So I’m probably going to enroll in a certificate program starting in January. Problem is, every student is required to have his or her own laptop. Since I don’t need a laptop for any other purpose (and even that one simply has to be able to connect to the school network and run Office), I need to buy a very cheap laptop. Second hand would do swimmingly. PC only.

Anyone know where I can find such a thing? Thanks.

And how’ve you all been?

I feel bad that I haven’t been blogging much lately, but there really isn’t anything to blog about, unless you’re interested in the details of how greasy the food is (deep-fried quesadillas!). For want of anything else to say, here’s a summary of my trip:

So, in the past four days…

Mexican meals: 6
Pizza meals: 2
Trips to Walmart: 1
Kilometers run: 5
Times I’ve been offered Pepsi before 9 am: 4
Times I’ve accepted: 0
Bags of beef jerky consumed: 2
Death row prison guards (no, really!) spotted at lunch yesterday: 5
Episodes of Law and Order watched: 7
Cowboy hats spotted: countless
LARGE suvs: countless
Camouflage outfits: countless
Cosmopolitans: 1

Ugh. Detox starts tomorrow. Get me to a fruitery!

I’m here in Nowheresville, Texas, teaching for about two weeks.

I thought I’d seen Nowheresville before, you know, in the Sahara. But this is worse. I remember the first time I came down here, it was my first business trip with my current employer, and I was quite excited. Then reality hit. This “town” (which shall remain nameless), population 5433, is so small there aren’t any restaurants, not even at the hotel. I had to eat at Walmart’s. No bus, no taxi, everyone drives, but of course, no cars. Huge trucks. A guncheck at the door of where I work. The road doesn’t have a shoulder to run on, and of course the hotel doesn’t have a gym. To top it all off, it’s a dry county. No alcohol.

And this time I’m here for twice as long. Alone. Sunday night I rented seven DVDs for the duration, and grimly prepared to face my sentence. God bless cable.

Update: Reduced sentence due to good behavior! I’m coming home Saturday! Woot!

So, before I left I asked for suggestions for vacation reading, and you really came through. I managed to crunch through three and a half books during my vacation, and here’s what I thought.

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
Okay, this is the “half” book, because I finished it on the road. Not Atwood’s best, but not bad either. Story within a story within a story told by an old lady remembering her life. You get the narrative of her current life, that of her youth, and that of a book written by her deceased sister. The obvious parallels between the three threads unfortunately fail to titillate. I had trouble getting into it (and I hear I’m not the only one), and then it was still too slow for my taste. If you want great Atwood, pick up The Robber Bride or Alias Grace.

All Families Are Psychotic by Douglas Coupland
This was the first novel by Coupland I’ve ever read, and I choose my words carefully here: I thoroughly hated this book. I’m at a loss to even know where to begin explaining what was objectionable about it, but here goes anyway.

The story concerns a family’s reunion in Florida on the occasion of the astronaut daughter’s launch into space. It is nothing but an unlikely series of Hollywoodesque events: it seems whenever any character drives a car, they have a spectacular accident, whenever any character goes into a store, the store gets robbed and the character invariably gets shot.

One of the problems is that this unbelievable narrative rolls on without any commentary, analysis, character development or, perhaps most objectionably, any real direction or theme. It’s just a bunch of unbelievable events.

I’ve read my share of books that were all action and pure fast food enjoyment. But I couldn’t even enjoy this book on that level! It is so far-fetched that I had trouble suspending disbelief: Three men think nothing of squeezing into the trunk of a car, because the female driver’s mad at them. Mom gets AIDS from her son when he gets shot (by Dad) and the bullet goes through him into her. Something like this happens every second page. And there’s no grand scheme to bring it all home.

The book and I were in trouble early on when, a few chapters into the story, the main character says something completely wrong and out of character (for the way I was imagining her). She just didn’t work. I had to try and consciously come up with an image of an uneducated, straight-laced housewife who would suddenly quote Kierkegaard. Gifted writers can make anything seem natural, but this wasn’t the case here. Moreover, the dialogue kept kicking me out of the story, every time I thought “nobody really talks that way!”.

What was very confusing about this was that the novel had been independently recommended by two friends whose taste I respect. Because of this, I kept expecting the author, in the middle of the book, to break the narrative and say “Just kidding! Here’s the real story!”.

Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Aaaaah… Now here’s another completely unbelievable story, but this one is extremely well written, such that the unbelievable ends up feeling completely normal. In case you’ve been living under a rock, Life of Pi is the story of a boy stranded on a liferaft with a royal Bengal tiger.

The book is written in delicious and evocative prose, yet it never becomes pretentious or draws attention to itself. It tells a story, plain and simple, an entertaining, touching, sometimes heartbreaking story. It’s absolutely terrifying, it’s laugh-out-loud funny. It’s also full of interesting lore about zookeeping, wild animals and religion. Life of Pi is real pleasure, the best book I’ve read all year. I will definitely pick up Martel’s previous novel.

The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger
This one was in T’s bookpile, and I picked it up when I finished mine. It tells the true story of the Andrea Gail, a swordfishing boat that sank in the biggest storm of the century, in the fall of 1991 (yes, the same Perfect Storm as in the Clooney movie). The book includes just the right mix of interesting background information, entertaining adventure tales and a journalistic attention to accurate detail. If you’re looking for a well-researched, entertaining vacation read, this book does the job perfectly. It’s what I’d call the thinking man’s thriller.

However, there’s another book in that category that I’d recommend even more. The Perfect Storm reminded me a lot of Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer’s first-hand account of the 1996 Everest tragedy which took the lives of eight people. I can’t recommend this book enough, whether you’re into mountaineering or, like most people, not. The extremes of human heroism, selfishness and folly in it hard absolutely incredible. Everyone I’ve lent it to (a diverse bunch, from Dr. Wank to my mother) has loved it.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I’m going to Texas next week, so I’ll be digging into the pile of suggestions again very shortly.

It’s good to see you again. And I hope to see all of you soon too.

And off we went to the Sahara the next morning. We’d hired a guide and a 4×4 for 4 days, along with two Aussies and an Italian couple. Those were the best days of the trip so far.

The first day’s drive seemed like it would never end, 8 hours of dusty road in hot, unbelievably dry weather, where all we could see all around were endless rocky plains. Basically, the moonscape by daylight. Very hard on the system, I have to say.

In the desert it’s not the heat so much as the lack of humidity that gets you. You are constantly aware of the water you are losing, as your mouth dries each time you breathe. You’re hot but never sweaty, as everything evaporates instantly. You rub your fingers together and they feel strange, for the oil that is normally on your skin is gone. After four days without a shower, my hair was not greasy, but felt like dry hay.

We finally got to our destination, the tiny nowhere village of Zagora, and three Berber nomads were waiting to take us into the desert on camelback to sleep in their camp. We said goodbye to our guide and after an hour and a half of camel riding, it was pitch dark and we finally got to their big, sturdy tent. They threw cushions around a low makeshift table, and the six Westerners feel asleep immediately. When they woke us with dinner (one big bowl of stew, six forks, and mint tea), the moon had risen and they had lit a lantern. The desert was the most perfect silence I had ever heard; it was a perfect feeling of peace, happiness and good will.

The nomads told us that their families sent one son each, six months out of the year to work wih tourists, but that they much preferred their true nomadic life. They’d never been to a city and didn’t wish to. Cars scared them; one recounted that when he went to the tiny town of Ouarzazate, he didn’t know how to cross the street. He had no wish to see Marrakesh.

The next night we stayed with a Berber woman and her seven dirty and beautiful children. That desert was one made of endless sandy orange dunes, the kind of desert immortalized in so many pictures and movies. But that’s another story for another time.

Hello from Marrakech… so much has happened since last I blogged. Here’s a much-abridged version of recent events.

Took the 7 1/2 hour train ride to Marrakech, which was comfortable and relaxing. We had read that when you eat on public transportation, it was customary to offer to share it with the people around. This was quite well received and led to many a conversation with the friendly locals who in turn always offered a share in their lunch as well. One woman showed us the pictures from her brother’s recent wedding, explaining all the details of the Moroccan wedding ritual.

Got to Marrakech and ate in the Djemma El Fna, an extremely crowded town square (think Jazz fest main event crowded) with food stalls surrounded with long benches where locals (and the occasional tourist) squeeze in and eat dinner for around one dollar. T ate at a lamb stall, where the man coarsely ripped the meat of the rack with his hands and a dirty knife, throwing it onto a little plate for T to eat, also with his hands of course. He said it was delicious, but it seemed extremely greasy to me.

Decided to book a four day Land Rover trip to the desert proper, and took off the next day.

Welcome to the “From the Road” edition of the Chronicles, which shouldn’t be as long a post as I’d like, because the keyboard is hard to use.

Landed in Casablanca and headed immediately for the capital Rabat. Beautiful city, no sollicitation, but we’re clearly not in Canasas anymore. Extremely surprised by the quality of the room we got for 12 dollars (no dollar sign on this keyboard of course). There had been a discount because no hot showers were available.

Expected to be dead by that point, but we were full of energy. Went and discovered the medina, a walled-off part of the old city. Inside, a maze of tiny streets and whitewashed walls, looks like the way I imagine Greece would. Then into the souq, another maze but this time bustling with chaotic activity. Lots of people selling spices out of large open sacks, each pile a different color; smells amazing.

The people are friendly and patient with we tourists who stick out like a sore thumb, but so far no sollicitation, very little begging (unlike my neighborhood at home), not even so much as a stare.

Well, better end this one here, I’ve run up a 70 cent bill. Might not blog again, but I’m thinking of home. Enjoy Yulblog tonight.