Ok back from the hiatus thats plagued me ever since my last post - ok so its been a month but things have gotten real slow lately and all for the wrong reasons. After appluyin for a Shamil connection from Etisalat - my application got canceled for the reason that there wasnt any available telephone socket on the vicinity of my residence which could be used for the connection. Not to say they didnt inform me - I take myself to blame for the reason that I didnt worry about the situation as I should have and instead relied on another totally useless moronic roommate of mine to go ahead and install a telephone socket - which he obviousy didnt do resulting in my application being canceled due to non fulfilment of technical requirements.
Anyway so I spend like the first couple of weeks of the new year trying to re submit my application plus catch up on some driving classes. In the mean time though RAK has been going through a deluge of mammoth proportions lately - the worst update is when my favorite shoes got totally ruined whilst trying to wade past the canals that used to be roads here in Ras Al Khaimah. To top it all those were the shoes I wore on my engagement :'( and also the same shoes I wore all this time I would take driving lessons. Ok now that might sound stupid that you cant drive in a nother pair of shoes but then again everyone has a lucky rabbits foot or lucky shoes in this case.
The rain succeeded in delaying my driving test from the original dat eof 14th of January to just this morning - woo hoo good for me I thought then - NOT. I've just come back now from the driving test center after having failed in teh most humliating and possibly silliest of ways possible ever in history of driving tests here in RAK. Lets see where did I go wrong - despite my attempts to sit first of all and show I was confident enough even though I was a neurotic mess. But hey a pathan beats me to i - seemed he had the C thing or was perhaps a bigger neurotic mess than me - especially when he tried to shift teh car in reverse whilst still in the first gear - so the tester makes short work of him and he's failed before he even gets the car out of the parking spot. Made me think to myself "hey I can't possibly be that dumb so don't fret this would be easy" - something tells me I thought too soon and waddle my way to the driving seat put the car in reverse and swerve in the most outrageously wrong direction only to have the tester grimace menacingly at me hollering out I had forgotten to turn on the backlight double indicators. STUPID STUPID STUPID STUPID STUPID me - I must have rendered a whole new high on the really dumb driving bloopers meter at the RAK police department though. I must hav ehardly been in the ar for 15 seconds - 15 darn seconds of trauma and dire humiliation. But I'll be a man and take it in stride although its killing me to think how stupid I could have been in the first place. Well guess that means I'm not driving a car on the main roads anytiem sooner now.
Well the month hasnt been all that bad - I finally DID get internet connection set up at my pad - whoopie as well as fished in a few freelance projects. Plus a 20 percent increment in my salary which is all the more helpful in my marriage and settling down program. Although with the way prices are escalating here and nationwide - supporting a wife and even living in anything bigger than a 10 by 8 box is getting to be more of a luxury now. By doing the simple mathematics the numbers keep adding up with no respite :(.
To sum things up in brief in order to live in a more or less decent manner one would have to keep in mind the following basic costs on a monthly level:
2000 for a small house and that is if you're lucky and the landlord has no plans on hiking the rents outrageously for a while
500 for electricity bills and water
500 atleast for telephone bills - hey my fiancee likes to talk on the phone man
200 for internet
600 for food and supplies at home
500 for weekend outings (man I am being really cheap here)
1000 for buying stuff of interest clothes, make up, gifts, books, movies (God I am a penny pincher)
1000 for car maintenance and fuel costs(well since I dont have a licence just yet this would be replaced by travel costs)
The grand total of all that so far equals 6300 bucks.. just 1300 above my current salary - no question of savings included and Man i have not even included the odd trip to teh doctor or the sudden bout of flu or fever - hey we're all humans and people get sick. Plus if the washing machines broken and needs to get fixed...oh yeah almost forgot to set aside 2000 for sending back home...
If you've noticed the main point of concern is the household rental costs which are quote unpredictable in this part of the world - so if the landlord suddenly gets a hankering to add a few thousand to the rent - there goes all the budget down the drain...
Makes you really wonder that how much can a man earn for his family and himself so theres no risk of being deprived of a basic necessity due to escalating costs. The figure itself appears to be anything but static...
Well guess thats called raising the bar - 2009 has been up to a bad start though - maybe I should stop being so pessimistic and think that hey the worst has already happened so cheer up...
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