Ah, relief...

I passed a kidney stone this morning. A-ham-do-lil-lah.

It wasn't the one that they're trying to kill with the radiation, but any improvement is welcome.

Keep on keepin' on.

My life

I am a college graduate. I am a degree holder from an esteemed four-year university. The University of Texas at Austin. I have a degree in Arabic Language and Literature with a minor in Middle Eastern Studies.

And I work in a t-shirt factory in a third world country.

Yes, that is my life.

And, I kind of like it.

The Ramen Comparison

There are some people that I will listen to and then do whatever they say.

Katherine Kang is one of these people. I ran into Katherine on the street outside the Institute one day and asked her, "Are you smarter than me?"

She said, "No."

She's clearly smarter than I am.

So when she told me, an Arabic Language and Literature major and Middle Eastern Studies minor, to take an accounting class, I did it without a second thought. Turned out to be one of the best classes in which I learned the most practical material out of my entire college experience.

When Katherine found out that I skipped a test to play Ultimate Frisbee, she got so mad. She told me to knock that off, and without question I did. I got a B in that class, and when I did the math I realized that if I had gone to that test I would've gotten an A.

When Katherine Kang tells me to do something, I just do it.

Some people have similar effects on me, not quite to the same extent. One of those people is a guy, which is weird for me. Mostly because I instinctively just trust guys less than I trust girls. My poor roommate Michael couldn't convince me at all to buy certain fabrics for shirts because it was so hard for me to trust his perspective as a guy. Contrast that to Abinadi Ayerdis, who has a pretty good success rate at getting me to do things that he says. He convinced me not to ask a friend to photograph my wedding for free, citing that it'd be like someone asking me to take a non-paid day off to do some hard core Arabic translation. He has stopped me from dating girls that would be terrible for me, when I couldn't see the forest through the trees. He helps me stop being such a jerk whenever he asks me about Christ-like attributes.

Then there's Stephanie Hall, who gets frustrated when she tells me to do things because I argue with her the entire time. I don't think she knows how often I know she's right and I'm just being a belligerent jerkface, and I end up doing what she tells me to anyway.

Poor Andrew Taylor has a dismal success rate in this area. We've been best friends for, what, thirteen years now? I don't know how we've made it at all. Probably because he's such a good person.

Shamefully, I've had Bishops who've had a hard time getting me to do things. They do have a better success rate than most, though. They should probably just call Katherine and tell her to tell me what to do.

Molly Lewis is another example of someone who can get me to do most things. I'd say her success rate is roughly the same as Abinadi's. She tells me not to talk in a surgery, and the next time I was a lot quieter than the last time. She tells me to eat more carbohydrates because my protein only diet is unhealthy, so I do.

And that's the long version of how John and I came to be eating Ramen noodles tonight. I needed to eat some carbohydrates because Molly told me to.

I ate the chicken curry flavor, and John ate the plain chicken flavor. He's decided that the plain chicken flavor is just a bit tastier than all of the others. I'm going to have to taste them all now to find out.

Ironic

Did I write about my second kidney surgery here? If so, here's a little repeat, if not, then here it is:

Basically they drugged me three times so that they could get me to stop talking.

Yup. I talked throughout the entire thing, until they finally got enough inside of me to put me down.

So that was two weeks ago, and today I came in for my third surgery. This time I only remember waking up, telling them that there was too much pain, and then asking them to continue with the surgery when they were winding down. Apparently there's only so much radiation a body can handle, but try explaining that to a very determined drugged person. They finally convinced me, and I somehow made it out of there.

So I came home and made kidney sandwiches. I don't think I'll be buying that meat anymore. Smells bad when cooking. Doesn't have the greatest flavor, either.

A Typical Sabbath?

Back in Texas I used to lament with Jared and Andrew about the long hours we pulled on the Sabbath.

"Man, I got here at 8AM and left at 5PM. I haven't eaten this whole time. It's like every Sunday is Fast Sunday".

"Well, I got here at 7AM and I'm headed to the other ward right now. I might come home today."

Those were, legitimately, long hours. But it was fun, I had responsibility, and the social aspect was certainly enjoyable.

Today I left the house at 5:35AM and got back at 9PM. I took a microbus to Cairo, and so did a human organs dealer and a hash possessor. The driver wasn't interested in making them pay the full price. Maram and Melissa were less happy with the situation than I was. I think it didn't help that Maram speaks perfect Egyptian Arabic and understood exactly what was going on.

Church was nice, then an excellent lunch at the Cannons'. I love how the Saints treat the Saints. I asked my friend Kevin, "Where's lunch today?" and before we could try and find out, the Cannon's invited us over for food they prepared last night in case the YSAs needed something. Yeah, that just happened. Mexican food, at that.

We then get on the metro to get to the train station, and a guy keeps staring at Melissa and Maram, so I stare back until I catch his eye. I think he realized I wasn't happy with him when I stared at him for several minutes, with him nervously glancing at me every couple of seconds to see if I was still looking. It was almost unfortunate that he got off the metro as soon as he did, I was having fun.

Then an expensive three hour train ride home, in which sleep was quite elusive.

And that's my Sabbath now. Certainly not the same as before, but with longer hours. Sometimes I have to remind myself that it's a different kind of fun. But still fun.

Oh happy day

Sometimes Egypt really wears on your patience. I mean it really does. I don't know that I'll ever live here again after this year is over. There's the sexual harassment, the terrible hospitals.

But there are some good times, too.

Today Mubarak, our downstairs British Bengali neighbor, dropped a cake off for us. It's also Katie's birthday today, so we had a cake at her house, and our landlady brought her a cake that she gave to us since she had so much.

Three cakes in one day?

Oh yeah.

And that's after last night, when I was craving sugar so badly that I ate jelly out of the jar with a spoon. Good old only been eating protein for weeks.

Some Random Stuff

The weights here aren't marked, so you have to guess sometimes how much you're lifting. This drives me crazy, since I have pretty specific goals. Also, lifting in kilos is hard because the jump from 5 kilos to 10 kilos is from 11 pounds to 22 pounds. No in between if you want to go up gradually.

When I was visiting Katie in the hospital, the doctor was going to come and check her out. When he came in he said, "Tom! How are you?" Everyone was pretty confused that we knew each other, but I'm not sure why.

I had another surgery for the kidney stone, and they gave me three times as many drugs as last time. Why? Because I was talking throughout the whole thing and it took them that much to knock me out. Wahaba won't tell me what I said, since I can't remember most of it, and that makes me kind of suspicious.

I tried to skype from school yesterday, and they turned the power off on me after class. Tried to get skype paid for at home, and it wouldn't accept payment. Finally got a hold of Molly by chat and sent her my skype info, and she logged in and paid for me using my bank information. Is that bad? I mean, is there a legal issue with that?

Also, I want to see how this works:

Vacation planning by Tripbase

Stay tuned for more exciting adventures.

Oh, and I'm going to rock a dance party for the holiday coming up, very exciting.