CheetahhhhhhhBlog Mark III

Tomorrow is the last day of classes. Next week I give 3 exams, then I’m on vacation for almost the whole month of January. Out of financial prudence we aren’t going anywhere, we need to save money now that another rugrat is coming. Also Van is having a difficult pregnancy and doesn’t feel like leaving the house much. Also Bug is really in the terrible part of the “terrible twos,” screaming and tantrums and wanting to do the opposite of what mommy and daddy want. Doing simple things like going to the store or eating in a restaurant are really almost impossible. So yeah, not doing anything for January holidays, though doubtless we will get a little bored. Grandma will probably come visit though.

Whenever Vanessa is pregnant, we seem to have health-related trials. I don’t know why this would be. Last time we had a whole series of medical trials, including Vanessa’s apendix removal while she was 6 months pregnant. This time there is Vanessa’s difficult pregancy, including strange dry skin, and then last week I had a killer sinus infection, and then yesterday I went to the emergency room because of a strange skin problem. They gave me a cream to put on it. Now, today I was teaching my morning class and my right eyeball started hurting like crazy. Just the right eye. I washed it out with water and took panadol and even taught my other class like a heroic superman, but it’s rather disconcerting to have one eye in pain like that. So in the afternoon I went to the emergency room again. The doctor said he couldn’t find anything wrong, said to take panadol and go to bed. So now I’m blogging with one painful eye.

Why do we have medical trials when Vanessa is pregnant, I wonder…?

We went to church yesterday. It’s an unmarked building behind a wall in the Indian section of town. We had searched around several times in the past and couldn’t find it. Anyway yesterday we went to church. Vanessa was very happy about this and remarked several times, “Thank God there’s a church in RAK.” I was not quite as enthusiastic though Vanessa agrees it’s traditionally the woman’s job to shoo the family off to church. There were lots of Filipinos there and, surprisingly, lots of Indians. I didn’t know the Catholic church had made inroads in India but apparently so. There is a sound-proofed balcony for children and we were up there with all the kids. The only problem was that with all the kids running around and yapping, I could hardly hear the mass. We kept shushing the Bug, and after a while he started shushing other people.

The priest gave a sermon about how Catholic families should be an example to others in this land.
I’m still going with the hypothesis that I’m lactose intolerant and I must say, I feel a lot better. I haven’t had any stomach upset etc. Also I was always feeling rather tired and under the weather, but now that I have no dairy in my system, this is gone. I feel GREAT actually! Several of my students asked me why I was smiling and so energetic, actually.

Vanessa is OK but eating crazy preggy-girl foods, like mango with soy sauce. She knows it’s strange but she says it’s delicious.

If you look on the sidebar, you’ll see new pages. I’m moving my financial commentary to a separate page, partly out of recognition that most of my readers don’t give a fig about financial markets.

We had a nice Christmas with Aunty Nene and Grandma. Bug made out like a bandit with Thomas the Train toys; he got a lighthouse, Bulstrade the Boat, Thomas, the Musical Caboose, Harold the Helicopter, and Rocky the crane. Vanessa got a Burberry purse, which she tells me was too expensive, and she made me promise not to spend any money on her in the future. I told her for Valentine’s Day I’ll get her toothpicks. The Cheetahhhhhhh got a Tommy shirt and Tommy aviator glasses that make me look like Vin Diesel.

The Bug is now using gerunds (-ing words) such as “Mommy walking” (using this as an imperative; it’s grammatically correct anyway). He has also discovered compound nouns, such as “water truck.”

The Cheetahhhhhhh thinks he is lactose intolerant. We’re in testing phase right now; I’m not eating anything dairy for a week. Right now I am drinking my morning coffee with non-dairy creamer and miraculously, my stomach is not complaining. I’ll be very glad if I’m lactose intolerant because that will rule out other nightmares that had been floating through my mind, such as stomach cancer or whatever. Lactose intolerance is easy to deal with, indeed, I’ll just simply eat Asian food from now on. However in another respect, lactose intolerance is a big disaster, because I love dairy. I’m from Wisconsin after all. I love cheese for example. Also my favorite  cuisine, Italian, is heavy on the dairy. However I’d rather not eat Italian and feel good. I’ve had an upset stomach and gastro-interstinal problems and have been feeling tired and off-kilter for so long, I almost don’t notice it any more. This has been going on for about 5 years, perhaps longer. So if I’ve found a solution finally, I’ll be very pleased.

We found the Catholic church here in RAK and will be going to mass tonight. Van only wants me to go to church if I’m happy in my heart to go. So I told her I’m happy in my heart. Yipee!

I initially became interested in flyfishing because of my literary hero, Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway, like any serious fisherman, doesn’t actually tell use where he fishes. However some careful analysis of the Nick Adams stories lead me to conclude that it was the Brule River in northern Wisconsin. There are actually two Brules in northern Wisconsin, which made the pilgrimage a bit more problematic. Anyway I spent many a summer driving up north and fishing on the Brule, and I came to love flyfishing very much.

Two years ago I thought I’d take up saltwater flyfishing. Partly I wanted to do this because it would be a hobby to help kill time in Saudi Arabia. Unfortunately I just don’t know anything about saltwater flyfishing. The whole concept of the hunt is different in salt water. And I had even less luck in the Philippines, because the bay of Capoocan is totally over-fished by the locals. I would go fishing in other places, but safety is a problem. There is a terrorist organization, Abu Saif, operating in the mountains above Capoocan, and their favorite way to raise money is to kidnap Americans and hold the for ransom. So Ihaven’t gone looking for other places to fish. Another problem with the Philippines is that the locals get all excited when they see a white guy and want to come watch. It’s impossible to fish when you have people watching you and talking and trying to swim out to be with you. It’s ridiculous. Scares away all the fish. I wish white poeple weren’t so exciting for the locals of Leyte. So… now I have a lot of very expensive Orvis saltwater gear sitting in Capoocan. I’m going to give it another shot this summer however. But before my wife got pregnant, we had been planning to spend this summer in the States. I was really excited to go fishing on the Brule. And we had also been planning to go to Peru in the summer, and part of my objective was to flyfish there, because I saw lots of wonderful looking rivers where I’m sure there are trout. Anyway that’s all on hold.

Now, when I was a graduate student, my professors and colleagues knew that I loved flyfishing. I was aware that this didn’t reflect well in their eyes. It didn’t help that I was following Hemingway, because I was in the African Languages, and so I suppose to my colleagues, the flyfishing seemed frivolous. Andre Codrescu writes:

College professors seem to qualify as a categorical exception to the labor/leisure imaginary. We aren’t supposed to have any free time, or to waste time doing something other than work; we are inherently perhaps one of the only sets of professionals that is supposed to exist leisure-free. And we think this ourselves, we academics. It’s a thing of pride with us that we are constantly at work. So I am incessantly busy, or appear to be, which is most important. Writing this essay, for instance, both counts as work and doesn’t count. I’m producing as a writer, something literature professors are expected to do, but I’m not manufacturing the kind of product my job identity prescribes: literary scholarship. Without relentless work in my subject area, I am not categorically: college professor. And lacking this identity, or devoid of identity itself, I’m forced to encounter that forlorn, inscrutable thing: my self. If I were not busier than others, the world would think that I must be a figuration of an inferior variety of the category: a lazy professor. This may be what the party thought as they turned to look inquiringly in my direction.

Yeah, I think Andre nails it on the head (he’s talking about flyfishing here also); my hobby made me seem like a lazy graduate student. Never mind that I had many an academic insight while standing in the middle of a babbling trout stream. I’m in a profession where I must at least give the pretense of being always busy. And indeed I’m sitting in my office at George Mason University right now, and I suppose blogging makes me look busy. I actually do think about these things. You have to in this field. If people get the impression I’m not constantly busy, trouble could arise… I might be assigned to a committee for example…

In truth I haven’t got any good flyfishing in since I expatriated. This is a real shame. One reason I have a hankering to return to the States is actually so that I can flyfish. I described to you my problems with the Philippines, and there are other problems inherent. Flyfishing is somewhat an art. It’s very difficult, and requires lots of specialized gear, and can only be done in certain places at certain times. That is, if you’re a trout fisherman, which is what I am. I know everything about the trout. I know where he likes to hide. I know what he eats in Wisconsin in June, and what he eats in August (it’s different than in June). I know the migration patterns of lake trout off Lake Superior into the rivers. And I know a lot more about trout… the point here being, you can’t fish for trout in any body of water. They only like cold streams that have lots of rocks. The rocks make the streams “babble” and this makes lots of air in the water, which trouts require. It’s actually hard to find a proper trout stream. And point number two is I don’t know anything whatsoever about any other type of fish. So my luck with flyfishing in the salt has been zero. I would have invested more time into it, in Saudi, but the problem was it’s so hot. You only last for about half an hour out there. And so I realized I was never going to get anywhere flyfishing on the Red Sea. And in the Philippines… well, as I said, I’m going to give it another go.

Every flyfisherman has one standout memory, Andre Codrescu observes, and I think he’s right. I remember finding a nice fishing hole on the Brule. I was standing in the middle of the river, casting into the current so that the fly would drift into the hole. There was a combination of sparkling sun, the babbling brook, the beauty of the woods around me, and a pint of rum, all coalescing into a beautiful spiritual moment, where all seamed right with the world and life was beautiful.

I really miss flyfishing.

First of all, Van is doing OK, though she often feels tired and nauseous. There is a blood clot near the baby, and apparently these are often absorbed and the baby is OK, however there is nothing to be done about it, except avoid activity. So Van isn’t doing much.

We have to get an Emirates ID by Jan 1st or I get fined an obscene amount if money. The only problem is you have to go to this office at 730AM and sit around for hours waiting. Problem here is I teach at 9AM, and another problem is getting the Bug going. It’s not easy. I’m starting to get into a panic because I only have 10 more days to accomplish this.

I brought my fancy XPS laptop to get repaired in Dubai, and had to wait 4 months for the part to be delivered from the States, and finally got it yesterday. Very happy about that, now I can play Total War again.

A couple weeks ago we saw a new Asian restaurant opening on the corniche. Now, there seem to be good restaurants in Muscat, but generally speaking, in our experience, restaurants in this part of the world are a big disappointment. Usually a restaurant in this part of the world amounts to a dirty room with plastic chairs that serves some bad version of Turkish food. This is what you’ll get 90% of the time. So with this new Asian restaurant, we didn’t get excited or anything and even forgot about it. We figured it would be a bust. Today the Bug was antsy and needed some exercise, so we took him walking on the corniche. He loved it, running around on the grass, looking at the boats. Afterwards we gave the Asian restaurant a shot. When we walked in I was suddenly delighted, because the Thai waitress gave us the folded-hands Thai greeting. This is a good sign. Just to confirm, I said, “You’re Thai?” and just to double check I asked, “Your cook is Thai?” She said, “Yes, sir,” and I said, “I’m very excited.” We sat down to eat and I was very hopeful of a good meal, which is an unusual sensation around here. I ordered red curry. It was DELICIOUS. I could have been in Thailand. I have not been so happy in a loooooooooooong time. It’s our new favorite place. The only drawback is it’s a bit pricey.

It’s 7 days until Christmas. I’m actually looking forward to this Christmas, which is a bit of a shift. I have found holidays to be less and less meaningful or fun as I get older. I don’t think it’s because of a bad attitude or anything; I actually don’t have a bad attitude, and want to enjoy holidays. It seems as though age sucks the enjoyment out, though. Especially with Christmas. I remember as a child, it was the most magical and exciting time of the year. Now, I’m almost indifferent. However it’s changed this year, which is nice. Now I’m excited, and I realized it’s because I’m excited for my wife and son to open their presents. Also we will be having my mom and Van’s cousin staying at Cheetopia, which will be nice.

Little Chris used a preposition and the article “the” for the first time yesterday. We were driving to the local grocery store Nisnas, and he said to me, “Let’s go to the trucks.” Remarkable linguistically. Previously he said something like, “Go la-la-la trucks.” As a linguist, one of  our primary preoccupations is how to teach an adult in the same manner that a child picks this up effortlessly. I have often reflected that the field of applied linguistics should pay more attention to children’s books and TV shows. I’ve even mentioned this occasionally to colleagues, though it has fallen on deaf ears, as far as I can see.

Not a lot going on with the Cheetahhhhhhh otherwise. Van’s on bedrest (doctor’s orders) and so she’s not leaving the house or doing much. I have a stomach flu or something like that, and so am exhausted after work and collapse into bed. Poor little Bug is rather restless and bored. He’ll have plenty of action next week however.

The Fed seems to be confirming my prediction of previous posts. The Economist writes:

There are some glimmers of economic hope. The drop in petrol prices has delivered a sizable boost to household buying power, one reason why retail sales in November were not as weak as expected. Home sales have remained stable, helped by declines in mortgage rates. Shares have been range bound (though the range is wide) since mid October. On Tuesday shares of Goldman Sachs rallied by almost 10% as it reported an expected $2.12 billion fourth-quarter loss. Interbank loan rates have edged lower. The senior Fed official said that there has been little change recently in the Fed’s economic outlook: it expects continued contraction through the first quarter followed by a weak recovery.

The scale of the current economic crisis is rather astounding if you think about it. I’ve read descriptions of it as a “once in a century collapse” like the Great Depression. I’m not surprised to learn that the tendrils of crisis are seeping into Dubai; Dubai, one of the most free-spending places on earth. For example, outside RAK, they’re building an artificial mountain, which is a little silly considering there are real mountains a mile inland. As another example, they’re building the world’s tallest building in Dubai. And it’s a big sucker, dwarfing everything else on the skyline. It’s useful for navigation; just look up and you can figure out which direction you’re going in Dubai’s crazy streets. One of my students works for the RAK government and tells me that banks have stopped giving loans in the Emirates. And if banks in the Emirates are getting cautious, you know there are problems. I read in the Gulf News the other day that expats in the UAE are starting to pinch their pennies, and in truth I am myself; for example, massive food inflation has made me start to pay attention to the grocery bill. Which I don’t like, I have better things to worry about than the grocery bill. However when groceries start to approach $800-1000 a month, even the Cheetahhhhhhh starts to take notice.

The Wall Street Journal today has an article, “How to survive if one of you gets laid off”, and I suppose that’s a very real concern for many people nowadays. Just scanning through the WSJ, there’s constant news about layoffs, especially banks. I’m no economist, so I don’t have anything to say about jobs and layoffs and inflation. I am, however, a speculator on the US stock market, and I know those numbers damn well. There are some key things to consider with the US stock market:

1. It will recover first, before the rest of the world’s bourses. This is partly because it got nailed first.

2. In 2001 we had the collapse of the e-industry and the NDX index. It took 6 years to regain the pre-2001 levels, which we reached in the end of 2007. The market then promptly collapsed in January 2008. The lowest extent of the crash was in Nov 2008, where the market found support just above the 2001 lows. In a simple statistical analysis, we can conclude it’s highly unlikely the market will fall below the 2001 levels, and we can also assume history will repeat itself, and that the market will take about 6 years to climb up again to 2007 levels.

3. Recessions typically last 18 months. Estimating when this one will end is tricky because of massive government intervention this time around. If we say the recession started with the market’s collapse in Jan 2008, then we can expect a rosier picture to emerge around July 2009. These things are impossible to gauge accurately, but the point it, if history repeats itself, and it usually does, then we are through the bulk of it already. How does this affect the stock market? Well, if people start to feel more financially confident, then money will start returning to the market, and prices of stock will start to rise. Another factor here is regime change in the USA. This should give a psychologically positive bias. There are other factors, such as Obamba’s pledge to end our overseas entanglements, which cost the US taxpayer a fortune. In sum, we have reason to see a light at the end of the tunnel.

Now, you’ll recall I was very much against government bailout schemes back in August. My reason for this is because it jacked with the stock market and made it impossible to invest with due diligence. So, in August I withdrew all my money from the market and have been waiting ever since. I’m still waiting. If you’ve watched the market lately, it’s still very volatile, with huge movements in the course of a day. We don’t need to be involved in such nonsense because it can’t be accurately predicted in the short term.

In the long term, I said I think the market will recover. I’ve stated my reasons why in previous posts. For me personally, however, I should note that I still consider the situation too risky. As an investor, I’m only interested in almost sure bets. Of course this means I don’t make a lot of money, but it also means I don’t lose a lot. My total loss in 2008 was $600, which is something I can live with. And that loss was only because of the cost of commissions; if you don’t count commissions, then I broke even in 2008. Which in retrospect is a minor miracle. I bet you I was one of 4 or 5 investors who broke even this year.

However, there are a lot of people with retirement funds who can’t actually take out their money. These people need to do something now, and yeah, I would say the market will rise over the next year. It may be a roller-coaster and it may not even rise very much, but my bias is up with a target of Dec 2009. Nevertheless if you’re like me and you only want a sure thing, then keep your money in cash. The reason I say this is because further collapse is definitely possible. I say it’s unlikely, but that’s a statistical statement; it’s still possible. There might be some devastating news that tips the balance. If you’re currently invested in the stock market, I’d pay close attention to index levels. If the market falls below 2001 levels, I’d go running for the hills as quickly as your legs will carry you.

The cheetahhhhhhh’s vacation is almost done. Today and tomorrow… then back to work. The good news in this is that there are only 3 weeks left in the semester, and then the CHeetahhhhhhh has another 2 weeks of vacay.

Thanks to everyone who sent me birthday greetings, especially my students etc on Facebook.

Well Van went to the doctor for an ultrasound and the doctor said she needs bedrest. So the Cheetahhhhhhhh did the cleaning and cooking yesterday, which was a bit of a shock to his system. Going to have to go to Carrefour and buy a lot of frozen pizzas today. Also I’m going to implement measures to lessen dirty dishes etc. Van was a bit restless just lying around. Van now has a feeling it’s a boy. We don’t have any boy name planned, so maybe we’ll give some thought to that.

I read Glen Cook’s Darkwar rather obsessively. It starts slowly but gets really interesting.

The Bug’s vocabulary has expanded to the point where he’s doing actual communication, such as “Bug drink” or “Daddy’s sleeping” or “Mommy walk”. Right now he’s watching Thomas the Train and is saying to me, “Buy helicopter.” One of the characters on Thomas is Harold the Helicopter. He doesn’t know it yet, but one of Santa’s presents under the tree is indeed Harold.