My laptop, my laptop, why hast thou forsaken me?

I'm making a real effort to keep updating this blog, even though (1) nothing exciting is happening, (2) I have a bad case of the February blahs, and (3) I've lost all access to my laptop.

Let's address those things in reverse order.

3. I am losing my mind without my own computer. I have to remember all the passwords to my social networking sites. I can't access any of my files, so I can't share anything or get to my teaching resources. I can't upload the photos I've taken recently. I can't download new episodes of my favourite podcasts, or any podcasts at all, which have been my lifeline to pop culture civilization. I can't veg out in my room watching movies, which means I've been ripping through the books I brought at a dangerous pace. I feel like I've lost a limb, or (more accurately) part of my brain.

I get the impression that if you're older and are reading this you think I'm an ass. Fine, although in my defense, my generation has had our brains Mimsy Were the Borogoves'd and we can't function in your primitive Boomer world.

Oh god, now I'm just being mean. Laptoooopppppppppp, come baaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!

2. I always get the February blahs. It's not S.A.D., February is just terrible no matter where I am. Here's why February is the worst:
     a. Valentine's Day, obviously.
     b. The bloom is off the rose, re: winter. Remember when everything was white and sparkly and the ice and snow reflected Christmas lights and good cheer? Was that only two months ago?
     c. It's the shortest month, but manages to drag on like it's the longest month.
     d. I don't know anyone who has a leap year birthday, which would really liven the joint up.
     e. No statutory holidays in Georgia, while Ontario only recently got one - and it's called Family Day. How stupid is that? February 15th should be a Canadian national holiday (Flag Day - it's already there on your calendars!) and there should be red and white fireworks and tobogganing and hot toddies. THAT'S a holiday!

1. This is how bored I am - I work out five days a week. Going to the gym is the most boring thing in the entire world, but I do it (or go swimming) most days because what else am I going to do?

Things less boring than going to the gym:
     a. An entire two-semester economics course
     b. The magazine selection at a dentist's office
     c. Watching TV in a language you don't understand
     d. Your extended family (I know this one's a stretch, but I'm making a rhetorical point here).

In an effort to be less bored, I've been trying to plan some trips. Or, get someone else to plan trips for me, because February has sapped my interest in planning, dreaming, believing, getting out of bed, etc. A Georgian I know wants to take me and a couple of other foreigners to Baku, Azerbaijan. I'd love to go, but the visa is expensive ($120-150). My Georgian friend called the Azeri embassy, who told her that discussing the price of visas is a "sensitive matter" not suited to the telephone, so she should have tea with one of their consuls and "talk it over" it in person. She thinks that Azerbaijan is corrupt enough that she can get us a group discount on visas. Stupendous.

Also stupendous was the time when a car, parked directly below my window, had its alarm go off in the middle of the night. It was one of those alarms that alternates between a series of horrible patterns and tones. The next morning someone had pelted the car with tomatoes. Sweet revenge!

The other day, I saw a very confused stray dog in one of the subway stations. I'm afraid this marks the beginning of Tbilisi's stray dogs mastering the Metro, like they do in Moscow - which is exactly like Rise of the Planet of the Apes, but with rabies.

Do you remember how the government of Georgia financed a Hollywood movie about the August 2008 war with Russia, starring Andy Garcia as a very melodramatic Misha Saakashvili? Of course you do. Well, Russia has financed its own movie about that conflict. It's called August Eighth, and its plot revolves around a divorced woman who sends her 7-year-old son to Georgia to be with his father, but must make her way into a war zone to find him once all hell breaks loose. Obviously this is a more audience-friendly story than the Georgian film, which is about some dick American war reporter played by Rupert ("who?") Friend. The Russian film is also co-written by an American, and has been picked up for distribution by 20th Century Fox.

Oh, and there are giant fighting robots in it.

Just like in the real war.

Five Days of War US box office gross: $32,296
August Eighth US box office gross (estimated): A billion

Eshli once again

Hi gang.

I realize it's been a while. In my defense, I spent a month in Canada on vacation, and there is nothing less motivating than being on vacation. My greatest source of stress was fighting with my brother over who got to borrow my mom's car. That, and failing to knock off my entire vacation To Do list (I never do - but then again, perhaps "Watch the entirety of The West Wing" was a little ambitious).

What went undocumented on this blog were the two weeks prior to my vacation, a whirlwind of exams, marking, parties, goodbyes, and setting up my next term. If I recall correctly, this was also the time of the Tbilisi International Film Festival, where I saw an excellent German film with a cop-out ending (The Day I Was Not Born), a Georgian documentary that failed to live up to its potential (Generation of Tomorrow), and Cary Fukunaga's Jane Eyre (FASSBENDER!). That fortnight also saw my installation as the new copy editor of The Messenger, Tbilisi's only English-language daily. I start on Sunday, and with any luck jet lag won't impair my mental faculties. Speaking of jet lag, I can't remember half of the interesting stuff I intended to write about. So here's some filler:

Things that have changed in Tbilisi in the month I was away:
- McDonald's Value Menu items now cost 1.90GEL, up from 1.80GEL
- The 105 marshutka has been upgraded to yellow vans with Metromoney card readers. I almost missed  it yesterday because I was looking for an old, beat-up, white Mercedes. One of my friends theorized that this slow roll-out of upgrades is heralding the ultimate piece of marshutka technology - a goddamn route map. I'd call that naive, but hey, Google Maps came to Georgia last fall so clearly anything is possible
- There are new signs in some Metro stations, with bus routes and notable nearby sights. One of them listed a "trade centre" near Station Square. It took me nearly ten seconds to realize this was Georgian-to-English translation for "shopping mall". A month in Canada has made my mind slow; next thing I know I'll be saying things like, "Well, it's reasonable to assume..." (Reason and assumptions are not to be relied upon in Georgia)

Things I forgot about:
- Smoking indoors
- The absurd speed of drivers here (see also, their ability to chat up a girl on their cell phone, while using the other hand to steer, honk, signal, switch gears and adjust the radio. True story).
- A lack of personal bubbles in public
- What it's like to be stared at unashamedly
- The way people go out of their way to help you (a special thanks to the teenage boy who carried my luggage up two flights to my apartment without my asking; also, the taxi driver who hailed me a new taxi when he realized he didn't actually know where he was going, then didn't ask me for any extra money)
- Enrique Iglesias

Countdown

Kristen,

I realize I've forgotten to formally announce my Christmas vacation dates. I'll be back in Canada from December 18 - January 17. This means I'm leaving Georgia in less than two weeks!

I'm really, really looking forward to a vacation. I was sick for the entire month of November, and I'm still nursing a congested chest and accompanying cough. I also chipped a tooth and have no idea how I did it. My hair is a split-end ravaged, scraggly mess. My clothes are stained, worn, and boring. I'm starting to grow a unibrow. Let's not even talk about my feet.

I also have moments where I suddenly remember something about home, some convenience or service or experience I'd forgotten exists. This happened most recently on Sunday, when I was watching a movie. Two of the characters ordered Chinese delivery. Chinese delivery! Cheap, delicious Asian food that comes to your house! Flabbergasted, I said aloud, "Oh yeah, that's a thing that exists!"

So clearly I'm looking forward to a return to cushy Canadian life. As I type this, though, I feel tremendously guilty for being able to just escape back to the developed world - my students and Georgian friends and family can't do that. If they want to use a microwave they have to invest a month's wages into buying one. If they want their freshly-laundered clothes to dry they have to hope it's not going to rain. I've had many conversations about quality of life, average income, and what middle-class Canadians possess - and it never fails to surprise Georgians. It's not just that Canadians have more; it's that our frame of reference is different. "How much does an average flat cost in Canada?" is a question I hear a lot. Putting aside issues of size and city and amenities, my answer has to re-frame the question: "Most Canadians buy houses. Apartments are generally rented." And how do I answer a question about people trying to bribe police officers out of traffic tickets? "It doesn't happen" doesn't sound like it can be the truth. But that's how these conversations go. No matter how livable, how modern one's life in Tbilisi is, Georgia is still a developing country. And so our conversations always start as a clash of perspectives.

Here's something to cheer us all up: this weekend, Georgia won the Junior Eurovision contest. (If you're not familiar with Eurovision, good grief, and also read this). Their entry was a five-member girl group called Candy, singing a song called "Candy Music" (this is about the level of sophistication you can expect from all Eurovision contestants, youth or otherwise). Here's the video of their winning performance:

Also, I'd like to thank the city of Tbilisi and all federal government buildings for putting up Christmas lights, trees and other decorations well over a month before Georgian Orthodox Christmas, because they're helping me get in the mood for Other Christmas.

Fakesgiving

Kristen, I'm exhausted.

Thursday was American Thanksgiving (as you well know), and the Americans who took me in when I was homeless this summer hosted a dinner. Somehow, the Canadian was enlisted to cook. Or I volunteered. I can't remember anymore, it's been a long week.

As Canadian Thanksgiving proved, acquiring holiday-specific raw materials is difficult in Georgia. So we had some ingredients mailed from the US, and we scavenged and we hoarded and on Wednesday morning I was an accomplice in the killing of a turkey.

That day, one Canadian omnivore, one American vegetarian, and two Georgians (their preferences go without saying) drove to a market, inspected half a dozen birds, and chose one to be our dinner.

I'm going to tell you this story, but first a disclaimer: I eat meat. I love eating meat. I am not one of those omnivores who gets sad at the thought of animals dying and then eats meat anyway because they can't help themselves. I am not one of those pee-pants who says, "I know I should be a vegetarian but I just like bacon too much!"

No.

I have no moral, ethical, or health qualms with eating meat. It's not a default for me; this is something I've thought about and I do happily.

Some of the more militant vegetarians and vegans claim that if meat-eaters could only see where their food came from, they'd stop eating it. Well, I saw where my food comes from on Wednesday. And it only re-affirmed my commitment to eating stuff with a face.

Here's how it worked: We went to a market where people (mainly women) from nearby villages had set up their wares - chickens, turkeys, pigs, ducks and a few rabbits. We went from stall to stall, weighing and inspecting the turkeys, inquiring after their age and negotiating prices. Once we found a suitable one, the woman at the stall took it to a butchering stand, chopped off its head, let it bleed out, and dunked it in a pot of boiling water to release the feathers. She then stripped its feathers, and brought it back to her stall to remove the insides and feet. I watched all of this. It really wasn't that gross - and I cannot handle gory movies, or even listening to stories of other peoples' bodily harm. It was interesting! It prompted me to research turkey anatomy!

I told my turkey story to one of my classes, and they were absolutely unimpressed. They were like, "You've never seen a turkey butchered? *Scoff*" It reminds me of the time when my host family asked me why I wasn't eating any grapes. I don't like grapes in Georgia because they have seeds and so are more trouble than they're worth, even though grapes are the candy of the fruit world. I am completely pathetic, I know. So I explained this to my family by saying, "Life in Canada is very easy..."

(I also saw an enormous hog butchered, as well as a couple buckets of its insides. The two massive sets of ribs reminded me of my brother, who eats like Jethro Bodine and is a barbecued ribs monster. Hi John!).

Anyway, Thanksgiving Day. With plenty of help, I cooked a meal for a group that included Americans, Canadians, an Australian and a Georgian. Everyone had a great time and the food was largely a hit (including our turkey who, in all the excitement, I forgot to name). Two minor issues: The fully-cooked turkey went missing for approximately an hour and a half, and one of the large windows in the apartment shattered. So, a totally normal, insane day in Georgia.

La Belle Langue

Kristen,

I'm sitting in a French-style cafe eating pain au chocolat and contemplating language. The signs identifying the pastries here are in French, so understanding what a food item is and what it contains was easier than it usually has been for me. Of course, this meant my brain short-circuited and I said to the girl at the counter, "ერტი pain au chocolat, si vous plait". She responded in English. I can't seem to think straight.

I've discovered that when I'm trying to think of a Georgian word or phrase my brain "runs home to mother" - provides me with the words in French. So being here may actually improve my French, and may also be the longest period I've thought in French since my last trip to Paris.

Of course, French still isn't much of an asset when English isn't an option. I wish I spoke Russian. Or really, since I'm wishing anyway, I wish I spoke Georgian! I pick up new words here and there, and some friends and students have been helping me, but what I really need is an intensive course like the one I'm being paid to inflict on my students.

*  *  *

I've started tutoring in earnest this week. I have five students, with another to come in November. I don't find tutoring as draining as teaching, and I've been able to be a bit more creative with my methods, rather than just stick to textbooks and tests. Plus, one-on-one time has allowed me to actually talk to people, make friends, and be treated to that Georgian hospitality I can't get enough of. I've had some crazy plans for staying in Georgia - open a consignment clothing store, start an English communications consulting firm, become Georgia's worst housewife - but maybe sticking around to be a professional adult tutor is the least crazy. (I'd ask that you refrain from inquiring after my qualifications, since they consist entirely of "native English speaker" and "generally not a simpleton").

*  *  *

Halloween is coming up, evidenced by the fact that "Monster Mash" came up on my iPod today and I didn't skip past it. I've been invited to two parties, and I need a costume for one - any ideas from the peanut gallery? Specifically, a costume I can make without access to face paint, cheap wigs, thrift stores, craft stores, or the Zellers/Targets/Wal-Marts of the world? (One Halloween miracle, please!)

*  *  *

This song has been on my new music playlist for a few weeks now, and I think it's a perfect fit for my state of mind: