Doha does it...sometimes!

Oh, Qatar....you make it so hard to love you sometimes!  While the world reels from FIFA's decision to hold the 2022 World Cup in Qatar in November/December instead of in the blistering summer heat (a good but fraught choice made necessary by choosing Qatar in the first place), we are reeling from our own little run-ins with choices Qatar is forcing us into.  Wait, does that really make it the 2021 World Cup...?  Hmmm....

Anywho, as I have said in the past, the falling oil prices have resulted in all kinds of budget cuts here, including at the husband's work.  No one is happy with the results, and the effects just keep on rolling in.  Meanwhile, we've been trying to move the boys to a new school and recently found out that one of our top choices may be closing because of a dispute over a lease, which means not only that we may have even fewer choices that we like but also that 1000 more students may be released back into the applicant pool, increasing the competition that much more.

[Actually, I learned while writing this post that the school has been able to get a one year lease extension, but that really doesn't help us, because then what do we do the next year?  The school community was celebrating because the extension was the direct result of the unheard of step they took to gather over 600 signatures from parents (which is almost every single parent), which were then presented to the Supreme Council of Education (yeah, the name always makes me think about Star Trek or Gattaca or something) in protest.  I mean yay, democratic action saved the day...but the huge and swift petition only got a one year extension.  What is it going to take to get the entire five year lease renewed?  Sheesh!]

In another area that affects us daily, they have decided to deal with the ever increasing rate of accidents and traffic violations by lowering the speed limit on the freeway, which is awesome...except that the folks who were speeding to begin with still don't slow down and now we are all sitting ducks for when they zoom up on us, flashing their headlights imperiously, now going 50 kilometers per hour faster than we are!  Super! Honestly, I have become such a crazy defensive driver since moving here.  While I was in Utah, I had a little Nissan Versa rental car (instead of my usual behemoth Honda Pilot), and I found myself zipping in and out of places/lanes at breakneck speeds because that's how I have to drive to stay safe here, in a much larger vehicle, every time I get on the road.  My training did help me narrowly avoid an accident in the carpool lane on one of my drives home from Salt Lake, much to my cousin's amazement, but I actually didn't think it was that big a deal because I end up narrowly avoiding accidents like that here All. Day. Long.  If the accidents don't get you, the stress will.

There are bright spots to living here, don't get me wrong, before I start to sound too negative, and I've talked about a lot of them before on this blog.  To add to that list, I love a place where roasted cashews are as plentiful and almost as cheap as water.  And I do love that skyline up there, as do my kids.  And I've become very fond of my new friends here, though there aren't too many of them yet and some of them are leaving already, stinkers!  There are great things about Doha, mixed into the little annoyances; the trick is to keep reminding yourself of those when the others smack you in the face!