Our First Invitation

Today was a day of firsts. It was the first day that we were invited to a neighbours house for cake and coffee.

Our neighbour - not really a neighbour - they live a couple of buildings down but in the same complex - invited us over for coffee. They phoned at 6:30 pm and we were suppossed to there at 7:30 pm. Not much notice but I guess that is how things are done here. We accepted - well Swell accepted because I let her answer the phone - never again will she answer the phone. I hate going over to people's homes. In fact I hate talking to people and would prefer that people would leave me alone. I'm not saying all people - just everyone but Swell and our families. The rest of you I can live without.

Now don't get upset. It's not you. It's me. You see somewhere during my upbringing I grew to dislike social situations. I was deathly shy growing up and am still shy to some extent. I can stand up in front of thousands of people and speak but put me in a group of five people and I cringe. It's a genetic thing I think. So I'd prefer to stay at home and just be by myself.

Anyway we went over and had a pleasent time. A very nice family. The Dad is the University Vice President and actually founded the Optometry faculty (he's a chemist but he thought there was a need so he put together all the appropriate paper work, curriculum, etc. and was the first dean of the school - last year he found the current dean and gladly gave the position to her as optometry is, obviously, not his forte.) The Mum graduated from An-Najah university years ago with a art degree (and can bake a mean cake) and the youngest son is in year four of his five year computer engineering degree. The eldest son is away in England studying for his PhD in computer engineering. It was a nice time except:

We recived our first invitation to stay on after this semester. It only took two weeks. The set up the invitation quite nicely. They went on and on about how the university is now the premier university in Palestine but that they are having serious difficulties attracting qualified faculty. Computer engineering only has 3 faculty. Optometry really only has one. The students are hard done by. They are poor and deal with great pains to pay for their education and even getting to school is very difficult for them. That the optometry students are some of the finest students in the land. And so on and so on. Then the invitation occurred. It was funny.

Funnier yet is when he talked to us about our salary. He mentioned that I was going to get X dollars and Swell was going to get Y dollars. Not surprisingly X > Y. Well Swell looked shocked. So the man became very concerned that he had just insulted her and went on and on about how I'm getting more because I have a masters degree.

Well she wasn't shocked that I was making more (FOR THE FIRST TIME IN OUR MARRIAGE - good thing I'm comfortable with my manhood). She was shocked because the numbers he said were half of what we were promised before we left. Needless to say there will be a discussion with our dean tomorrow. Funnier yet was that he phoned when we got home to ensure me that he would speak with the president to equalize our pay. NOT the concern. If we don't get what we were promised I don't think we can feasibly stay. On paper it just worked out that we wouldn't go broke here. At best we would break even (expenses = income) and we wouldn't have to hit our savings. At worst we would be able to pay all of our major bills with our income and live off of the savings. With our mortgage (anyone want to rent out a beautiful fully furnished condo in Atlanta?), and our student loans... we can't work for free. Those are really our only bills so we don't demand a lot but we do need to avoid missing payments.

Oh, well. It will work out.

We survived a coffee invitation (I had to drink tea - YUCK!!! but didn't have to drink coffee - which would have killed me) but have been pre-invited to dinner at a later date. Yippee!

Anyway. Tomorrow starts our third week of school. We have the classes we've taught for two weeks now but will also start some labs. We're getting busier but we're still doing well.