Highlight of my 2008

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

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

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

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