Garfield on a Monday

Several guys came to help me clear out my stuff in order to prepare for the bed and writing table. We spent 3 hours moving out my mattress, cleaning the floor, keeping away my computers and Video-conferencing equipment. and guess what? - the bed never came. As I expected. The Dean, the superior and several other guys specially went out to the school entrance to turn on all the lights and open the gates so that the furniture could be moved up 4 floors to my room (school was closed by 5pm and it was already 6pm as we waited in the cold cold courtyard for the bed.) Local time - "tomorrow" means next month to next year. It's anyone's quess. Anyway the friars were absolutely furious at the irresponsibility of those arab carpenters. It's terrible to see adults not having a sense of pride, or shame or honour in doing their job or keeping their promises. But this is Jerusalem. Its not a question of having money or not - you may pay millions of dollars but they may still not deliver the goods. And they do not feel guilty because everything is "God's will".

So the waiting game continues - we're into the 4th month now of waiting. Anyway lots of guys came to my room and help set up my mattress back on the floor and set up some basic computer stuff so I can continue to work on a minimum basis. It was 9pm by then and I missed dinner as a result. The temperature fell again to zero degrees and I caught a terrible cold and had diarrhea at 2am and 4 am and 6am. And of course someone had to call me from HK at 3am - don't you people ever calculate the time difference?

Now I have to set up the Video-conferencing (all packed away last night) because I have a chinese lesson today. It's not going to be a fun day. I'm bracing myself for worse things - feeling like Garfield (the fat cat) on a Monday.