raided!

i had lunch with co-workers at a new (to me) kind of hole-in-the-wall specializing in some sort of ultra fatty sikh food (the correct name escapes me). most daunting was the quart of buttermilk i was supposed to drink. i managed to down half of it. yuck. at least i saw my first sacred street cows on the motorbike ride out there. they were dining on piles of garbage.

after work, i ended up at purple haze again with the same guys i went with the last time. amongst the frenetic crowd were the same overly affectionate locals i had met the week before, who this time assaulted me with even more touching and hugging. this time they tried to feed me french fries by hand.

after being booted out of PH, we grabbed some food at 11:40, at the only place around that bribes the cops to stay open that late. apparently the bribes weren't enough, as the cops burst in and shut off the lights and threatened the proprietors. according to my co-worker buddies, the cops said something along the lines of "if you serve another dish we'll mess you up but good." it was time to go.

[note: cops here wear silly austrialian style cowboy hats and carry sticks (which they wield almost constantly) rather than guns. i think to make up for this, they put on the tough guy act.]

class dismissed

guitar class went alright. only about 5 people had guitars, and were enthusiastic pupils. most of the guitarless attendees left once we started working on chord shapes.

class was followed by a design meeting from 9:30-11pm with the california office. the phone line went dead about 4 times. a little frustrating.

walking home at midnight is nice in that you can cross the streets without fear, but not so nice in that most of the people still out are a bit sketchy. until now, i was beginning to wonder if anyone here would ever offer me drugs and women.

moonlighting

my coworkers heard i play guitar, and cajoled me into giving lessons once a week, starting tomorrow night. every night this week i've gone with a student-to-be to a nearby shop to buy a guitar. i figured i'd be informally teaching 2 or 3 maybe, but the list of people interested is now up to 16, or about half the company. i think the low price of the course (free) and the novelty of it has contributed to the high level of interest. no doubt there will be a lot of drop outs early on. still, now i'm feeling the pressure to actually plan something. simply getting everyone in tune could take an hour.

i was originally planning on finding a guitar teacher here, rather than becoming one.

as if that wasn't enough...

the english woman through whom i found my apartment gave me the number of a guy who's looking for an american voice for some educational cd-roms. it actually pays quite well for 2 hours of work. but more importantly, i am attracted by the novelty of it. i go in for an audition on saturday. i have inteviewed before, but i have certainly never "auditioned" for anything.

the services of one's maid

my maid does fairly shoddy work. she just sort of splashes around a lot of water without doing any real cleaning. each day she asks me to check her work before she leaves. some days i point out something i'd like her to actually clean the next day. this doesn't necessarily mean that it will be cleaned.

i've been sort of curious how she's managed to stay a maid given her lackluster skills.

that is, until now. this morning, she stroked my arm and said "massage?" i don't think this is a normal service provided by indian maids, but it may be where her true skills lie. rather than test those skills, i listened to my internal alarm bells and declined the offer.

work: week 2

by now i am eating with my hands every day at lunch, skillfully scooping up curry covered rice clumps. i still use my hand sanitizer beforehand though.

my co-workers belch a lot during lunch. i'm don't think i'm ready to emulate that.

screw tang

i meet a few of my new expat pals at pecos. pecos is a great place until about 7pm when they jack up the music, making conversation much too difficult. V has obligations and departs early, but M and i move over to nasa for some outer spaced themed drinking. we are greeted by uniformed waiters that look more like they belong on a cruise ship than a star ship, but the effort put into the theme is nonetheless impressive. i see a manhattan listed on the menu, so i take a chance and order it. what i get is a sugary girlie beverage. oh well.