All posts tagged: home & living

Daily Visits

Published by Sula H.

I’m learning something these days. Learning to stay calm at the sight of my daily visitors. Of course, it’s one thing if those visitors were announced and would show up at my door. It’s another thing altogether when those visitors show up at any given time at my bedroom window. But, as I said, I’m learning to not freak out any time a strange face shows up right by my window with curious looks on their faces, and I learn to pretend that nothing curious is ever happening here. Yes, yes, the woes of living in a construction zone …

The Blessings and Curses of a Washing Machine

Published by Sula H.

Yes, I’m aware that I’m more blessed than other people around me. At least in some areas. Take, for example, the fact that I have my own washing machine. Yes, while you may wonder what’s so special about owning a washing machine, I can assure you that around here, I’m rather an exception, being – as I am – the happy owner of my own little laundry wonder. Well, except when my laundry dream turns into a nightmare, which happens to be the case whenever I forget something very essential. One of the essentials when it comes to doing my laundry is that I should never, NEVER forget to put the hose in the drain – or else, much more than just my clothes will get a thorough wash. The other day, however, that great essential just simply slipped my mind, and that’s when my whole bathroom experienced the blessing of a good wash. I guess, the good news of it is that now my bathroom floors have gotten a little rinse even in those …

Water Stories – Part 1: A Cup Half Full

Published by Sula H.

You can always tell when I’ve had visitors. How? Well, by the cups. The cups sitting on my coffee table in the living room. The cups which are usually half full. Or half empty. Or whichever way you prefer to look at it. You see, local custom has it that you don’t empty whatever the host has set before you. That’s impolite. Instead, every time after people have visited me, I have a bunch of cups filled with whatever drinks I’ve offered (usually water, the preferred beverage around here). And I am left to deal with that. I guess, my plants are happy, though. Because instead of normal (filthy) tap water, they get the privilege of being served good and fine drinking water. What a treat!

Seven AM Alarm

Published by Sula H.

These days, I need neither a watch nor an alarm clock to know that it’s 7 am in the morning. Why? Because the workers, who finally decided to actually do something with the scaffolding they’ve been setting up for a month now, are kind enough to notify me of when it’s about time to get up. They do so, by banging and drilling, hammering and knocking on the other side of the wall that makes up my bedroom, bathroom, and living room walls. Yay, for the fact that neither on weekdays, nor on weekends, I ever get to sleep in again. But then, I’m fully aware that there’s no reason to complain. 7 am, after all, isn’t 6 am, right?

Good to Know …

Published by Sula H.

Notices. They come as unexpected as you would think. And they come frequently. Good to know that I didn’t know about this specific notice until after the fact, or else it might have ruined my day. You see, with the holiday and all, I went to play tennis right around lunch time. And of course, after playing tennis, I really needed a shower. Go figure. And the time I took the shower was right between 2 and 3 pm. Had  I known about the notice, of course, I would’ve delayed the shower, which would have made me feel rather uncomfortable all afternoon. As I didn’t know about the alleged lack of water in the pipes, however, I was just perfectly content to scrub off the dust and dirt from the exercise, never even noticing that we weren’t supposed to have any water. Well, I guess, sometimes it’s good you don’t know of any notices, right? Or else you might be tempted to actually take them serious …

And then … nothing happened

Published by Sula H.

Do you remember the construction progress on our building that I’ve mentioned a couple of weeks ago? Well, they’re still building the scaffolds. And their favorite time tends to be early on weekend mornings; that is at times when residents are actually trying to sleep. But if you take a closer look at the progress they’ve made you have to realize that actually … well, nothing really happens. At least not to the building. I’m sure they’ve been putting up the scaffolds for a reason, though, so I guess I’ll have to continue to wait and see …  

At Your Service

Published by Sula H.

I guess, I never realized that one of the blessings of where I live is that you never have any ads in your mail box. Well. Hardly ever. Because there are those rare occasions in which you actually find a student or organization kindly offering their services and generously placing some info paper in your mail box. But as I said: those occasions are rare. Unless you count the services offered by the kids of our dear foreign faculty colleagues. Ever since I first got here, a few of them have advertised their services by placing posters around the foreign faculty residences, offering to take out your trash, water your plants, do your shopping, dust your home, and clean your floors, etc. Until recently. A short while ago, they got smarter. Now they don’t limit their advertising to posters, now they’ve found that a new method may actually be more effective. And so recently, I keep finding little notices sticking on the door to my apartment, notices that you can’t just ignore. I guess, someone …

The Wait

Published by Sula H.

The routine goes as follows: you find something is broken in your home. You inform the front desk, who in turn informs the workers. You give a time frame for when it’s convenient for you to have the workers come. You wait. And when everything goes properly, the workers will show up eventually (though most likely not at the time you specified, or the time you’re waiting for them), and the problems get solved. That’s when you’re lucky. But then, things always change. These days, I find things rather reversed. These days, it’s the front desk calling me on my way to breakfast (it’s 7 am in the morning). They tell me, “You’ve got a problem in your home.” “I do?” I say. “Yes. A Leak.” “Nothing’s wet in my apartment. Though I had a leak a couple weeks ago.” “Yes, but the office underneath your apartment has water coming down the walls.” “Oh. I see.” “So, can we send in a worker to fix this problem?” “Sure,” I say, and quickly tell them that …

Light My Way

Published by Sula H.

You may remember the issues we’re having with the lights. (I talked about it some time last year.) Well, that same issue continues. And you know that there’s an issue the moment you step into our hallway. Why? Because at times you have to feel your way to our doors. Because the light bulbs love to quit their jobs just as frequently as is the case with the light bulbs we have in our apartments. These days, we’re still lucky, though. Because – as you can see – there’s still enough light to give you at least an idea of where you’re going. As that’s not always the case, I consider myself lucky these days.

The Thing with the Shoes

Published by Sula H.

Shoes are nasty affairs around here. Everyone knows that. It’s because the streets are pretty nasty since grown men love to spit and little children love to use them, the streets that is, as bathroom. It is for this very reason that I’ve instated a rule for any visitors of mine, and for myself: the no-shoe-policy. A sign at my door promptly informs everyone endeavoring to enter my domain to please take off their shoes. And of course, I keep a bunch of my own shoes strewn right across my entrance so as to make people not miss the point. And yet, it fascinates me, how people still manage to be totally oblivious toward the fact that while persons are welcome to my home, their shoes certainly aren’t, because as much as I wonder how that happens, there are still plenty of times when I discover a pair of shoes that made it from the streets straight into my home.