Jetlag Haze

Good news abounds!

1. I am home after 20 hours in a plane...and I am only slightly loopy.
2. Mr.3 is FREE!!!! He is now at his parent's home and we will see about getting him back here within the next few days---hopefully by Christmas....oh please, please, let him be home by Christmas!

As for me....yes I need to post more, but I did put up a ton of the photos from India, there will be more but as the night gets later and later the slower and slower my mind works. That and the delhi belly that I am dealing with takes alot more time and bum pain that what I would like. Raj and Sandjish are battleing with Gengis and Aziz for supremacy of my GI tract. My money is on Gengis and Aziz...they have been there longer.

India-Part 3

So India kinda grew on me yesterday, but I am still glad that I will be leaving today. And since I do not know how much time I will have before the internet connection goes out on me, I thought that I would give you all a taste of the stories to come.

Everyone needs a good bum kneading

American Muslim?

That isn’t dark circles under your eyes, it’s just soot

What’s an American Yogi like you doing in a Pizza Hut like this? Or Tale of the McCurry

Snake Charmers and other ways to get paid for just being yourself

Oh yeah….The GV Conference, day one and day two, otherwise known as….finally I am not the only one who…oh wait, I am? Damn!

Can I just get an email out? Please!

Sex at the Isa Khan tomb

India is popular for the strangest of things

Ricksaw Madness or How many foreigners can you stuff into a shopping cart for 100 rupees?

This is probably not an exhaustive list, but a decent one I think. Type at you again soon! I will be back home on Wednesday to my house and beloved cable modem connection.

Oh and did I mention….Wednesday, inshallah, Mr.3 will be freed!!! Thank God!

India Part 2

Many people come to India to find some sort of clarity in their lives. My trip to India seems to have clarified something that I had been working towards for a long time…

I’m tired.

Tired of traveling with no money and beating myself up over every cent that I pay. Tired of having to stay at low-rate hotels….tired of feeling like a back packer. Tired of traveling by myself. Granted I am very grateful for being able to come here…but I came for the Global Voices conference, not to see India. I came to be a part of something….but shopping and sightseeing without the ones that I love tear me apart. I am impossibly depressed at the moment. I want to spend and spend and spend and buy for me and for me and for me…I have felt that lately everything has been all about me helping other people….me giving up for other people. And I am tired of that too. I’m tired of feeling like I am going to break into tears at any given moment…that all moments of reflection are moments where all of the sadness that I have been bottling up comes to the surface.

I realized last night that I used to be a fun and witty person. Last night at the dinner I was very very dull…a shadow of my former self.

India Part 1

I have made it to India safe and sound…much sounder than any of the internet connections that I have come across. The hotel that I am staying at has wireless but it is patchy at best. I waited for a half hour the other day for it to finally connect and was able to enjoy 15 to 20 minutes of workable internet…long enough to be able to send emails to everyone under the sun to let them know that I was ok. And then, like clockwork, the second I start to check other things that aren’t as valuable…the connection goes down.

Currently I am sitting in the first day of the Global Voices conference…a group of people known for their multitasking. I spent most of the time, between taking notes on what was being said, chatting with my Mom. This is probably a good reason for me not to have my computer with me during class time. But let’s also note the coolness of the situation…I am sitting in a conference in New Delhi and typing with my Mom in Price Utah just as I would if I was a work.

I have several pictures that I want to put up, but they might have to wait until I get back home because it seems to take forever for these things to get loaded up here. Man, am I spoiled with my cable line and my T1 line at work.

The taxi/motor ricksaw thing is totally crazy here. If you have read Harry Potter he talks about the Night Bus fitting into impossible spaces and going very fast….they must have been thinking about India when they wrote that, because I am not sure how they fit where they did, and how they did it without killing us all. I always thought that Istanbul drivers were bad….turkey is nothing compared to here. Once I accepted that I was going to die, I began to have a lot of fun.

I went shopping with a Bahraini blogger yesterday…I had a lot of fun but I spent way too much money and I have been beating myself up about it. Partly because I wanted to spend more than what I did and still want to spend more and the other side of me who is angry because I shouldn’t have spent anything because it all needs to go to rent at the end of the month. Then again, how often is one in India? Either way I keep going back and forth on it. Like to the point of making myself cry over it.

turkish posts

I have been thinking today about what has been said about my Turkish posts. And I don't think that the issue of quantity is really that important. The quality of the Turkish posts are much higher than the Kurdish posts. And I prouder of the Turkish articles that I have written than the Kurdish. I am currently working on an article about the Pope visiting Turkey. It is taking longer than what I would like...but I have much more material to sort through.

So is quality better than quanity, or the other way round?

SNL Hugh Laurie - 4 Protest Song - Subtitulado

Brilliance from Hugh Laurie!

Cheese Fries with Jimmy

Again, my brother impresses me with his maturity.

Last night I made him make dinner...cheese fries...delicious.

After reading the comments left of GV by Metin and Murat I was upset, and Jimmy was so kind to listen to me cry over the whole thing. And he hugged me too...which I also needed.

I left a snide comment on Murat's blog...he included two separate jabs at me in his blogroll update and closed with "Hopefully no one's feelings are hurt". I left the comment that it was "too late". Perhaps I shouldn't have left it, because the last thing that I want to do is to start some "internet fight" and I don't have the stamina to stay mad at someone in real life let alone the cyber world. But the comments that they have left have hurt me deeply and partly...it is my fault.

Fault 1- I made the mistake in thinking of these guys as friends of mine. We have emailed frequently and in the case of Murat talked on the phone. Murat and Metin have consistantly been the ones to send me words of encouragement and support through these tough times....they knew of my situation and seemed to understand.

Fault 2- I believed both Metin and Murat when they described themselves as "Progressive Turks", they have both written about the Kurdish question and how it needed to be re-evaluated. Now they have chosen to make up assumptions about my "Kurdish favoritism" on Global Voices...when I have perhaps been the harshest critic of the Kurds.

Of course the real possibility of their recent "ganging up" on me, could be the fact that their vanity is hurt because I haven't written about them...and somehow they think that by giving me some sort of "push" is going to make me brighten up to them and announce to my readership that everything they have to say is right. I really don't think that this is a case of Turkish nationalism but rather a case of their readership being down...and on this point, I am going to stop here...because I have many opinions on this that many would think are "self-serving" on my part.

I'm upset at the hypocrisy here...don't say that you are my friend and that you are concerned about what happens to me...when obviously, you don't.

too much

I am not sure where to start with this. Just when I start to fill like I am back on my feet, I feel like I have been smacked in the face with a board.

Good news on Mr.3, his court date in on the 20th and I have been told that the prosecution can't prove the case and that he will also be released that day. I have to talk to his lawyer first because I worry that he--meaning the lawyer--is telling him something that he would like to hear. I can't afford to pay the phone bill to correctional billing services until the 7th, so I haven't been able to talk to Mr.3 and have been told everything through his mom. The bankruptcy is going through. I now have the luxury of being able to answer my phone. It is a hollow victory. I seem to work all the time now...ferrying myself between job 1 and job 2. Saturday was horrible. Outreach had a workshop and I worked from 7am to 4pm straight, and then on to Williams-Sonoma from 5pm to 11pm. It is the last week of school and I have a thousand projects to complete.

Every morning I wake up and take an Aleve because I ache so much.

And of course, my own desire to be perfect is slowly killing me. I love writing for Global Voices, I love being a part of it...but lately I haven't been able to write anything. And the Turkish bloggers are turning on me....citing favoritism to the Kurds when really the only reason I think that the Kurdistance article gets done is because it is during the week and the Turkey article is on Saturday. I want people to understnad my stress right now...that I feel like I am facing the impossible....but nothing I seem to do is good enough for me or anyone else for that matter. I feel really hurt by the comments lately put on Global Voices by Murat and Metin...and yeah...I may just be over-sensitive but that is my only viewpoint at the moment. I have been considering talking with my editor to re-do my writing schedule or to switch to a bi-weekly option until I can mentally get back on my feet. And let's not even get into the guilt over my lack of writing and going to India this month...guilt and embarassment really....it is too late to cancel, in fact it was too late to cancel last month.

I feel so broken.