CheetahhhhhhhBlog Mark III

I’ve commented both publicly and privately that this summer is a hemorrhage of money. It’s true; it is however a planned-in-advance hemorrhage. Yesterday we went shopping for the house. There are many things that aren’t available in the provinces, primarily linnens and bedding. Apparently in Leyte they sleep on bamboo. We however have matresses and need sheets etc. Today we stocked up on DVDs, Van got decorative pillows, etc etc… we have 7 bags to cart with us on the airplane on Monday. Luckily Cebu Pacific only charges 30 pesos per kilo. I estimate about PhP5000 in extra baggage fees, or about $100. Frankly I never want to shop again, but it’s not over. Tomorrow we need to go stock up on Italian foods for me to eat in Capoocan, and we need to buy another big mother Samsonite.

I got to Manila yesterday, 6 hours late. Saudi Airlines is ridiculous. If they were’t the only airline that services Yanbu, I wouldn’t fly them. As it is, I simply get really annoyed with them.

I am jet-lagged as hell, as you can imagine. Nevertheless we have a busy schedule in Manila. Today I went and got glasses. I am still a bit shocked looking at myself in the mirror. However everything is sharp again. Indeed I had not realized how blurry the world had become, actually; I had just gotten used to a degree of blur. Now everything is crystal-clear.

I also got a suit custom-tailored. It’s dark blue. PhP17,000 for a custom suit and broadcloth shirt. That’s about $375. A bargain if they turn out well. Indeed if this works out I may just get all my clothes custom tailored, because it’s certainly cheaper than designer off-the-rack.

I also got shoes and a tie for the wedding. My tie is lavander. Vanessa picked it out. My shoes I am rather excited about, believe it or not. They’re Ferragamo. In my mind, shoes are one of these “money is no object” items partly because men judge each other by their shoes. Also, you could have ratty clothes but if you have good shoes, you still look good. So good shoes are worth the investment. Also these new Ferragamos will look good at work next year. I like them a lot.

That, however, is the extent of my shopping. Indeed I don’t ever want to go shopping again, it makes me crazy.

Little Chris is very active now, crawling everywhere, grabbing everything. He wanted me to carry him in the mall and he’s so huge, he gave me a backache.

Well I’m in the airport at Jeddah. My flight is delayed 3 hours of course (it’s Saudi airlines). However the airport does have wireless now so I’m not complaining.

One of my colleagues is named Omar. I like him a lot, indeed he’s one of my favorite people in Saudi. We were part of the original core faculty who founded the English Department. Indeed it was us two. I remember for a while, it was ONLY us two and we were teaching classes of 80 students crammed into a little classroom. Anyway he is 30 years old. He has liver cancer and can”t be operated on. He’s going to Jeddah for chemotherapy. When I went to visit him in the RC hospital and he told me this, I started to cry. It was so shocking.

You know I have German blood, so when I say “started to cry”, I mean I got a little misty. You know the whole male northern European thing… show no emotion… anyway that was pretty emotional for me.

This has me incredibly upset. Particularly because his original complaint was stomach problems, which I have had for 3 years now. My God almighty that’s frightening!

So anyway my departure is made a little bit less sweet because I’m upset about Omar.

I’m here at my office. The college is empty and I have no purpose for being here. Three and a half days to go. I leave Tuesday at 4.

I paid my cable and internet subscriptions up to the 13th, which was when I thought I was leaving. So I was suddenly disconnected Wednesday night. I thought briefly about going to pay for another month, but it seems like a waste. However I will note that a weekend without internet was not fun. FYI mom, this also means my Skype phone is out of commission.

I noted in an entry below that I lost a couple hundred dollars. The official total came to $390. Damnit. However I see that the markets smartly rebounded Weds-Fri. So perhaps I will gain it all back. I hope so, so that I can sell these mutual funds and have done with it. I don’t like the “not knowing what’s going to happen” factor. And in any case I discovered that interest rates are high in the Philippines. For example Philippine government bonds pay 6.5% and bank bonds can pay up to 9.5%. The only factor here to consider is the risk of currency fluctuation. At the moment the dollar is low, down 10% against the peso. So if the dollar rebounds, I would lose, since my official operating valuation is the dollar (the Saudi riyal is pegged to the dollar). It’s not actually a good time to buy pesos.

Well I’m P.O.ed. That means “pissed off” for those of you who don’t know. I had to reschedule my ticket for the 19th of June. That means I have 9 days to go, and absolutely nothing to do here in Saudi.

It says on my contract that I can leave. However the dean decided we need to stay an extra week in case students complain about grades. I’m still getting the 2 months holiday stipulated in my contract but in reality it work out to about 75 days, and I would prefer to spend as few of those days as possible in Saudi.

I was mad as hell and briefly considered just leaving on Wednesday anyway. However I decided to be prudent and change my ticket, primarily because I want to suck at the teat of the Royal Commission for at least 1 more year.

It’s incredibly annoying because I haven’t seen Vanessa and The Bug in 45 days. Also I want to get the hell out of here, I need a vacation from Saudi. Also I would like a rum-and-coke if you please. Anyway I can survive a few days longer I suppose.

Anyway I’m sitting on my butt here in Yanbu doing absolutely nothing, so there’s no other news.

Incidentally for those of you paying attention, the American markets took a whippin’. Little Chris probably won’t be going to college now. No actually, want to know a little secret? I have very little money invested on the market at the moment, out of sheer prudence, ie, the reasonable assumption that I don’t actually know what I’m doing. I’m paying close attention so that I can learn. Nevertheless I just lost a couple hundred bucks.

Anyway the stock indexes in the US and Europe are all down. Depressing. If you check out the Wall Street Journal’s Market Beat Blog (you might not be able to view this if you don’t subscribe), you get good commentary relating to trends. They write:

“I don’t think it’s quite over yet,” says Larry Adam, chief investment strategist and managing director, Deutsche Bank Alex Brown. “Sometimes these pullbacks can be quite healthy, and you have to let them digest and then you can move higher.” What’s disconcerting, from the view of market bulls, is the sharp downward slide in the last half-hour of trading, never a good sign for those looking for a rebound the following day.

I tend to agree at this point unfortunately.

When I said 4 days ago that I didn’t think there would be a correction, I meant a big sucker, like in 2001. And I still don’t think so, and neither do the pundits in the WSJ.

Regarding me losing a few hundred buck. Well I’m a bit pissed and I learned something from this. However I still say the general trend is up and I think I will recoup in a month or two.

Incidentally for those readers out there who I don’t know (there are about 60 mystery readers per day on my site), please, for the love of God, don’t follow any of my investment advice. Indeed it’s not even advice. It just happens to be what’s on my mind at the moment.

6 days to go and the Cheetahhhhhhhh is flying the coop. I spent yesterday packing.

I’ve had a cough for 2 weeks now. I didn’t go to the doctor because I hate doctors and hospitals. They give me the willies. Also I am firmly of the opinion that doctors are often useless. However my cough was a bit embarrassing and it wasn’t getting better, so I headed on down to the RC hospital. Turns out I have some kind of bronchitis. I’m taking a bunch of pills and they do seem to be helping.

I like the new Windows Live Writer, which I’m writing this blog entry on. It seems to integrate well with WordPress, my blog service.

Anyway I’m trying to bring as much as possible to the Philippines, simply because we will eventually leave Saudi, and shipping things out of here is quite expensive. Also–and I don’t know this for sure–but I’m under the impression that Leyte is quite underdeveloped, indeed one might call it a tad remote. This is not a bad thing in my book. Indeed it’s a good thing. However we will probably appreciate having many of our things from Saudi.

One of my students is Mr download guru and had the latest season of 24, which is one of my favorite shows. He was going to give it to me, and I was quite excited about it, especially given that I have nothing to do at the moment. Anyway then the jackass calls me up and wants to sell it to me for the “very reasonable price of 300 riyals”. Which for one thing is about $80 so it’s not a very reasonable price. Anyway what a jackass, if he wasn’t a student I’d have told him where he can put it.