Phil vs. the Cockroach Horde!

As some of you may know, in general, I harbor no ill will to cockroaches. When I first came to Bangladesh I would even let them live as long as they didn't run at me. Having your own place and meeting others' sensibilities has changed that for me. In my house I now kill on sight and yell out catchphrases like "BoOYeah!!!" or "How do you like me now!!!" every time. I've done a lot of cleaning in the last two days and that has led to killing of cockroaches. No case was as unique as me versus the cockroach horde.

It all started when I wanted to make a cake. I found a mixer in my cabinet that I hadn't been using up to this point and figured this would be a good time to see if it worked. When I picked it up it rattled a bunch and junk dropped out of it. I figured maybe a bunch of ants (very very common in my house) had made a nest in it at one time so I decided to open it up and clean it out. I got out my trusty screwdriver and dusted off my love for tearing things apart (this is legit, ask my parents). I got to work figuring out how my mixer was assembled and curious to see what was inside. It took about 5 minutes but I managed to peel the two halves of the mixer apart and inside was a bunch of gunk and a family of 5 cockroaches!!! One child scrambled out immediately which is what made me aware they were in there and I quickly grabbed a shoe to vanquish it. I thought it might have been the only one but when I looked down inside I could seen antenna poking out from under the motor. Over the next 20 minutes I tried various methods to get the cockroaches out from under that motor. I shook the thing, I poked the screwdriver down in after them, and I tried grabbing their exposed antennas with a clothes pin. Over time I was able to coax 3 out of 5 of them out. Of those 3 I single-handedly defeated 2 of them. The third one was taken out by a lizard living behind a piece of furniture in my house who chomped down on the thing before I could even react. He then proceeded to swallow the thing whole while I watched. It gave me a whole new love for those lizards! The 4th cockroach fell to my jabbing screwdriver. As I impaled him and pulled him out I was reminded of a time I had a raccoon up against a wall with a pitchfork. The raccoon escaped my grasp, the cockroach was not so lucky. The 5th cockroach was older and wiser than the rest. This was the boss cockroach!

All of my afore mentioned efforts to slay this beast failed miserably. He was safely tucked in under the motor and seemed to know I couldn't get to him there because of the tightness of the space. After about 5 minutes of toying with him, I finally decided I needed to pull the motor out. I giggled as I unscrewed the attachments and told him (literally) that this was going to be the most amazing/last thing he ever saw. I was right on both accounts. when I pulled the motor out he was so stunned that he just sat there. I flipped him with the screw driver over onto the floor which woke him from his stupor but it wasn't fast enough for him to escape the wrath of my size 9 shoes. The official final score of Phil vs. the Cockroach Horde! was:
Cockroaches 0
Lizard 1
Phil 4 (plus a clean working mixer!)

I'm back

I'm back from my one week hiatus. I didn't mean to take it really, I just didn't have anything to write and was so busy I couldn't be bothered to make something up for you all. Sorry. I heard plenty about it from my mother but other than that you all seemed pretty relaxed about it (a good indication that she is the only one who reads these).

I just got back to Bogra from a 3 day weekend in Dhaka for Easter. Spent some time with Esther which was wonderful as always and led to a new experience. We got on a rickshaw to go back to Esther's from a friend's place and didn't think much of the fact that the rickshaw driver seemed to know Esther since she has red hair which stands out here. We quickly realized though once we got going that all was not normal. This guy was slow. Horribly horribly slow! It turns out he only had one leg!!! He would pedal a down stroke with his remaining left leg and then pull the pedal up so he could take another. Being the patient person I am, I eventually slid down and started pedaling the right one for him. We made a pretty good team once we got our rhythm down. Eventually though he stopped and said he was tired. Unfortunately we were not home yet. We paid the man and decided to walk the rest of the way on a nice lazy Easter afternoon.

Later that night we were recounting the story and our friends informed us that he is actually a bit of a scammer. He does work for money unlike most handicapped people in Bangladesh but he purposely picks up expats in that part of town and says he'll take them places despite knowing that he won't be able to go all the way. He goes really slow so you get there really late and often people give him big tips for even trying. I've got to hand it to him though. It's ingenious for a 1 legged man in Bangladesh.

Random info:

Also, just in case you were curious. If you happen to be traveling to Dhaka and forget your toiletries and you just happen to prefer Crest toothpaste to the local stuff... It will cost you about $7 to buy a toothbrush, Crest toothpaste from Germany, and a stick of deodorant. Just for the record, in true German fashion, I am really impressed with that toothpaste. My mouth feels so fresh and clean after using it!

Motivation

I have a confession to make. I struggle to get motivated to do certain things quite frequently. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one but this is my confession and I can't speak for everyone. If you hadn't guessed by now, this is on my mind because I've been doing a lot of tasks lately that I'm just not all that motivated to do. Currently that task is editing a 36 page project proposal. As my mother and father well know, give me a pitchfork or a fence post driver and I could be outside working all day long but hit me with paperwork and my joy dwindles rather rapidly. I look for any small task I can possibly come up with to distract me from the paperwork for a short time and then try to work on it in bursts. I should probably police myself more carefully.

I have noticed a few additional habits I have when I'm avoiding work that I'm not motivated to do. I find myself more inclined to play games like hearts on the computer (I love playing hearts but must admit that it makes me feel like yelling at the computer when I lose). I also have a habit of playing around with numbers. This morning I read the HMMC church bulletin like I always do but decided to calculate what the average salary of an attendee should be based off attendance and an assumption that offering is a 10% tithe. I didn't do that to announce numbers or try to shame anyone; I was just curious what number I would come up with.

Oddly enough, the same thing that makes me interested in doing random math can lead people to have the wrong impression of me. I have had a coworker who wasn't around me too often think that I was a very organized and detail oriented person. I love knowing all the details, I dislike managing them. The fact that I know them and am interested in the details themselves because they help me to understand the bigger picture doesn't translate into me wanting to work with them beyond just toying with them. Fortunately, I was raised to understand that sometimes you've got to do things you just don't like doing. That doesn't mean it is easy, but somehow I'll find the motivation to tackle this monster, somewhere...somehow...

Being Busy

I really really like being busy sometimes. This past weekend a friend of Jon and Lindsay who has been in Bangladesh studying Bangla for the last several months took me up on an offer to come visit Bogra. She had been stuck in Dhaka the entire time she stayed here and this was an excuse to see some other parts of Bangladesh. I spent the weekend taking her around the area and just hanging out. Since it was entirely inappropriate for her to stay with me, I made arrangements for her to stay with some Brazilian friends of mine. I ended up having them and Nate over for 2 meals which I prepared. It was generally a great time but I started off the weekend with only 3 hours of sleep since I got in the mood to do housework the night before said friend arrived. I then spent the weekend going strong from roughly 6am to 12pm each day. I shouldn't complain though as what I did during those days was pleasant. I took her out for a couple of motorcycle rides around the countryside and we went on a walk through a few villages only to get ourselves invited into a home. They fed us snacks and she lied to them by telling them I was her older brother which was a good idea since we were out in the middle of nowhere which in general means it would be more scandalous for us to be walking together if we weren't married. In addition to that, when the neighbor lady had her arm and was dragging her towards the next house I could legitimately say that we were going to get us out of the situation (as the older brother she has to listen to me!). ;-) I do feel a bit bad about insulting that little old lady though by not going to her house. I knew if we did though that we were going to get pulled along to every house and I certainly didn't want to do that.

We also spent a fair amount of time hanging out with the Brazilians/Nate. I just like being busy sometimes even if I was mind numbingly tired by 10pm last night. I slept great and long. Now I just need to figure out how I'm going to watch the Butler game in a couple of days...