CheetahhhhhhhBlog Mark III

I am on vacation for 3 weeks. However because we’re in money-saving mode, we’re not doing anything, so this promises to be an extremely dull vacation here in Yanbu. Indeed I’m already bored. I’m going to try fishing again, though the problem with fishing here is that the headwinds brow onto shore and never vary, and this means I can’t cast a fly. It’s extremely irritating. So I doubt I will be able to fish here, though I’m going to drive around and try to find another location. We have a few “activities” planned such as going to the dentist and getting Little Chris a haircut. This should keep us busy for the next 3 weeks. Actually I do have a project; T2 (teggatz.com mark 2) will be undergoing a major revision. It hasn’t been updated for more than a year.

The king has graciously granted us a 5% pay raise. You’d think I’d be grateful and certainly I am. I’ll take the money with no complaints. However, for the record, it’s a cheapskate raise. The private sector in Saudi has generally gotten around 30%. This is to make up for the 30% fall of the dollar (to which the riyal is pegged) and the resulting VERY APPARENT rise in inflation. For example my grocery costs have gone up an outrageous amount. Also the gulf states such as Qatar and the Emirates have given broad general raises. So here in Saudi the king has forked out 5%. I don’t know why he is being parsimonious with civil servants (such as the Cheetahhhhhhh) given that Saudi is in an economic boom, thanks to high oil prices. My point being, the king can afford to not be a cheapskate here. However yes indeed, the Cheetahhhhhhh will take the money and he’s not actually complaining, because I had actually given up on the idea of a raise and was therefore anticipating nothing.

I have added the “Don’t tread on me” rattlesnake flag to the sidebar. This was the original naval jack of the Continental Navy. I added it out of a general feeling of intransigence.

Little Chris can now climb up onto anything, such as the bed or the sofa. This means previously safe zones are now danger zones. Yesterday he somehow got a hold of the title deed to our house in Capoocan and ripped it.

I am so sick of Barney (the kid’s show dinosaur) that I would murder him in his sleep if I could. The Bug wants to do nothing except watch Barney. Vanessa isn’t allowed to watched Filipino TV any more. All he cares about is Barney. He calls Barney “Buddy”. I find myself singing Barney songs in my sleep. I hate Barney.

It’s exam week and I’m fairly busy with correcting. I have a lot of students actually. Most of my colleagues have 30 students. I have over a hundred, because I’m teaching all the advanced classes. Also they are all essay exams.

I forgot to mention the outcome of that disturbing robbery + killing in Capoocan recently. See the entry Leyte Killings below. The killer was a neighbor. He was robbing the house for $300 which the expat father had sent home to his family. The robber thought the house was empty. It wasn’t, and when the mother and children recognized him, he killed them. Later he confessed and turned himself in. Disturbing, particularly when you consider it was over $300. Admittedly that’s a lot of money in the Philippines.

The Cheetahhhhhhh is no brain bank, nor has he ever claimed to be one in recent years. However, I am proud to note that my financial analysis, when I have seen fit to make it in this blog, has been SPOT ON. For example, I was warning people 2 years ago that the real estate market would crash. My mom, for example, is in a tight spot with selling her house right now, and all I could note was, “I warned you.” I was also saying three months ago that you shouldn’t have your money in stocks, unless you know what you’re doing (ie buying short). And well well well, wasn’t the cheetahhhhhhhhh right? The Russel 2000 index has lost 15% since Dec. 28, for example, and people with conventional investments are getting hammered. I warned you.

So anyway that was a preface to my latest analysis. I put in the preface above as a way of saying “I’m probably right,” specifically, I anticipate a rather drastic drop in the stock market in the near term, and I would advise you to not be invested in the market unless you really know what you’re doing. This includes people who rely on a financial manager. I would ignore anything he/she says and convert to cash or short positions. Word to the wise. I’m not going to go into specifics about why I make this prediction. Actually it’s pretty obvious if you’re paying attention to the market.

The Green Bay Packers lost to the New York Giants yesterday. Couldn’t watch the game but I checked the news this morning. The headline of the New York Times made me choke. I’m rather depressed about it.

Bobby Fischer, bad-boy chess prodigy, died recently. Via con dios, Bobby.

I’ve been an expat for going on 6 years now, and it has its joys and tedium, I suppose like any other lifestyle. On the one had we have a financial stability and affluence to our life that most people never experience. On the other hand, you learn to shrug away nonsense that would infuriate you back home, like how it’s totally impossible to get our dishwasher repaired. I could sooner part the Red Sea than actually get a repairman in my kitchen. Seriously.

You can’t complain with the faux rich lifestyle. I get paid a lot more than the locals, with no tax, housing, utilities, or insurance expenses. So we think nothing of staying in a 5-star hotel, for example. We go on spending sprees when we return home (Manila or the States) and indeed we eagerly anticipate these spending sprees. Vanessa and I shopped pretty much continuously in the States over Christmas, armed with a list of things we can’t get in Saudi. I’ve pointed out to Vanessa that our grandiose lifestyle is not normal and won’t be happening when we re-patriate and I’m sure she realizes this, though I’m also sure we’ll both miss it. I’m actually vaguely concerned about training Little Chris to expect too much from life (financially). I wouldn’t want there to come a day when he complains that we’re not in a five-star hotel. Frankly I had to wait 36 years before I stayed in one.

Jet lag is one of those things that are peculiar to the expat. For our trip to the States and back, we just got murdered by jetlag, with our bodies out of whack for almost an entire month. Little Chris went to bed the same time as us for the first time yesterday. My jetlag was so bad, for so long, that I honestly don’t feel like ever flying to the opposite side of the planet ever again.

I chose my profession, and I expatriated, out of a desire to see the world. I wanted this since I was a teenager, when I somehow became convinced that Indiana Jones’s life was the ideal. Although I’ve had no Amazonian tribesmen shooting poison blowdarts at me while I evade a giant rolling boulder, I realized a year or two ago that I had achieved my goal of seeing the world. There are still some places I want to see, such as Venice. However I have discovered recently that sometimes you crave stability and sameness over exoticism and newness. I suppose this is part of the odd human condition, that you always want what you don’t have. You know, the grass is always greener.

Summer vacation is a time of excitement and movement for expats, when you plan out how to spend your 2-3 months of leave and start packing up the 4-5 trunks you will lug with you everywhere. However a cloud of uncertainty hangs over us for this summer because, barring an irresistible job offer, we’re actually re-patriating in June. I say a “cloud of uncertainty” because we’re planning to leave a whole lifestyle behind. In some ways after 6 years, I rather forget what life in America is really life. I remember it being difficult and stressful, primarily, though this might have a lot to do with the fact that I was attending graduate school.

I really would like the new MacBook Air in case anybody feels like getting the Cheetahhhhhhh a $3000 present.

Not a lot going on in Cheetopia. Little Bug has figured out how to open the refrigerator and the oven. He has also grown tall enough to reach things on tables. It’s cute to see him standing on his tip-toes reaching to get something. Unfortunately however, this means nothing in the entire house is safe any more.

We watched the movie 1408 which we enjoyed. I was genuinely scared several times during the movie. Mainly however I watched the flick for The Man (John Cusack) who has always been a favorite of the Cheetahhhhhhh. This movie was an adaptation of a Stephen King novel and I have to note that I have always found his plots a tad predictable.

Anyway the Cheetahhhhhhh, Vanessa, and Little Bug send out a big Happy Birthday to Aunty Liza today!

Our Picasa picture album had a major update: http://picasaweb.google.com/teggatz

We are rather famous as you probably know. I have posted some of our magazine covers to the right on the sidebar.

We have been jetlagged for nearly a month now, and it’s been rather difficult for us. First flying to the US, adjusting to American time, and then immediately flying back to Saudi. I have been OK in Saudi thanks to my mom’s fancy sleeping pills, though I must say, I still feel tired a lot, which is probably because it’s drug-induced sleep. The one I feel bad for is Vanessa, who has to stay up in the middle of the night with The Bug, and so has not had any real sleep for weeks now. She has five layers of eyebags.

The latest Bug newsflash is that he’s starting to imitate the words we say. Linguistically he has no comprehension of what he’s saying yet, though he does seem to understand “mommy” and “daddy”. Also he appears to understand English, though not speak it. For example, yesterday Vanessa said, “Give those keys to daddy,” and he did. He’s done many things like this which convinces me he understands English. I wonder if he understands Tagalog too…? Vanessa says he does, he understands “Halika na, anak” which means come here son.
Not a lot going on in Cheetopia otherwise. The semester is winding down and my students have stopped attending class, but I have a lot of paperwork to do, so I’ll be rather busy, and then next week I have exams to correct.

After that we have nearly 2 weeks of holiday. Normally we would go somewhere, but at the moment our priority is to save AMMAP (as much money as possible) and so we’ll just be sitting on our arses here in Yanbu.

We watched a bootleg DVD of I am Legend and enjoyed it. I like Will Smith, he’s a pistol. Indeed I’ve liked him since The Fresh Prince. However they really jacked with the book. I really object to Hollywood dramatically altering the plot of a good book. I am Legend is a classic of horror and really invented the whole vampire & zombie movie genre. The movie starts out well and then completely jacks with the story and the whole point of the title. Eh, kevs really, it was a good movie.

Yanbu CableNet went down last Wednesday and our internet was only restored late Sunday night. We were getting a little crazy about it, given the internet is our primary connection to the world. I really wonder how expats managed to keep sane prior to the WWW, particularly in a place like Saudi. Anyway we were in a bit of a panic about the cablenet because things don’t seem to get fixed here in Yanbu. For example, I have been trying to get our dishwasher repaired for well over a month, and I have been trying to get the garbage disposal fixed for over a year. Why things won’t get fixed here is a mystery. My students advised me that I shouldn’t simply accept the Royal Commission’s word that somebody is coming. They suggested I should physically bring the repairman to my house. Maybe so.

Well the cat is out of the bag at work, and so I might as well go public on the blog as well. I will not be renewing my contract in June. There are a wide variety of reasons behind this but suffice it to say, Vanessa and I have been discussing this since August, and my mind was decided firmly recently. The biggest reason is simple boredom. We are just soooooo bored here. You can only watch so many DVDs, you know? Another big reason is Little Chris. He’s going to want playmates soon and we want him to have playmates in would I would describe as a healthy environment. It’s a pity we got fed up with things here because I have a good gig, actually. It has the normal BS one would associate with any gig, but in the big picture I have a good gig and had been planning to stay longer. Indeed we liked it here the first two years. But now I suppose enough is enough.

I have more to say and will post more pictures from our US holiday later. At the moment I have to get ready for work however. CHeers mates.