Attack of the Birds

This is a native Afghanland bird. 

Just like the one that flew into my really skinny and escape routeless office. I flipped out. And grabbed the closest weapon—a J. Crew bag. 

Bring it on bird. 

I then proceeded to run screaming from my office. Don’t judge me. That bird totally had diseases. And/or is a demon. My survival mode equals selfish and Edita—who was also smart enough to run screaming for her life—was the only person quick enough to make it in Ed Center’s only room with a door before I slammed and barricaded it. The boys chased the bird back outside and then convinced Edita and myself that it was safe to come out. I spent the rest of the day Lysoling my office.

13 days till Europe, Schnitzel, and hostels. 

How Am I Still Here?!

4 days ago I was supposed to be in Germany. I’m not. I decided to extend 5 days before and changed my departure to Sept 10^th.

How This Decision Totally Mixed Me Up and Made Me Depressed and Grumpy

       1.    I already counted down. I can’t just add links back to my paper chain.

       2.     I made plans—of all the really delicious food I want to eat. The DFAC did not get the memo.  

       3.     Really I checked out about the same time I made the decision to stay. Working is now difficult.

       4.     I got bit by a bug.

A Variety of Countdowns

       1.     CS6 Trial—21 days remaining 

       2.     Pack one pair of socks every day

       5.     42 lunches/dinners remaining, which equals one week of work in the normal world or 3.5 days of    work for me. Sooo really, I only have 17.5 days left!

Honestly, I’m glad I stayed I’m just having trouble deciding that I’m going to survive the next 21 days. But a friend promised to show me all the cool things in Bagram. Like the dog kennels!

The Dryer Monster

Lately, I’ve been missing pretty much all my socks. I thought the dryer monster was gettin’ greedy. Or maybe the laundry guys just thought that my socks were swell and not giving them back. Tonight I put clean sheets on my bed.

There is more that fell down the crack

Oh, that’s right—I just sleep in socks. Or try too. My bad, laundry guys, my bad!

Joke's On You

So somehow I managed to convince my boss that I have some crazy amazing design skills. I don't. He hasn't caught on to that yet though and so the latest "design" project he's asked me to complete is a Certificate of Appreciation for employees leaving Afghanistan. I'm leaving. Next. Clearly, he was really trying to secretly ask me to give myself an award. As such I took the liberty of writing a thank you note to me. From my coworkers. 

Click to see larger! (Maybe?)

The Olympics: Is Afghanistan Doing a Worse Job Than NBC?

I’m not really sure what the problem is, but the coverage of the Olympics here in Afghanistan has been really shoddy. For real. Every day I go to the DFAC and I just hope that they’ll be showing some great Olympic event. Any event? Go ahead and ruin it and tell me who wins the gold! A commercial? And everyday I’m greeted by all three TV’s playing baseball. Which I'm not even sure counts as a sport. 

Proof That It Is Not: In one of my classes we were reading the Great Gatsby and it references the 1919 World Series. Being the super great teacher, I did some research to see if anyone really had tried to cheat and rig the series just as Fitzgerald was claiming. Someone did so I got really excited. And there I am, knee deep in my explanation of how indeed, this really did happen—zomg! So cool, huh?!—when a student interrupts. “The World Series of Poker has been around for that long?”

See? Baseball doesn’t even exist in Vegas. Thus it is not a sport--play me some Olympics! After all, they're pretty much the entire reason we invented TV in the first place. 

Moment to Brag: Pretty sure my fantasy baseball team is winning. I can’t log into ESPN to check however, so I can neither prove nor disprove said statement.

Apology: I really do love baseball. It’s America’s pastime. I just think if you’re going to skip the world’s greatest athletes competing for the title of “Best Eva (for the next four years)” then you need to play an “on TV” exciting sport in lieu of said amazingness. 

Yea, they invented TV so we can all watch the Olympics. Trust me. I've been there.