My World

Share yourself

2012-01-28T00:02:00.000+02:00

I've discovered a weird phenomenon in humans; they don't share themselves with other people. Why? Why are people so afraid of sharing themselves?

I have a classmate who doesn't say 'thank you', ever, who doesn't make anyone feel appreciated and who doesn't give hugs. What's so bad about putting yourself out there and giving a feeling of equity with others? I see it as partly being selfish. It is also like being stingy. These people don't give away compliments or good vibes, they're storing it for their wedding day or something :s

ma asga3hom

Syracuse. Chapter 1

2011-11-11T01:46:00.000+02:00

I've been meaning to write since I arrived here to Syracuse. It's been 3 whole months that I've left Jordan and I've had no time to sit and write! I decided that I'll have multiple short posts to make it easier to blog and read and to also make it more interesting (I hope)

Being in the states is a whole different life, I don't know how I feel about it yet but it changes day by day.

I'll only give 2 short stories about how different.......

#1 In economics class we were discussing GDP and how it is not a real reflection of the nations money flow because some businesses are not taxed and accounted for such as drug dealing and prostitution!

#2 while reading a marketing article there was a statement that said:

Viviana Zelizer, a sociologist at Princeton University, noted that a similar phenomenon even affects how prostitutes think about their income. She cited a study of the Oslo prostitution market, which showed that prostitutes tend to spend money acquired through welfare checks and health benefits on essentials such as rent and bills and are far more likely to spend their income acquired from selling sex on drugs and alcohol, even if it means they have no money left over to pay for essentials.

(Vedantam,Mental Accounting,2007)

I have to cite it coz here it's a big deal not to cite, probably worse than killing!

Law b 3amman I'd hear someone in class say : wal 3yathu billah! :)

Coming soon........

2011-07-31T01:27:00.001+03:00

I'll be back soon with my new posts as I am leaving the country and will be living in the US & A for 2 years :)

ترقبوا عودة لارا

Crap

2011-01-26T01:33:00.000+02:00

I don't get guys! I don't know if I want to understand them. Could it be that some people's destiny is to stay single?

During a conversation with a friend who lives in Lebanon

Me: " :S come on, do you honestly say that to your lebanese girl friends and they laugh?"
Him: " yes :) it only leads to coffe"
Me: thinking ' what the heck! are you telling me a sexual joke that I as a girl should laugh about?'
Me: "not funny"

Honestly, do guys think of me as their male buddy who joke around with? Some of my friends think I'm conservative, I tend to disagree since they're mixing up conservative with 'of dignity'.

At the office

Shady: "uff, Juliana, shiklek qawi il yome lazem dayman tilbisi haik"
Me thinking 'what the heck? (lazem dayman what the heck :) ) is he being turned on by her looks AND saying it out loud AND telling her to always please his fantasies? emmm sorry bas this goes under sexual harrassment in my dictionary'

The fact that a guy smiles and says "go on" when a girl tells him about a lesbian couple is beyond me.

Sentences that bug me and I find insulting and offending as a female:

"3indek sa7bat? tab 3arfeena"
to me it's sounds like: "you have friends bni2dar nitsarsar 3alaihom? 3arfeen, coz you girls are stupid enough to do that and please us"

"my friend's going out with this girl and he's hoping to hit 2nd base"
to me it sound like "i'm telling you what we really think of you, sex toys and you should be happy".

Conversation
XY "Shagfe hay lazem azabbet-ha"
ME: "she's an idiot you won't know how to have a decent conversation"
XY: "mish muhim"
to me it sounds like " i don't care if she's an idiot, or even bittaftef o hiyyeh bti7ki, she looks hot and I want to show off, and if I can get her into bed mish ghalat".

A married couple watching TV with friends
Husband: "ittalla3 3alaiha, saroukh, ya 3ammi niyyalo"
Wife: "heheheheh"
Me thinking 'what the heck?! what are you laughing about? kharjek, ma inti 3aha zayyo!'

Yes, i know guys fool around, o better infront of the wife than behind her back, bas yamm! sar funny il mawdoo3?

"Za3lane minni, I'll buy her a gift and she'll be fine"
to me it sounds like : " i'll buy her OFF with a gift coz girls are stupid and like guys who buys them stuff. That will make me look considerate while I don't really remember why we fought....... and I don't care".

What bugs me is not the fact that guys say these things, it's that girls just laugh along. Tab su2al, aren't you offended by the opennessand the implications? To me it's demeaning and insulting to all women when a guy talks about other girls in a materialistic way and expects me to laugh or agree. ma buzbot ma3i

I know boys will be boys but they don't need to share these thoughts with me, really. It's not macho it's demeaning.
And girls, stop being stupid and stand up for your dignity.

I think girls are putting themselves down by accepting this kind of talk from guys. They are afraid to disagree with guys so that guys don't perceive them as boring or closed minded or conservative or fun. This is apparent all over the world by the way, it is not an Arabic thing. Girls are always afraid to say no.
Taking the music videos for example, male directors materialize girls to fit their fantasies. Girls don't really want to be dancing around a hip hop singer fighting over his dollars, or sing while rolling over on a bed, or dress like a hooker but they know that this is what turns guys on and this is what sells, so they do it.

So girls, are we tools for drooling or human beings?

The below pictures are not funny, they're demeaning

Things I learnt in 2010

2010-12-10T23:34:00.000+02:00

That people on facebook have so much free time beyond comprehention.
If you feel someone is lying, he/she probably is. If you suspect that 2 people are going out together, they probably are. Follow your instincts
There’s a time for everything

Guys are basic creatures; they have no eye for fashion, and would drool over any girl in tight pants. They will be attracted like magnet to any girl who dresses in a way that ‘articulates’ her body.

The high heels trick works every time and always gets a “hey! Have you lost weight? You look good”.
Guys don’t care about brains, they’re lying if they say they do, the thing that gets their emotions going is looks, sorry girls, but it’s looks and it's the deal breaker.

I’ve learnt that you might spend your life thinking you’re over something….. until another identical incident breaks you down again. You have been over the memory but not the incident.
You don’t know your friends as much as you think you do
You might not like your friend’s significant other, friends might not like your significant other. And there’s nothing you can do about it.
That traveling is food for the soul.
Respect your time after working hours. Life is too short to be spent in the office. They could let lay you off any day.
Exercise is like a drug and it’s a really good one :)

في ألمانيا train بال

2010-10-05T22:57:00.001+03:00

قاعده بال ترين بعد ما امي خلتنا نغير محلنا زي ألف مرة عشان هون ما بنشوف اشي وهون في صوت المحرك و هون قراب عالحمام فأخيرا قعدنا ورا بعض ومش قبال بعض على طاولة .المهم ، قاعده أنا وقبالي كابل شكلهم أكبر من مراهقين بشوي ، يمكن24 ، 22

قاعدين على كرسيين جنب بعض وممددين اجريهم على الكراسي اللي قبالهم ، بالزبط زي المحل اللي امي كان بـدها نقعد فيه.

الشاب كتكوت وطويل ، يعني الماني شو بدو يكون! وهي مش كتير حلوه ، كان بقدر يلاقي أحسن! هيك نحنا العرب بنحكم عالناس بالمظاهر وزي كإنه بنستخسر بالشباب البنات اللي مش كتير حلوين كإنه الجمال كل اشي.

قاعد هو جنب الشباك وهي الكرسي اللي جنبه. هو ماسك مجله بيقرأ مقالة – عن الهندسه المعماريه شكله- وهي ماسكه ناشونال جيوغرافيك . إه! بيعملوها بالالماني

ابصر ايمتى يعملوها بالعربي ؟ بس يصير الشعب العربي يعرف عن ناشونال جيوغرافيك ولا بس يصيرو يقرأوا؟

كتير اطلعت عليهم وعادي مش فارقة معهم ، لو بعمان كان زمان جحرتني وهو كان زمان لاحظني !بس كمان ليش يفرق معهم ؟ مش عاملين اشي غلط .قاعدين كل واحد بيقرا بمجلته يعني الطريق طويلة يستفيدوا شوي بدل ما ياكلوا أو ينزلو دحيه مثلا؟

حط ايدو على كتفها، مسكت ايدو ، ابصر شو نوع الكريم اللي بتحطه! ولا يمكن مابيهمها إذا حس انه مش كتير جلدها ناعم ، العلاقة أكبر من ريحة كريم أو نعومة بشرة .

أنا قاعده وحاطة ال اي بود ولابسه تنورة وتحتها تايت موضه مش كتير بيقدروها بعمان . ولساتني عم بتطلع . امي من قدام لصاحبتها "شوفي الناس هون ولا هاممهم “ ضحكت .

.....

يعني معقول أنا عم بلعب سودوكو و هدول قاعدين بعيشوا حياتهم بدون تعقيدات؟ طب عادي ايش المشكلة ؟ المشكلة انه قعده جنب بعض و إيد عالكتف بغ ديل عنا . ماعم بحكي عن المجتمع والحفرتل وعادي كت ومش كت ، عم بحكي انه هذا الشعور ال كوزي مع صاحب ماعشته كل اللي عشته قصص ودراما وبنقدر نكون مع بعض ولا ما بنقدر ، ناخد بريك وبعد البريك وقبل البريك وهدايا ومسجات وال اكس . ولساتني بتطلع …..

بتطلع على الخزق اللي عاملته بحاجبها، يعني بحب الخزوق بس مش عارفه ازا ممكن اعمل على حواجبي. شعرها بني ولابسه كندرة حفرتليه بيضة بس تقاطيع وجها ناعمه .

شعره حلو زي ما دايما بنتخيل الألمان ,طويل ومرتب ، حتى حواجبه حلوين! ايديه كمان حلوين. كيف دايما الالمان مرتبين . لابس جاكيت كحلي أوه بنطلون جينز.

ابصر إذا لسة بدرسوا ولا بيشتغلوا.

ابصر كيف التقوا؟ ابصر إذا اهلها شافوها بتقعد غير ؟ ولا الموضوع مش هيك؟

يبصر إذا أهلها بيحبوه !

اظن لازم يضربني قد مااطلعت !

........

ضحكوا على اشي بدون مايطلعوا على بعض .مع الوقت اظن بصيروا يفهموا على بعض .

زهقت ، ضبت المجلة ونامت على حضنه. لازم أكون متجوزه عشان اقدر اعمل هيك بـعمان قدام الناس والا بكون قليلة أدب وأهلي ماعرفوا يربوني !

طب إذا أنا اللي بسافر وبروح وباجي بتطلع كيف الناس التانية؟ اظن اني معذورة عشاني عربية!

عشان عندي قيم وعشاني اخترعت الصفر. عشاني بحب الفلكلور والمناقيش وصلة الرحم والكرم والشهامة ويوم الجمعة. عشاني عربية بطبعي محافظة وبصون العادات والتقاليد .بحب اللباس المحتشم والمنسف!عشان العرب هم اللي فتحوا الأندلس وبنوا الأهرامات وألفوا موسيقى أم كلثوم وفيروز اللي جاي من باريس الشرق.

عشاني عربية مش مقبول اني أعيش لحالي مش بس أعيش مع صاحبي! مش مقبول انه حتى إذا عشت مع زوجي أقرر أطلقه. عشاني عربية ماكله هوا لما بدي آخذ فيزا على أي بلد وبتشنطت عشان آخذ شينغن . قال لازم دعوة ، بيخافوا آجي على البلد وأنا بسن 27 ومش متجوزة وأصفي قاعدة وبـدور على شغل ومش قابلة أرجع. بيخافوا انه يمكن أكون عالة على المجتمع وأعمل مشاكل لأني طبعا عربية . عربية ومن الأردن وطالبة شينغن تبدأ من 9/11 . يعني معقولة أنا التانيه مالقيت تاريخ غير 9/11 ؟! بيخافوا التم على اكمن عربي هناك واصير من الجالية العربية اللي مش عارفين كيف يخلصوا منها. أو بيخافوا مثلا اضايق الناس وأسبب ازعاجات…..

بصراحة معهم حق! هيني هلكت اللي قبالي وأنا ببحلق فيهم وبتسائل عن أحوالهم وأفكارهم وأهلهم ومن وين جاكيتاتهم. معهم حق!

بس برضو لازم يعذروني، أنا عربية

P.S. A few days ago National Geographic Magazine is launched in Arabic :)

Zay Share3 il Wakalat

2010-08-21T18:21:00.001+03:00

I was vacationing in Paris last month (oo la la ar7am 7ali) when I realized that the Champs Elysees is so overrated. In fact it’s not too different than Wakalat Street in Sweifiye!
Let’s see:

 Both have cafes next to the main road

 Both have cafes offering Argeeleh!! Yes shocking I know :S

 Both are full of Gulfies

 Both have Etam and Benetton stores

 Both have people doing nothing just staring at pedestrians for a long time

 During world cup, you find Arabs in their cars, carrying flags, honking and shouting for no reason

 Both streets are dirty, 7atta Walakat street has more garbage bins

Care to share more, anyone?

However, I must say Paris is the city of lights and magical in a way but also outside paris is very nice and worth the visit.

Pink Fig episode

2010-08-15T12:31:00.001+03:00

Ring Ring.....

Pink Fig: "Blue Fig hello"

Me: "Hi, can I reserve a table for 5 for Tuesday?

Pink Fig: "hmmmm for Tuesday......... tab shu ra2yek ti7ki bukra 3ashan ti7jizi la Tuesday? "

Me thinking ' shu ra2yak la2?'
Me: "ehhh laish?"

Pink Fig: "ni7na bni7jiz la yomain 3ashan 3inna war2a bas la yomain fa haik lazem a3mil war2et Tuesday"
Me: "hehe tayyeb I'll call tomorrow"

Pink Fig: "willa a2ollek yalla a3teeni ismek" :)

Restaurant mistake # 1 : never inform customers more than they should know

Over dinner with a colleague.....

2010-07-28T00:35:00.000+03:00

" I go back home to the west bank every weekend, and last weekend when I was crossing the borders there was a young Israeli lady, maybe 17 or 18 years old, who checks and stamps the passport stopped me and said:

'I notice you tghaveling (traveling) all the time, you tghavel a lot' so I said:

' yes I tghavel all the time while you just stay here stamping passports!'.

Of course she didn't like what I said, and decided to make me stay an extra hour sitting there doing nothing before stamping my passport............ I didn't care I knew she was reacting to what I said. I felt good that I could at least speak my mind. She wanted to delay 1 hour of my day? I don't care, my whole life was delayed because of them.........."

Ironic Jazz

2010-07-25T16:43:00.000+03:00

I never expected to see Rasha in concert again and not to see you ever again...............

You know you're a LOST fan when.....

2010-05-23T16:39:00.011+03:00

1. You, as an Arab, start confusing Iraqis for Iranians and Pakistanis

2. You stop waxing. Kate looks fine, she’s been on the island for months

3. You never take the plane from Sydney to Los Angeles

4. You call fog ‘black smoke’

5. You refuse to skip episodes even if someone gives the full details of the episode

6. You start wondering about your parallel life

7. You start running away at bbqs once the fire catches on

8. You start calling people you don’t like “The Others”

9. You sound stupid if you try to explain Lost to non fans

10. The idea of taking a vacation to an island is not very appealing

11. Whenever you see a stop-watch or a digital counter you start yelling “What’s the code? What’s the code? ”

12. You gather a group of friends and send your CVs to jobs@dharma.com

13. You automatically classify Lost fans as smart people

14. Hammoudeh DVD mish mla77e2 3alaik, you’re there every Wednesday afternoon demanding the latest episode

15. During thunder storms you check date and time after each lightening flash

16. Whenever you go on holiday you check expedia for submarine return tickets just in case.

I’ve never mentioned this before but I LOVE LOST. Thanks to my friend Rami who helped me with the funnier part of the list :)

Please add yours

I can't wait for tonight's season finale :) I'm going to have a void in my life when it is finished :(

I hope we'll win the Emmys

nO Beach

2010-05-15T12:43:00.001+03:00

Jordan: please when you want to say that something is nice don't exaggerate. don't make it sound like heaven on earth. Coz it's not.

My friends and I went last week to O Beach after hearing so much about how cool it is.
When we were on our way there olna hada howweh! We're gonna see God's gift to Jordan :)

We went to the place expecting something special where in fact it was small, with 1 VIP pool (that doesn't really fit all those VIPs) and 2 smaller standard pools that we cannot, and I repeat, cannot sit on its sides.

Now this would be understandable if the pool was deep and made for swimming, thus sitting on the edges is inconvenient. But no, the pools are not deep enough, not encouraging for swimming and not plenty enough.

The cabanas (oddly are not near the beach) are way too small with no pools! When we asked, they said that cabana members have access to all pools!! ok! Whatever!

Tayyeb it was time now to go to the beach, put some mud and float in the amazing dead sea water. "ehhh srry mafi beach"

"Excuse me!?"
This place has NO BEACH! yes it's still not open! Tab why would i go to a pool at the Dead
Sea?? We have plenty of pools in Amman.
"Tab 3afwan fee Dead Sea pool iza bit7ibbu" ! Basically a pool with dead sea water

"Emm la2 ma3lish we'd rather have the real thing"

This place has no theme, no apparent style, no good music. But I know why people love it. It's a great place to show off, you don't need to swim you just lay there and look good. This is what ahel 3amman love, yu23odu o yitfarraju.

But to be fair, the service was very good and customer care was as well. They returned our money and we spent the day at a hotel where we had loads of fun.

And being in the marketing field I must admit that their marketing campaign was great.

nO Beach....... Totally OH!rdinary

Seriously Al Ghad?

2010-04-02T11:02:00.001+03:00

Ya3ni we all heard of the article on the main page of Al Ghad Newspaper on April 1st- the newspaper i loved and respected and subscribed with for 5 years- regarding UFOs siting in Al Jafr area in Amman.

Honestly I was so excited! I believe there are other creatures living in this world besides us. Anyway, I started spreading the word and felt a good day coming ahead :)
I knew it was April Fool's Day bas olt mish ma32ool a credible newspaper in a conservative country like Jordan would pull a prank on 6 million people on this day.

6 million who have 90% of them who live under poverty who are worried if they can afford tomorrow's bread, 6 million who have other concerns in life than April Fool's Day, 3 million of them who don't even know what April 1st stands for, 6 million who are not known for partying or smiling or celebrating any religious or non religious holidays.

What is this weird holiday anyway? Just because it's non religious and doesn't involve drinking we think it's cute all of a sudden?

In a country where there is a lot of consideration to culture and tradition and 3aib o 7aram o ibsar shu I'm surprised that this newspaper -mish شيحان wala ishi haik weekly o tabloids - would consider even doing this!

How would they write this and think it's funny? It would be funny but it would be funnier if they wrote "Happy April Fool's Day", "تعيشو وتاكلوا غيرها " at the end of the article or anywhere else in the same newspaper.

Willa the next day they lame excuse of having this prank is in the front page. Ishi bikhzi.

Becoming me

2010-03-20T20:48:00.001+02:00

It’s been ages since I last wrote any post. I owe this to Amman, it’s very boring and nothing interesting ever happens.

What I have noticed about myself this year is that I’m more confrontational, I’m not slightly worried of my beliefs and I’m not afraid of consequences.
I don’t know whether this is due to me turning 27 or whether this is part of the natural cycle of life where you say “Stop” and “No” and “Let’s go for it”.

The wonderful lesson I learnt a few years back is to “choose my battles” (not that I’m perfect at it) and this has impacted my life so much that I don’t feel trapped or obliged to behave a in certain way. I keep preaching this concept to my friends and hopefully one day it’ll make sense. I hope I don’t discover that it’s wrong.

Incidents and random thoughts

I was at band practice last week and the conductor was saying something about how she and the school band are performing in villages across the kingdom and that all of us would probably not know where these places are…… in between parenthesis, we’re in our luxury bubble and do not know anything around us. She then pointed to a player and said: “oh maybe you know these places because your field of work gets you involved in these things.”

Ok, I’m going to say this once and for all, people who work close to death or close to the poor or in charity work or in any kind of “I’m too good for the world” kind of job does not make them any better than others.

Why are you judging me? Just because I work in a corporate where we have kitchenettes and AC and a parking spot does not make me any less worthy of those in USAID projects!

I might not know Al- Jafer or use recycled paper and go volunteer to pick up tomatoes with the farmers but I do know corporate politics, I know about managing what you have to generate revenue, I know about perception and how to deliver an idea and how to be social smart around idiots!

This is a misconception in Jordan, people who work under limited funds, NGOs or are journalists think they are doing the world a favor and are better people than those who seek profit and choose to work in offices.

Did I confront the conductor? No, I choose my battles  It would’ve been a lost case where I would bite my fingers in regret.

Colleagues at the office: I’m not your happy-go-lucky girl! If you’re in a bad mood don’t give me attitude! Your father does not own the company and no I will not be nice when I need a favor and you bet I will not tolerate bull! Anything you say that might disturb me I’ll make it clear to you.

I’m done with the peer pressure phase in my life, if you don’t like me I really don’t care.

I have a coaster at my desk that says:

“The important thing is not what they think of me but what I think of them” Queen Victoria

I know I’m no queen bas bardo 7ilu to live in such powerful denial :)

Sometimes people are placed in your life where they are unavoidable and make you bring out the worst in you. I honestly thank these people who gave me the courage to be articulate and rude.

I think we keep living our lives fearing that someone might think we’re not nice. We avoid any confrontation that might disrupt our image in front of people; “no I won’t tell the waiter that the food is cold”, “I won’t tell my parents how much I don’t want to go there”, “I’ll go out with this group of friends whom I really don’t like”, “I’ll give her a call to check up on her even though she doesn’t bother to check up on me”.

In conclusion, il dinia 7zooz as my colleague always says but the important thing is not to blame everything on luck.

The other side of hit music

2009-12-12T17:35:00.012+02:00

I found nice covers and instrumental of somehow popular music.

This guy is very good check out all his music DAVID SIDES

Better than the original ?

Metallica

Not very stupid now is it?

VIVA LA VIDA meets LOVE STORY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXtVBJDPs6k

Reality Check

2009-11-22T14:09:00.001+02:00

This is one of those posts that you end up questioning your own job!

I passed by a boutique in the shopping complex next to Crown Plaza Hotel (3amra Hotel sabiqan) and went in.Very nice shop, shoes and bags:) every girl’s dream.

Il muhim, the sales lady, the owner welcomed us and offered to show us some boots. Very nice designs I must admit. I remembered that lady, she was with me in university! She was stupid, she once answered the accounting professor with a “Ma tis2alni ana ma ba3raf ishi !” when he asked her to solve the problem. He kicked her out. I felt good back then not because I was a good student, because she was rude.

Look who’s feeling good now! She designs the boots and bags, sends her designs to Italy to be made with genuine leather and a brand name. Ironic huh? She’s selling a pair of shoes for around one fifth on my salary!

Ya3ni I’m sure her parents are proud of her now, what good was that B+ in that accounting course? I’m sure she was drawing another design and deciding on her career that day when she was kicked out. Good for her.

Yeah I know, life is not fair :) Why oh why am I an employee ?

Petra Rocks

2009-11-08T22:56:00.000+02:00

After hearing and reading opposite reviews all week long regarding this musical I was anxious to go experience a Jordanian musical in an out-of-the-ordinary- theater in Applied University (yet very neat and cozy).

The seating was on first-come-first-served basis although audience purchased their tickets based on seat numbers. This ticked off some of the crowd who seemed restless especially while waiting 20 extra minutes for play to start.

The set-up, lighting, and costume design exceeded my expectations as props were promptly shifted without the notice of the audience eye, the sound effects were interestingly added to some scenes and lighting was rarely out of place. The music, though, was a disappointment; I expected better music arrangements and compositions from our Jordanian musicians. In addition to the unattended sound check when some actors were speaking and the audience couldn’t tell what was going on.

The play started off by dancers who filled the stage with not so uncommon choreography, but with an interesting flavor of tempo and choice of clothes. However, as the play went on it seemed to be a long dancing performance with some acting and storyline.

The story of Petra Rocks is profound in basis but appeared to be weak on stage, needing more transitional scenes and enrichment of the plot. The ending in specific was rather abrupt, not knowing for sure whether the ending was a happy ending or a sad one as one of my friends commented.

Dima Bawwab was, as always, professional in performance, articulate and expressive in all songs. With her soft yet powerful voice that was sensational and consistent she portrayed experience and character. What was interesting for me to see was the acting and classical Arabic speaking by Dima. Again, she surprised the audience with her convincing role of Princess Hana’ah, like a butterfly coloring the stage with her feminine look and expressive phrases.

Nonetheless, Roz Al Werr was, as expected, remarkable in singing but not as good in acting. The role of the queen might have been too restricting for such an actress and singer.

Amer Al Khuffash who played Saleh, the water engineer of big dreams and a brave heart did a great job winning the heart of the princess and most of the audience. Other male artists were, unfortunately, not up to the standard of the female artists in terms of singing and overall performance.

Adeeb Derhalli captured the audience’s attention in his Prince Kong Ai Dan role, luring the Princess with his fortunes and rare assets in his funny Chinese outfit and dialect. He is obviously more experienced than other actors in the play, moving lightly across the stage, with a clear voice and confident existence under the spotlight. The ‘suitors’ scene, as the audience probably agrees, was the most entertaining and the most profound in terms of script writing and acting with Adeeb enriching it.

Lara Sawalha did a wonderful job as well bringing some groove and boldness to the dances and the acting. She proved her enjoyment and passion of theater with her role, Jamilah the poetess, making the best out of a minor character in the story.

As a person in the audience I can’t but appreciate the hard work spent on the making of this musical from directing to advertising, performance and overall look & feel. There are, on the other hand, many areas for improvement in storyline, choice of character names, music, etc. But I’m glad we have such opportunities for our artists and I’m definite that this is only the beginning of good Jordanian theater for the years to come.

One Life Stand!

2009-11-01T23:03:00.006+02:00

This post is dedicated to my friend T :)

Meeting up with friends last week, having hot chocolate, complaining about the weather...... (ok only I was complaining about the weather since I hate winter and wish it would be summer everyday of the year), we were talking about thee most talked about topic in Amman between youth ages 22-42 : Hooking up / Marriage/ Finding The One.

Tab3an as usual everyone pretends inno mabsoot haik o 3adi I'm not looking for anyone at the moment, I need to enjoy life, fa we were exchanging stories of people who got to know each other over a period of 2 or 3 months and then got married (traditional marriage).

Fareeda said her famous sentence :"i don't understand why are people in such a hurry to get married?"

T then moved on to the idea of a 1 night stand and how the west thinks of this and that.

All that came to my mind, ironically, was that there's no difference between an Arab girl who knows a guy for 2 months and then marries him, giving her body and soul to him and a western girl who gets to know a guy for the same period and then giving herself to him, being a 1 night stand, then breaking up and finding another.

Aren't these 2 girls from across the world the same? Isn't marrying someone within 2 months of knowing him a kind of prostitution? What's the difference, really? It is as T called it "One life stand".

A man or a woman cannot surely know during only 2 months that this person is THE ONE thus what attracts them to each other is sex. Purely sex.

After sometime the naive western woman moves on, leaves him for a reason or another, finds another man who offers her a subconcious one night stand approach, while the Arab women accepts the one life stand, stays for a reason or another,swallows her pride and moves on to being a mother.

A mother who in return marries her daughters traditionally. After an Arab girl has her ethics and honour which are saved until marriage, until the one life stand.

Drama @band practice

2009-10-26T22:24:00.011+03:00

I just noticed that I have never written anything related to band or my interest in music since I'm saxogirl. Well to spare you of the boring stuff and to make it short, I play the Alto Saxophone since I was 11 and still am, one of my passions in life.

BUT the interesting part is the drama that happened today during band pratice. Never in my life have I imagined that things would take this shape with our conductor, let's call her, Miss Rumba for the sake of argument.

Band background:

Conductor: Miss Rumba is the conductor I've known to love and repect for years and years. She was the cool American music teacher who had the exciting activities and trips during school years. She's spent her entire life teaching students music with, I must admit, little appreciation. As you grow up you discover that those idols you used to have are not that perfect, unfortunately, they are just like anybody else.

Music: symphonic, classical, a little jazz, serious- not appealing to the common Jordanian

Players: since it's a voluntary community band now, very few are attending practices. Currently we're 17

Tamer, my sax mate, started off by explaining to Miss Rumba why previous players are not attending: " I will say this and I hope it doesn't come out the wrong way...... the music needs to be more fun....... "

She was furious, she said that this has been the endless battle with us, that we don't like the music "well if you haven't notice we don't have band music like the ones you hear on the radio, I've always made sure that there would be something that people would recognize and enjoy but there's no winning with you........etc.........Lara has been saying this since ever"....... ehhh ana?

ok I did like 3 years back at a gathering at her house. I said all that needs to be said coz i'm not the kind that sweet talks people, what I believe in I say so help me God. It was a total fiasco tonight as it was 3 years back where all my fellow musicians said nothing. Absolutely nothing. It was bad, no support, no understanding, nothing.

The discussion went on further "I have other things to do than conduct this band if you guys don't want to play...........you can support the band by buying some new music...........what you're saying here is that all this music is trash......"

Has she not been with us during performances? Where very few people attend? Where players come and go and only il khozzat illi zayyi stay?

Why are people so protective? She asks for suggestions and then she refuses them. Is it because this band has been her baby for the past 20 years? Why does she take it personal? Doesn't she want this band to succeed? Is it becuase she's past 50 years of age? Mid-life crisis? Does she want to play the victim?

Insanity: Doing the Same Thing Over and Over,
Expecting Different Results

It's funny how to us, the members of the band, it's very obvious what has to be done to make this band something but to her it's not acceptable, it's mean and it's unfair.

Now I understand how bad it seems for others to try to change a person. This person thinks he's got it all figured out and that no one understands but have to trust him. Others think ' if you could only work on that part you'd have it all'.

I think deep inside she knows there's something wrong with this band and how it's being managed but being stubborn beats everything else.

This band breaks my heart, jad, it could be way better.

“Stubborn
and ardent clinging to one's opinion is the best proof of
stupidity” Michel de Montaigne

أحمر وشقي لاذع ولذيذ ؟؟ what the heck!?

2009-10-23T19:58:00.011+03:00

We were staying late at the office the other day and G+Ginseng girls came in and distributed promotional drinks with brochures.

I thought that was cool since I like the bitter lemon they have.

Taking a short break we looked at the brochure and couldn't believe the logo, the names of the drinks and the vibes that the brand carries!

Check them out for yourselves (please click on pic to enlarge and note the details)

putshshshshsh

A whip and handcuffs? for real?

In my opinion this brand is targeting hormones and sexuality. The brand identity girl is wearing a tight outfit with all the gadgets, ma32ool? I don't want to sound like my grandma bas ya3ni a whip??!! Come on

I got more curious and checked their website, unbelievable. Check it and look at what your cursor becomes! Now it all makes sense, my pharmasist friend told me once not to drink it, "it's like Viagra!". I guess we all know what g stands for now.

Welcome to the g spot

What is g? It's a premium multi-flavor carbonated beverage, that contains
ginseng extract- a revitalizing substance known for its healthy medicinal
effects, anti aging benefits, as well as sexually
enhancing properties which forms the basis of g's
advertising approach

http://www.g-gofigure.com/

check the radio ads, banned ads, and motto........ horrible

again..... what the heck?!

Jordan TV

2009-10-11T23:42:00.000+03:00

Ma32ool Jordan Television?!!!

It's like it's in a time warp where it got alienated in space with no reference and no benchmarks.

I've got 4 questions for you Jordan TV:

Why do you still host guests and insist on speaking classical Arabic?

(if you say so that the Arab world countries would understand us think again. LBC and Future speak lebanese and they're one of the most viewed channels.)

2. Why are the studio furniture and decor incoherent ?

3. Why are the hosts un natural?

4. Why don't you have interesting shows and series?

Mango and Cairo

2009-09-29T21:31:00.013+03:00

Going on a trip with 3 of my school friends to Cairo seemed like a great idea.
We spend hours planning for it and deciding on the dates, fighting over the dates and finally agreeing on the dates :)

If you think this post is about my friends, it's not, it's about beautiful Cairo.

"Please tell me you hated it" a friend of mine said after I came back, "I didn't it's really cool".

Cairo is ana amazing city full of life. People stay awake 24 / 7 literally! It’s not for partying only, it’s for going out for coffee or whatever. Here if you stay up it’s because you’re cool, in Cairo it’s for spending some good time in good weather. “sometimes we go out and then go directly to class” Lamya said, a cousin of our friend who is studying in AUC. “It’s very normal to sleep 4 hours a day here”.
As she way saying this I was looking for dark circles on her eyes to see the effect of sleep deprivation but unfortunately I found none. How could they do that? How dare they? I was so jealous of the lifestyle: )

It's interesting to say that Cairo is romantic! Yes though it's super dirty and chaotic, with those poor police men trying to be respected by people, traffic and hot weather killing you by the minute, it is nonetheless romantic. If you walk by the Nile you can see couples standing at the bars looking at the river with hopeful eyes, holding hands, having arms around each other, PDA. Each empty slot formed by the bars has a couple and what's interesting is that these couples are boyfriend and girlfriend. Very few are engaged or married (if the ring is an indicator).

What I loved about this fact is that love is not forbidden in Cairo.Inspired by
the book "Eat, Pray, Love" I now know that Cairo speaks 'Lust' in the air.
Everybody is in a state of love, it's in the eyes of people at Khan il Khalili,
streets, restaurants, everywhere.
Definitely a city worth living in!

Sanitary standards are different than ours, once we were at TGI Friday and asked the waiter to clean the table “7alan ya fandim” he said and then took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the table. He must’ve been kidding but he wasn’t, good thing we had Hi-gene!

Fresh juices are something else over there; we were always ordering mango juice. Nivene had 10 in 4 days. Everytime the mango juice surprises you of how good it tastes. Ahwet il Fishawi in Khan il Khalili know this I’m sure coz the prices of a mango juice there are the same as here!

notice the civilizations above (from pyramids to sky scrapers)

Ok I lied this post is also about my friends. Let me give you a bit of background :
These 3 friends have been my close friends since school. We’ve managed to stay close throughout university and work life. Firyal, Nivene and Nuha.

The trip was smooth as expected with a bit of spices here and there. Nuha, a perfectionist, wanted to photograph everything! And she did :) When she found out that “Hussam Habeeb” the singer (whoever that guy is) was in our hotel, she and Nivene crashed a wedding while he was singing the solo romantic song to the bride and groom! Needless to say after all the embarrassment she took a picture with him :) Nuha was a great travel mate especially at the airport when 2 gulfi guys tried to hook up with us “Oskot o liff wijhak balash ma takullak kaff!” Bravo Nuha :)

Nivene, the fast and the furious, was as always a the easy go-er, she planned the activities of the trip and was crazy enough to take a dare from one of the girls to go up to a bride and tell her “we’re from Jordan and we’d like to take a picture with you”. Needless to say inha intafsat coz the groom objected “aslo il 3areez lazeez bassi multazim” the sister in law justified.
Firyal, the soft hearted, was the angel sent from heaven to all those beggars, taxi drivers, sellers, street bums. She bought from them, tipped them, and sympathized with them. “Firyal please don’t believe them they’re ripping you off” we would beg “shul 10 pounds bil nisbeh ili? Dinar o nos ? Bas addaish bi2asru b 7ayathom?” Our eyes would roll, her eyes would roll trying to explain to each other over and over our ideologies. Firyal will be Firyal and she will not change.

We wanted to go see Adel Imam play Body Guard or as Firyal inquired “AL body guard”, she wanted to Arabize it so that the guy on the phone would understand! We were laughing non stop. “Mar7aba bidna ni7gez la bukra masra7iyyet Al body guard”.

Firyal was the star of the trip especially when she slashed Nuha’s 7inna tattoo of 20 seconds of age by mistake : ) she kept apologizing which was hilarious for Nivene and I to see as Nuha got more and more angry “Nuha sorry 3an jad ba3millek wa7ad b 3amman” “Okay Firyal Khalas 3adi”Nuha would angrily insist : )

The trip was nice, definitely to be repeated but in a cooler weather, when I don’t have the flu and when it is agreed that political stuff are not to be discussed :)

Michael Jackson the controversial artist

2009-07-09T00:11:00.010+03:00

Being a girl in the Middle East, Michael Jackson was a legend to me growing up. Nothing topped him. O tab3an I don't know if you moms zay immi bas till yesterday she couldn't understand the reactions, appreciation and drama. To her Elvis o BAS :)

I don't want to go on and on about Michael the great talent, you've heard it all. I just want to share the phrases that moved me and gave me goose-bumps during the memorial speeches yesterday.

Berry Gordy:

"He raised the bar, and then broke the bar"

Brooke Shields: (to his kids)

"Your father was not strange, what he had to deal with was strange".

Martin Luther King III:

" My father said that in life one must discover what his calling is. Once
they do they must do their job so well that the living, the dead
and the unborn could do them no better"

I remember growing up in the 90s, we watched "Black or White" over and over and over with awe, I video taped his Pepsi (or Coca Cola was it?) commercial with Michael Jordan and watched with friends not believing how cool he is. We immitated his voice, we dressed like him in Halloween parties and tried to, as everyone, do the moonwalk.

It'll take a long time before another legend takes his place in people's hearts.

Sentiments

2009-05-24T12:03:00.000+03:00

It's amazing how a person can keep hanging on to the past. While everyone thinks that the person is out of the dark hole and moving on, yet, that person is still there, more hurt than ever.

During the past month I had a taste of these:

1. Getting over someone by going back to him

Driving in the car with her on the right.......
-Me: "Are you serious? You're going back to him?"
-She : "Don't you feel guilty to not get back with a person you know so well, to a person you got used to? I couldn't even think of being with anyone else. I think 1.5 years away is a good break and now it's time we get back together".

2. Getting over someone by running away
At the door, on the way out, picking up a bag I kept for him...........
-He: "I have to get out of this country, by hook or by crook, I have to before the end of the year."
-Me: "This is when she comes back from abroad, right?"
Long pause and a sad face........ -"right"

3. Not being able to get over someone
Going up the escalator at the mall........
-She: "I still can't get over him....... I think i don't want to."
-Me: "Time is the only healer, give it some time"

4. Afraid of going through the pain, again, of getting over someone
Sipping tea at her house........
-She: "If this doesn't work out then this is it! I don't know what I will do, I don't know how I can go on."

5. Getting over someone by finding someone else

Conversing over lunch..........

-She: "Well actually, there's someone new!And it might go faster than you guys expect"
-Me: "What? Really? How do you know that this time it's right?"-She: "Coz I've never felt like this about anyone before. I think this guy is 'The One' "
-Me: "Good for you for moving on, good for you"

Football my dream, football my life !

2009-05-21T23:18:00.007+03:00

It's interesting how guys are just big boys.

Boys at 5 years of age --> play football
Girls at 5 years of age --> play with Barbies

Boys at 15 years of age --> play football
Girls at 15 years of age --> play with makeup and occasional prank calling

Boys at 25 years of age --> play football
Girls at 25 years of age --> play Pictionary, Sudoku, cards or bowling

Guys at the office love to play footbal. No matter how different the guys are, football brings them together!

I don't get it

I'm not mean, I'm practical

2009-05-11T21:17:00.014+03:00

You know what kills me in this society? The fact that you HAVE to do stuff;

Examle #1 I hate arou7 a3azzi (pay respects to the dead). I am a sentimental person although I seem mtamsi7a but I really don't find death surprising nor dramatic.

-Faheema*: "hey, keefek? Did you hear inno khal Muna passed away?"

-Me:"ah jad? Alla yir7amo"

-Faheema: "Aren't going to go pay respects"?

-Me thinking 'I hate a3azzi and wear black, I hate it I hate it. Muna? Tab I rarely see her' ....."Sure, what time?"

Biddi afham, why do I have to a3azzi every single person on earth? If you come to think of it, an average Jordanian has consoled a larger number of people than the number of people he went out with. I honestly have attended funerals more than weddings. When you're having fun you don't invite me but when you're in pain I must be there? La2 sorry!

I know it's a sign of respect, I know these people are happy to see me and I know that it's a sign of sympathy and support. I know all of that I just hate doing it! Please no one out there tell me the benefits and advantages of consolation because I heard it all.

To me going to a place where people are mourning a death is not exactly my idea of support. The problem is that people keep a record; "laish arou7 a3azzi, ma aja 3azzani b abouy" !!! ehhhh aish? Aish fee? Aren't you supposed to be in trauma and mourning?

The thing about deaths is that it comes sudden, whatever you have those 3 days you should clear out your schedule and fit it in. Not practical.

Example #2

-Dina*: "I'm heading towards the airport Sunday morning at 8:30"

-Me : "Oh cool so I'll see you Saturday night".

-Dina: "Or you can pass by Sunday at 8:00"

-Me: !! "OrI can pass by Saturday night! :) "

-Dina: "Sure whenever is suitable for you".

-Me: "Dina if I was in your situation, would you wake up to come see me at 8:00 AM?"

-Dina: "Of course I would"

-Me: "Why??!! Don't you think it's more practical to see me the night before? I mean if you got the 2 options wouldn't it just be easier on all humanity if you come the night before?"

-Dina: "Hmm maybe but I'd still wake up and come see you. I don't mind it I'm a morning person"

-Me: "Ok say you WERE NOT a morning person..."

-Dina: "Yeah, well, I'd still come at 8:00 AM"

-Me: "Ma a7qarni :(...... see you Sat night"

House of Saddam

2009-04-12T19:15:00.006+03:00

I'm not interested in politics and I don't engage in political conversations with anyone but I must say this documentary is really something....

BBC has done a great job in portraying Saddam's personal life. The 4 episodes are catchy, easy to watch and engaging. The thing that I liked about the production of the documentary is that most of the cast are real arab actors, instead of Indians that seem to resemble us according to the whole world except us! Zay Said in LOST, he's so Indian yet he's accepted by the west as the macho Iraqi guy.

Watching House of Saddam, you can relate to the English Arabic accent, the names are pronounced correctly and I could only spot very few mistakes in the setting.

I have no knowledge in the political facts of the series thus I don't know about the accuracy of the content but what I can say is that it is a very interesting documentary and a must see.

Bravo BBC

Corporate world lingo

2009-02-19T09:00:00.003+02:00

Below are phrases, words or abbreviations that exist in my corporate world. Where on earth do they get these from? The interesting thing is that these phrases are so contagious and can be picked up faster than gossip.

'Let's kill it'
Used when you want the other person to do the donkey work of a stupid project, initiative, request without ever wanting to hear about it again.
Used it twice today ;)

‘We need to look at this in a holistic view’
Used la ghayat il 3aret

‘I don’t want you to work in silos’
First time I heard it I was like “Huh? What does fermentation and biology have to do with this?”

‘Fair but not equal’
Used by HR when they want to inform employees in a diplomatic way that your colleague illi bishtghel ad nos ma btishtghel o birawwe7 ablak o bifhamsh yoktob email will be getting a higher raise than you ever will.

'Culturally un-aligned'
Not a member of our gang

‘Ra7 yiseer fee restructuring’
A good number of managers are going to be kicked out

‘FYI’
Is it really? Is it honestly only for my information willa it means inno fee mseebeh jay 3ala il taree2 o bas ba7ib a7keelak innak khawa involved.

‘FYA’
Meaning innak khozz o wala 3omrak ti7lam takhod promotion.

‘…..What do you think?’
Used when the sender was blamed for not sharing issues with the team. It really means that I’m thinking this way and if anyone has any objections better do the job himself.

‘…Please advise’ (tab3an always written advice which really doesn’t mean anything)
This really means FYA bas the sender is not from the same department as the recipient.

‘For further details please do not hesitate to contact me anytime’
…but if your question is stupid you’ll have to take the consequences.

‘Thank you for your cooperation’
KHAWA

‘Customer centric organization’
Charge the customer some fees for doing the job we’re supposed to do in the first place.

‘I am at your disposal’
Disposal? Seriously?! Come on I feel like trash

‘Hope this email finds you well’
3ashan illi jayeek halla2 sammet badan

'Shu ra2yek ni3mil kaza'

=Shu ra2yek ti3mili kaza

'Kindly note....'

hayna khabbarnakom 3ashan ma titfalsafu

'As per our conversation.....'

Used to confirm the message agreed upon, basically I don't trust you will stand up to your word....ya kazzab!

'As per your request'

I don't agree on the issue but this email is a blackmail tool.

Also could mean innak khozz

'To strengthen communication channels...'

Sender is blamed for working in 'silos'!

'From a strategic perspective.......'

Used to prepare the listeners that what is about to be said is too complicated for the common employee to comprehend........ losers

Don't you just love the corporate world? :)

Facebook nightmare

2009-02-11T10:00:00.002+02:00

Yesterday I was standing next to a bunch of guys and girls who were talking. Next thing you know, girl said in these exact words, and i quote:

"la bamza7, tab3an 3indi facebook shu shayefni social mu3awwaqa?!"

no comment :)

Episodes of my past month

2009-02-01T21:58:00.016+02:00

1. Discussing the Egyptian cleaning man

-*Tima: "didn't you notice his eyebrows?"
-Me: "btimza7i!"
-Tima:"bi3mil 7awajbo!"
-Me: "La2, please ma t2olooli inno Fayyoumi gay!"
-Tima: "halla2 3rift keef btitla3 il isha3at bil shirkeh ":)

2. Office blabber I

My phone rings in the office

-*Samara: "Lara, ghayri rantek!"
Me thinking 'ghosbalek! shu dakhalek?'

3.Friendship

-Me:" Aish sar b Chevening"?
-*Farida: "3milt il interview :)"
-Me: "cool:) tab o Maree7a?
-Farida: "bardo 3imlat il interview :)"

Me thinking 'hmmmm kul il mamlakeh 3imlat interview ma 3adai :S'

4. Office blabber II

My phone rings in the office
-*Samara: "Lara, ghayri rantek!"
Me thinking 'How about **** you!'

-Ignore mode on-

5. Longest 15 seconds

Waiting for the elevator -B1 to Floor 4
Creepy weird lady approaches me....
Waiting......

-*Manar: "Shu drastek?!!"
Me thinking "what the heck?! I've never spoken to this lady before...."Finance"
-Manar: "Wain? Jam3a Ordoniyyeh?"
-Me: "Ah"

Waiting.........'wain il zift?'

-Manar:"Ana darseh 3ilim ijtima3 min jam3it Bir Zeit"
-Me: ".....umm..... 7ilu"

Elevator opens, lucky me there's no one inside, now i have to get into a closed area, up 5 floors, with the creepy weird lady.... I know she's gonna say something crazy now and no witnesses would be there and no one would believe me!

.............G........1.............

Nothing......

2...............

Not a word........
3.............4 "Ching"

Me thinking 'Ghareeb! she didn't say anything.........Run Forest Run!'

Those were the longest 15 seconds of my life!

6. Office blabber III

-*Rula: "you know they say those who like kitkat are sexually frustrated!"
-*Nabil:"hehe 3am bit2oleeli willa 3am bit2ooli la 7alek? ana 3adi wad3i"
Me thinking: '3adi? o fakhoor b 7alak inno zalameh ya3ni? culture zbaleh 3ala shabab azbal. Abukom 3ala abu haik colleagues'

Sorry for the foul language, those who know me know that I'm not like that :)

*As always, names have been changed

Highlight of my 2008

2008-12-24T23:56:00.013+02:00

I think 2008 was a good year for me....... these are what made an impact on me the most:

1. Bonding with one of my cousins

moments when you're sure genetics are stronger than anything

2. Left at Frankfurt airport

was supposed to meet my friend there to go on the same plane back to Amman, she miraculously made it at the gate, we were both in tears

3. Being at Bon Jovi's concert

singing 'always' with him, live

4. Quit drinking sodas and eating chips

but if the times get tough i'm going back!

5. Changing career paths from HR to Marketing

this doesn't mean that I'm sticking to marketing either :P

6. Started Salsa classes and commited for 1 whole year
don't intend to quit in this lifetime

7. Reassured that Venus and Mars will never meet, there will always be people who say 'FAYsal', that life is full of irony,and that friends will come and go but the good ones always come back.

Victimize

2008-12-18T15:21:00.006+02:00

All of you out there who are in the corporate world can relate to this; the strange phenomenon of having those Victim employees!
Some people just victimize themselves, simply because they enjoy it. If you look closely around the office you will have this "i'm the victim" character, i'm certain.

*Mirna is a fellow colleague in my company, she's a manager (by force) and she's the company's hardworking-no-one-appreciates-me victim. She often refers to herself as the victim, and puts on the victim's mask and starts her day, it's true.

She barges into directors' offices and tells them how frustrated she is by their decisions, how they don't care about her area of business and that she will not take their bull!
If she bumps into me or anyone at the bathroom she starts pouring her heart out how the company is not like before, how depressed she is from the situation and how much she gave to the company. "wala 7atta shukran ma bu2oluli" she would add.

"Mirna, why don't you leave the company and go somewhere else? Your experience is great in this field you can find a job in no time" I would suggest.
This is Mirna's favorite part, this is the part she loves most, this is where she proves that she is the real victim: "No no I want to stay, this is the company that I served for many years. Ana 3ashanni ba7ki il dughri o ma bamassi7 jookh bi2oolu 3anni mujrimeh, bas alla bi3lam".

Oh come on for God's sakes, why would anybody stay in a company where they are not appreciated and not change to a new job with higher pay and a better environment and most importantly where she can be appreciated for her technical skills?

Y? Because people love to victimize themselves. It's more appealing, they make others feel sorry for them and better yet they excuse them for whatever mistakes they do.

Once I told my boss: "Mirna majnooneh" and he said : "Maskeeneh hay" !
You see? Works every time :)

*Dareen is another story. She's the company's chick. And what's better for guys than being a chick? Being blond :)

Dareen is a great employee, i must admit, dedicated and all but years and years of conflict with her manager is not logical. Whenever she feels that her manager is about to give her negative feedback she runs to HR or to the CEO and cries a few tears and turns the whole problem to her favor. The team is teaming up against her. Not fair.

Who can resist a crying blond chick? She must be right :)
Bingo! Being a victim pays off.

A lot of people in our world do that. It's so easy to do it, it's within the comfort zone and it takes off the heat of responsibility.

Whenever a person puts on the victim mask, everything is so much easier. Working hours are less, no standing in line, a lot of attention and sympathy.

I'm not saying that there are no victims in life, there are but these colleagues are not them.

Quoting from the movie Dangerous Minds (a movie which is lame in my opinion but has a good message):

Nobody's forcing you to be here. You have a choice. You can stay, or you can leave.There are no victimsin this classroom!

* Names have been changed for security reasons... my security

Labels

2008-12-10T17:29:00.005+02:00

Living in Jordan all my life I don’t cease to notice unexplainable things about the society. Lately I have noticed that our youth culture is not mature enough. There’s no acceptance of the other.

In a sense that we label groups, masalan those who go to Nai are labeled differently than those who don’t.
“Ah howweh min il no3 illi biroo7 3al Nai” (pronounced NAAY, laish ma 7ada bi3raf :))
What’s that supposed to mean? Inno if he didn’t he would be perceived better or worse?

I was mentioning to my work friends some time ago that we could go to books@cafe and they (both being males) said: “law aish I won’t go”!

Ba3dain this new trend in Jordan of having film makers and artists and writers ( the non traditional jobs) is being held by a) the well-off b)the rebels c) a and b

Another perception is that those who are artists carry on the habit of drinking and those who do not drink are lame! And mind you, both parties hate each other.

Our society is not mature enough to accept all kinds of people without associating them to any cult. And you HAVE to belong to a cult.

I usually attend the annual European Film Festival and go watch different films when I can. When I mentioned it to a work colleague that I’m going that night she said : “ah inti min il no3 illi bi7dar hadole il ishya2?” Actually I was curious to know more about my ‘no3’! inno do I masalan don’t eat greens and all that grows on trees willa shu?

Below are some noticeable groups:

Those who talk in Arabish vs. Those who’s Arabic are proficient enough for conversation
Those who go party in Beirut every other weekend coz “ahel 3amman bi3rafoosh yinbinstu” vs. those who realize that staying for a few consecutive months in Jordan is not that uncool.
7afartal vs. non 7afartal………. This has the widest range of possibilities. A typical Jordanian falls in and out of these categories as we speak
“Ana b Vy” vs. “it’s just a gym for crying out loud”
“jama3it il salsa” vs. “I don’t go to dancing lessons but I love ‘so you think you can dance’”!
Baccalaureate School vs. A public school

The thing is, it’s not that black and white, there isn’t only 2 sides of the issue as I have demonstrated above. People are not either or. The true statement is :

X vs. Y vs. Z vs. Q, …ect

Admirers

2008-12-07T01:38:00.001+02:00

My admirers.

Why on earth do I attract the wrong kind of guys? dayman?

Back in school I was a nice girly girl. I had crushes on guys

but those who had crushes on me were emmmmmm ……..

how can I say it in a
non judgmental way……… mashateeb :)

I remember in KG 2 when we were standing in line singing the anthem or saying something stupid like ba7ib mama o baba ya3mal fil 7aqel or something of that sort, a fellow classmate broke the alignment and stood closer to me and gave me a kiss! How dare he! It wasn’t Ghaith* whom I vowed to marry and love forever and ever, it was this shateb guy who was too rough, played football in playground all the time and had barabeer! (boogers)

When I was in 5th grade there was a new kid in school who was in 6th grade, he was fat with a red face (all the time) and not my style at all. Yet he knew what he wanted and that was me! The problem is not only how to get rid of him but also how to get rid of him while trying to hook up with the hunk in his class!

*Shady was determined, he sent out his friend to give me a silver necklace with half a heart with “Please forgive me I can’t stop loving you” written on it! Brian Adams had a very unfortunate fan it seems.

The worst part of his stalking was that he lived right opposite of Chili House were we used to hang out and so had radars whenever I was around :) Let’s just say that Chili House is not that great for hideouts.

The next admirer was also fat………hmmm ok I see a trend……….. who till this day my friend reminds me of his stupid comment when I cut my hair and showed up to school : “Min jameela il ajmal”!
Huh? What the heck? We’re not in pre Islamic eras where we talk in classical Arabic!

Why God why? What is it in me that I’m a magnet to these people?

Skipping university, jumping into the NOW I thought that drama will disappear and the nice girl would meet a nice guy and life will be great but no!

At work adbash guys ever would approach me, seriously like top 5 aznakh shabab fil shirkeh. I need hours of storytelling to talk about those.

This year only I’ve been approached by 3 guys, 2 of whom are in their 30s and 1 in his 40s! Hellooooooooooooooo do I look that old? I’m freakin’ 25 and these people are minimum 9 years older than me.

What? Am I that attractive to oldies? It’s true I am mature ;) The thing is they’re not only older but they look old and they’re just not my style.

The last one bugged me the most; for starters when he called me he mistook my name. Sorry man but if you really want to get a girl you get her name straight!
And then I told him I’d call him back but didn’t. Where I come from it means i7lig, but apparently where he comes from it means ‘please call again and again and again and again’

If this keeps up does it mean that I’m gonna get stuck with one of ‘those’? Oh my God it’ll be over, I’ll be one of those girls who got older and didn’t find anyone suitable so she hooked up with hadak il 3ammo ! Scary thought.

My new year’s resolution: Stop attracting the weird crowd

*Names have been changed for security purposes

Falling.............8 things I hate about myself

2008-10-03T15:44:00.010+03:00

I haven't been myself lately, i don't know why, and i hate it.

It seems like I'm falling, losing self, doing the same mistakes over and over.

As much as i love myself (those who know me know how much :)) but watching myself over the past period made me realize that:

I hate it when I gossip. No matter how abnoxious those people are, I shouldn't have. I'm sorry.

I hate it when I think I know something, someone and then figure out it's all wrong.

I hate it how I still don't know what my passion job is. Still experimenting but until when?

I hate it how I promise myself so many things and yet I choose to do the opposite time and time again.

I hate it when I relate a person, a situation or a place to my experiences before. Each person is a separate individual, situations are always different and places are what people, feelings and memories make them.

I hate it when I think I'm over a situation, a person or a problem but once it appears again I'm a total wreck, again.

I hate it how I fail God over and over after promising that I wouldn't.

I hate how I fall back into memories making them my exile, my excuse, my safety net.

You don't drown by falling in the water;
you drown by staying there

Edwin Louis Cole

8 things that bug me in Ammani community

2008-09-10T10:30:00.001+03:00

1. How DJs on radios talk in an American accent.

Inhom cool! Ba7rain becomes Barain, cozmo becomes CAzmo and ninety nine becomes niney nine!

bakoon biddi akob 7ali min il sayyara when i hear them. bas the new move now is Bri2ish! One of the new radio stations is 'spot on' with their accent

2. How weddings are overrated; flying to the dead sea wedding location by a private jet, entering the wedding hall in a car, and having the make up artist and hair dresser fly in from Lebanon!

Shower parties drive me crazy as well.......... how many prewedding parties do you have to have?!

3. The not-at-all-necessary obsession with facebook : "Lara, khalas lazem ti3mali facebook".

You know what? I don't care what everybody's status is, i don't care what pictures you have uploaded or if an electronic machine reminds you of my birthday. Please spare me the :"Faroo0007 yesterday was amaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazing" !!!

4. How all coincidental meet ups end with

a fake: "isma3i, lazem ni3mil ishi"!

Law kan biddek ni3mil ishi you would've called me a thousand years ago ;)

5. How everybody is too dependant on their cell phones. The minute they walk into a restaurant they'd be like:"wainkom?" ! You know, if you'd walk 3 more steps you would find your 10 friends on a table!

6. How drivers think they have the right of the road if they have an E-Class and above.

7. How the name Faisal became FAYsal all of a sudden!

8. How kul 7ada 'mish taye2 il balad'

Under age flirting

2008-09-07T21:45:00.003+03:00

I've been living in Jordan all my life and the other day it hit me! If you're a girl living almost anywhere in Jordan I assure you you would have experienced the following:

Walking in the street hearing a mu3akaseh 7afartaliyyeh like: "bijannin il abyad" or "yil3an 3omri"or "beeeeeeeep"......you look back and there he is, a male kid aged 10 years old, maximum!

Isn't it weird? I mean there's no way on earth that this little kid understands what he's doing, he couldn't possibly understand the urge of flirting. Emotionally, mentally and physically it doesn't make sense. Most of the time, I bet, they don't understand what they're saying.
I
So why do they do it? The only reason is to fit in, they imitate their older brothers or older friends. Being males, of course, they have to feed their male ego as much as possible, so they prove their existence and their manhood by doing these things :)

These kids are not only wasting their time on the streets trying to be somebody but their childhood is also being stolen from them.

3onsor il mufaja2a

2008-07-27T00:50:00.006+03:00

While chatting with a friend of mine the other day I have learnt a new perspective of the element of surprise.

Me-why would you like looking at a girl at work if she's wearing a skirt? You saw her in a bathing suit, what's the deal?

Him- Well, it's different. When going to the beach, pool or where- ever, the expected dress code is a bathing suit. It's great but it's expected, it's the norm. But at work it's not very usual to have employees wear a skirt, hone beeji 3onsor il mufaja2a!

Here I began to realize how the "brilliant" mind of males works. And it's interesting. He's right, as long as there's an element of surprise, or unnormality within the trend, then it's interesting.

Us, girls, we use our brains differently. We don't get it when guys like a weirdo girl in salsa class :) She sprayed pepper spray on a mosquito in the middle of the routine for God's sakes! She behaves differently, but that's the catch, if she behaved like a normal salsa dancing student then she's within the trend, mafi 3onsor il mufaja2a.

Looking at it this way it's more comprehensible why couples of opposite characters end up together and why certain people end up as friends.

on being sensitive........

2008-05-22T22:08:00.006+03:00

I hate being sensitive!

Being sensitive means any word can cause a thousand wounds in your heart.

1 wound can unleash one of the beasts inside of you.
There's a saying:

Sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me

this does not exist in my world.

Being sensitive means no control of self.
No self control means somebody else has that control.

I hate airports, I cannot control time over there.
Come to think of it, I never not wear my arm watch.
I need to be in control of my self.

When I forget my cell phone, a sense of pleasure arouses in me.
No one can control my every move.
I am my own queen. I move freely.

I always say anything takes 24 hours....a shock, a surprise, fan argument, facinating news, anything, it takes 24 hours to settle in.

In those 24 hours of vulnerability I hate myself.
I am susceptible to all kinds of feelings.
I can't control my mood in those 24 hours.

I might say things that I'd regret in those 24 hours.
Nothing can take these words back in those 24 hours.

No control what so ever.

Yes I'm a control freak.
If I have the chance to control everything around me I would do it in a heart-beat.

I flip out when cars drift off the street lanes.
Lane lines that are drawn perfectly on streets are meant to make cars exist in lanes.
I get a bit tense when roads don't have clear lanes.

But mostly I hate it when I'm sensitive :)

5 lies life had taught me.......

2008-05-07T23:25:00.010+03:00

Life has taught me so many nice things about work, friendship, love and living but alas there are a few overrated sayings that should be reconsidered and revised.

These are the 5 lies life had taught me:

1. People change

I believe people do not change. An idiot will remain an idiot, sometimes a nice person can become an idiot but an idiot cannot be transformed to a nice person. A person will change under 2 conditions: if he really wants to, or if something makes him change.

2. Team results are always better than individual results

WRONG. This is a lie that has been carried on in the work place for centuries. I believe that individual work is way better than work done by a team. A person has no limits into perfecting his work. The only competition is thyself. All the great people in history are solos, composers, writers, leaders, rebels, artists, etc i could go on and on.

I want to sue those stupid HR brainwashers :P

3. What goes around comes around

Not until you make sure it does! A lot of people get away with things and nothing comes around, I know, trust me! I've been observing very carefully!

4. Faqed il shay2 la yu3teeh (you can't share what you didn't experience)

It's irrelevant. A person can be an orphan and be a great parent. Feelings like most things in life are not inhereted, they're inherent

And my favorite

5. Money cannot buy happiness

What a poor bitter person he who said that. Show me the money and I'll show you how happy i can be :D I think he meant "Money cannot ONLY buy happiness, it can buy all those other things too"!

Brakes

2008-05-04T09:19:00.001+03:00

Laish il sha3b il ordoni ma 3indo dwawo brake ! Ya3ni KEEF biddi a3raf inno ra7 ywa22if halla2. Shiklo i have to enroll in 'da2 il mandal' courses !

Asabi3 Zeinab

2008-04-16T12:36:00.004+03:00

I was thinking inno if the sweet was really named after a girl somewhere named Zeinab then, Zeinab must've had very ugly fingers! :)

P.S. for those of you who don't understand Arabic Asabi3 Zeinab means Zeinab's fingers

Venus and Mars will never meet

2008-04-11T19:00:00.001+03:00

There are things in life you just accept, like the mystery that you were born to a certain family and not another, the fact that there will always be idiots and the hurtful truth that you cannot heal the world. Along with those givens there is also a fact, which I recently gave in to, is that Venus and Mars will never meet.

No matter how much I try to understand guys I shall never hit home run. The more I try to understand them the more I find out that they don't make sense! I talk to my male friends discussing certain topics trying to figure out how these creatures operate but I fail everytime!

What is it with guys?! Is there a manual so that I could understand how they operate?

I fail not because I'm unable to put 2 and 2 together and my IQ is low, I fail because these creatures are incomprehensible. They can be amazing sometimes and other times they can be amazingly weird.

What is it with guys and their obsession with girls?? They are just insatiable! Blonds, redheads, brunettes, anything with female figures!

They get frustrated if we ask them some detail about their past but need to know our every move during the day.

An interesting theory I have noticed is that guys categorize females in their lives:

Their moms are the best female in the world. These come on top of the pyramid.

Their sisters are their reputation, the more low profile they keep them the better :)

Their female friends are their buddies, homies, confidence, anything but what they desire to have as a girl friend :) If you notice, your shilleh guy friends would have a certain type of female friends but would have a completely different style for a girl friend. It's like each type has a use.

When it comes to having a wife, their 7 year girlfriend could never do the job. They want a wife having the low profile of their sisters but surely more attractive, they want her less playful than their ex-es and definitely less opinionated than their shilleh friends. Similar to their mothers? No way because those are just perfect and no one could ever be like mommy.

What is it with guys and their constant need to be reminded that they are great?

Guys, you are great (mish kulkom), get over it, move on. Women have proved that they can do all that and more!! At the same time! ;)

"Could you walk and talk at the same time"?

Alla yirda 3alaiha Beyonce, she makes me smile everytime I hear those lyrics in her "irreplaceable" song.

Guys no offence from the post, I still think you are awesome & cool :) You make the best singers, artists, composers, musicians, sports players, and friends.

You're just weird............

7ilwe?

2008-04-06T16:06:00.007+03:00

All you guys out there stop asking the stupid question you always do : 7ilwe? ! La2 bish3a!

I would be talking to a guy, any guy, about a story starting like this: "the other day my friend and i were goi-" Willa binottili and interruptingly asks : 7ilwe?
Ya3ni ma aznakhak ! Ana f aish o inta f aish!

Guys it's insulting , get it through your heads.

It's not funny, it's not appealing that u ask a girl if her friend is pretty.

First of all she's not gonna say yes so that your next brilliant question would not be : "aimta biddek t3arfeeni 3aleha?" nor would it be a no coz then the guy would not be interested in the story anymore.

So raja2i lal jins il akhar inno please spare me your hormones !

10 things I love about you Jordan

2008-03-12T23:48:00.004+02:00

On honoring Jordan today March the 12th here are the 10 things I love about you:

1. Mansaf Mansaf Mansaf :)
2. The unique smell of construction in Jordan air
3. The irrisistability of females by Jordanian police
4. The funny and irrelevant flirting phrases such as "yil3an 3omri" !
5. The ridiculous cheesiness of being extra friendly with tourists.
6. How Jordan has the best weather in summer.
7. How Jordanians love to eat mana2eesh on Friday mornings.
8. How comfortable driving is on Fridays.
9. The simplicity of some people.
10. The fact that I consider it my home :)

God bless Jordan

Pronunciation cont

2008-03-02T10:37:00.001+02:00

I'm currently in a meeting and i forgot the no. 1 bug word : 'report'! It is re port mish repport! Also re sults mish results!
Another person just said develop ment! Ya jama3a it's one word: 'development' the emphasis is not existing ! I want to interfere i want to kill somebody :-S

pro·nun·ci·a·tion

2008-03-01T22:46:00.007+02:00

Jordan, here's the deal! you gotta stop pronouncing words they way you see fit!

this word is INITIATIVE is it pronounced [i-nish-ee-uh-tiv] as per the world's dictionaries and not ineeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetiative ok? it's like "diminished" and "intimidating" not as "demeaning" and "revealing".

It just bugs me how literate, educated, well rounded people pronounce English words. I'll be in a managers' meeting willa bitnott wa7deh darseh b ibsar wain b USA bit2ool kilmeh ghareebeh, ana banjan bakoon biddi awa22if kul il meeting "stopppppppppppppppppppp..................aishhhhhhhhhhh??????????"

Consequence is [kon-si-kwens] o ma 3omorha kanat conseeeeeeeeeeeequence!
ya bay shu sarli sneen biddi a2ool hada il 7aki o mish 3am teeji fursa.
'
Connection, IT support, commitment do not have a SHADDEH! you do not stress the 'n', 'p' or the 'm'. Con-nection?! ma32ool ya3ni? it's smoother guys, it's like having 1 n :)

Ba3dain fe kaman mseebeh : "Version" vs. "Virgin" (bala mu2akathe ya3ni) and "Usual"

"usual" is [yoo-zhoo-uhl] in the pronunciation key mish ya3ni uJual! wala ya3ni uGual, it's usual zay ma bit2oolu "mazaji"!

Version as in the American version, my version of the story or new version is like "usual" = verjen, bas Virgin Megastores is VirGin.

Please use words wisely, it is really not professional to be in a board meeting saying : we have acquired the updated IT suP-Port systems including the new Virgin!

Ahhhh :) I feel better now that I got it all out.

Until.....

2008-02-29T22:49:00.002+02:00

Dancing makes the world such a lovely place :) I wish I started learning Salsa years ago.... at least I would've caught up with guys my age, now the oldest I can find in beginners class is saneh rab3a handaset 3amara :S You don't wanna know how awkward they felt when they found out I was a 'working girl'!

I fell in love with this song below by Sting that talks about love and dancing..... it's the soundtrack of KATE AND LEOPOLD (stupid lovey dovey movie but great song)

I urge all of you Jordanians to shake your boodie whenever you get the chance :)

"Until"

If I caught the world in a bottle

And everything was still beneath the moon

Without your love would it shine for me?

If I was smart as Aristotle

And understood the rings around the moon

What would it all matter if you loved me?

Here in your arms where the world is impossibly still

With a million dreams to fulfill

And a matter of moments until the dancing ends

Here in your arms when everything seems to be clear

Not a solitary thing would I fear

Except when this moment comes near the dancing's end

If I caught the world in an hourglass

Saddled up the moon so we could ride

Until the stars grew dim, Until...

One day you’ll meet a stranger

And all the noise is silenced in the room

You’ll feel that you're close to some mystery

In the moonlight and everything shatters

You feel as if you’ve known her all your life

The world’s oldest lesson in history

Here in your arms where the world is impossibly still

With a million dreams to fulfill

And a matter of moments until the dancing ends

Here in your arms when everything seems to be clear

Not a solitary thing do I fear

Except when this moment comes near the dancing’s end

Oh, if I caught the world in an hourglass

Saddled up the moon and we would ride

Until the stars grew dim

Until the time that time stands still, Until...

Round about ?

2008-02-22T23:23:00.001+02:00

I found this tree in the middle of the street. This is a real picture, no hollywood effects , no blue screen... Let's c how long our fellow who work in il amaneh will take them to remove it ;)

Lyrics

2008-02-15T23:37:00.008+02:00

I'm into lyrics these days, beautiful feelings that translate into words, from words through songs back into feelings. Since I was a kid lyrics got into me, I could cry, smile, fall in love from just listening to music lyrics, even the Spanish, Italian, Jewish songs I never understood moved me in so many ways. I love that about myself.

Since Valentine's Day just passed this is one song that has been running through my head all week long. You might have heard it on One TV. Enjoy.......... I'll be sharing more of those in the coming days.

Here's to romance, love & memories.............

Koop -Koop Islands Blues Lyrics
Ane Brun :

Hello my love

It's getting cold on this island

I'm sad alone

I'm so sad on my own

The truth is

We were much too young

Now I'm looking for you

Or anyone like you

We said goodbye

With the smile on our faces

Now you're alone

You're so sad on your own

The truth is

We run out of time

Now you’re looking for me

Or anyone like me

Na na na na…

Hello my love

It's getting cold on this island

I'm sad alone

I'm so sad on my own

The truth is

We were much too young

Now I'm looking for you

Or anyone like you

Infita7 ijtima3i? ! give me a break

2008-02-05T22:01:00.000+02:00

معاكسات الفتيات : هل انحسرت في ظل الانفتاح الاجتماعي؟

article in today's newspaper

Bigollak n7asarat ..........Mish adreh ad ma fi infita7 ijtima3i, ya3ni 3am ba7awel inni albis mu7tashem mish zabet! Alla yir7am hadeek il ayyam illi kunt at3akas feeha halla2 mafi 7ada bi7ki nos kilmeh! Ya3ni il infita7 bsara7a kharab baitna........ il shabab kteer shab3aneen no one says a word even if you're wearing practically nothing........ sub7an alla keef il infita7 7asar il mu3akasat.

Infita7 shu! this title drove me crazy today.

معاكسات الفتيات : هل انحسرت في ظل الانفتاح الاجتماعي؟
نشر: 5/2/2008 الساعة .GMT+2 01:24 a.m

فريهان الحسن
عمان- تتعرض إسراء بشكل شبه يومي إلى العديد من المعاكسات وهي تقود سيارتها، تقول "يلاحقوني ويبدأون بمضايقتي للحصول على رقم هاتفي، وأحيانا تصل الوقاحة بهم إلى التسبب في حادث سير".
ولا تعرف اسراء (28 عاما) كيف يعطي الشاب لنفسه الحق بمغازلتها بطريقة مبتذلة، مشيرة إلى أنها تعمل على تجاهل المعاكسات باستمرار، لكنها تجد نفسها مضطرة للرد حينما يتمادى الشاب.
وتؤكد رجاء (28 عاما) أنها تتعرض وصديقاتها إلى المعاكسات بشكل مستمر، مستغربة اعتقاد الشباب الساذج أن الفتيات اللواتي يجارين "الموضة" في لبسهن يتقبلن المعاكسات ويتجاوبن معها.

Unjustified traffic

2008-02-04T23:47:00.001+02:00

Is there really a reason for this in amman?

Akhlag mafi!

2008-02-01T19:58:00.002+02:00

I always separated between actions of people and who they are, a murderer is not necessarily lousy at his job for there is no such thing as a good person or a bad person full stop. We are a mix of everything.

I often think a prostitute could be a great chef, a drunk could be a loyal friend and a theif could have dignity and manners....... apparently not :)

لص سرق احذية المصلين فعادوا حفاة فوق الثلج
نشر: 1/2/2008 الساعة .(GMT+2 00:45 a.m )

عمان- اجبر لص قام بسرقة الاحذية الفاخرة لعدد من المصلين في احد مساجد العاصمة عمان على عودتهم حفاة القدمين فوق الثلوج.
وذكرت وكالة الانباء الاردنية الرسمية (بترا) التي اوردت النبأ ان "اللص اقدم على سرقة احذية مصلين كانوا يؤدون صلاة العصر اول من امس (الاربعاء) في احد مساجد عمان".
واضافت الوكالة ان "اللص استغل وقت اداء المصلين لصلاة الجماعة داخل المسجد لتمتد يداه الى ما اعجبه وارتفع سعره من احذيتهم ليفر بعدها تاركا عباد الله يمشون حفاة فوق الثلج".
وابدى المصلون اشمئزازهم من هذا "التصرف المشين الذي جاء في اصعب الاوقات".
وقالوا انهم "انتعلوا الثلج ليعودوا الى منازلهم حفاة يستشعرون برودة الثلج الذي غاصت فيه ارجلهم بعدما عجزوا عن ايجاد ما ينتعلونه مقابل آخرين استخدموا احذية قديمة مهترئة وجدوها على باب المسجد".

Rejected

2008-01-29T19:57:00.000+02:00

I wasn't short listed for the Chevening scholarship..............it hurts.

Laish il aza?

2008-01-05T08:00:00.000+02:00

Walking in hotels always made me feel different. I love the ambience of diversity, the smiling people (for a change) and importance it gives you. I have to work in a hotel sometime :) Imagine the amount of blond guys I can bump into per day ! :) Il muhim....

As I was entering the Meridien Hotel for a family dinner I took a look as usual on the activity list to see what else was going on in the hotel. To my shock I stopped walking and told my aunt, I have to take a picture of this!

Why do people do this?! Taking the K away from the "knowledge" and sticking it before "FUC" world bank? Laish il aza? Ya3ni mazboot it's freakin funny bas inno you don't do this in hotels where foreigners are actually reading these lists o ninfade7? La2 bas tab3an ni7na il Jordanians cool o bni3raf masabbat bil English ;)

Anyway to feed my ego I went to the concierge hoping to hear exactly what he had told me:) I asked him: 'Shayef fee ishi ghalat bil list? Masalan ism il bank?' Fa il akh read it out loud o howweh mish 3aref wain alla 7atto, he's like: 'ah haik ismo' !!

I thanked him for his efforts in being a great employee, byikhdim il balad o fee motivation lal shoghol. 7aram ma ilosh 3al lone :)

I took the picture thinking how good life is :)

Visiting Deutschland, the country of decipline and order

2008-01-01T10:08:00.000+02:00

I haven't been writing in such a long time, I can blame the laziness in me and nothing else. I always think that when I write it should be well written with pictures and such but I figured I can't keep up with that, I'll just write whatever pops on my mind.

I have been to Munster (the city of bicycles), Germany in Aug 2007 for a media workshop with a bunch of friends from Jordan participating with Romanian and Israeli teams. To make a long story short you can look at our products on the following website :

http://www.open-web-tv.eu/suche.php

http://www.open-web-tv.eu/content.php?contentTypeID=40&id=351

Fadi Awwad a great singer was also in my team check out his songs

Munster is such a beautiful city, typical European, with all it's nice and awful aspects! The best part was seeing 4 of my German Dubai friends whom I really appreciate for they have traveled by trains and cars to meet up with me to share some of the old laughs.

Below are some pictures of the city.

Note the amount of bicycles on the left

This guy is amazing and there are so many like him

7aram ti3ib!

No comment

A classic :)

A proof that Germany is not perfect :)

In the end Germany is a beautiful country that I would definitely visit again :)

Ironic ha?

2007-06-12T09:02:00.000+03:00

Well I've been meaning to post this months ago when I flew to Dubai again on Emirates airlines and noticed this irony!

If you notice the drinks items in Arabic section of the menu and then flip to the same section in English you'll miss out on a lot! Someone who cannot read English will miss out on a lot i guess!

Click to enlarge

In the hotel the same irony is noticeable, I wonder if our fellow shyoukh know how to read English. Who is Emirates trying to fool exactly?

بكتيريا تحت المجهر Bacteria Ta7t Al Mijhar

2006-12-24T19:47:00.000+02:00

While I was waiting for my turn at the hairdresser, I browsed some stupid girly magazines to kill sometime. As I was flipping through the magazines sarcastically reading headlines like : "How to apply make up to become like Sharon Stone" and "Matha yukhabbi2u laki il 3am al jadeed"I was sickened to read the article shown next (right to left)

How stupid are Arab women? We will never advance or have our dignity as long as we keep feeding on such articles. More than 80% of Arab women in the Middle East see nothing wrong in the answers given.

I bet that mothers teach their daughters to never say no and to “please” their man whichever way possible.

This is truly insulting and demeaning for women. If a husband sleeps with another woman it’s ok and if a woman cheats on her husband then she is to be divorced and maybe killed? Where’s the justice in that? Since when is betrayal and adultery justified? This is plain humiliation! As long as women believe this idiocy then our culture will keep being viewed as retarded and suppressed. Why should we blame others for calling our women “without choice” or “controlled”?
We, Arabs, love to talk about freedom of speech and that our women are people of change, negotiators and public figures. None sense! If we can’t admit that men’s sexual desires and playful lives are acceptable with all virgin girls then we have a problem.

All issues in these magazines talk about how to keep a man, how to seduce him and how to live for his sake. And when Mr. Perfect looks at another girl in a luscious way then it’s ok maskeen mish b2eedo kul il shabab haik!!

These excuses don’t exist, if we keep hiding under the “macho man” icon then our
marriages will keep falling apart, will keep being top media topics and saddest
of all will keep us in denial that everything is fine.

These kinds of guys are definitely bacteria and not husbands. Bacteria as described in the encarta as follows:

'free living organisms not able to be seen except under a microscope, found in rotting matter, in air, in soil and in living bodies, some being the germs of disease.
Bacteria are so small that they can be seen only under a microscope that magnifies them at least 500 times their actual size. Some become visible only at magnifications of 1,000 times they occur in diverse shapes and types. As a group they carry out a broad range of activities and have different nutritional needs. They thrive in a variety of environments'

See the relevance or not yet? :)

You can run but you can't hide.......from an isfeen

2006-09-26T19:50:00.000+03:00

Getting lost in Lubban is one thing and getting lost in Wadi Rum is another thing, it’s called an isfeen!

When I was lost in my brand new 4x4 in Lubban I was with my friends back then, I knew we were in Amman, or close, and I was sure we’d get out of there. But going to Aqaba with work colleagues and then getting stuck with them in Rum is not that appealing.

The weirdest combination ever was on this trip to Aqaba, we had the above 50, the big baby, the singer, the lovers, the mothers, the spinsters, the open minded and not to forget, the boss.

I can’t really speak very openly about each member of the weird combination because my life would be threatened!!

Going to Aqaba was not really my idea of having a good time. You see people at work everyday I don’t need to see them also the whole weekend. This is why I took 2 days off after we came back :)

I decided I was going to have a good time and I did! Especially since Lina couldn’t make it and I was stuck with Reem- I know you’re reading that’s why I tease you- I had really minimal fun to acquire. On the way there the group was singing and dancing :S not my kind of having fun. But when we go there that night I sang at the Karaoke night and danced the night away. I had fun with people I never knew I could have fun with. People as Reem and I discussed later that week we perceived in a negative way but in reality they’re beautiful people.

Now to come to the isfeen part, one night we decided to go to Rum where there’s a party so yalla ya jama3a fee 3asha ! Everybody, surprisingly, joined. To make a long story short we go lost…………. yes in the desert, at night, and 3ammo il shufeir had no idea where we were. Not only il jahil 3atel but also lamma bus kbeer yigharriz that’s not a nice thing! We had to leave the sinking bus and pick ups came to pick us up. SIXTEEN people where on the pick up truck like some cheap merchandise! I really don’t know how we go to the camp site without getting stuck in the sand.

To continue il isfeen the party was over, there was no sign of entertainment there! We were even kicked out of the camp L Tbahdalna. Before we were kicked the electricity went out!

It was really interesting to see the different reactions on people’s faces when there was a possibility that we might stay there for the night! It shows who’s exposed who’s not, whose used to life’s pressures and who’s the wimp. The big baby was just being himself!

I was really upset because the camp head was so rude to us, I mean imagine if we were foreigners! I know for sure I wouldn’t think of camping in Rum ever again.

I was very inspired when I came back from this trip, it’s amazing how diverse people are.

We are all the same but different, we are all different but the same.

Ri7leh ila makhfar Ibn 3baid!

2006-07-20T00:41:00.000+03:00

Well I was always right when i said :"waja3 il ras ma beeji illa min il s7ab"!

Lina is indeed in turmoil! Fe yom ma fiyyo daw amar Lina & I decided to go to Yarmouk university for work. While she was driving on the road she dozed off fa we ended up crashing into the van infront of us! :S We were at the traffic lights on the way to Irbid in Al 7oson & her claim was that she was eyeing a sign saying :" Baladiyyet 3ajloun tura77ib bikom!" and bam she didn't see that there was a van infront of us and into the wind we flew!

The sound effect was stronger than the action picture so the car was fine, the van was fine but of course we had to do the CROKA, i don't know how it's written bas il muhizz we were standing in the streets, in al 7oson, waiting for 3ammo il shurti! The amount of honking & staring that we got, some guy with a stupid comment: "Il 7amdilla ma sar ishi bil sayyara"!

The brave policeman came and asked Lina:" shu sar ma3ik?" 3ala asas inno lazem yi3raf iza khabtat b dafi3 ao bidoon! "Ya3ni biddek ti3mali Croka?" he ended the conversation o ya raitna ma olnalo ah. We went to make the Croka to Makhfar Ibn 3baid! Alla ysam7ik ya Lina, ana jay min Dubai 3ashan adkhol makhafer! I was reconsidering our friendship!

While we were waiting 3ashan nifta7 ma7dar, Lina & I thought of capturing the moment by taking pictures there! After we finished the paper work an officer called us into an inside office and accused us of violating the holiness of Makhfar Ibn 3baid and wanted us to delete the pictures or he'll hold us & the camera!! Hatha tili3 3baid mish galeel! I told him if he wanted to hold us yalla! Lina didn't say anything, which was smart, the dude had a gun :)

Yihdeek? yirdeek? Abadan lazem to delete them fa Lina didn't delete them but told him that she did, ya3ni mish bas bti3rafsh tsoo2 o violates the law o kaman kazzabeh......... here i was really reconsidering the friendship.

After negotiation and the humiliation that we're the Amman girls and don't know how to do anything in life we got out of the office.
What's next? Lazem nidfa3 il Croka bil 7ay il Sharqi !! il 7ay il sharqi Lina? akhkh

When we reached il '7ay' the officer there said: "la hassa ba3d il thalath sakkarna"! Could it get any worse? After negotiating again with Lina allowing her to pay I wasn't allowed in so I stayed outside and listened to the next negotiation:
- "Kunt ind doctor il snan o lamma tli3it lagait mukhalaftain 3ala il sayyara!"
-"Ashoof balla............... bain il mukhalaftain sa3a o robo3. Il muddeh il qanuniyyeh lal mukhalafeh il wa7deh robo3 sa3a!"

What?? I couldn't believe it! Does that mean that the police had to give him 5 mukhalafat??!

-"Ya3ni mfakreen inni za3lan? Sadguni mish za3lan bas khalluni adfa3hom"!
7araaaaaaaam :'(

Tayyeb we had to go back to the makhfar coz we had to get Lina's license back but how do we get back there out of il 7ay?? The officer offered to drive infront of us. Cool.

Lina, all you have to do is follow the dude & his car, easy right? wrong!!! Lina lost the dude!

Khalas it couldn't get any more ironic! He finally found us & lead us out of Irbid & wished us a safe trip back to Amman........ more than once!

What do we learn from this?? Not to ride with Lina!

I wonder what her version of the story would be :)

No place like home

2006-07-14T22:04:00.000+03:00

It's been ages since I last blogged but living in Dubai then moving back to Jordan is not as easy as it sounds. I left Dubai 2 weeks ago not knowing if I'll ever go back there again. I didn't even finsh unpacking completely but I made sure that my room is filled with posters, pictures of friends & souvenirs to remind me of Dubai as much as possible.

I prepared myself for a cultural shock when I got back but suprisingly enough I didn't ! I'm shocked coz I'm not shocked!

Looking back after spending 7 months in Dubai i can say that

Dubai is like an entertainment park, you can never get on all the rides

Jordan has a character, aish bil zabt I can't describe but it's interesting how you notice things you never noticed before.

Indications that you are in Jordan:

1. Il 7ofar bil shaware3 zay il mar7aba
2. All greetings are "Hi keefek/ keefak?"
3. If you forgot something in a public place ra7at 3alaik
4. Everybody stares........especially at traffic lights. If they're not staring they're honking their horn
5. Everyone is talking on their mobile phones.........bti3rafu they're discussing critical issues
6. You have to manage with 5 cafes, 5 restaurants & almost all of them don't have a view
7. Most prominant conversations are: Marriage, Politics, & Hayfa Wahbi !
8. Food is the main reason for going out!
9. Most conversations end with : "isma3i lazem ni3mil ishi" or "lazem ndabber tal3a"
10. Arranging a day trip takes so much effort, you plan for 2 weeks then btitfarkash akher d2ee2a
11. Everybody is 'mashghool fadi'

12. Everyone asks you when you're getting married.
13. The world cup beeji ba3id Alla wil watan wil malik. When winning we celebrate & cheer as if it's our country winning, if we lose allah la ywarjeekom!
14. All the people look, dress & talk the same
15. Everybody is an expert when it comes to analyzing political issues
16. In summer, everybody either gets married or engaged.

I could go on & on...

When you leaves and comes back you really appreciate the country. Especially since I got the chance to visit some cities outside Amman. The little things have a flavour now. It's great to leave the nest & fly on your own & it's greater to come back & try to benefit the others. That's why I came back, I can't leave Amman. I'm excited to share my experience and better yet happy to be back with my people.

I miss Dubai but I miss more the simplicity of Jordan & Jordanians.

No place like home :)

7iwar 3an sira3 il 7adarat

2006-05-25T15:37:00.000+03:00

* Before you read note: The below post does not reflect the writer's opinion nor it is addressed to any citizen carrying any implications. It is an observation.

Being part of a automotive company it's normal to have a test drive for cars. We had a Jeep Commander training which means that sales people from our Jeep distributors all over the middle east come to the training. The training has theoretical & actual driving of the Jeep fa ni7na il khzooz il trainees sit in the car o every 20 minutes the drivers change the car & go to another Jeep model.

Il muhizz ana olt how will I optimize this situation of just sitting there all day driving long through the desert……..? I’ll talk & observe people.

A7la ishi bil maodoo3 inno kanu mu3zamhom 3arab from different countries so it was very interesting talking to them o ya3ni aznakh wa7ad kul ras malha 20 min o bikish.

Tab3an whenever Arabs meet aish il mawdoo3 il shaghel 7ayathom? Il awda3 il siyasiyyeh wil iqtisadiyyeh……….

So the first group was a Syrian guy Samer(lak laylaaaaaaaaaaaa) & a Moroccan guy……what a combination, I know, fa tab3an shu ghalaaaza, they’ve been living in Dubai for a while o they were telling me how cool it is to live here & that I should stay & live here.
Halla2 what is funny is that typically enough the Syrian blames Lebanon for all Syria’s disasters & vice versa

Samer : "Lak wainna halla o wainna zaman ya3ni ma kan 7ada yi7lam yistawred sayyara 3a wa2t *7azem il Nimir, lak hada Ammar kan doctor la min timmo wala min kimmo aju aalulo biddak tseer ra2ees ba3ad ma akhook Basem mat………….."

Me: "tab in Morocco how is the situation?"

Zini (the dude) laughing : "kl il awthe3 b kl il bled il 3arabiyya nafs il shay bas basma3 il ordon kteer mi7lawwa o mitqadma…….."

O ana ma kazzabt khabar o nzilit bil dead sea salts wil Petra, nafs il ostwaneh tab3it Ayyoub! ;)

Next……..

A Lebanese guy Najeeb o an Egyptian man, what else other than ..............Mohammed!

Tab3an 7iwar il 7adarat istamar……

Najeeb: "la22a ya khayee ni7na (il 3arab) illi 3inna kilshi, shuf maadeena, shuf il 7adara shu 3andon hinneh, ma killon gays o lesbians o hal araf hayda, ma 3indon she. Ni7na illi 3inna il tereekh wil sakafeh ……."

Mohd: "bas ya na(J)eeb buss 7awaleik lai kulli dah? Dah fi3lan istinzaf lal amwal il 3arabiyyah, lai kull il israf dah? Kullo abrag o binayat laih? O le aimta? O 7ayfeed eh?"

Najeeb: "la22a ma3leh intibih howni shwe (shwai) hole (these) il abraj ‘symbole’ ( symbol but read it in a French accent, ya3ni lezem ykoonu mawjoodeen 3ashan il 3alam ti3raf 3anna."

Mohd : "ya3ni lai ya Na(j)eeb ma nkoon dawla musanni3a? lai ma nistaghil il amwal lil sina3a o nfeed il balad."

Najeeb: "La2a ya khayye ni7na ma bninfa3 lal sina3a",

………………wila aja il mawdoo3 ma ghairo

Najeeb: "Kanat lebnan janneh bas il khair b jeeranna il suriyyeh , hunneh khalloo she min sharron, kil ma fe mashkal bikoonu hinneh warah o bitloomi kil il lebnaniyyeh lamma bhajru? Shufi kam lebnani fee barra il balad, lei baddon yirja3u o 3ashan shu? Kil ma bnimshi khatweh la iddam bnirja3 10 la wara………………
………….. il awda3 b kil il bled il 3arabiyye nafs il she ya3ni 3andkon b Maser min bayn 70 malion mish le2yeen wa7ad ghair mbarak …………"(hona ghalitit o d7ikit) "walla shu ya3ni intu bil ordon a7san ma nafs il model ma mle2yeen 7ada o kullo bwarrit (biwarreth il 7okom)
hona ana olt: "la2 bas ni7na officially kingdom fa it’s normal to have the sons to rein".

Unfortunately here the 20 min finished, nice guys

Next…………..

Another Egyptian who’s been living in Kuwait for ever & another Lebanese, min il jabal, ma tili3 min lebnan b 7ayato ghair when he moved to Kuwait since 2 years o here to Dubai……….

Samer: "ya3ni il kill bi2ool DUbay DUbay DUbay ma shayef fiyya she hal DUbay, eh mazbout ma ri7it blad kteer ( or none I wanted to say) bas ya3ni fe bil Kwait ashya a7la min hone b meet marra, mish inni maghroom bil Kuwait la fare2 ma3i la hone wala il kwait bas ya3ni manni shayef hal ‘big deal’ b DUbay……………Dakhleeek fe clubbat kharj ra2es…… ?"

Awwal ishi 3irif meen yis2al ;) tani ishi we were testing the cars in jabal 3ali, for those who know jabal 3ali, ya3ni il mushkileh he didn’t see DUbay aslan 3ashan yi2ul!

The Egyptian kan mlakhbet il accent, it’s not Egyptian wala Kuwaiti wala Lebanese wala ishi! Faqid hawiyto il akh

That day was a really interesting day for me, a lot more people shared their ideas about what should & shouldn’t be but it was at the end of the day very funny.

Mansaf! Mansaf!

2006-05-25T10:52:00.000+03:00

It's so weird how a Jordanian misses Mansaf the minute he gets out of Jordan!

Being in Dubai for 6 months now is actually a long time without Mansaf! Its ingredients are not as sophisticated as 'Cordon bleu' but its flavour is more than satisfying.

A few weeks ago I decided to go to the broadway SWAN LAKE show in the famous Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi with some friends, it was a hassle finding tickets but as expected the orchestra & the ballet dancers were worth every Dirham .... & those were many I must say.
Needless to mention that Abu Dhabi has a completely different style than Dubai & is just as beautiful.

After the show has ended, we were heading back to Dubai in the foggy weather- from humidity not from normal fog which is awful & needs a post by itself- we found Jabri! I yelled :'YAY JABRI let's go eat Mansaf!' Leila my fellow Jordanian friend, roommate & work colleague looked at me & said: 'oh my God Lara' .

How did she expect me to resist that yellow sign? (The chefs & owner are Egyptian ma ikhtalafna bas bardo it's still Mansaf!) To make a long story short we ate Mansaf at 12.00 in the morning & it was great :) Of course naheeka 3an inno lazem to share nuktet il Mansaf everytime I eat it.

What a weird combination of events, mansaf & ballet!

Lesson of the day:

You don't know the value of Mansaf............YOU DON'T!

Enjoy the pictures

Ya3ni laish!

2006-05-03T10:25:00.000+03:00

Ya3ni laish 7ada biddo yishtri haik sayyara b haik alwan?

Ya3ni laish Dubaians have an obsession with argeeleh - knows as shisha here in Dubai- even in Jazz festivals!!!!!!!!

Ya3ni laish lazem tukob haik comments on dresses in order to sell them?

Ya3ni laish wa7ad mu7taram ibin 3aileh o nas biddo yisammi ma7allo haik?

O finally laish guys drink o make fools out of themselves dancing on cocktail tables At JAZZ FESTIVALS ?!

O laish ya rabbi dayman bikoonu 3arab!!!

Things I'll miss in Dubai

2006-04-30T12:46:00.000+03:00

It's been ages since I last wrote, it's definitely not due to the lack of stories but the lack of time. Maybe i'll recap stories from the past 3 months to share..........

As my internship is approaching to an end these are the things I'm going to miss when I go back to Amman:

How everybody is smiling all the time
How clean & new the cars are
How various & abundant places there are for hanging out
How beautifully designed the malls are. Mercato Mall is small with Italian interior & exterior designs.---->(pics are clickable)
The beach
How I can watch movies in open air ON the beach
How steady & hole free the roads are when driving
How I can wear absolutely anything or nothing for that matter & no-one would even care
The creek
How I can go out at anytime during the night & it still feels safe
How I can lose my mobile phone 3 times & still find it exactly the same place I lost it
How if I don't realize that I lost my mobile the people who find it would call the last number dialled looking for me
The many beautiful parks
Barbq on the beach
How cheap the car fuel is
All the restaurants over looking the water
Our Indian receptionist at our residance building 'Bilal'!
How safe it is
The towers
The concerts, shows & entertainment that are happening all the time, making you not knowing where to go.

Weird things in plastic city

2006-01-17T19:00:00.000+02:00

You don’t see these shots everyday

1. Fashion statement

Did he check out himself before he left the house? He must be put in prison, it's illegal to have that taste in clothes!

2. My 'yabyad yiswid' sink

Tab iza biddi mai fatreh shu asawwi??!

3. A 7 star hotel flaw

It seems the perfect fairy tale city is not so

perfect afterall. Serina remember this?

4.The hideous frog

How ugly is that! We put our keys there, thank God it has a purpose!

5. Ugly shoes

Don’t tell me there are uglier shoes than these. British shoes, what can I say.

6. Daimler Chrysler bins & chairs

Yes, Daimler Chrysler is too stingy to have decent trash bins. I’m so ashamed

7. My bathroom light

I'd have to pull to turn on. O marrat bi3lli2! 7orr howweh!

New Year's Eve with old company

2006-01-14T12:48:00.000+02:00

The panic ball has come to town! Farah arrived to Dubai to spend 4 days, half of which are with yours truly & the other half with her relatives.

Maybe not all of you know farah but she's a worry girl, she worries about everything.... 'Lara, will it get cold, shall I get a jacket? How will we cross the street if we stop here? I need to know where to go do my hair'. Ghair 3an il na3as il qatel wil na2 il mustammer inno bard.
Ma hee kanat shobe before she came!

Ya binit yihdeeki, yirdeeki, abadan musirra tkoon mama o act responsible! Ya3ni ya jama3a iza ana ba7ki 3anha haik! Her brother was here as well so we had a good time teasing her with her insecurities & panic attacks :)

But of course we had the best time ever........when she was awake!

She chose a good timing to come because we'd spend new year's eve together where we went to my friend's friend private party (yes 3indi s7ab min warakom!). We didn't know anyone of course but that's the best atmosphere to act stupid! No one bimsik 3alaik mamsak + the rule of "What happens il Dubai stays in Dubai". Eating, dancing & laughing all night long was just perfect.

Farah's brother has the hobby of ta3lee2at bil 3arabi ma3 illi ma bifhamu 3arabi, so as usual we got into a taxi & he was commenting on everything the poor Indian fella does & we were laughing our heads out. He'll be like : "ghasbalak shu ijrak saybe 3al benzene, yes straight ahead please! " That night we all were commenting in Arabic unfortunately, because when we were arriving to our destination the 'poor' fella said: "3al shmal? !" fa kulna fatta7na 3inaina & just shut our mouths........but Farah's brother couldn't keep quiet and said: "inta min awwal ma tli3na ma3ak o inta btifham 3arabi?" fa then we all burst our laughing. The driver didn't say anything, I bet he gets teased at everyday 100 times.

What did we learn from this? We learn that we only make fun of people with blond hair next time! :)

Here are some pictures of us.

White Christmas!!??

2006-01-07T19:55:00.000+02:00

It’s the first time in my life I’m celebrating Christmas in summery sunny weather. It’s quite nice, I must say, to see Christmas trees outside & wear light clothes but what would I do on Christmas eve & Christmas day in the plastic city with all my fellow trainees gone home for their Christmas break & having no one here but the sun & some clubs? No not clubbing abu shreek, I decided to join a fellow German trainee, Sufyan, who was tafran to go back home & decided to go touring the UAE!

Olt yalla touring touring. I don’t have anything better to do especially since Mishmisheh’s mom was visiting Dubai & Firyal was in Germany.
Wain biddo yiroo7 abul shabab? Al biddo yiroo7 “desert tour”!!

A Jordanian girl going on a desert tour in Dubai!

Not just any Jordanian girl…….me! illi bti2raf min khayalha wants to go ride on camels & get her clothes dirty with sand (ay wadi rum o faya3to ma baroo7 3alaih). Il ghorbeh bitzill :S

O ma kazzabt khabar we set off going to the middle of nowhere. We spent the whole day ana o Sufyan il tafran in the beautiful dunes & off-road driving which was really interesting especially when the driver\ tour guide\ advisor\ bargainer looks like this:

How did I trust that man I don’t know!

I pretended to be Lina & took loads of pics of nothing but piles of sand. Sufyan il tafran was fascinated by the camels & the beauty of the desert. Olt khtay balash akoon pooper fa I became fascinated as well & acted like a tourist saying “ohhh” “wow” “ahhh” & being so Japanese & took pictures of the silly camels.

Don’t tell me that isn’t dead funny!!

A night we went to a desert party with loads of food, shisha (argeeleh) & of course a belly dancer. Il 7ilu bil maodoo3 inno nothing is Arabic in this trip; the driver is Iranian, the organizers are German, the cooks are Indian (alla ykhalleelna iyyahom) wil ra22asa il ishta alla ywaffi2ha is Filipino!

What a weird Christmas eve that was!

Christmas day Sufyan il tafran & I went to the beach & spend a lovely day in the sun while talking with all of you guys on the phone in freezing Amman. At night we went to Christmas mass.

This Christmas of 2005 , I won’t forget.

Cars cars cars.......

2005-12-26T13:13:00.000+02:00

Working in one of the best car manufacturing companies it’s only normal to see beautiful cars but to see approximately 300 top of the line classy exclusive cars now that’s amazing! Daimler Chrysler also has Jeep, Maybach & Dodge in addition to its Mercedes & Chrysler.

The motor show took place in an exhibition hall right behind our apartment for a whole week. It costs too much to have these shows (yes even for Daimler Chrysler) that it only takes place every 2 years so the preparations were worth it. To spice up the show each company has it’s own attraction of Turkish dancers (us), magicians, live band, & of course (halla2 3omar bikayyef) models……. labseen min ghair hudoom! Everybody was taking pictures of them & sometimes the cars!

The cars are beyond description, that’s why I’ll just show you the photos.

The highlight of the show was the Honda ASIMO robot! Yes guys it’s a robot that can wave, walk, go up & down the stairs, clap, cry & other gestures! It was fantastic I got it on video, it’s a craze in the world of electronics & mechanics. They spent almost 10 years developing it. Research it, it’s a breakthrough in science.

A nice part of the evening was that Ragheb 3alameh was there, yeah guys I know you don’t like him but being myself I had to take a picture & talk to him, IT’S RAGHEB 3ALAMEH! They were filming a show with him about cars so I think I was on that show too, or at least my hands! They filmed me taking him a picture :)

Me, Ragheb 3alameh & Muhannad, another German trainee that’s originally from Tunis (find out what they call a wedding in Tunisian!)

Il muhiz it was a nice eventful evening afterwhich we went to the Christmas party that was held for all the residents of our apartment. Pictures don’t show clearly but there was a dance floor, food & drinks for free. Tab3an ma 7addish kazzab khabar o shirbu. Weird life they’re living :S

Ya mista3jil wa22if ta2ollak!

2005-12-24T10:52:00.000+02:00

I mentioned that traffic is horrible here right? Well they say illi bikhaf min il bo3bo3 bitla3lo o ana batsarsa3 min il sur3a as you all know- 7ussam I’m sure you can relate & know exactly what I mean.

Last Sunday Yumna, Karazeh & I were driving back home from work on Emirates road when we stopped behind a bus waiting stuck in traffic when all of a sudden Karazeh who was driving looked in the back view mirror & said : “What the **** is going on?” Tab3an before any of us knew what she meant we were hit from behind by a truck & thus squashing us -the teeny tiny Renault Clio- between the bus & the truck. La2 o al ana aish ba7ibbish atla3 ma3 il trainees il shabab coz they drive crazy!!! Naseeb!

To make a looooooong story short we called our fellow “crazy driving guys” & they came to help us with our wrecked rented car. Being an Arab I was the mediator between us, the police & the ambulance. Yumna’s back was aching & Karazeh’s neck was normal so we asked for the wee wee to take us to the hospital. I didn’t know that I was in pain because I was busy taking care of everybody else but I’m fine now although we all still have bruises.

Ana olt ya salam min awwal osboo3 3milt 7adis o dakhalt mustashfa o makhfar
shurta, la inshalla by the end of my internship bakoon bil isla7iyyeh!

Anyway olt yalla fursa nshoof il mustashfayat illi hone since this is a fairy-tale city -3ala olet Serina- yimkin the doctors bikoonu labseen lapcoats made of gold, il history bikoon electronic, wil kul mabsoot.

Well it seems the fairy tale city ended abil il mustashfa b share3 coz it was horrible! Il doctor kan sudani :D sikabob ya3ni. Bas of course when I saw the waiting room I had to take a picture of the sign coz it was hilarious. I never expected to see it in Dubai.

Guys don’t worry this was not the cool hospital bas it was specialized with bone x rays but what I was impressed with is that we didn’t have to pay anything !

Mish battaleh hal plastic city.

The X Games

2005-12-22T09:44:00.000+02:00

The nice thing about being in Dubai is that there's something to do every single day. Of course this will be the case in a city of wealth & entertainment where people just want, and most importantly, can have a good time.

I don't know if you sport lovers heard of this but Dubai for the first time held the ESPN X Games. These are shows of athletes on motorcycles, bicycles, skateboards & roller blades.
The event took place in Creek Park which is a very big & beautiful park where you can walk for hours without getting bored & what's even more appealing is that this park has so many trees, grass areas & sand areas on the shore of Dubai creek for sailing, tanning or just relaxing. The view is beyond description.

The show started with stunts made by skateboarders that jump along the U-shaped runway amazingly showing us the coolest moves in the air. During breaks some dancers performed on the runway on the loud hip-hop R&B music.

What could be more amusing for me? Food!

Working for a cool company like Daimler-Chrysler we got VIP entrances to the whole show so we didn't have to wait in line to enter the park, pay a for a ticket or sit with the common crowd :p We had the seats under the shade with an open buffet to just enjoy the show! You know where Graph used to sit and watch Agasi during his games? we had the same importance & location :) Ya 3ammi ana muhimmeh ! ;)

After that we moved to another area very close to the runway of the motocyclers (because we are VIPs in case you forgot). Tab3an ana sakhanit! Any wrong move from the athletes & we'd be run over! Fortunately all went well & show was as amazing.
Athletes participating came from all over the world which was interesting as they performed joint stunts.

Halla2 shayfeen kul hal 3aj2a? Akhoona billah 3am bikra2! 3alam akhar hal makhloo2, the music wil jumps wil dinia o al 3am bikra2! When I saw him I couldn’t help it but zoom & take a picture, I figured if he doesn’t notice the fun outside his bubble he’s not going to mind me taking a picture!!

The evening ended with great fireworks (better than the ones I've seen in USA on Independence day) & a musical concert with a live local band.

What a great way to spend a Friday :) What's nice over there is that everybody is there to have fun, no 7afartal, everybody gets free snaks & kulshi ma7soob 7sabo like toilets & security & paramedics (which came useful as one of the skateboarders fell on his head). Simply everybody wants to have a good time & it's so easy in this city.
On that day (including a lot more days) I wish that you guys
were there. We would’ve had so much fun.

I'll leave you with 2 more nice pics : ya3ni sha3ro akhdar min kul 3a2lo! ? _______________________________

Dodge is also in one of our brands so there was a raffle to win this beauty!

(check out the background)

- A few days back we had a Christmas party at the company, I won't bore you with details but I'll say that I got the 2nd biggest prize which is a lot of Mercedes branded things :)

Sharjah

2005-12-11T10:24:00.000+02:00

Internal tourism is good! It's just like going to Madaba (Lina) or Fheis (Omar & Marian) or Ajloun (Maha) or Jabal Amman (Dareen!) although her very frequent shat7at are to Sharm El Sheikh!

I wrote a lot fa I'll just leave you with facts & figures of Sharqa city. It's half an hour away by car, I went with Firyal, the gorgeous Sabrine, the sweet & attractive Yumna & the Turkish-German-girlfriend-of-one-of-the trainees-who's-always-around Nadia.
The place is very similar to downtown but in a beautiful architectural holding called Blue Souk! Yeah I know, it's either Blue market or soug il zarga bas aish asawwi haik ismo!

Sharja is like Jebal il Hussain! If you stand at a certain place looking at those hideous outfit stores u'd swear it was that street in Amman. 7atta nafs no3 il horrible shop names: "Dashadeesh Omran" , "7alawiyyat il batal", "Abu 3azzam lil aqmisha" ! lol

We had fun, it was nice to be ogled at again ;)
Enjoy the pictures
(they remind me of il balad)

Clubbing in Dubai

2005-12-08T12:45:00.000+02:00

Dubai, being a metropolitan city, is a reflection of the luxurious & wealthy lifestyle of all its citizens. This city is filled with all nationalities, some more dominant than others. Driving around you can easily notice the diversity of people, Indians with their scarves around their heads (sikh), Asians mostly Philippinos, Europeans mostly Germans & Brits & of course Arabs who are easily spotted from their stares & beards!

Being an Arab here, I feel like I'm the foreigner!

In the company where I work, I'm the only Arab in my department. In the company as a whole there are 4 more Jordanians(1 of whom will play a major role in the coming paragraphs ;)), some Egyptians & Lebanese. I thought this would be the case since it's a German company but no, everywhere I go, I rarely find Arabs especially the locals. There are no Emiratis working anywhere! The foreigners get higher salaries than the locals which is kind of sad. Supermarkets are taken over by Indians - who by the way speak English with each other since they have 60 Hindu languages so they also don't communicate with their mother tongue language-Brits & Germans work everywhere but Americans seem to be on low profile, Arabs just seems to.... hmmmm..... hang out!

Coming to the title topic of today's blog:

A few days ago was Dec. 6th, according to Germany it's Saint Nicolaus!!! So in the morning "Santa" had placed chocolates in my shoes :) At night there was a Christmas gathering at one of the trainee's apartment above mine for celebrating St. N. with fruits to dip in hot melted chocolate :) It tasted great of course. All the trainees & employees of the company were there including our beloved Jordanian friends just hanging out & chilling to the new Christina Aguilera Christmas Album - no comment on Christina & her version of Christmas! All was well ba3dain qarraru il shabab il taybeh to go clubbing!

Tayyeb, olt balash akoon pooper especially after staring into space having my thought bubbles imagining Hussam saying "ya alla shu innek pooper"! In a 2 seats BMW we headed towards one of the sky scrapers in the nearby area to the very famous SCARLETTES bar which is at the World Trade Center (but I remember when we left it said Al Jumairah Hotel :S) no guys I wasn't drunk, I'm sure I'm still jet lagged or something. I'm sure Husam has been there, sa7 abu lsan?

Anyway going into that bar it was full, they didn't quite believe that I was above 21 but eventually we went in especially since it's ladies' night where the ladies get 2 free drink & the guys have to pay! Pure attraction for il sukor wil 3arbade. Mish maodoo3na. Il muhizz I got a coke & donated my other drink to one of the trainees, 7aram khtay, 2 drinks is too little! Then we started dancing, the dj was great btw, & *Maher who's a Jordanian employee who's been living in Dubai for about 3 years, he loves it here & never thinks of going back.I put my jacket on a nearby table, Maher said: "Hone mish zay 3amman ma 7ada byakhod ishi, don't worry". It's true, I sensed the safety when I first arrived in Dubai, no one seems to be worried about personal safety or their belongings, which is a nice feeling I must say.

While dancing he was chatting with me saying: "Lara hone mish zay 3amman, bti2dari ti3mili illi biddek iyyah o ma 7ada bi7ki 3alaiki"! I thought to my self: "ya salam! yis3id alla, I'm so thankful I'm here!!!!" Was that the reason he & his sister *Hana were here? Well I know this is not the way he meant it but it's so typical Arab- 'Freedom Seekers' as Omar likes to put it ;) So I just murmured while shaking my boodie to pump it up : "yeah I know". *The names have been changed mish 3ashanni bakhaf la2 wala shwai He asked me about myself & was shocked that I don't drink or smoke and said: " you'll change after these 6 months".

Guys you know my opinion about everything, I'm not going to say he's an idiot ( although he is), I'm not going to argue about what's right or wrong, what should & should not be, how shocked I am of how a person could deny what's good in his hometown the minute he leaves to another country but what I would say is that yimkin hone mish zay 3amman but males still ogle (bi basbisu for those who don't know the word ;)), traffic is horrible &........ I left the club without my jacket!

I still find Maher a funny guy, don't worry I didn't shoot him, but as I always like to put it when I don't approve of someone:
-albo tayyeb bas ada2o sayyi2- ;)

Dubai Newspaper

2005-12-07T15:13:00.001+02:00

There are various newspapers every morning in our reception area. Since the ride to the company takes about half an hour I decided to check one of them out today. It helps to read something especially after 3 days of listening to German conversations it still sounds like 'vinshinghinsin'. The newspaper is called 7days.
Read the following articles, they're very weird & interesting.

‘Look into my eyes’
Wednesday, 07 December 2005

Two men are claiming they were hypnotised by a man who forced them to hand over their valuables. Khader Yousuf said he was about to leave his office when an elderly man walked in.
“Just when we were about to close for the weekend, he walked into the office and sat on the chair placed near the entrance. The very first thing I noticed was that his bearded face had a sort of radiance,” said Yousef.
“He started telling me about my wife and that I would soon be a dad. He also said the baby would be a boy,” said Yousuf, whose pregnant wife had just left for her hometown in India.
The man then asked Yousuf to pick up a stone from outside. “Since I had taken a big stone, he asked me to get a smaller one. Placing it just below the fingers, he asked me to close my palm,” said Yousuf.
When Yousef opened his hand he said he was stunned to see the stone had turned into a red gem. “For sometime I could not speak to him. I just listened. That was when he asked me for some money.

I opened my wallet and found a dhs100 note. He took the money from my wallet, turned it around his face and blew into the note,” said Yousuf. He claimed the man then asked to borrow his mobile phone.
“I gave him the phone and was looking through some papers. When I looked up after two minutes, the man had disappeared,” he said. Another man, Santosh, said he was approached in the same way.
He was asked to roll up a small piece of paper and hold it near his chest. “After two minutes, when I opened my hand the paper had transformed into a small gem stone. I was stunned when I saw it,” said Santosh, who, like Yousuf, says he was asked to make a cup of tea for the conman.

“I had almost entered into a state of trance. My surroundings had disappeared. I was ready to do anything he wanted me to,” said Santosh who gave away his wallet, gold bracelet and the mobile phone.
“I was not aware of what was happening around me for over ten minutes after he had left. When I came back to my senses, I realised that he had managed to remove my sim card and hand it back to me. I even gave him my wallet.”
An Eye For An Eye
Wednesday, 07 December 2005
A criminal who blinded a young Saudi national in a fight faces
having his own eye surgically removed as a punishment. Naushad, 34, who
went to work in Saudi
Arabia eight years ago is currently in prison
awaiting the outcome of an appeal against the rare procedure.Under the
traditional Hamurabi code, a crime victim can either forgive the criminal for
the act, or demand retribution – in this case the removal of the offender’s eye,
which a lower court has already decreed.The victim’s family has refused to back
down
or accept money and has asked, as is their right, for the operation to
go ahead. If the eye-plucking goes ahead, it will be only the second
time the punishment has been used in Saudi Arabia in almost 40 years.
Three years ago Naushad sold a battery charger worth dhs20 to a young
Saudi man in a petrol
station near Dammam. The man returned a few hours
later and demanded a refund. When Naushad refused, a fight broke out.The Saudi
man was hit in the head with the charger, blinding him in his left eye. A
superior court in Riyadh has already asked the lower court in Damman to
re-investigate because of the unusual nature of the punishment.Naushad’s family
have already petitioned Kerala’s Chief Minister Oommen Chandy. The
family also plan to appeal directly to Saudi’s King Abdullah for
mercy."The punishment will be implemented by doctors of a government
hospital in Dammam," a friend of the convicted man told 7DAYS from Saudi Arabia.
In August 2000, the daily Okaz
reported that a Saudi court had ordered the surgical removal of the left eye of
Abd al-Muti Abdel Rahman Muhamed, an Egyptian, after he was convicted of
throwing acid in the face of another Egyptian, injuring and disfiguring his left eye.

Why is it that everytime I'm out of town my film shows?!!

2005-12-07T14:25:00.000+02:00

http://www.alghad.jo/?news=60847

الهيئة الملكية الأردنية للأفلام تنظم عروضا لأفلام أردنية قصيرة في الطفيلة ومعان
7/12/2005
وفيلم "مفترق طرق"، وهو فيلم درامي قصير من إخراج أمين مطالقة، يروي قصة فتاة جامعية تحاول أن تغير حياة طفل فقير يبيع العلكة والمحارم الورقية في الشارع. وقد كتبت النص لينا عجيلات طالبة في الجامعة الأردني.

Tab3an mahu ana bint il ghassaleh! Well at least this time they had my picture! ;) Willa la2 Lina!!

A proof

2005-12-06T13:44:00.000+02:00

Serina insisted that we take a picture under the YAL, al 3ashan nbayyen muhimmeen. Shu ba2dar a2ool, pooooooooper!

Some people never change..... like Serina!

2005-12-05T11:16:00.000+02:00

Waking up early yesterday morning to go to work was awful :S Having a 2 hour time difference that meant I'm waking up at 5.30 am! For those who know me well know that I never ever wake up that early even if I didn't finish studying for a final exam. I'm sure Lina can't relate to this at all :)
Il muhizz I was excited for my first day at thee Daimler-Chrysler Middle East company( illi shwai fishink.........u can't imagine keef il trash bins 3indhom. It's a black thing with a trash bag wrapped from the sides with a kushsheh! You'll see pics don't worry)Maybe I'm at the wrong company or something, the cars are nice but what's with the trash?:S
The warehouse is very nice, I must say. I was impressed.

To my fortune, yesterday was the last day to catch the 'Young Arab Leaders' conference & thus Serina illa3eena would be there & I'd surprise her:) Tab3an upon confrontation she had a shock on her face to see me o nattat zay il habla 3alai o drama o ta3beet o bose t2ool sarilna 10 sneen mish shayfeen ba3ad. "Like oh ma god! I can't believe you're here, like seriousely" Lola il 3aib willa kan bkeena.

Bala toolit seereh we decided (ma i7na osood fish warana 7ada) to have lunch together at the Jumaira Hotel where the conference were held. It was great to see her & exchange impressions about the city, she, of course was amazed by the beauty of the plastic city & I was, u know,being myself! Bas don't worry before she left I made sure she saw all the imperfections in the Perfect Fairy Tale City- as she likes to call it :p

We were so 'Japanese' (taking a lot of pictures) & had dessert & all was well when suddenly she said: "Lara, I'm going to the mall" ! How could she leave me there? I'm LaRRoura!
The plan was I'd call her (which is a hassle by the way since the telecommunications industry here is awful- another post) & meet her at the mall later after my work.
I didn't manage to see Queen Rania or Princess Haya but yalla I saw Serina!
I did see Prince Mohammad Bin Rashed Al Nahyan, in fact I walked right through a table meeting at the terrace with my "lalla la la la" attitude" not noticing the importance bas 3adi wala ka2inno sar ishi I kept on walking!!

MAHU GUYS LETS FACE IT, THEY ALL LOOK THE SAME WITH THEIR SMAKH IL
MARASEEM & EXTRA WHITE PERSIL DRESSES!

Of course Serina being part of the poopery gang (is she in 7ussam?) she told me not to go to the mall but that she'd pass by & pick me up to go out. I don't want to mention the times but Serina,AS USUAL, O I7NA MITGHARBEEN IN DUBAI, was late in picking me up for about 3.5 hours!!!!! It was a battle to stay awake & wait for her, not to mention that the plans have changed for 5 thousand times before we actually went out! Guys u see, people don't change when they change their environment, they stay poopers no matter where they are!!!! :)

To make a long story short (and suspicious) Serina & I went out in a 2005 Chevrolet for a 2 hour drive through Dubai to all the attraction spots there are to see. What a wild night it was! I can't mention details about the times but let's just say that my roommates think I am a party animal.....oh boy how shocked they will be!
Don't worry Serina what happenend in Dubai will stay in Dubai ;)

But to understand to which extent Serina went crazy please ask her about the pictures she took of the Grand Hyatt bathroom! I must admit it's beautiful :'( it's more beautiful than my whole apartment! But then again I don't pay $400 a night ;)

Dubai (India)

2005-12-04T08:03:00.000+02:00

Coming to Dubai was everybody's dream but mine! It's not that I'm too snobbish to like this city but I believe that kulshi b wa2to 7ilu, this is just not the time for me. Starting from Amman airport I start my six month journey for my internship.

For all those of you who know me, I hate dabshat especially those from males! The man at the airport, while looking at me in that so typical bee-majal-la-3olaga smile said: " ray7a 3al emarat willa dubai?" Bearing in mind the story of 1 day earlier I went to Centro with my work colleagues for a farewell brunch where the not-so-charming waiter said (when I asked him about what they had of juices) :" fee orAnge, fee abble fee ba3id" I usually just answer a shrugged answer showing them that they're not so funny, but this time I just let it go and answered what every male would want a girl to answer:" he hi2, 3al tnain!:)"

I'm still new to this blogging thing so I'll just assume that it's fine to mention brand names. Going to thee Emirates Airlines after hearing so much about it that it's thee ultimate airline to travel with having your own OH MY GOD 50 CHANNELS OF MUSIC, MOVIES & GAMES.... was not so impressive. Let's start with the earphones, were not clear at all if available aslan, so I only heard half of Joey's show & yes played hang man for 1 hour! I must say it gets very difficult when you have only one vowel in a 3 letter word ;) When I asked the stewardess (who has the worst job on earth I believe) for help 3 times, nobody ever came to help although my cabin light was on.... the whole time of the trip! + their uniforms are horrible! :S The food was not so good & can we please discuss the fabric of the seats. WHAT KIND OF A PERSON WOULD CHOOSE THIS DESIGN :S eww!
When the captain was speaking on the speakers he was so relaxed, high I believe, as if he's talking on the phone with his friends "hello!(high pitched) ladies & gentlemen, this journey is taking you to DU_BAI!Amaaaaaaazing weather we're having....... Mkayyeeeeeeeeef ma3 inno he was 15 min. late!I think he'd make a great dj I think! Oh well, I like RJ :D

Tayyeb wsilna o olna ya hadi, the airport is nice & huge, just like Europe bas of course I wanted to arrive asap 3ashan ma n2akhkher il jama3a illi bistannuni mish aktar willa omam rabna in the line! But of course the majority are Indians, ya3ni taraku India o kul blad il 3alam o aju 3a Dubai. O hakatha onwards you spot them everywhere in Dubai. It was nice seeing all those people from all around the world at the airport, all speaking a different language & different accents. Diversity is good.

Arriving at the 7th floor apartment where I'm staying it was nice & quiet, livable. The apartment is nothing fancy but I hope I can post pictures of funny things there. Masalan my bathroom mafi switch for the light, fee a string that you pull, yes like in the movies where the victim goes to the basement to look for the poor dog & pulls the light switching on the bulb. The kitchen is okay, I have some space for my things, there's a living room with TV & a dining room, a balcony that over looks an exhibition, on the right are the emirates towers, on the left is the World Trade Center. Not bad.
My roommates :) They're nice bas a7la ishi feehom inhom smoke free :) Not boyfriend, free but smoke free, that's even better. One of them is Iranian (Mishmisheh), she looks so much like Arabs. The other is German(Firyal)...... & looks like Germans.

* The names have been changed tab3an, mish 3ashanni bakhaf la2 bas 3ashan 3aib ya3ni ;)

Mishmisheh mnee7a bas awiyyeh mbayneh, Firyal lazeezeh o normal. Till now I didn't spot any suspicious movements or habits bas tab3an being me there's always something fishy (dareen ;))
Currently I'm at the office, nice place bas mish a7la min FASTLINK. Nothing is apparent till now but they seem like nice people. Kulhom min hadeek il jinsiyyeh bardo bas there's a guy from Agentina :) I can practice my Spanish ! 7aram ra7 yigizz! Hola mi amigo!

I hope I can post pictures often coz there are a lot of weird things here in the plastic city where everything is perfect. I'll go sightseeing soon, I want to explore things since jay o jay ya3ni.

Oh & yes I have seen garbage in the streets!

Regards to all