I have met the most boring person in the world and he is living in this house.

Monday October 10 , 2005

(en espanol)

Since yesterday afternoon, I have started learning Arabic. I got a big dumb American book called Arabic in 10 Minutes a Day with lots of pictures in it, because all the other books available were deeply grammatical and frankly I'm not ready for that yet. I just want to learn a few words before going to Jordan in December.

Arabic in 10 Minutes a Day becomes occasionally, unintentionally absurd, so much effort have the authors made to assure us that this language is easy and fun and can be learnt from the comfort of your own home in 10 Minutes a Day, even though it's written from right to left, with each letter having at least three different possible shapes, and half a dozen sounds that are totally unfamiliar to an English speaker. When I went to California my friend Danae warned me: "everything is big and easy." She was right, even though this books is printed in Seattle and not California, and no amount of pretending or color pictures of camels makes Arabic even a little bit easy.

Get this: Arabic has a letter that is pronounced by making the sound that you make with the back of your tongue when you gargle water, only making the sound once instead of rhythmically. Another letter is pronounced by "imagining that you are blowing out a candle very hard, but blowing it out from the back of your mouth". Another letter is like uh-oh but without the uh or the oh, just the moment in between when your tongue closes over your throat.

The best letter in Arabic is pronounced ___. It is the letter which is pronounced by leaving a moment's silence between sounds.

When I told my housemate Rohan that I am learning Arabic he went quiet. I think he was wondering if I am a terrorist.

Rohan is the most boring person in the world. You would think that living with a world-record holder would be interesting but no, it's very boring. Rohan only ever says "how was work" or "what are you up to on the weekend" or, sometimes, comments on how tired he is. He doesn't ever listen to any of the answers I give, you can tell.

Rohan works, and then he watches TV, though he never seems to be interested in anything that's on, and instead just flicks between channels, unless it's football, which he will stick with for a while. On Friday, or sometimes Saturday night Rohan will go out with friends or work colleages and get drunk, then the next day groan in front of the TV and say things like "never again", until the next week.

As you can see, Rohan really is the most boring person in the world. I don't even need to mention the fact that he works in finance. That's just too cliche. Even writing about Rohan gets boring.

I used to think that everyone is interesting, if you only spend enough time in close proximity to get past their natural defences. After living in this God-forsaken house for six weeks, I have had to take that theory out into the garden and bury it in the unloved bit of dirt and grass in the corner that never got paved over for some reason or other. It would be ironic if Rohan was quietly smiling to himself at the ingenious guise with which he has fooled me.

No, no irony. Just boring.

You may think that this astonishingly dull housemate is someone I have made up, characatured or exaggerated for the sake of this blog - and I too sometimes doubt whether Rohan really exists. He is frankly implausible. I am tempted to begin carrying out some kind of experiments on him.

* * *

Winter is closing in fast. The sky is deep heavy grey now, every day, and the evenings are getting early. I spend almost every night now at home, reading, writing. For a while there I was drinking too much beer, basically out of boredom and because the shop down the street was selling very strong past-expiry Belgian ales at a very cheap price. But I have cleaned up now, because my body was beginning to complain, and drinking is of course basically pointless.

Definitely time to get out of here. Three weeks to go.

 

He conocido la persona mas aburrida del mundo, y esta viviendo en esta casa

Cuando dije a mi companero de piso, Rohan, que yo estaba aprendiendo Arabe, se callo. Creo que estaba pensando si yo soy terorista.

Rohan es la persona mas aburrida del mundo. Quizas creerias que vivir con una plusmarquista seria interesante, pero no, es muy aburrido. Rohan no dice nunca nada mas que "Que tal el trabajo?" o "Que vas hacer el fin de semana?" o, pocas veces, hace comentarios sobre lo cansado esta. Nunca escucha las repuestas que le doy - ya se sabe.

Rohan trabaja, luego mira la television, aunque nunca parece interesado por ninguna cosa que se le muestre, y a la vez cambia mucho de canales, a menos que haya futbol, con lo que se queda un rato. El viernes, o a veces la noche de sabado, Rohan sale con amigos or colegas de trabajo y se enborracha, luego el dia siguiente seguira al frente de la television y dira cosas como "nunca mas", hasta la semana que viene.

Como puedes ver, Rohan es la persona mas aburrida del mundo. Ni siquiera necesito mencionar que trabaja con finanzas. Es completamente cliche. Aun escribir sobre Rohan se hace aburrido.

Yo creia antes que todo el mundo es interesante, si se pasa bastante tiempo con ellos para sobrepasar las defensas naturales. Despues de vivir en esta casa maldita por seis semanas, tnego que traer esta teoria al jardin y entierrarla en un rincon donde no pavimentaron, por alguna razon. Seria ironico que Rohan sonriera consigo mismo por haberme enganado con mascara tan ingeniosa.

No, no hay ironia. Aburrido.

Quizas creerias que este companero de piso tan asombrosamente soso es algo fantastico, algo que lo he inventado or exagerado para este diario - y yo, tambien, a veces tengo dudas de si existe Rohan verdaderamente. De hecho, el es increible. Tengo ganas de comenzar algunas experimentas con el.