Visa vie

Tuesday, March 22, 2005 2:38pm

Shit-sticks, I just realised I’m flying to a whole ‘nother country in a week. Seven days! I have to go down to London a day early too, because I have to go and arrange my Visa in person at the Indian embassy. I didn't get the form from Teaching and Projects until it was too late to post off, so I phoned them to let them know and the guy who took my call was a real BASTARD (that’s right, a BASTARD in CAPITAL LETTERS). He was doing the whole "mmmm......ahhh...." in that tooth sucking, ho-humming that plumbers do when they're about to tell you that you’re going to need the GDP of an African Nation to afford what they’re planning on doing to your pipes. He even played the "I’m actually meant to be on my lunch break" card, before completing the set of bad customer services and hitting me with "if you'd done this earlier it'd be ok, but I’m off tomorrow and don't really want to leave work for my colleagues, you've definitely fouled up the whole system". To be fair, I don't think he knew who I was. I should have reminded him that I’m the person who paid nearly £2000 to go and work for free in the god-damn Third…sorry, “Developing” World, and I’m probably helping to put his kids through the counseling they'll no doubt need after having such an impossibly irritating man as a father; “You need your nappy changing? Well, that’s really more of your mother’s department, and I’m about to go on my lunch break…”

Anyway, so that means I’m going down on Wednesday and I still haven't got either of the two checks I was promised (from my wealthy relatives and my not so wealthy city council). although I am going to dinner with the relatives on Monday...I’m not sure what seems a more daunting prospect- going to live and work in a leprosy clinic in India, then leaving all on my own to spend 2 months traveling through a country where I don't speak the language and have a realistic chance of catching some Outbreak style blood disease...or dinner with my aunt and uncle...*gulp*

I dreamt about spiders last night. And also sharks. I think my dreams were at their most symbolic they've been for a while. First there was this spider, and it seemed huge and really scary and I was afraid it would bite me. but then this EVEN BIGGER spider which seemed like it had far more legs and fangs and shit came out of this hole and ate the first spider, before turning its multi-eyed attention to me.

The shark one was also very weird and scary. I was in the ocean in India and these massive tidal waves started coming in, dumping people like turds in a toilet. It was all really fun at first...at first. They started getting bigger and all around there were loads of people having loads of fun, and generally being completely unaware of the danger my unconscious mind was putting them in. Suddenly this really big toothy bastard of a shark came swimming from the gloom and started biting people. There was a smaller fish which it decided to eat, but the smaller fish had other ideas and decided to hide behind me. Or I decided that the fish would hide behind me. I’m never sure with that kind of distinction during dreams. Anywho, I managed to dodge the lunges of this shark, and punch it on the nose, but then (and see if you can spot the similarities here) an EVEN BIGGER shark came and ate the first one, before biting me on the hand (because I’d tried to punch it on the nose again. That was kind of my go to solution to all shark related problems at that time).

I think what my dreams are trying to say (and this really is of no comfort to me at the moment) is that no matter how bad I think something is, or how scary it seems at the time, or how much of a problem it is....there are always ways in which I can be in even deeper shit. Also, that punching things on the nose won’t help, which really sucks because it’s not just in my dreams that this is my Plan A.