First of all, let me tell you about a couple of books which you absolutely must read. First, The Yacoubian Building - a gentle story about life and the people who live in a block of flats in Cairo. It has now been made into a film (available with English dubbing) and a soap opera playing as I write on Libyan TV. It's really worth reading.

Once I finished that earlier this week, I started on Imperial Life in the Emerald City - a record of how America has handled the occupation of Iraq:

Now I know that sounds a bit dry, but it's well worth the effort - I can't put it down. It's a real eye opener.

We're due to move flat very soon - January 1st is the scheduled date of all days to choose! I took advantage of the Berlitz MD coming to visit us earlier this week to have a quiet chat about some concerns I have regarding the current accommodation arrangements, and the sharing position, and put forward some alternative, costed, options, such as giving us allowances rather than free company flats, and he seems to have come right on board straight away. This means we will, in future, be able to either live on our own, or share with the people we choose to share with, rather than all being thrown together as at present. We will also be able to choose our own standard of accommodation - palatial if we subsidise it, or functional if that's what we prefer. We can also live in non-smoking flats which is what I really want.

He's taking all the teachers out for a meal tomorrow, so we'll finalise the details then.

Next Thursday, I've been invited to the Embassy Christmas Party - alcohol will be available, so that might be fun. One of the other teachers tells me that the Ambassador is an 'alcoholic throwback to the 1920s', so meeting him might be quite entertaining. Odd that he should be chosen to work in a dry country, though.