The Tao of AC/DC

“It’s a long way to the top if you want to rock and roll.”

That has become my mantra and the extended metaphor for my life the past three years. It can be applied in almost any situation.

Student: “Ms. Adams, I forgot my homework.”

Me: “It’s a long way to the top if you want to rock and roll.”

OR

Jehovah’s Witness or Mormon Missionaries: “Do you know God?”

Me: “It’s a long way to the top if you want to rock and roll.”

OR

Car mechanic: Yep, the hinggy me doodly on the gadget butkus  is shot. Gonna cost $700.00 to fix.”

Me: “It’s a long way to the top if you want to rock and roll.”

Most often, people just look at me in puzzlement, then walk away wondering (I know they are) if what I just said made any sense whatsoever, and if it did why didn’t they understand it? It sounds a little Taoist, after all. Then they start questioning their own intellectual abilities. After a few hours they are just pissed off at me because they realize my statement was totally out of context and could only be used by an English major who enjoys the hell out of analyzing vague lines of texts and arguing for a meaning that the author never contemplated.

But for me it works. For me it makes sense for all of life’s ups and downs.

I have been told, by the teachers already in the sandbox in Abu Dhbai, that the word “InshaAllah” is tossed around quite often in the United Arab Emitrates.  The phrase translates to “If God is willing.”

As in, “Are you coming to the party tonight?”

“InshaAllah.”

OR

“It looks like a sand storm may be coming.”

“InshaAllah.”

To my line of reasoning anyway, this means about the same as “It’s a long way to the top if you want to rock and roll.”

Yesterday, news of late departures for Au Dhabi started filtering around on the 2012 Abu Dhabi Facebook page. The scuttlebutt is that some groups will not be leaving until the end of August to the first part of September. These rumors have started a mild panic. After all, some of the teachers have given up apartments, jobs, and scheduled utilities to be turned off for mid-August (when we were told the first groups would be leaving).  Some of the teachers have moved in with friends and relatives and have just enough money to get them through to mid-August. If you want to view it literally, these teachers are unemployed and homeless at the moment.  To them the leave date can’t come soon enough, but it’s out of our hands. We leave when ADEC says we do and not a minute sooner.

Fortunately, for me, in the past year, I have developed a very strong “whatever” attitude towards life’s little curve balls.  In the past, I have worried, paced, wrung my hands and made myself sick with my impatience and need to control every situation. No more.  And because of this new and improved attitude (also known as having your Give-a-Shitter break), I am better adapted than I was in my other incarnation to deal with the uncertainties and inconsistencies that I know I will have to face over the next two years. 

By agreeing to work in an Arab country where Western attitudes of timeliness only exist on the peripheral, I have agreed to abide by their rules and cultural attitudes.  Having my Give-a-Shitter break is perhaps one of the most fortuitous occurrences I have experienced in quite a while.

Of course, it helps that I am not technically homeless. Since Dear Husband is staying behind I am not faced with having to pack an entire house’s contents, and figure out storage and temporary living arrangements.  All I have had to do is make sure I have my three bags packed, and it’s mostly done. I spend my days writing, hanging out with Dear Husband, playing with my granddaughter, talking to friends, and reading. I am in a zone. 

When will I leave to go to Abu Dhabi? I don’t know.

How long will I have to live in a hotel before I am assigned a place to live? I don’t know.

What school will I be placed in Abu Dhabi? I don’t know.

What type of apartment will I end up with? I don’t know.

Will I have a long daily commute to the school I am assigned? I don’t know.

So, I don’t think about it all. You know why? Because it’s a long way to the top if you want to rock and roll, baby. 

Bon Scott would be so proud of me.