My Daily Routine

My daily routine

5:30 A.M Wakeup, walk to common bathrooms and showers exactly 150 steps away. Shave, brush teeth, take a shower and return to the tent.

6:00 A.M. Change, walk to the palace dinning room another 200 steps in the opposite direction. Stay in line; sign in the list (staying still in line), pickup a tray, plastic plate and plastic utensils (still in line). Approach the serving area, point to what you want. Today I took one boiled egg, one biscuit, one hash brown, some fruits (grapes, pine apple, melon etc), one skimmed milk and one cup of coffee. Argue with the server that I do not need more but he insisting that I should eat more. In this big dinning room and the hallways look for a place to sit. Ask for permission but don’t wait for an answer and just sit. Every one is busy eating and very little conversation except if there are friends or acquaintances at the table. Try to open a conversation with limited success. Only occasionally, get engaged in very interesting conversation.

6:30 A.M. Head to the office which is about 20 minutes walking. There is a shuttle bus but the schedule is not quite regular. Walking is a lot better. The path is a very wide boulevard lined with large trees and lots of US military vehicles and where young Iraqi boys (as young as 7 years old) surround the young American soldiers (boys & girls) and sell them things among them porno pictures. Because of the trees, sun is not really a problem. One disappointment is that on this wide sidewalk, there is a water line that flows full force on the sidewalk and into the gutter. You feel sorry that in this country that water is life and in short supply, there is no body to put a cap on this water wasting line. I have asked one of the contractors to do that but have not seen him do it. I will ask him again.

7:00 (+/-) Arrive at the office. Check e-mail mostly work related. Occasionally (and very occasionally, hint/hint) get excited to see a message from the family and/or friends.

9:30 A.M. Attend daily briefing of the group I am working with. This is usually a short meeting when their manager briefs the group of various items including security. There is a security manager who reports on the happenings of the past 24 hours. Sometimes very interesting incidences. Occasionally, I too say a few things or ask questions.

During the day there are many scheduled and unscheduled meetings. Sometime I wonder how the work gets done with all these meetings taking place. In the mean time requests for information come from higher ups that take a good chunk of time of various people depending on their job relevance.

12:00 Noon or thereabout:
Head to the palace dining room for lunch. Again walking is preferred most of the time. Again stay in line in one of four lines for signing the list, getting the food and looking for a place to sit. As at breakfast time and again at dinner time, watch the trays of the diners and wonder how each one of them can eat all that food. There are some who will take from every thing that is available. In particular, the soft drinks such as soda and juices are piled up on the trays without mercy. It has come to a point where the management has put up signs saying that soda and juices are limited to two items per person but no one seems to honor that request. Yours truly is usually selective and take only what I think I can eat. Although I must admit sometimes my eyes are bigger than my stomach.

12:45 (+/-) Head back to the office either walking or take the shuttle bus depending on my mood. Afternoons also pass like mornings. Meetings and more meetings, gather information and more information and write reports and more reports. Again, I wonder if the higher ups really read those reports.

After 7:00 P.M.
Go back to the palace for dinner. Dinner, like breakfast and lunch, is very crowded. Again stay in line, sign in, take your plate and plastic utensils, argue with the server, select what you want from variety of dishes, walk to the soft drink and beer (not for me) cooler, walk to the salad bar which is good in variety and plentiful and with full tray spot an empty chair and jump. Eat dinner in silence or some street talk, go to the tent, read, take a shower and go to bed before 10:00 pm when the lights go off.

Briefly, this is how my days are with some slight variation like dropping or picking laundry once or twice a week. I will discuss the facilities in a subsequent message. I hope you all have a good time.