilities, which are free for spouses of employees.  They aren't huge, but they're modern and free.  Also, did I mention that they're free?

The orientation stuff wasn't too bad.  We had a presentation by a native Qatari man about Qatari culture, which was hilarious.  He had that amazing old-guy sense of humour that makes you wish that he could be your… honourary uncle?  That sounded less weird in my head before I typed it.  We also had the best lunch meal that I've ever been served at an educational institution.  It was like a buffet at a 5-star hotel, with tables set-up better than many wedding dinners I've attended. 

Later on last night, we called up the "private driver" that everyone has been recommending (his name is "Johnson") and went shopping (yes, again) at the Villagio Mall with our new friends Andrea and Dan.  We declined going for a gondola ride on the indoor canal, but we did find the perfect bedspread for our master bedroom.  The only problem is that it was not available in our matress size, and it will take 2 months to have a properly-sized bedspread delivered from Dubai.  We're still debating whether or not we should wait it out.

Speaking of friends, we have met some very nice people (or at least, people who seem very nice after only having known them for a few days!)  Some such people are Gail, who teaches in Larissa's department, and her husband Alex, who is also playing househusband like me (though he's retired and collecting a pension).  We've also met someone who almost shares our last name (same pronunciation, different spelling): Janice Connelly.  Up until this afternoon, she was our next-door neighbor, but I found out as I was leaving today that she has to move to another apartment, due to an administrative mix-up.  There are several other younger people in our building who we've spoken to briefly, but would like to get to know better in the near future.

My major accomplishment this morning was rigging up our laptop and new computer speakers to function as the entertainment centre of our TV.  Our laptop has a remote control, so I can load up my saved videos, photos, and music from the livingroom couch without having to even open the laptop up.  Right now our viewing options are limited to seasons 3 and 4 of Stargate Atlantis, and season 5 of Six Feet Under, but we're hoping to borrow Gail and Alex's Corner Gas DVDs sometime soon.

On the agenda tonight is… shopping?  We really need to get some lamps to distract us from the overhead florescent lighting in our apartment.  I also wouldn't mind getting a throw rug to distract my feet from the tile floors that cover our entire apartment.  Yes, shopping can be quite a distracting activity, but it sure beats standing outside and sweating.  Now if you'll excuse me, I have to fill up my water bottle for the walk home.

Just a small update to let you all know that it may be a little while before more posts appear.  I'm restricted to using the internet here and there at cafes, and it's not always the fastest or most reliable connection.  We're hoping to have our own internet service within the next two weeks, but until then, you might not hear a lot from us.

I'm going to take some pictures of our new apartment (now that it's looking a little more like home) and try to post them the next time I'm online.  I may even be able to throw up a YouTube video tour.  In the meantime, here are the highlights of the last few days:

• Shopping for many hours to try to make our new apartment feel like home
• Not being able to fall asleep until after 2:30am every night due to jet lag
• Spending 2 hours in discussion and couch-pushing to try to decide how our living room furniture should be arranged
• Exploring down the street to see what shops and restaurants are nearby
• Walking into a thobe store to ask about prices, and having them stare at me like I'm an alien (which I guess I technically am).  Then they said it was 200 QR (about $60).
• Downing a full litre of water during my 30 min walk, and still feeling thirsty
• Realizing just how potentially boring the role of "house husband" can be

Once our internet service is up and running, there should be many more options to help me pass my time, and to help in looking for job opportunities.  In the meantime, I'm slowing exploring, shopping, unpacking, arranging, and napping my days away.  More updates soon…

It was 2pm before we finally arrived back at the CNA campus, and everyone was hot and tired.  We were served some sandwiches and pop/juice, and the actual employees (as opposed to their lowly spouses) were sent off to take care of paperwork with payroll and HR.  Larissa was not feeling very good, and had to sit down by herself for a while while I used some ice-water to try to cool her down.  She is very susceptible to extremes in temperature, and the heat of the Qatar afternoon was making her feel sick.  When she felt better, she finished going through the necessary paperwork, and arrangements were made to take her back directly to the hotel so she could rest and recover a bit.

Everyone else, including myself, still had a major task ahead – assessing our new apartments, and shopping for necessary items.  Larissa assured me that she would be fine at the hotel on her own, so I jumped into another van, and was taken (along with two other couples) to our new apartment building.

When I say "new apartment", I actually mean that it is new.  It was just recently built, and we are the first people to live there.  I'll try to post some pictures of the apartment in the next few days, but I'll say right now that it is bigger and nicer than any apartment that we've lived in since we've been married.  We have a dining room, living room, kitchen, office, 2 bedrooms, and 3 bathrooms (technically 2 1/2 since one of the bathrooms is only a toilet and a sink).  We were given all new appliences, including a washer, dishwasher, and microwave.  Also included were an iron, a toaster, and an electric kettle, all still new in their boxes.  There is a separate air conditioner (each with its own remote control) in each room of the apartment, and we have a wonderful view.

The apartment was much cleaner than I was told to expect, and the only real cleaning that we have to do is the bathtubs and toilets, as well as wiping up a thin layer of the omnipresent dust from every horizontal surface.  All in all, I'm very happy with our new accomodations.  I didn't have much time to appreciate them, however, because following the 10 minute inspection, we had to pile into the vans again and head out to the mall so we could shop for our living necessities.

I won't go into great detail about the mall we were at, except to say that it was HUGE and a little intimidating.  Size-wise, the only mall I could compare it to is West Edmonton in Alberta.  There was an indoor skating rink, bumper-cars, a 15 screen movie theatre, 5 levels of shops, and  4 different food courts, not including the restaurants and coffee-shops scattered throughout.  I spent my first 40 minutes just exploring, then finally ended up at Carrefour to buy my household items.  

Carrefour is gigantic.  I would estimate it to be about the size of two standard Walmarts, or maybe slightly larger.  There were 45 checkout areas at the front of the store.  I had a huge list of things to buy, but since Larissa wasn't with me, I skipped some of the items that had "aesthetic considerations" to evaluate (i.e. dinnerware, silverware, bedsheets, etc.)  I have to admit though that I did get a good amount done, and was ready to head back to meet our driver at 7pm.  Since I was hauling such a huge pile of stuff, an employee of the store actually came over to help me through the checkout line, and pushed my shopping cart through the mall to where our driver was meeting us.  He didn't speak much English, but he was very helpful.

After cramming our new purchases into the van, our driver took myself and the other two couples with me back to our new place, where we unloaded everything and chucked it into our apartments.  There wasn't time to sort through it all, and besides, I wanted to get back to my Larissa.

Finally, we jumped back in the van and were taken to the Movenpick, where supper and a welcome bed awaited us (and a beautiful wife awaited me!)  I ran up to my room and told Larissa about everything I had bought, about the mall, and about our new apartment.  We also went over what we still have to buy tomorrow, including groceries.  We then went down to the hotel restaurant for a delicious $100 supper (paid for by CNA, of course!) and came back to our room for blog-writing time.  At least, it's blog-writing time for me.  Larissa is already catching up on lost sleep.

It's been a crazy first day, my friends, and while we get to sleep in tomorrow (check-out time is 2pm), we'll still be very busy.  There is more shopping to be done, and after that, we have to clean our new apartment and make it livable, since tomorrow night will be our first night sleeping there.  There have already been some ups and downs, but we're trying to keep in mind that this is not a vacation – this is our new life!  I have new keys, we've met some very nice new people, and the adventure has officially begun!

Our alarm went off at 6am, shocking us into the realization that 3 1/2 hours of sleep while jet-lagged only serves to tease you about how much sleep you actually WANT to have.  After rushing through showers and dressing, we hurried downstairs for our breakfast buffet and met our driver (and the other CNA employees staying at this hotel) so that we could go to the CNA campus and start going through the necessary red-tape for being employed here.

We spent an hour in the staff lounge drinking fruit juice and meeting some of the others who had recently arrived.  At about 9am we all piled into two large vans and headed out to our first destination – the National Medical building, where we would have blood tests and X-rays before being officially allowed to live in the country.  The occupants of the vans were separated by gender (men in one van and women in the other) because the medical clinic had separate areas for men and women to be tested.  

The women arrived at the proper place with very little adventure.  The men, however, took a little longer to make it there.  It seems as though our driver did not know his way around Doha very well, and we ended up getting lost.  You would think that knowing your way around a city would be one of the few qualifications necessary to work as a driver, but this guy's qualifications seemed only to be "ability to operate a vehicle" and "ability to yell at people on his cell phone in Punjabi".  He was not yelling in Arabic.  I could tell.

Our driver had to stop – I'm not exaggerating here – at least five times to ask people for directions to our destination, not to mention the 8 phone calls he made to someone who (supposedly) had a better idea of where we should be going.  We actually drove by the building once before he realized it, and he had to make two U-turns using the roundabouts to finally get us to our destination.

At the medical building, we were told to line up outside (in the 40 degree heat) and wait until we were called inside.  After about 20 minutes, we went inside, which turned out to be another waiting area (which was, thankfully, air-conditioned).  There were maybe 20 rows of chairs, with 3 chairs in each row, and when a group of 3 was called up to the window to be served, everyone in the chairs would move up one row.  In this way, we slowly made our way to the service windows, where our visa and passport would be checked, a picture taken, and a form issued which would allow us to have our blood taken and X-ray done.

At about 11:30am, just as I moved to the front row of chairs, all of the employees at the service windows left their desks and put up signs in the windows which read "Closed for prayer".  You may have heard that Muslims pray several times each day, and I happened to make it to the front of the line just in time for prayer time.  So I sat and stared at the walls for another 45 minutes until the staff had returned, and things could resume.  I should mention that everyone else who had come to the clinic from CNA had finished their tests and paperwork before prayer time, so it was pretty much me who held everyone else up for an extra hour.  Yes, it was frustrating, but you have to have patience with new cultures, right?

Our next destination was another medical clinic where we would have our fingers pricked to be tested for blood-type.  I guess they couldn't wait for the first blood test to get processed.  So we all (men and women) piled into the vans again and went to a different clinic.  Thankfully, our directionally-challenged driver followed the "girls' driver", so he didn't have to ask for directions this time.  

Larissa's blood test came out O-positive, which to me sounds like they're saying "Well, you got a zero on the test, but at least you have a positive attitude about it".  My test came out A+.  Naturally.

It is the end of a very VERY long day, my friends.  Larissa and I are now safely in Qatar, and even though it's only been 24 hours, adventures have been had.  Let me start with our air travels.

Our first plane trip was fairly uneventful, and fairly boring.  Air Canada offers little in the way of in-flight entertainment on flights that are 7 hours long, and since we were leaving at midnight anyway, Larissa and I did our best to sleep as much as possible.  The only thing that stands out was our having to pay an extra $100 for our luggage, as one of our bags was 11 lbs over the limit.

We arrived at London's Heathrow airport at 11am London time (7am our time) and spent most of our layover sitting around waiting for our next flight at 3:30pm, which was with Qatar Airways.  The second flight had much better service, food, and entertainment options, but ended up being very frustrating.  The reason for said frustration was this:

Each person in the plane had access to a personal TV screen attached to the seat in front of them, and over 40 different movies which could be started and stopped on demand (including several movies which I had wanted to see for some time).  However, everyone on the plane was able to functionally access their movies except for myself, and those sitting on either side of me (namely Larissa and a British fellow).  The Brit and I asked the stewardesses repeatedly over the first 3 hours of the flight if there was anything to be done about the system malfunction that was depriving us of entertainment, and finally at 6:30, we were offered the chance to move to the only two other empty seats in economy class, both of which had accessible movies.  

Larissa told me I could go and then promptly fell asleep, so I moved seats for the last 3 hours of the flight and watched Son of Rambow, and selected portions of Iron Man.  It may not seem like that big a deal to those of you reading this post, but let me tell you – it is incredibly frustrating to see 200 other people enjoying 7 hours of free entertainment while you are forced to stare at a blank screen.  Things worked out (more or less) in the end though, so I decided not to lodge a formal complaint.

The plane arrived in Doha at about 12:30am on what was technically Thursday morning.  As soon as we entered the terminal, we saw a professionally-dressed woman holding a sign with several peoples' names on it, including our own.  We (and those other people) walked over to her, and were escorted to a small private-lounge area where we were offered snacks and drinks until all of the CNA-Q employees on our flight were accounted for.  We were then escorted past a huge lineup and given priority treatment through customs.  We handed over our baggage claim tickets to the same lady, who had some male airport employees gather our baggage for us and cart it out to our waiting cars.

Yes, it's nice to have an employer who takes care of you at the airport!

I just realized that I haven't mentioned anything about the temperature here yet.  Keep in mind that it was about 1am when we left the airport.  It was over 30 degrees Celsius as we gathered outside to be driven to our hotel.  I have never experienced such a hot night before.  There was also what looked like a haze enveloping the (admittedly beautiful) lights of the city.  This was not caused by fog or pollution, but rather by dust in the air.  Not sand – dust.  Fine dust, like after you've been drywalling and you sand down the walls afterward.  It will take some time to get used to that.

We were driven to our hotel along the endlessly curving Qatari streets.  It was amazing to see how the driver navigated the roundabouts, and flowed across the lanes of traffic like the lines didn't even exist.  I'll have to save a whole separate blog post for what the driving is like here.  So we were dropped off at the Movenpick hotel, which is close to downtown Qatar.  The hotel is beautiful, and very modern, and the service was impeccable.  It was 2:30am before we were in our rooms and under the covers, and we had an early morning awaiting us.

It's been a little over a year, but I am proud to announce that DarrenConley.com is back up and running, with a whole new look!  

For those who have been out of personal touch with me for the last year, I don't have time to recap everything that's happened (you can see a very short summary in my About section), but there are major changes coming in the life of Larissa and I.  The short version is that we're leaving for Qatar in 2 days.

The slightly longer version is that Larissa has been hired to teach English at the Qatar campus of the College of the North Atlantic.  I myself applied at the same school, but Larissa's extensive experience and credentials put her understandably ahead of me in the hiring line. 

CNA is a Canadian college that has a large ESL program and which pays VERY well in comparison to our employment opportunities in Canada.  The salary is more than double anything that is offered here, and there is no income tax in Qatar, making the take-home pay amazing.  Besides this, CNA is covering our plane tickets, our living expenses (i.e. rent), transportation to and from the campus, 2 months paid vacation, and plane tickets to Canada and back to Qatar again each summer for vacation time.

Kinda hard to turn that down.

"So Darren, what will you be doing while Larissa is earning the big, oil-funded dollars, hmmm?"  That's a very good question.  There are a few answers to it, and none of them involve me being idle.  Here's what's on the agenda for Darren:

1. Look for a comparable teaching job: If I can find a similar employment situation to Larissa, our savings account will grow VERY fast.  Our goal is to buy a house with CASH at some point in the future, and if I can score some sweet Qatari teaching dollars, that goal will be much more within reach.

2. Update this blog: Let's face it – I've been fairly lazy for this past year in keeping up this blog, and I'll have no excuse NOT to update it in Qatar.  I'm hoping to provide a steady stream of updates about our adventures overseas.

3. Get shirtbug.net up and running: My latest web-venture is still in the infant stages, but I would love to get my t-shirt selling website finished and functional before the Christmas buying rush begins.  If anyone out there feels like helping me with a design template, I'd be very grateful.

4. Design more t-shirts: If shirtbug.net is going to be successful, I need to have a wide selection of products available.  Currently there are only 6 products up at shirtbug's Cafepress site, and that number needs to go up.  And now that I'm developing some GIMPing skills, designing new shirts won't be as daunting a task as when I started.

5. Learn Arabic: I've been told that everyone in Qatar speaks English, but the official language of the country is Arabic.  I hate it that so many North Americans expect everyone else to learn English, so I'm going out of my way to try to become fluent in Arabic.  I've already learned the alphabet and about 20 or so vocabulary, but I'm nowhere near the point of conversation.  I'd like to improve upon that.

6. Take care of "new resident" stuff: There are a lot of things that we'll need to take care of after we arrive in Qatar, and since Larissa's going to be the breadwinner out there, it falls to me to look after those things.  Such things include learning our way around the city, figuring out the public transportation system, getting our Qatari drivers' licenses, getting our residence status, getting a phone line, and getting internet access. 

In the meantime, we're enjoying our last few days by spending time with friends.  We've been staying with several different couples since we moved out of our apartment on July 31st, and we've had a few different "going away party" type things over this past week.  You can read about Larissa's take on this past week in this post.

One of the strangest things about moving to another country has been the way my key ring has been shrinking.  I've lost my apartment key, my office key, my photocopier key, and on Monday we'll lose our car key.  The only key I'll have left is the key to my parents' place, where we'll be spending our last day.

But then again, we'll be given some new keys when we arrive in Qatar.  And I guess that's what changes in life are all about, really: Opening new doors.  While it is sad to be leaving familiar rooms behind, it's exciting to think about what may lie behind the new doors we'll find on the other side of the world.

I hope you all stick around and follow our adventure.