Dear all,
Well, I have passed the latest milestone in my time here in Afghanistan. I have now been here for four months, 33% done. This month has been interesting to say the least. I started the month on night shift. A lot of lonely nights keeping watch in my office, but on the bright side, I did catch up on my movie watching and book reading. Then it was back to day shift, which makes the days go by much quicker, but are loaded with work. But then again, it's not like there is much else to do here.
When I am not working (or in the case of nightshift, just bored), I have been working on my stand-up comedy routine. I created almost 10 minutes of jokes in the last few months and have been rehearsing and rewriting them to be performance-ready. I made it on stage just the past Wed during karaoke night. Although I would love to say I left the crowd in stitches, in reality, I bombed in Afghanistan, and not in the usual way. It was bad. But I am going to keep practicing in my spare time and hopefully soon I might make someone laugh. It's something creative to do.
Four months also makes me sort of a veteran around the office. As I mentioned in previous emails, most of the people I work with, be they military or civilian, are here on individual orders. There are few whole units running around. So people are always coming and going. And in four months, I've seen almost my whole office turn over. I think by October there will only be two people there longer. And they are also on year long assignments, arriving about the same time I did.
I also actually got to drive a vehicle for the first time in a few months this month. That might not sound like a big deal, but when you walk everywhere on base and never leave the base, just driving a few people from one side of the base to the other gives you a strange feeling of familiarity.
This month's update is kinda short, I guess. Which makes me think that life here is getting kinda dull. But then again, I said it was interesting in the first sentence. Maybe what was once the extraordinary is becoming the routine. Which is a good thing.
Anyway, I am 66% to halfway done. And that means I am one day closer to having to figure out what I am going to do when I get home.
