Victoria’s Corner

1.) You start to enjoy camping in the sand.
2.) You are not surprised to see a goat in the passenger seat of the car next to yours at the traffic lights.
3.) You are equally unsurprised to see camels riding in pickup trucks.
4.) You think the uncut version of Little House On The Prairie is provocative.
5.) You serve coffee in a thimble (and it’s still strong enough to keep you awake for the next six weeks).
6.) You expect the confirmation of your airline reservation to be ‘Inshallah’.
7.) You think everyone’s first name is ‘Al’.
8.) You buy a falcon hood for your gearstick.
9.) You don’t expect to eat dinner till 11.30 pm.

10.) Your idea of housework is leaving a list for the houseboy.
11.) You think having a picnic means pulling over to the side of the road with a TV and a water pipe, or else establishing yourself on a roundabout in the middle of a smoggy intersection.
12.) You don’t think it’s ostentatious to own more than one Rolex.
13.) You think black is appropriate daytime wear.

14.) You wear a jacket inside and take it off outside.
15.) You can judge a perfect size “10” by the ankle.
16.) You think carpets belong on the wall.
17.) Your favourite hamburger chain features a goat for a logo.
18.) You think anyone carrying a cane is out to get you.
19.) You know which end of the shawarma to unwrap first.
20.) You think the further you inch into the intersection, the faster the light will turn green.
21.) You think all petrol stations are made of marble.
22.) You have to hand people a map showing the way to your house instead of simply giving them your address.
23.) You think every major purchase has to be preceded by cups of tea.
24.) You can’t buy anything without asking for a discount.
25.) You drink Bebsi, Mirinda, SunTop, and Canada Dry.
26.) Bizza Hut has beef bebberoni.
27.) You expect a palace on every corner.
28.) You measure time by the number of prayer calls.

29.) You navigate Jeddah by its roundabouts. “First the globe…then the clenched fist…then the giant geometry set…then that boat filled with plastic oranges…”
30.) Your ideal holiday destination is anywhere you can eat a pig.

When can I go back?

Over the past few years I have become increasingly interested by the role that the Internet (and more particularly discussion boards) can play in helping people to cope with and recover from mental health problems. I haven’t formed any firm judgement on this, as ‘mental health problems’ can encompass such a wide range of things. It is possible that extensive time on an Internet discussion forum dedicated to mental health might help, for example, a sufferer of agoraphobia, but cause subtle and serious harm to a person with an eating disorder. Of course, the personality of the individual and the nature of the discussion board are also crucial factors.

(more…)

Recently I was offered a job as a support worker to students with autism. Now, based on a health assessment questionnaire that is (apparently) given to all disabled people who apply for jobs through this educational agency, it turns out that I may not be able to have the post.

The questionnaire asked me whether I smoked (no), was addicted to alcohol (no), had diabetes of any type (no), had ever had a heart attack or angina (no), could lift everyday objects without difficulty (yes), was suffering from schizophrenia or bipolar disorder (no), had experienced diarrhoea within the last week (yes, and how is this relevant?), was on prescription medication (no), suffered from anxiety and/or panic attacks (yes), had seen a specialist within the last six months (yes), and so on. A lot of the questions were about mysterious skin conditions that I have never heard of, for some reason that I can’t quite understand. Is there anything about ‘having a skin complaint affecting your face’ that makes you unlikely to be able to work in the education sector?

Anyway, according to the information accompanying the questionnaire, about 80% of people are cleared for work immediately after completing it. I, however, got a little message telling me that because of my responses I will have to be referred to an Occupational Health Advisor for further assessment.

I am not pleased. I know very well that my condition will not interfere with my ability to do the job that I’ve applied for. If I thought for one moment that I would not be able to cope with it, I would not have applied in the first place. I know my limitations. I don’t attempt to go beyond them. I do, however, expect people to trust my judgement when I say, “I can manage that.” I have had twenty-one years to work out what I can and can’t manage, whereas they’ve had a ten-minute interview with me.

Tomorrow morning I must ring up the Occupational Health Advisor and quote my special code for the next round of questions. I wonder what the advisor will want to know? Whether or not I have any ingrowing toenails, probably.

“Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”

Rainer Maria Rilke, 1903
Letters to a Young Poet

I found this a few minutes ago. I like it.

These are ominous times at Biggs HQ. My parents have decided that it is time for me to acquire some fundamental life skills - particularly budgeting and cooking. The former basically means that I am not allowed to buy so many books, and the latter explains why my hands are covered in bits of shredded potato and smell of a damp vegetable patch.

Being the enterprising fool that I am, I suggested today’s cooking extravaganza myself, partly because I do want to be independent and partly because I like to get stuck into things that I find challenging. (Mostly, however, it’s because David made a toasted beef sandwich the day before yesterday and I can’t have him getting ahead of me in anything.) So at eleven minutes past four this afternoon I found myself trapped in the kitchen with my mother, looking on with some trepidation as she tried to initiate me into the arcane art of chicken dismemberment.

(more…)

You are looking at the reverse side of a BA Cantab. A very proud but slightly addled BA Cantab, owing to the fact that I had to wear half a synthetic polar bear on my shoulders for the best part of the (hot) day. It was very difficult to keep the bear under control, so in the end I asked the Master of the College to show me how to wear it. He got it wrong. When we were lining up to have our photograph taken the Praelector came along and demanded, “What on earth have you done to your hood? It’s inside out!”

It was not easy for me to take the Praelector’s comments on my dress seriously, given that both he and the Master looked as though they were on their way to a Tudor-themed fancy-dress party. The Praelector, who was sporting a rumpled black velvet pancake on his head, bore more than a passing resemblance to Henry VIII. When he knelt down in front of the Master to demonstrate how we were to accept our degrees it looked as though they were acting out a scene from Monty Python.

David: “In years to come I will probably regret standing next to you for this photo…”

(more…)

Today is my last full day in Cambridge. I feel slightly dizzy at the way time has behaved here - my second year crawled by, and the first and third years galloped. My exam results are through and I graduate tomorow, which has given both Mum and me the opportunity to wear (at Dad’s insistence) a silly hat. It’s not really the custom at Cambridge for a graduand to have a mortarboard, but Dad has requested that I hire one for photographic purposes.

The exams went extremely well. Following the slight mix-up over the dissertations (I wouldn’t be me if I got through a term without forgetting something significant) and last year’s bout of illness, I wasn’t expecting too much. Yet I have come out with a very good 2:i over all and a stupendous First on the Commonwealth and International paper. My original composition (the opening chapter of my next book) also got a First. (Yes, Sobia, the one with you and the gay ice cream men in it.) Even though the composition doesn’t count towards your final grade, I was possibly even more nervous about that result as I was about the others - it would have been quite crushing if an examiner had decided that my magnum opus was terrible or, worst of all, average.

I’m going to miss Cambridge, particularly the scenery and the knowledge that at any moment I have access to millions of books. It’s a beautiful place. I am going to Jesus College for a final discussion with one of my dissertation supervisors this morning (I may try to work this dissertation into a PhD at some point in the future) and I will take care to savour the place on my way. I will stop at my favourite point by the river, pray for a while in Fisher House, and most probably end up at the waffle shop just across the passageway. Savouring is always done best with waffles.

Mum and Dad are arriving this afternoon to help me pack up my things. For once my room is actually not messy (by my standards, anyway) and it shouldn’t take us too long to load everything into the car. Then I am going to take the parent-type creatures to the penguin exhibit at the Zoology Museum. They have some stunning photographs of Antarctica on display there at the moment, which I have already been to see twice. The best photographs show an iceberg glimmering against a dark grey sky, some penguins entering the sea (the photograph was taken just as one penguin was breaking the wave, with light glistening on the smooth wet pebbles behind), sunrise on a mountain, two abandoned huts, and a Gentoo penguin suspiciously inspecting a camera…

My v. good friend, future flatmate, and soon-to-be victim of my cooking skills is celebrating her twenty-second birthday today. She is spending it with her little daughter, Sammie - who is not going to be adopted.

It will be difficult for me to come up with a good present following the news that the family courts have given to her, but I have something in mind.

God bless you, Danni.

Yesterday evening, as I was hurrying through Cambridge in search of food, I felt something suspiciously moist land on my head with a soft thud. I attributed to the periodic rainspots that were falling at the time, but when I got into the shower later on I discovered that my hair was encrusted with bird poo.

Whenever this has happened to somebody in the past, a parent or some other family member has said knowledgeably, “It brings you luck, you know.” I don’t know whether this is a superstition unique to the Biggs/Hosker clan or whether it is more widespread. Perhaps, after being semi-submerged by a sudden rapid-fire discharge of pterodactyl excrement, a caveman told himself that this was an auspicious sign by way of cheering himself up. (And yes, I do know that humans did not share the earth with pterodactyls - I am indulging in a little poetic licence. I’ve had a tiring day.) But no matter what the reason, I have received some great gifts since that incident.

The first, and most obvious, is Danni’s happiness. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her in such good spirits. Sammie moves in with her grandparents tomorrow, and the threat of adoption recedes into the background. All the officials have been telling her how rare it is for a child in Sammie’s position to be placed within the family instead of being adopted. After fourteen months of hope and prayer and trust, we have become the embodiment of this Bible verse: “Stand still and consider the wondrous works of God.

It’s not easy to stand still in such circumstances. Hardest thing I’ve ever done. I was always wanting to draft a new contingency plan or sit and worry over the situation with a close friend. It’s been a long year. But I was given the peace to stand still in the middle of it all with my eyes open and fixed on Him, ‘the deep but dazzling darkness’. There is a beautiful kind of freedom in that. I hope, pray, and trust that the same freedom would have been mine even if things had not gone our way and an adoption order had been made.

(more…)

I am not fond of changes at all. Once, exhausted and nauseous after the long overnight journey from England to Taif, I dissolved into tears upon the discovery that my mother had rearranged my bedroom in my absence. I don’t like alterations to my plans, I don’t like leaving familiar places, and I don’t like the uncertainty of the future. If a big change is imminent (such as leaving university and moving to the North East, where they speak an entirely different langwidge) little alterations start to bother me much more.

Recently David and I decided to go and spend an hour or two reading books in Heffers. We got there just as it closed.

“Never mind, let’s go to Borders instead.”

I stood there and started to panic. Borders wasn’t in the plan. We had said Heffers, not Borders! Not Borders!

“OK,” he said resignedly. “Let’s go home.”

(more…)