I don't have much ridiculousness to report yet from the work end. There's a ton of stuff I have to do, but I feel like that's a good thing, since I spend eight hours (or more) a day doing it. So, yes. Work is satisfactory. What is MORE satisfactory is the overall way I spent yesterday. Here is my schedule.
7am - wake up (sortof)
7:15am - wake up again
7:30am - wake up for real, put on clothing
8:00am - work begins (it's bad news, don't you think, that I am already pushing the limits of how late I can get up, and it's only my third day?)
4:00pm - work ends. Stuff happened in between, but none of it is worth commenting on here.
5:00pm - I go out!
7:00pm - I come home
7:30pm - I go out again!
11:30pm - I come home
LOOK at me. I am so BUSY. and FANCY. and COOL.
Okay, so let me tell you about my excursions. The first was a landmark event - the first time in my more-than-five-years in Saudi that I went out of the house alone. Obviously, I had a driver, but the important element is that when I got to the mall, I got out alone, I went in alone, and I did my shopping alone! Last time I was here as a student I was required to bring a maid with me whenever I left the dorm, and before that when I was here with the family I can't imagine why I would have gone out without a family member or a friend... so! I am finally a free and independent woman. Doing my own shopping, buying some books and laundry detergent AND A SIM CARD. OH YEAH BABY. I have a cell phone. It is such a relief. Not having a cell phone made me feel like I was missing a limb. In Saudi, the cell phone is, in fact, a limb, and without it.... I arrived three days ago, and yet whenever I tell people I don't have a mobile they look at me like I've just told them I didn't bring any clothing with me. Yes folks, not only am I going to work naked, but I am doing it WITHOUT A CELL PHONE. The horrors!
Of course, for the first hour or two of owning this SIM card it wasn't working, and I was throwing myself hither and yon in frustration, wailing and gnashing my teeth. But then Penny, darling lovely Penny, touched it with her magic fingers and suddenly it worked. Ah, the joys.
So after my adventurous single-woman excursion, Mona picked me up for a Team Fabulous dinner at Caspar & Gambini's, the neat modern restaraunt that I enjoyed so much last time I was here. I had mint with lime (yum!) for the first time this trip (I will have to learn how to make it) and met one of Penny's friends, Lamees, who seems fantastic. I'm making new friends already!
Also, for reasons I cannot reveal, I may be required to go to Hyderabad, India this summer. Who? Oh yeah. That would be me. Ha! Writhe in jealousy, you wanna-be awesome people! I am the real deal! I'm so awesome I get to go to India over the summer! here will be an event. And I am going to be the weird white girl who dresses in a sari and makes a fool of herself for her friend's entertainment. There was some discussion that pole dancing might be involved, but I think that before I go that far I should probably take some pole dancing lessons. After all, if I'm going to be a shameless American hussy, I should at least do it with style. It would be really embarrassing to be an awkward shameless American hussy.
Anyone know of pole dancing classes in Saudi Arabia?
There are a ton of other plans in the works which are all very exciting. Suffice it to say my sister was jealous of me yesterday. And this is the sister who spent last year in Cairo smoking shisha and being awesome. She's jealous of ME. Ha!
Okay, off to work! Hopefully I will get some time to sit around and be bored this afternoon, maybe do some laundry, take a nap, etc. Being fabulously popular and busy takes its toll on a girl after a while.
Bwahahahahahah!
Monday, September 03, 2007
Sunday, September 02, 2007
I am Employable!
Hey there blog fans, something amazing happened today. I began my employment, which implies that I am employable. Can we say ego boost?
Of course, since this is Saudi Arabia, nothing is simple or to be taken for granted, so of course my first day was full of its own joyful ridiculousness.
They sent me to go get pictures taken and blood drawn. Of course, nobody bothered to tell ME this was where they were sending me - instead, they talked about it in Arabic all around me, so that I vaguely had some idea of what was going on, and then they sent me out with a driver who didn't speak much English, and I guess I was just supposed to assume he knew what he was doing. Luckily, he did. Thank goodness for trustworthy, competent drivers. Where would we be without them?
Not that it was clear to me in the beginning that he was competent or trustworthy. He took me to a supermarket first. "Okay," I think to myself, "he probably has an errand to run or something." But he motions me out of the car. Or, I think he motions me out of the car - it was pretty unclear exactly what he was trying to communicate to me, but I got out of the car anyway and followed him in. We walk towards the fruit. "Ah," I think, "I'm an idiot - he only wanted to buy himself something to eat. I shouldn't have come in." But we move further back, into the vegetable oil section (since it's near Ramadan every single supermarket in the universe is selling vegetable oil by the gallon. I, myself, bought a full 4 litres the other day because it was the SMALLEST QUANTITY AVAILABLE). And then through the vegetable oil section into the non-food section. "Okay..." I think, "We're here to buy.... a microwave. Clothing for his children. A tent for camping...." And then, in the midst of my confusion, we arrive in the back corner of the store where a teeeeeeny tiny little camera shop has been cleverly hidden. And in this teeeeeny tiny little camera shop there is a man who doesn't speak, and his camera and computer and a printer. So he takes a picture of me, downloads it onto his camera and starts... airbrushing my face. "It's okay," I say, "I am just using this for my igama, it's not necessary for you to touch it up." And the picture on the screen is gigantic, you can practically see my pores from where I'm standing all the way across the room, and the driver is standing there, and you can tell that he thinks it's really awkward that this guy is scrutinizing my enormous digital face right in front of me. And I agree. Awkward. The guy finally looks up from my nose and forehead in order to tell me he has to fix my face because of the pimples. Pimples! Well, I'll be. He knows at least one word. And thanks, dude, for talking about my acne (which, by the way, is not that bad, thank you very much) in front of my random driver and... I mean, come on, just print the stupid pictures, I don't want to stand here looking at my giant face any longer!
So, that was a good time.
And then on to the blood-letting. I went to a Bangladeshi clinic where the woman at reception spoke some language which was neither Bengali nor English but some incomprehensible amalgam of the two, and directed me to give her my igama repeatedly, which I repeatedly said I didn't yet have, explaining that this was why i needed the blood tests. And after lots of wrangling I got sent upstairs to room number 8 where my blood was drawn unceremoniously. But I was impressed by the amount I was not afraid of getting random diseases from dirty needles. Everything seemed a lot less sterile than I am used to, but not so much as to be actually dangerous.
SO, yes. All was good on my first day. Of course, not much got actually accomplished, but at least I'm on my way. Striding forward.
Of course, since this is Saudi Arabia, nothing is simple or to be taken for granted, so of course my first day was full of its own joyful ridiculousness.
They sent me to go get pictures taken and blood drawn. Of course, nobody bothered to tell ME this was where they were sending me - instead, they talked about it in Arabic all around me, so that I vaguely had some idea of what was going on, and then they sent me out with a driver who didn't speak much English, and I guess I was just supposed to assume he knew what he was doing. Luckily, he did. Thank goodness for trustworthy, competent drivers. Where would we be without them?
Not that it was clear to me in the beginning that he was competent or trustworthy. He took me to a supermarket first. "Okay," I think to myself, "he probably has an errand to run or something." But he motions me out of the car. Or, I think he motions me out of the car - it was pretty unclear exactly what he was trying to communicate to me, but I got out of the car anyway and followed him in. We walk towards the fruit. "Ah," I think, "I'm an idiot - he only wanted to buy himself something to eat. I shouldn't have come in." But we move further back, into the vegetable oil section (since it's near Ramadan every single supermarket in the universe is selling vegetable oil by the gallon. I, myself, bought a full 4 litres the other day because it was the SMALLEST QUANTITY AVAILABLE). And then through the vegetable oil section into the non-food section. "Okay..." I think, "We're here to buy.... a microwave. Clothing for his children. A tent for camping...." And then, in the midst of my confusion, we arrive in the back corner of the store where a teeeeeeny tiny little camera shop has been cleverly hidden. And in this teeeeeny tiny little camera shop there is a man who doesn't speak, and his camera and computer and a printer. So he takes a picture of me, downloads it onto his camera and starts... airbrushing my face. "It's okay," I say, "I am just using this for my igama, it's not necessary for you to touch it up." And the picture on the screen is gigantic, you can practically see my pores from where I'm standing all the way across the room, and the driver is standing there, and you can tell that he thinks it's really awkward that this guy is scrutinizing my enormous digital face right in front of me. And I agree. Awkward. The guy finally looks up from my nose and forehead in order to tell me he has to fix my face because of the pimples. Pimples! Well, I'll be. He knows at least one word. And thanks, dude, for talking about my acne (which, by the way, is not that bad, thank you very much) in front of my random driver and... I mean, come on, just print the stupid pictures, I don't want to stand here looking at my giant face any longer!
So, that was a good time.
And then on to the blood-letting. I went to a Bangladeshi clinic where the woman at reception spoke some language which was neither Bengali nor English but some incomprehensible amalgam of the two, and directed me to give her my igama repeatedly, which I repeatedly said I didn't yet have, explaining that this was why i needed the blood tests. And after lots of wrangling I got sent upstairs to room number 8 where my blood was drawn unceremoniously. But I was impressed by the amount I was not afraid of getting random diseases from dirty needles. Everything seemed a lot less sterile than I am used to, but not so much as to be actually dangerous.
SO, yes. All was good on my first day. Of course, not much got actually accomplished, but at least I'm on my way. Striding forward.
Friday, August 31, 2007
Money, Money, Money
Must be funny... in a rich man's world.
Note: You can tell that Saudi is a cash culture because at an ATM you have the option of taking out anywhere up to about SR5000, which is more than $1000. Gotta love it. You buy your CAR with cash here.
Note: You can tell that Saudi is a cash culture because at an ATM you have the option of taking out anywhere up to about SR5000, which is more than $1000. Gotta love it. You buy your CAR with cash here.
Exciting!
Elisabeth here. Posting from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
I had to wait a day to post this because I was too tired to infuse a post with all of the enthusiasm it deserved. I have arrived! Let me repeat that:
I HAVE ARRIVED!
I'm also hungry. One moment while I fetch myself some leftover chicken...
...
Yum. Anyway, so, I arrived in Jeddah last night, at the airport. I was exhausted, because my BMI flight over was less than fantastic. So those blankets that they wrap in plastic and give to you? Yeah, not actually clean. In fact, my pillow was disgusting also. Both my blanket and my pillow were covered in crustiness and... well, it was totally gross. They gave me new blankets and pillows when I complained, but it's not like I trusted the plastic wrapping to guarantee cleanliness any more. And I didn't have any free seats next to me, so I had to sit up the whole time. You can tell I'm getting spoiled when I complain about having to sit up the whole time.
I did, however, finish a fantastic fantastic book. Waiting for Snow in Havana by Carlos Eire. Who happens to have been my professor for Reformation Europe last year. He is a great lecturer, extremely entertaining, and his writing is FANTASTIC. Highly recommended. Very, very interesting.
I just opened the curtain on my window and guess what? NO BARS! And not even fogged out! I have a giant window that looks right out onto the fabulousness of Effat's back yard! Now I can REALLY tell I'm staff rather than student!
I am so easily distracted. I wanted to tell you about my chicken but it would ruin the surprise.
SO, I get off the mostly-uncomfortable BMI flight (and my neck is killing me, by the way. Whiplash! Yay!) and into the Jeddah airport, where everything goes fine until the guy at passport control asks me "You have baber?"
Huh? I mean, I get that he's asking for a paper. But... well, I'm carrying many papers, and none of them were specifically designated as "papers for the passport guy". So I say no, I don't have the baber, and he sends me over somewhere else. I start to panic, but in a quiet way.
Luckily, after giving another guy my passport and him staring at it for a "buttock-clenching" fifteen minutes (I got this phrase off of BBC's Planet Earth, and I am now very fond of it) he stamped it and waved me through. And then there I was, in the baggage claim area, waiting for some random Samir to identify himself to me and take me away. Now, I can probably get in a cab and be okay on my own, thank God, but it's much easier to go through customs if you have a man there with you, because the security guards hardly ever stop somebody with an official-looking helper-person. And this was particularly important for me, since I had a load of DVDs and a couple of books that I would really rather not have taken away from me...
As luck would have it, my British SIM card would let me make calls in Saudi, for some exhorbitant price, so I called Samir. And, in the 15 seconds of air time that my three quid bought me, we established that he was standing right next to me. Phew.
So, we find my bag, blah blah blah, boringness, and I am totally zoned out, thanking God it was this easy, as we walk out of customs. And then I hear a loud cough. And another one. And I look around, and I have just walked past a giant sign that says
LIZ
And next to it another one which says "Alizabet Bosley. Efat Tugz". And behind it, Penny and Melvi and Dima! Team Fabulous came to meet me at the airport! Well, everything was happy after that. Of course, I had my own EC car to take me here, so I came here, and they followed me, stopping off for Al-Beik on the way! So now you know the secret of how I come to have chicken in my fridge! I had Team Fabulous and Al-Beik my first day here! It was like a dream come true! I think somebody took a picture of me, looking rapturous, as I bit into my chicken sandwich for the first time in a year and that sweet taste of garlic filled my mouth.
And then, of course, they stayed much too late in my new residence and poor Dima got locked in, which meant we had to wake up Mrs. Inaam to let her out. Yes! Mrs. Inaam! I bet she loves me already!
Woohaha. Causing trouble in the big city already. I am such a rebel.
Speaking of residences, the room is really sweet. Two levels - bed on top, bathroom, kitchenette, and seating area downstairs. And an air conditioner with a remote control. I am so high tech!
Aaaaaand... yeah, that's about it. The most exciting thing to happen post- al-Beik was the discovery that my phones DO have a number, and now I know what it is, so anybody who wants to call my land line, let me know and I will give you the numero. Of course, with luck, I will never be in my room. Not that it isn't lovely. And! Free internet! Ah, how things have advanced while I was away!
This afternoon will involve my first foray into Jeddah proper, as we go find a Panda of some sort so that I can buy shampoo, and toothpaste, and some food, and some laundry detergent. All of the essentials.
So, now that you are all up-to-date, I am going to get back to unpacking my tiny 20kg suitcase which has to last me the three weeks until I get my iqama and can claim my shipment of everything I own. And maybe write down a list of things I have to do. I love lists!
The end.
I had to wait a day to post this because I was too tired to infuse a post with all of the enthusiasm it deserved. I have arrived! Let me repeat that:
I HAVE ARRIVED!
I'm also hungry. One moment while I fetch myself some leftover chicken...
...
Yum. Anyway, so, I arrived in Jeddah last night, at the airport. I was exhausted, because my BMI flight over was less than fantastic. So those blankets that they wrap in plastic and give to you? Yeah, not actually clean. In fact, my pillow was disgusting also. Both my blanket and my pillow were covered in crustiness and... well, it was totally gross. They gave me new blankets and pillows when I complained, but it's not like I trusted the plastic wrapping to guarantee cleanliness any more. And I didn't have any free seats next to me, so I had to sit up the whole time. You can tell I'm getting spoiled when I complain about having to sit up the whole time.
I did, however, finish a fantastic fantastic book. Waiting for Snow in Havana by Carlos Eire. Who happens to have been my professor for Reformation Europe last year. He is a great lecturer, extremely entertaining, and his writing is FANTASTIC. Highly recommended. Very, very interesting.
I just opened the curtain on my window and guess what? NO BARS! And not even fogged out! I have a giant window that looks right out onto the fabulousness of Effat's back yard! Now I can REALLY tell I'm staff rather than student!
I am so easily distracted. I wanted to tell you about my chicken but it would ruin the surprise.
SO, I get off the mostly-uncomfortable BMI flight (and my neck is killing me, by the way. Whiplash! Yay!) and into the Jeddah airport, where everything goes fine until the guy at passport control asks me "You have baber?"
Huh? I mean, I get that he's asking for a paper. But... well, I'm carrying many papers, and none of them were specifically designated as "papers for the passport guy". So I say no, I don't have the baber, and he sends me over somewhere else. I start to panic, but in a quiet way.
Luckily, after giving another guy my passport and him staring at it for a "buttock-clenching" fifteen minutes (I got this phrase off of BBC's Planet Earth, and I am now very fond of it) he stamped it and waved me through. And then there I was, in the baggage claim area, waiting for some random Samir to identify himself to me and take me away. Now, I can probably get in a cab and be okay on my own, thank God, but it's much easier to go through customs if you have a man there with you, because the security guards hardly ever stop somebody with an official-looking helper-person. And this was particularly important for me, since I had a load of DVDs and a couple of books that I would really rather not have taken away from me...
As luck would have it, my British SIM card would let me make calls in Saudi, for some exhorbitant price, so I called Samir. And, in the 15 seconds of air time that my three quid bought me, we established that he was standing right next to me. Phew.
So, we find my bag, blah blah blah, boringness, and I am totally zoned out, thanking God it was this easy, as we walk out of customs. And then I hear a loud cough. And another one. And I look around, and I have just walked past a giant sign that says
LIZ
And next to it another one which says "Alizabet Bosley. Efat Tugz". And behind it, Penny and Melvi and Dima! Team Fabulous came to meet me at the airport! Well, everything was happy after that. Of course, I had my own EC car to take me here, so I came here, and they followed me, stopping off for Al-Beik on the way! So now you know the secret of how I come to have chicken in my fridge! I had Team Fabulous and Al-Beik my first day here! It was like a dream come true! I think somebody took a picture of me, looking rapturous, as I bit into my chicken sandwich for the first time in a year and that sweet taste of garlic filled my mouth.
And then, of course, they stayed much too late in my new residence and poor Dima got locked in, which meant we had to wake up Mrs. Inaam to let her out. Yes! Mrs. Inaam! I bet she loves me already!
Woohaha. Causing trouble in the big city already. I am such a rebel.
Speaking of residences, the room is really sweet. Two levels - bed on top, bathroom, kitchenette, and seating area downstairs. And an air conditioner with a remote control. I am so high tech!
Aaaaaand... yeah, that's about it. The most exciting thing to happen post- al-Beik was the discovery that my phones DO have a number, and now I know what it is, so anybody who wants to call my land line, let me know and I will give you the numero. Of course, with luck, I will never be in my room. Not that it isn't lovely. And! Free internet! Ah, how things have advanced while I was away!
This afternoon will involve my first foray into Jeddah proper, as we go find a Panda of some sort so that I can buy shampoo, and toothpaste, and some food, and some laundry detergent. All of the essentials.
So, now that you are all up-to-date, I am going to get back to unpacking my tiny 20kg suitcase which has to last me the three weeks until I get my iqama and can claim my shipment of everything I own. And maybe write down a list of things I have to do. I love lists!
The end.
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Ahoy, ye sandy seas!
As everyone in my family is well aware, we have a problem. We are addicted to the Middle East. And, since Rachel left Cairo last year, the family presence in the region has been sadly.... diminished. Thus I am taking one for the team and returning.
Three things I am excited about:
1) bilingual business cards
2) tupperware
3) frequent flyer miles
(4) going to the Amazon. one day.)
Shut up. I'm allowed to have four things if I want.
Three things I am excited about:
1) bilingual business cards
2) tupperware
3) frequent flyer miles
(4) going to the Amazon. one day.)
Shut up. I'm allowed to have four things if I want.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
aaaaaaaaaaand im leaving
a friend of mine asked - in complete seriousness im sure - for a final report on all things accomplished in egpyt. boredom overcame my original idea to send him the script from cleopatra, and the list can be found below. you can make up your own mind as to how much is true. and there are def parts in there that you shouldnt even bother trying to understand. my tendancy to have running inside jokes with myself can get away from me at times.
Things accomplished in cairo:
Learned to cook eggs
Married 3 egyptian men. Divorced 1. Had nothing to do with the mysterious disappearances of the other 2.
Worked 7 hours total
Spent so much time at marriot pool there is now a drink named after me
Attempted 1 military coup
Bribed 2 guards
Was thrown out of 1 govt institution as result of failed bribe
Was arrested at 1 jordanian border checkpoint
Learned 3 arabic curse words
Learned 4 arabic words total
Amended the constitution – with connie’s permission – to allow study abroad American female students to inherit presidency from Mubarak in place of mubarak’s son
Imprisoned 8 members of muslim brotherhood
Had 5 conversations with cab drivers concerning universal hatred of pres. bush
Had 1 conversation with cab driver concerning American culture = premarital sex
Attempted to bargain 19876 times
Succeeded at bargaining 0 times
Discovered the art of cutting mangos (YES)
Called internet company 56879 times over period of 3 months. Was issued 1 restraining order after supposedly “threatening” said internet company operator
Discovered the label I should be shooting for is not “hipster” but “stoner”
Developed ‘glare of death’ – only to be used on level 10 creepy Egyptian dudes
Declared war on 1 zionist entity (necessary when staying in egypt)
Rejected 6 attempted converstions to islam
Seriously offended 5 pious muslims
Was subject of 1 unnecessary mass email to dorm list concerning Hispanics (hah)
Was charged but never convicted with burying 1 evil RA – with a bit more silicone then is natural if you know what I mean – alive under pyramids
Converted 1 egyptian to American consumerism = devil worship
Participated in 1 riot
Spent 4 weekends camping in desert
Rolled down 11 sand dunes (awesome)
Fell down 5 (trickly little devils)
Ruined 1 ipod
Killed 1 computer battery (bloody...macs...)
Traveled to 1 malarial infected region
Took 0 doses of malaria medication
Was checked into 1 egyptian hospital
Smoked 1356 shishas
Was informed only prostitutes go to favorite shisha café
Disregarded above information
Was propositioned 11 times
Accepted 1 proposition in exchange for private jet
Crashed 1 private jet in sahara desert
Ate 1 pilot after crashing private jet in sahara without food (tastes like chicken)
Died 1 tragic death
Things accomplished in cairo:
Learned to cook eggs
Married 3 egyptian men. Divorced 1. Had nothing to do with the mysterious disappearances of the other 2.
Worked 7 hours total
Spent so much time at marriot pool there is now a drink named after me
Attempted 1 military coup
Bribed 2 guards
Was thrown out of 1 govt institution as result of failed bribe
Was arrested at 1 jordanian border checkpoint
Learned 3 arabic curse words
Learned 4 arabic words total
Amended the constitution – with connie’s permission – to allow study abroad American female students to inherit presidency from Mubarak in place of mubarak’s son
Imprisoned 8 members of muslim brotherhood
Had 5 conversations with cab drivers concerning universal hatred of pres. bush
Had 1 conversation with cab driver concerning American culture = premarital sex
Attempted to bargain 19876 times
Succeeded at bargaining 0 times
Discovered the art of cutting mangos (YES)
Called internet company 56879 times over period of 3 months. Was issued 1 restraining order after supposedly “threatening” said internet company operator
Discovered the label I should be shooting for is not “hipster” but “stoner”
Developed ‘glare of death’ – only to be used on level 10 creepy Egyptian dudes
Declared war on 1 zionist entity (necessary when staying in egypt)
Rejected 6 attempted converstions to islam
Seriously offended 5 pious muslims
Was subject of 1 unnecessary mass email to dorm list concerning Hispanics (hah)
Was charged but never convicted with burying 1 evil RA – with a bit more silicone then is natural if you know what I mean – alive under pyramids
Converted 1 egyptian to American consumerism = devil worship
Participated in 1 riot
Spent 4 weekends camping in desert
Rolled down 11 sand dunes (awesome)
Fell down 5 (trickly little devils)
Ruined 1 ipod
Killed 1 computer battery (bloody...macs...)
Traveled to 1 malarial infected region
Took 0 doses of malaria medication
Was checked into 1 egyptian hospital
Smoked 1356 shishas
Was informed only prostitutes go to favorite shisha café
Disregarded above information
Was propositioned 11 times
Accepted 1 proposition in exchange for private jet
Crashed 1 private jet in sahara desert
Ate 1 pilot after crashing private jet in sahara without food (tastes like chicken)
Died 1 tragic death
Saturday, May 12, 2007
A random something.
ملء السنابل ينحنين تواضعا والفرغات رؤوسهن عوالى
"The wheat greans that are full (of wheat) bend down
And those that are empty, their heads are high."
I got this from a friend today and thought it was lovely (and appropriate to so so so many people).
Also, I am officially done with college. Assuming I didn't fail any of the things I just turned in, I'll be all graduated within three weeks. And then it's off to the real world with me (or as "real" as you can really call Saudi Arabia).
"The wheat greans that are full (of wheat) bend down
And those that are empty, their heads are high."
I got this from a friend today and thought it was lovely (and appropriate to so so so many people).
Also, I am officially done with college. Assuming I didn't fail any of the things I just turned in, I'll be all graduated within three weeks. And then it's off to the real world with me (or as "real" as you can really call Saudi Arabia).
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Foreign types with the hookah pipes say - Walk Like an Egyptian
my taxi driver this morning was entertaining. i flag him down and lean in the windown - "gama'at amrikia?" he nods his head and i jump in as the car behind us gets bored with waiting and leans on their horn. "shukran" i tell the taxi driver - i am always polite. he nods his head and turns his music up. and starts singing along. loudly. this only lasts for a few minutes though before he turns the music back down and starts singing his own, special little song. "bonjour papa bonjour mama!" he yells. then later "jackie chan!" this is, mind you, what i caught. totally didnt understand most of it. he is also steering the car with his knee most of the time as he gestures wildly at the other cars and motions to imaginary figures in the seat next to him.
i tell you this not because this is very unusual - while this taxi driver might have come across as a bit less mentally competant than your average egyptian, he is by no means unique among taxi drivers. ive had taxi drivers drive me to the wrong side of the city, on purpose. theyve insulted me and asked me to marry them, marry their sons. one tried to discuss pre-marital sex in america with me, and then ended the conversation with a proposition. theyve run into things and ppl and down the wrong side of the road, usually at speeds i try not to think about. but this is egypt - no one is totally sane here. i recently met a friend of a friend who was visiting egypt for a conference i (sort of) attended and she made an observation that i think will communicate the general feel of cairo fairly well. being in egypt is very much like being the only sober person at a party where every single person is on LSD. and totally hammered. if you stay at the party long enough, and partake in the entertainment, the party will begin to make more sense to you. but there's no way youll ever catch up to them - theyve had waay too much of a head start.
i tell you this not because this is very unusual - while this taxi driver might have come across as a bit less mentally competant than your average egyptian, he is by no means unique among taxi drivers. ive had taxi drivers drive me to the wrong side of the city, on purpose. theyve insulted me and asked me to marry them, marry their sons. one tried to discuss pre-marital sex in america with me, and then ended the conversation with a proposition. theyve run into things and ppl and down the wrong side of the road, usually at speeds i try not to think about. but this is egypt - no one is totally sane here. i recently met a friend of a friend who was visiting egypt for a conference i (sort of) attended and she made an observation that i think will communicate the general feel of cairo fairly well. being in egypt is very much like being the only sober person at a party where every single person is on LSD. and totally hammered. if you stay at the party long enough, and partake in the entertainment, the party will begin to make more sense to you. but there's no way youll ever catch up to them - theyve had waay too much of a head start.
Hey sweet annie, dont take it so bad
you know that summers coming soon
though {CAIRO} is choking under salt and dirty sand
and it seems the sun is hiding from the moon
your daddy told you when you were a girl the kind of things that come to those who wait
so give it a rest girl, take a deep breath girl...
not too deep though. less than a month to go! ok ive passed the nostalgic phase and i have entered the GET ME OUT OF HERE phase. not that im not planning on attending that rooftop shisha partay tonight. sweeeeeeeeeeet.
so i live on this island in the nile called zamalek. its one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in cairo so, i mean, it tries at least. at life. and other things. it sort of failed last week though when someone managed to cut off electricity to the ENTIRE ISLAND. and guess where i was at the time. i was in an elevator. between floors. with 2 egyptian guys. there i am just minding my own business - ive got my headphones in, listening to the kinks or something and doing my best to ignore the two other ppl im crammed into this 2 foot wide elevator with when suddenly: total darkness. and the elevator stops moving. and that lovely cairo summer heat hits us. now elevators in egypt dont have doors so we knew by the concrete wall where the door to a floor should have been that we were between floors. and i understood from a conversation one of the egyptian dudes had via cell phone that the electricity was out on the entire island, and that it could last for 2 and a half - 3 hrs. i am briefly hysterical at the thought of spending that much quality time with the other elevator occupants. one of the egyptian guys informed us authoritatively that we would run out of air shortly (which was total bull - i doubt even the places in egypt that are SUPPOSED to be airtight actually are) but it was enough to get the other dude panicking. after listening to him hyperventilating for about 3 minutes, i put my headphones back in and tried not to make comparisons to coffins, or think about whether egyptian elevators required electricity to stay up. it took us about an hour to get in contact with the building management - they dont have emergency elevator phones in egypt. and the bowabs hadnt bothered to check the elevators when the electricity went out, instead deciding to congregate on the bottom floor and have lunch. but we did eventually manage to get out when i got a friend to inform them of our predicament and they manually lowered the elevator enough for us to squeeze out onto the 17th floor. definately a bad day to wear a skirt. in my quest to find someone to let building management know that there were ppl suffocating in an elevator 18 floors up i called about 10 of my friends.
me: hey hey how are you doing
friend/potential rescuer: good good whatsup
me: well... im ok. you arent, by any chance, near my building are you?
friend: ummm no im at school/work/the zoo/another country
me: riiiiiiiiight...so you arent going to be near the building anytime soon, are you?
friend: no... why? ...is that someone crying in the background?
me: yeah well im sort of trapped. in an elevator. with 2 strange egyptian men. its dark and about 100 degrees... and no one knows we're here. you know, bc zamalek has lost electricity. i dont suppose there's a coup going on or anything, is there?
friend: i dont know... i could check i guess.
unfortunately no coup... no explanation either. ah well such is cairo. i suppose im lucky they could figure out how to move the elevator sans electricity instead of just saying "ma'alesh" and leaving us in there. this was followed, of course, with me having to walk down 17 flights of stairs. bitches.
though {CAIRO} is choking under salt and dirty sand
and it seems the sun is hiding from the moon
your daddy told you when you were a girl the kind of things that come to those who wait
so give it a rest girl, take a deep breath girl...
not too deep though. less than a month to go! ok ive passed the nostalgic phase and i have entered the GET ME OUT OF HERE phase. not that im not planning on attending that rooftop shisha partay tonight. sweeeeeeeeeeet.
so i live on this island in the nile called zamalek. its one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in cairo so, i mean, it tries at least. at life. and other things. it sort of failed last week though when someone managed to cut off electricity to the ENTIRE ISLAND. and guess where i was at the time. i was in an elevator. between floors. with 2 egyptian guys. there i am just minding my own business - ive got my headphones in, listening to the kinks or something and doing my best to ignore the two other ppl im crammed into this 2 foot wide elevator with when suddenly: total darkness. and the elevator stops moving. and that lovely cairo summer heat hits us. now elevators in egypt dont have doors so we knew by the concrete wall where the door to a floor should have been that we were between floors. and i understood from a conversation one of the egyptian dudes had via cell phone that the electricity was out on the entire island, and that it could last for 2 and a half - 3 hrs. i am briefly hysterical at the thought of spending that much quality time with the other elevator occupants. one of the egyptian guys informed us authoritatively that we would run out of air shortly (which was total bull - i doubt even the places in egypt that are SUPPOSED to be airtight actually are) but it was enough to get the other dude panicking. after listening to him hyperventilating for about 3 minutes, i put my headphones back in and tried not to make comparisons to coffins, or think about whether egyptian elevators required electricity to stay up. it took us about an hour to get in contact with the building management - they dont have emergency elevator phones in egypt. and the bowabs hadnt bothered to check the elevators when the electricity went out, instead deciding to congregate on the bottom floor and have lunch. but we did eventually manage to get out when i got a friend to inform them of our predicament and they manually lowered the elevator enough for us to squeeze out onto the 17th floor. definately a bad day to wear a skirt. in my quest to find someone to let building management know that there were ppl suffocating in an elevator 18 floors up i called about 10 of my friends.
me: hey hey how are you doing
friend/potential rescuer: good good whatsup
me: well... im ok. you arent, by any chance, near my building are you?
friend: ummm no im at school/work/the zoo/another country
me: riiiiiiiiight...so you arent going to be near the building anytime soon, are you?
friend: no... why? ...is that someone crying in the background?
me: yeah well im sort of trapped. in an elevator. with 2 strange egyptian men. its dark and about 100 degrees... and no one knows we're here. you know, bc zamalek has lost electricity. i dont suppose there's a coup going on or anything, is there?
friend: i dont know... i could check i guess.
unfortunately no coup... no explanation either. ah well such is cairo. i suppose im lucky they could figure out how to move the elevator sans electricity instead of just saying "ma'alesh" and leaving us in there. this was followed, of course, with me having to walk down 17 flights of stairs. bitches.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Apathesia
is that a word? hmmm i dont care. why? because i am feeling, well, apathetic. this is very strange for me... but i currently seem to be apathetic about pretty much everything. politics. what country im in. what language im speaking. guys. friends. who i hang out with. what we do. whether i do anything. even what music im listening to! well, within limits of course. im not going to be listening to beyonce anytime soon... paradoxically, i actually have motivation to do school work and read those interesting books i could never quite get up the energy to read. i dont know how i feel about this new state of being - mainly because i cant quite get up the energy to care. as a result of this new motivation i am actually getting rather excited about middlebury this summer. hmm. im doing my school work and dont really care about my tan............ the pollution in cairo must finally be affecting my brain. tragic.
oh, there is one thing i am faaaaaaaar from apathetic about. get ready. get excited. ALICE IS COMING TO STANFORD. hold on class of 2011. 2011. blech. i can barely say it. not that i can really say anything with this 'class of 2009' label i keep dodging. its all very unfortunate. anyway im kind of ridiculously excited about my younger sister being at the same college as me for TWO YEARS i cant wait to be the "cool (slightly corrupting?) older sister" i know i was destined to be. no really. so next year is going to be sweet. immidiate family! on my side of the country! (in the SAME country!) will the wonders never cease.
sooooooo yeah life is good, if a little low key. no emotional drama. whats with that? not that i live a very drama-filled life normally or anything. but i usually have, well, feelings on different subjects, she says being deliberately vague.
ah well.
oh! wait i have a good story that definately provoked some feelings. soooo i have a group of guy friends i hang out with from time to time and one of them had a party a while back where he met a girl friend of mine. we'll call them... ahmad and sara, ok? going for the generic here. anyway ahmad meets sara and decides that she's cute, whatever - wants to see her again, wants her to come out with us, wants to have her children, etc. i convey this msg to sara like the good friend i am, and she expresses a certain amount of...distaste for the idea. apparently this 'my chemical romance' was not meant to be. i hesitate to convey this msg back to ahamd, however, bc of the awkward reactions he has had to similar situations in the past.
ahmad: well, did you ask her?
me: yeah...
ahmad: sweet when are we getting together
me: well, here's the thing... she's not really interested
ahmad: you told me she didnt have a boyfriend
me: yeah...
ahmad: so whats the problem?
me: she's just not interested. in you.
ahmad: i..dont...understand...
ah sweet self-confidence... so anyway i put off discussing the matter with him, figuring sara and i were leaving soon anyway so i could preserve the sweet memory he had of sara by just not having them see each other ever again. good plan? well mumkin not. ahmad was a bit more persistant than i expected him to be - it got to the point where he was calling me up preeetty regularly wondering why we werent hanging out with sara. and again at this point it was too late for me to make up some ficticious boy friend bc im good friends with sara and it would be a little weird for her to have a bf i just happened not to know about for the last 4 weeks/ had forgotten to mention. sooooooooo anyway (this is all quite a build-up and i apologize) i was in a cab with another friend of mine and somehow this topic came up and i explained my entire predicament to her, in full. you know, i didnt want to hurt ahmad's feelings but dammit sara just did NOT find him attractive, but it had been so long that i really didnt have any excuse not to do SOMETHING, etc. about 3 min after we had moved on to a diff subject my phone beeps at me - txt msg received. i take it out. speak of the devil! its a msg from ahmad himself. a little confusing though... it reads "interesting conversation. check your phone". "whatever could he mean by this?" rachel asks in confusion. then, a lightbulb of comprehension goes off. no! its impossible... but she has to check anyway. yes! somehow, as a result of some still undiscovered event, my phone had CALLED ahmad JUST AS WE WERE HAVING THAT CONVERSATION. and ahmad heard THE WHOLE THING. now, i never lock my phone, so admittedly the phone does random things by itself sometimes. but, i mean, HOW did this happen. ahmad (remember, not his real name!) is not the first name in my phone book. he was also not the last person i called or the last person who called me or the first on any possible list my phone could have accidently opened to by itself. soooooooo basically god decided to step in and solve my mushkalla for me, in the most honest way possible. now ahmad knows EXACTLY what sara thinks of him. he also knows exactly what i think of him. luckily i like him (thank god) so i didnt say anything too harsh. i mean, there was a word or two i might have edited out has i known he was going to HEAR the whole thing, but honestly who predicts these things? but yeah... definately spent a few hours there torn between being hugely amused at the whole situation and dying of embarassment.
so, i still have the capacity to feel, is basically the moral of this story.
oh and dont worry we're still friends. because i know you were all really worried about that. but come on. awkward situation much?
oh, there is one thing i am faaaaaaaar from apathetic about. get ready. get excited. ALICE IS COMING TO STANFORD. hold on class of 2011. 2011. blech. i can barely say it. not that i can really say anything with this 'class of 2009' label i keep dodging. its all very unfortunate. anyway im kind of ridiculously excited about my younger sister being at the same college as me for TWO YEARS i cant wait to be the "cool (slightly corrupting?) older sister" i know i was destined to be. no really. so next year is going to be sweet. immidiate family! on my side of the country! (in the SAME country!) will the wonders never cease.
sooooooo yeah life is good, if a little low key. no emotional drama. whats with that? not that i live a very drama-filled life normally or anything. but i usually have, well, feelings on different subjects, she says being deliberately vague.
ah well.
oh! wait i have a good story that definately provoked some feelings. soooo i have a group of guy friends i hang out with from time to time and one of them had a party a while back where he met a girl friend of mine. we'll call them... ahmad and sara, ok? going for the generic here. anyway ahmad meets sara and decides that she's cute, whatever - wants to see her again, wants her to come out with us, wants to have her children, etc. i convey this msg to sara like the good friend i am, and she expresses a certain amount of...distaste for the idea. apparently this 'my chemical romance' was not meant to be. i hesitate to convey this msg back to ahamd, however, bc of the awkward reactions he has had to similar situations in the past.
ahmad: well, did you ask her?
me: yeah...
ahmad: sweet when are we getting together
me: well, here's the thing... she's not really interested
ahmad: you told me she didnt have a boyfriend
me: yeah...
ahmad: so whats the problem?
me: she's just not interested. in you.
ahmad: i..dont...understand...
ah sweet self-confidence... so anyway i put off discussing the matter with him, figuring sara and i were leaving soon anyway so i could preserve the sweet memory he had of sara by just not having them see each other ever again. good plan? well mumkin not. ahmad was a bit more persistant than i expected him to be - it got to the point where he was calling me up preeetty regularly wondering why we werent hanging out with sara. and again at this point it was too late for me to make up some ficticious boy friend bc im good friends with sara and it would be a little weird for her to have a bf i just happened not to know about for the last 4 weeks/ had forgotten to mention. sooooooooo anyway (this is all quite a build-up and i apologize) i was in a cab with another friend of mine and somehow this topic came up and i explained my entire predicament to her, in full. you know, i didnt want to hurt ahmad's feelings but dammit sara just did NOT find him attractive, but it had been so long that i really didnt have any excuse not to do SOMETHING, etc. about 3 min after we had moved on to a diff subject my phone beeps at me - txt msg received. i take it out. speak of the devil! its a msg from ahmad himself. a little confusing though... it reads "interesting conversation. check your phone". "whatever could he mean by this?" rachel asks in confusion. then, a lightbulb of comprehension goes off. no! its impossible... but she has to check anyway. yes! somehow, as a result of some still undiscovered event, my phone had CALLED ahmad JUST AS WE WERE HAVING THAT CONVERSATION. and ahmad heard THE WHOLE THING. now, i never lock my phone, so admittedly the phone does random things by itself sometimes. but, i mean, HOW did this happen. ahmad (remember, not his real name!) is not the first name in my phone book. he was also not the last person i called or the last person who called me or the first on any possible list my phone could have accidently opened to by itself. soooooooo basically god decided to step in and solve my mushkalla for me, in the most honest way possible. now ahmad knows EXACTLY what sara thinks of him. he also knows exactly what i think of him. luckily i like him (thank god) so i didnt say anything too harsh. i mean, there was a word or two i might have edited out has i known he was going to HEAR the whole thing, but honestly who predicts these things? but yeah... definately spent a few hours there torn between being hugely amused at the whole situation and dying of embarassment.
so, i still have the capacity to feel, is basically the moral of this story.
oh and dont worry we're still friends. because i know you were all really worried about that. but come on. awkward situation much?
Thursday, April 26, 2007
getting deep
so im leaving cairo in a little over a month and ive started looking at things in a 'soon all of this will be but a distant memory' sort of light. suddenly everything is rosy! well, sort of... i mean, we ARE still talking cairo here. im reminded of my very last time ice skating before my family moved to saudi way the hell back when - i remember putting on my ice skates and very deliberately and with great ceremony stepping out onto the ice with the full knowledge that it would be the last time in a long time. (riyadh has one ice skating rink and its men-only. obviously the site of a woman in ice skates would be too much for your average saudi guy to handle.) i reeeeeally liked ice skating, so my last skate was very dramatic. saying goodbye to the ice and all that. the best metaphore i could come up with at the time - as a 5th grader - was the typical comparison to flying, but i have to say that 10 years later i havent found a metaphore thats much better. of course we're talking flying not in the tiny-bird-frantically-pumping-to-stay-aloft sort of flying but in the im-an-ignorant-land-animal-who-knows-nothing-about-flying sort of flying. ice skating... dude ice skating was FUN. but anyway i feel like everything i do in cairo now is really deliberate. im actually paying attention (unusual for me) so as to be able to describe it to ppl back home. although most of cairo is pretty much indescribable. aaand thats not necessarily a compliment. but dammit im going to MISS cairo. yeah i very much have a love-hate relationship with this crowded, polluted city full of obnoxious men and with the general efficiency of a toaster oven feeding the entire NFL, but it sure as hell has aspects to it i have never found - nor anticipate finding - anywhere else in the world. and trust me, ive looked. so it looks like ill be back here eventually - inshallah for CASA. lets all cross our fingers, shall we?
ok it is now 11:39pm and i am giving up my previous plan of going to the gym and heading home to dance around in my room a bit (thats for you libby) and then crawl into bed and finish my musharraf book. the excitement of my life overwhelms me at times... but hey whatever floats your boat. and my boat is currently floating on the barenaked ladies, a soft pillow and pakistan's war on terror. bite me.
ok it is now 11:39pm and i am giving up my previous plan of going to the gym and heading home to dance around in my room a bit (thats for you libby) and then crawl into bed and finish my musharraf book. the excitement of my life overwhelms me at times... but hey whatever floats your boat. and my boat is currently floating on the barenaked ladies, a soft pillow and pakistan's war on terror. bite me.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Phooey
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
i just wrote a blog. and then bc my DAMN COMPUTER is broken and can no longer function unless its plugged into the wall, of course i knocked the plug out. losing everything i had just written. DEATH. there is a vast mac conspiracy to DRIVE ME INSANE. and i bet the egyptian govt is in on it.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
so. i am certainly not going to re-type all of that. suffice to say there was some deep thought. and some not-so deep thought. and a political rant, which was a first. obviously it was not meant to be. god is telling me something.
anyway shout out to anybody who made my younger sister's admit weekend at stanford entertaining.
so today is 'international day' at AUC. spare me. the saudi tent brought a camel onto campus. i think thats rather presumptuous of them... i mean, saudi is certainly not the only country that has camels. there's also a horse and carriage which a) is really random b) how did they even get that on campus? i feel like they would have to disassemble it just to fit it through the gate and c) the entire courtyard is covered by stairs so unless that is a very special horse, that carriage has about a 3 foot radius to move around in. but no big deal. the norwegian tent had waffles. and the american tent tent set the iraqi tent on fire. kidding kidding just kidding.
generally, life is still continuing as far as i know. i suppose there's always the possbility that im in a continuous loop of what is the last day of my life bc my mind refuses to accept death. star trek anyone? anyone? but assuming that this is not actually the case, cairo is still standing. im reading about 5 books at once because when you dont have internet in your apt you need to be REALLY dedicated to find enough ways to procrastinate. and so far so good on the malaria front. thought maybe i had it last thursday but it turns out that i just had to let athena out of my head.
ok im bored of blogging now. sry youre only getting appreciate about a quarter of the actual effort that went into this blog, try not to be too bummed about it. aaaaaaaand im off to lunch. maasalama
i just wrote a blog. and then bc my DAMN COMPUTER is broken and can no longer function unless its plugged into the wall, of course i knocked the plug out. losing everything i had just written. DEATH. there is a vast mac conspiracy to DRIVE ME INSANE. and i bet the egyptian govt is in on it.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
so. i am certainly not going to re-type all of that. suffice to say there was some deep thought. and some not-so deep thought. and a political rant, which was a first. obviously it was not meant to be. god is telling me something.
anyway shout out to anybody who made my younger sister's admit weekend at stanford entertaining.
so today is 'international day' at AUC. spare me. the saudi tent brought a camel onto campus. i think thats rather presumptuous of them... i mean, saudi is certainly not the only country that has camels. there's also a horse and carriage which a) is really random b) how did they even get that on campus? i feel like they would have to disassemble it just to fit it through the gate and c) the entire courtyard is covered by stairs so unless that is a very special horse, that carriage has about a 3 foot radius to move around in. but no big deal. the norwegian tent had waffles. and the american tent tent set the iraqi tent on fire. kidding kidding just kidding.
generally, life is still continuing as far as i know. i suppose there's always the possbility that im in a continuous loop of what is the last day of my life bc my mind refuses to accept death. star trek anyone? anyone? but assuming that this is not actually the case, cairo is still standing. im reading about 5 books at once because when you dont have internet in your apt you need to be REALLY dedicated to find enough ways to procrastinate. and so far so good on the malaria front. thought maybe i had it last thursday but it turns out that i just had to let athena out of my head.
ok im bored of blogging now. sry youre only getting appreciate about a quarter of the actual effort that went into this blog, try not to be too bummed about it. aaaaaaaand im off to lunch. maasalama
Sunday, April 15, 2007
A Triumphant Return!
Hello there blogland. It's been nearly a year since I last had anything interesting enough to say to merit a post. Life in an American university is certainly not a bad experience, but it doesn't provide the day-to-day excitement of life in Saudi Arabia. Mostly, my year has been spent getting ready to graduate and wishing, desperately, that I had already done so.
And now I have exciting news to announce: next year I will be returning from whence I came. Yes, the prodigal daughter is going back to Saudi Arabia, this time as an employee, to be "Coordinator of International Partnerships." I am really, really excited.
More to come.
And now I have exciting news to announce: next year I will be returning from whence I came. Yes, the prodigal daughter is going back to Saudi Arabia, this time as an employee, to be "Coordinator of International Partnerships." I am really, really excited.
More to come.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
So please be kind if i'm a mess. Cigarettes and Chocolate milk
cigarettes and chocolate milk - these are just a couple of my cravings. everything it seems i like is a little bit stronger a little bit thicker a little bit harmful for me.
speaking of rufus wainwright i rode a motorcycle for the first time yesterday! and i know i know donorcycles straight from the devil 103% chance of fatality etcetc but dude it was FUN. motorcycles are sort of the thai version of taxis so we took one from the pier to the bus station. to be honest it was incredibly painful - my shoulders were virtually skinless by backpack strap at the end of the ride. but the pedels vibrate so your feet get all tingly and the wind is in your face and a number of other cliches about freedom and adrenaline and i know ill never buy a motorcycle but i might look upon the idiots riding around on them with a bit more understanding from now on... and mumkin in the far distant future when im feeling particularly mohawk and tatoo-esk... you never know. i bet a red motorcycle would go splendidly with those red heels i bought over break.
anyway so yesterday after a long day of traveling we...wait for it... got a massage. at the hilton. and it was, of course, maahvelous darling but around the time the woman started exfoliating my armpit i almost ruined it. i mean, i had managed to keep my cool through the little plastic underwear (i swear they looked like diapers) they gave us to put on. i even managed not to smile when the woman tried to help me dry off after the shower. but the exfoliation of the armpit was the last straw. there i was - butt naked on the massage table - totally unable to stop laughing. and this wasnt giggles. we're talking belly laugh here. im sure i was disturbing the peace or whatever. and everytime i managed to stop id immidiately think of WHY i was laughing and start all over again. i mean, it tickled so for sure that didnt help. but i am obviously far from sophisticated enough to be able to keep a straight face when a small asian woman is exfoliating. my. armpit. my urbane exterior was cracked, irreparably. im sure she had no more respect for me. EYE lost respect for me. i need to work on my maturity level here. i have far overestimated myself and i shall have to write to my highschool class and let them know that they might have misjudged who to dub 'most sophisticated'.
this will not, of course, keep me from going back tomorrow. you know i always say when you cant do something once, try try again! so i must, for the good of my character, go get another massage. after all im doing the masseuse a favor too. can you imagine their normal customers at a hilton in bangkok? yick. skeezy old white men. yick. remind me never to become a masseuse.
speaking of rufus wainwright i rode a motorcycle for the first time yesterday! and i know i know donorcycles straight from the devil 103% chance of fatality etcetc but dude it was FUN. motorcycles are sort of the thai version of taxis so we took one from the pier to the bus station. to be honest it was incredibly painful - my shoulders were virtually skinless by backpack strap at the end of the ride. but the pedels vibrate so your feet get all tingly and the wind is in your face and a number of other cliches about freedom and adrenaline and i know ill never buy a motorcycle but i might look upon the idiots riding around on them with a bit more understanding from now on... and mumkin in the far distant future when im feeling particularly mohawk and tatoo-esk... you never know. i bet a red motorcycle would go splendidly with those red heels i bought over break.
anyway so yesterday after a long day of traveling we...wait for it... got a massage. at the hilton. and it was, of course, maahvelous darling but around the time the woman started exfoliating my armpit i almost ruined it. i mean, i had managed to keep my cool through the little plastic underwear (i swear they looked like diapers) they gave us to put on. i even managed not to smile when the woman tried to help me dry off after the shower. but the exfoliation of the armpit was the last straw. there i was - butt naked on the massage table - totally unable to stop laughing. and this wasnt giggles. we're talking belly laugh here. im sure i was disturbing the peace or whatever. and everytime i managed to stop id immidiately think of WHY i was laughing and start all over again. i mean, it tickled so for sure that didnt help. but i am obviously far from sophisticated enough to be able to keep a straight face when a small asian woman is exfoliating. my. armpit. my urbane exterior was cracked, irreparably. im sure she had no more respect for me. EYE lost respect for me. i need to work on my maturity level here. i have far overestimated myself and i shall have to write to my highschool class and let them know that they might have misjudged who to dub 'most sophisticated'.
this will not, of course, keep me from going back tomorrow. you know i always say when you cant do something once, try try again! so i must, for the good of my character, go get another massage. after all im doing the masseuse a favor too. can you imagine their normal customers at a hilton in bangkok? yick. skeezy old white men. yick. remind me never to become a masseuse.
Saturday, April 07, 2007
ps
woops and forgot to mention. my sister is a god. alice got in bloody EVERYWHERE so for those of you of the correct opinion, you are welcome to write to her and encourage her to go to stanford. for those of you with any other opinion, you are welcome to go stuff yourselves.
there is a very cute little thai boy staring at me. i dont really know how to respond to that. ok. i smiled at him. dammit he's coming over here. i have to remember: no encouragement! they never go away. reminds me of another subsection of humans.... stop CALLING im not even on the same side of the country as you anymore! right. oh dear im attracting a whole crowd of them. back to the bungalow! mumkin a midnight swim?
there is a very cute little thai boy staring at me. i dont really know how to respond to that. ok. i smiled at him. dammit he's coming over here. i have to remember: no encouragement! they never go away. reminds me of another subsection of humans.... stop CALLING im not even on the same side of the country as you anymore! right. oh dear im attracting a whole crowd of them. back to the bungalow! mumkin a midnight swim?
wouldnt you like to know
why do guys insist on having facial hair? i ask you, honestly. the curly mustaches, the perfectly trimmed beards, the not-so-perfectly trimmed beards, the partial beards that they obviously trim every morning into perfectly geometric shapes on their chins, the SIDE-BURNS oh god the side-burns. this is a public service announcement. you might think you look good. you might think youre being edgy and would fit right in with the art-nouveau crowd wearing all black and smoking cigarettes in a basement cafe that only those "in the know" go to. but trust me. from a girl who knows these sorts of things, (my past life was spent in just that sort of cafe before i got bored and genetically engineered the camel), you dont. oh, and it definately does not mask your weak chin. we can still see it! really. in fact, the hideous little hairs sprouting out of it just serve to draw MORE attention to it. so just stop trying. in fact, you should really revel in your ugliness. take advantage of what god gave you. go stop traffic or something. be the before picture in the before/after plastic surgery commercials. marry a chinless girl and have chinless children. or better yet, marry a chinless girl and dont have ANY children. stop the chinlessness!
anyway, on that note i apologize for being a blog failure. i do mean to write here. i write blogs in my head all the time. but then i tend to me a bit too lazy to actually write them. plus, i dropped my boring islamic law lecture, so i have no forcibly-free, (well, 'free') time to blog. but i will try to be better in the future.
currently i am in thailand. it is my spring break and going to iran didnt work out for a number of reasons the main one being that the iranian govt is being spiteful and kidnapping british soldiers and generally throwing tantrums that involve not giving americans visas. i mean, the american govt picks on everybody. so its your turn? get over it. aaanyway when we realized iran wasnt going to work out martine and i sat down for lunch and basically said something along the lines of
rachel: so what do you want to do then?
martine: i dunno. go somewhere else?
rachel: where?
martine: india?
rachel: south africa?
martine: kazakstan?
rachel: cambodia?
martine: thailand?
rachel: thailand.
so we bought tickets to thailand that afternoon and here we are. and we have 2 full weeks which is sort of sweet. of course it also means missing a week of school but what are taking years off for, after all. and my teachers understand. sort of. but we've been here for about a week and have spent a bit of time in bangkok getting lost and buying useless souvenirs, a bit of time in the south crisping ourselves senseless on the beach, and quite a bit of time traveling. but ive always liked the feel of going very fast over narrow, winding roads so im ok with that. (am i being serious? am i being sarcastic? wouldnt you like to know) most lately, we went to ranong (which is a city on the myanmar border - burma? what are we calling it these days? how i do love to be PC - and is quite possibly the ugliest place ive been, well, ever). we had an...interesting experience where our thai taxi driver sort of decided we should eat dinner with his family, so we did. after turning down whiskey, beer, and a number of types of drugs, and almost turning down "light" which i assumed was yet another sort of drug until it became clear they actually meant "rice" - silly me - we headed back to our ghetto hotel and martine proceeded to get a lovely little case of food poisoning. thats what we get for fraternizing with the locals.
today we made our way out to an island off the coast. lonely planet had described it as "off the beaten path" so we figured, hey. we live in cairo! we're hardcore! we shouldnt be doing what the NORMAL tourists do. we're going to go "off the beaten path"! well, when they say off the beaten path they mean OFF the beaten path. like, you cant even see the path from here. THERE IS NO PATH. instead, there are bungalows. these bungalows have beds. that is all. and we spent about 2 hour wandering the island in hopes of finding something a bit more...luxerious. a flushing toilet? maybe a fan. i mean, come on. is a fan so much to ask for in 100 degree heat? oh yes. yes it is. we are spoiled spoiled first worlders who have no right to ask for such frivolous amenities. for shame. i mean, the bungalows dont have ELECTRICITY. (notice the irony of me complaining about this via the internet. of course, this is probably the only computer on the island. and we have our own tiiiny little satelite up on the beach. adorable) oh, and english? yeah none of that either. how do we get off the island? god only knows. swim? oh, and martine and i finally make our way to the bungalow, collapse on the bed (after untucking the mosquito net, which we then promptly tucked back in, sort of interfering with our much-needed collapse) and look up to see the world's BIGGEST spider sitting up on the wall, watching us. we're talking like, the size of my hand here. and it lurked. and lurked. and is still lurking for all i know. martine went back to lie down so it has probably eaten her. oh oh oh and i forgot the best part! malaria. oh yes. apparently this area is quite malaria friendly. and we dont have mosquito repellant, never mind anti-malaria medication. but no big deal. i mean, what could possibly be a better reason not to turn in my 2000 word paper (due 24 hrs after i get back in cairo) than having MALARIA? am i right?
but yes. we made it hear safely. and will inshallah leave here safely tomorrow. morning. actually i probably wouldnt mind staying here a bit longer (i mean, its goorgeous. i just spent about an hour hanging out on the beach watching the sun set and listening to the shins. arent i emo. and hey, i can be hardcore. i have a backpack. im backpacking! im cool. ha.) but martine is still feeling off from the food poisoning so she doesnt want to stay here any longer than absolutely necessary. so we're heading up to hua hin tomorrow and we'll hang out there for a few days. where they have air conditioning. ah air conditioning... and fewer spiders. and more prostitutes, according to lonely planet, but hopefully they wont be lurking above our beds. did anyone ELSE know thailand is the sex-capital of the world? mumkin i should have done a bit more research...
anyway, on that note i apologize for being a blog failure. i do mean to write here. i write blogs in my head all the time. but then i tend to me a bit too lazy to actually write them. plus, i dropped my boring islamic law lecture, so i have no forcibly-free, (well, 'free') time to blog. but i will try to be better in the future.
currently i am in thailand. it is my spring break and going to iran didnt work out for a number of reasons the main one being that the iranian govt is being spiteful and kidnapping british soldiers and generally throwing tantrums that involve not giving americans visas. i mean, the american govt picks on everybody. so its your turn? get over it. aaanyway when we realized iran wasnt going to work out martine and i sat down for lunch and basically said something along the lines of
rachel: so what do you want to do then?
martine: i dunno. go somewhere else?
rachel: where?
martine: india?
rachel: south africa?
martine: kazakstan?
rachel: cambodia?
martine: thailand?
rachel: thailand.
so we bought tickets to thailand that afternoon and here we are. and we have 2 full weeks which is sort of sweet. of course it also means missing a week of school but what are taking years off for, after all. and my teachers understand. sort of. but we've been here for about a week and have spent a bit of time in bangkok getting lost and buying useless souvenirs, a bit of time in the south crisping ourselves senseless on the beach, and quite a bit of time traveling. but ive always liked the feel of going very fast over narrow, winding roads so im ok with that. (am i being serious? am i being sarcastic? wouldnt you like to know) most lately, we went to ranong (which is a city on the myanmar border - burma? what are we calling it these days? how i do love to be PC - and is quite possibly the ugliest place ive been, well, ever). we had an...interesting experience where our thai taxi driver sort of decided we should eat dinner with his family, so we did. after turning down whiskey, beer, and a number of types of drugs, and almost turning down "light" which i assumed was yet another sort of drug until it became clear they actually meant "rice" - silly me - we headed back to our ghetto hotel and martine proceeded to get a lovely little case of food poisoning. thats what we get for fraternizing with the locals.
today we made our way out to an island off the coast. lonely planet had described it as "off the beaten path" so we figured, hey. we live in cairo! we're hardcore! we shouldnt be doing what the NORMAL tourists do. we're going to go "off the beaten path"! well, when they say off the beaten path they mean OFF the beaten path. like, you cant even see the path from here. THERE IS NO PATH. instead, there are bungalows. these bungalows have beds. that is all. and we spent about 2 hour wandering the island in hopes of finding something a bit more...luxerious. a flushing toilet? maybe a fan. i mean, come on. is a fan so much to ask for in 100 degree heat? oh yes. yes it is. we are spoiled spoiled first worlders who have no right to ask for such frivolous amenities. for shame. i mean, the bungalows dont have ELECTRICITY. (notice the irony of me complaining about this via the internet. of course, this is probably the only computer on the island. and we have our own tiiiny little satelite up on the beach. adorable) oh, and english? yeah none of that either. how do we get off the island? god only knows. swim? oh, and martine and i finally make our way to the bungalow, collapse on the bed (after untucking the mosquito net, which we then promptly tucked back in, sort of interfering with our much-needed collapse) and look up to see the world's BIGGEST spider sitting up on the wall, watching us. we're talking like, the size of my hand here. and it lurked. and lurked. and is still lurking for all i know. martine went back to lie down so it has probably eaten her. oh oh oh and i forgot the best part! malaria. oh yes. apparently this area is quite malaria friendly. and we dont have mosquito repellant, never mind anti-malaria medication. but no big deal. i mean, what could possibly be a better reason not to turn in my 2000 word paper (due 24 hrs after i get back in cairo) than having MALARIA? am i right?
but yes. we made it hear safely. and will inshallah leave here safely tomorrow. morning. actually i probably wouldnt mind staying here a bit longer (i mean, its goorgeous. i just spent about an hour hanging out on the beach watching the sun set and listening to the shins. arent i emo. and hey, i can be hardcore. i have a backpack. im backpacking! im cool. ha.) but martine is still feeling off from the food poisoning so she doesnt want to stay here any longer than absolutely necessary. so we're heading up to hua hin tomorrow and we'll hang out there for a few days. where they have air conditioning. ah air conditioning... and fewer spiders. and more prostitutes, according to lonely planet, but hopefully they wont be lurking above our beds. did anyone ELSE know thailand is the sex-capital of the world? mumkin i should have done a bit more research...
Thursday, March 01, 2007
...and the government creates more drama...
soooo i dont know how much all of y'all (my texan side coming out) know about my state dept internship... experience. but there has been a rather interesting update.
i originally applied to an internship at the american embassy in beirut for this summer back in nov when everyone and their pet hamster was applying for the embassy internships. i didnt hear anything back and, comforting myself with the thought of the total lack of time and effort on my part that went into the application - always a good excuse - i forgot about it. so i was not expecting the email i received in late january from the state dept congratulating me on the internship i received at the "school of languages, foreign service institute, dept of state". have you heard of it? i havent heard of it. no one has bloody well heard of it. but it was at the state dept so, despite the fact that i hadnt applied for it, i - generously - decided to hear the lady out. i write her back a "hey nice to hear from you what are you talking about" email and dont hear back from her for about 3 weeks. at this point id written her 2 more emails and had decided that i must have hallucinated the first email and some woman at the state dept thought she had a new stalker. buuuuuuut eventually she writes back apologizing for the delay and the total incompetence of beaurocracy in general and wants to get to know me, be my friend, etc. so, still totally confused as to what this internship was, where it would take place, what the school of foreing languages was or did or whether not not it actually existed, i wrote her back a loong email pretty much asking her all these questions plus a "and btw how did you get my application in the first place?" ps. oh and a "does this mean i didnt get the internship i ACTUALLY applied to?". i felt pretty justified in my total ignorance and im afraid that might have come through pretty clearly in the email... but again that was ok bc, i mean really, THEY had contacted ME, right?
so this morning i check my email again and - quite exciting - i have an email from her in my inbox. her email went somewhere along the lines of "um... you DID apply to this internship... you checked foreign language institute as your second choice... you suck." oh and "there are plenty of ppl who DO want this internship so if you dont, let me know so we can select another candidate". ooooooooooooooooooooooh sweet humiliation i have the brains and tact of a camel in heat how the HELL should i respond to that??? and do camels go into heat anyway? deathdeathdeathdeath talk about great first impressions. i havent even met the woman and already she knows that a) i applied to an internship i know nothing about and didnt bother to research b) i am totally incompetent bc i couldnt even find the institute's website, which she ever-so-kindly sent me the link to to clear up my confusion and c) i have the iq of a caterpillar.
so yeah i should write back to her... luckily i was planning on doing middlebury anyway. hopefully she wont add any sort of 'warning: due to suspicion of total stupidity and inability to spell, this girl should not be let within 5 miles of the state dept' to my permanent file. which already includes, no doubt, 'lived in saudi arabia + lived in cairo + visited west bank, iran, syria and lebanon + owns 2 passports for 'educational' purposes + liberal tendancies = possible terrorist. thats me; another day, another chance to burn bridges. whatever. ill spend 9 weeks in a hole in vermont being eaten by misquittos and swimming in humidity and ill be HAPPY about it. masquittos. mesquittos? hears hoping no one important ever reads my blog.
moving on... so im sitting in the AUC courtyard having finally registered my computer on the network. well, "registered". i illegally got the password from a friend who had illegally gotten the password from a friend... but it amounts to the same thing. so instead of going home after my class i have chosen to seclude myself with my computer, and sooth the sores of my aim-withdrawal by soaking myself in gmail, facebook, and blogger.com.
plans for this weekend include my roommate's norwegian class tonight = 15 college kids + unnecessary norwegian vocabulary + duty free alcohol. following this there will be house parties, dancing and creepy taxi drivers, in that order. tomorrow my roommates and i will be joining a group of ex-pats who apparently go running the desert every friday afternoon, and then go out drinking afterwards. how had i not heard of these ppl before? i can feel the spiritual connection. i also have grand plans to start writing my paper for the class with j.b. who is, btw, a god. i want to be him when i grow up. sans mustache. seriously my class with him is awesome. maybe im just seminar-deprived, but i can actually feel that class shock my brain out of its cairo-coma. god bless.
good news for all of you ppl out there is im really enjoying being back in cairo! none of that what-the-hell-am-i-doing-here-when-i-could-be-at-stanford depression i expected. so i wont be coming back for spring quarter unless something goes horribly wrong. :( sry darlings. i do miss you all! but cairo is... well... i mean come on im going to iran for spring break. woot. assuming, that is, that israel manages to restrain itself. can a zebra change its stripes? is a frog's bottom waterproof? these are the important questions we must all ponder.
ok the sun has dissappeared so im going to retreat back to zamalek. mumkin go to the gym? mumkin take a nap? how well do you ppl know me? ok im off. muah.
i originally applied to an internship at the american embassy in beirut for this summer back in nov when everyone and their pet hamster was applying for the embassy internships. i didnt hear anything back and, comforting myself with the thought of the total lack of time and effort on my part that went into the application - always a good excuse - i forgot about it. so i was not expecting the email i received in late january from the state dept congratulating me on the internship i received at the "school of languages, foreign service institute, dept of state". have you heard of it? i havent heard of it. no one has bloody well heard of it. but it was at the state dept so, despite the fact that i hadnt applied for it, i - generously - decided to hear the lady out. i write her back a "hey nice to hear from you what are you talking about" email and dont hear back from her for about 3 weeks. at this point id written her 2 more emails and had decided that i must have hallucinated the first email and some woman at the state dept thought she had a new stalker. buuuuuuut eventually she writes back apologizing for the delay and the total incompetence of beaurocracy in general and wants to get to know me, be my friend, etc. so, still totally confused as to what this internship was, where it would take place, what the school of foreing languages was or did or whether not not it actually existed, i wrote her back a loong email pretty much asking her all these questions plus a "and btw how did you get my application in the first place?" ps. oh and a "does this mean i didnt get the internship i ACTUALLY applied to?". i felt pretty justified in my total ignorance and im afraid that might have come through pretty clearly in the email... but again that was ok bc, i mean really, THEY had contacted ME, right?
so this morning i check my email again and - quite exciting - i have an email from her in my inbox. her email went somewhere along the lines of "um... you DID apply to this internship... you checked foreign language institute as your second choice... you suck." oh and "there are plenty of ppl who DO want this internship so if you dont, let me know so we can select another candidate". ooooooooooooooooooooooh sweet humiliation i have the brains and tact of a camel in heat how the HELL should i respond to that??? and do camels go into heat anyway? deathdeathdeathdeath talk about great first impressions. i havent even met the woman and already she knows that a) i applied to an internship i know nothing about and didnt bother to research b) i am totally incompetent bc i couldnt even find the institute's website, which she ever-so-kindly sent me the link to to clear up my confusion and c) i have the iq of a caterpillar.
so yeah i should write back to her... luckily i was planning on doing middlebury anyway. hopefully she wont add any sort of 'warning: due to suspicion of total stupidity and inability to spell, this girl should not be let within 5 miles of the state dept' to my permanent file. which already includes, no doubt, 'lived in saudi arabia + lived in cairo + visited west bank, iran, syria and lebanon + owns 2 passports for 'educational' purposes + liberal tendancies = possible terrorist. thats me; another day, another chance to burn bridges. whatever. ill spend 9 weeks in a hole in vermont being eaten by misquittos and swimming in humidity and ill be HAPPY about it. masquittos. mesquittos? hears hoping no one important ever reads my blog.
moving on... so im sitting in the AUC courtyard having finally registered my computer on the network. well, "registered". i illegally got the password from a friend who had illegally gotten the password from a friend... but it amounts to the same thing. so instead of going home after my class i have chosen to seclude myself with my computer, and sooth the sores of my aim-withdrawal by soaking myself in gmail, facebook, and blogger.com.
plans for this weekend include my roommate's norwegian class tonight = 15 college kids + unnecessary norwegian vocabulary + duty free alcohol. following this there will be house parties, dancing and creepy taxi drivers, in that order. tomorrow my roommates and i will be joining a group of ex-pats who apparently go running the desert every friday afternoon, and then go out drinking afterwards. how had i not heard of these ppl before? i can feel the spiritual connection. i also have grand plans to start writing my paper for the class with j.b. who is, btw, a god. i want to be him when i grow up. sans mustache. seriously my class with him is awesome. maybe im just seminar-deprived, but i can actually feel that class shock my brain out of its cairo-coma. god bless.
good news for all of you ppl out there is im really enjoying being back in cairo! none of that what-the-hell-am-i-doing-here-when-i-could-be-at-stanford depression i expected. so i wont be coming back for spring quarter unless something goes horribly wrong. :( sry darlings. i do miss you all! but cairo is... well... i mean come on im going to iran for spring break. woot. assuming, that is, that israel manages to restrain itself. can a zebra change its stripes? is a frog's bottom waterproof? these are the important questions we must all ponder.
ok the sun has dissappeared so im going to retreat back to zamalek. mumkin go to the gym? mumkin take a nap? how well do you ppl know me? ok im off. muah.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
The Productivity of Boredom - Welcome Back!
So im sitting in Islamic law class bored out of my mind and I thought, what does one do when one is bored in class? You update your blog! Kids, don’t try this at home.
This class will seriously be the death of me- my teacher is this tiny arab man who sits in a chair at the front of the class room – legs too short to reach the floor – and profounds on the evolution of Islamic law. He waves his arms and pauses at inappropriate moments for three – count that three hours. And mind you the very name of this class made me drool and im thrilled to be taking it but… but. and of course you have the requisite guy-everyone-imagines-taking-out-back-and-shooting in the class. This one’s like 3 feet tall with this abnormally small head. It really makes me want to squoosh it for some reason, monty python style. Except his face looks like someone else got to him first - All of his features have been placed maybe an inch or 2 too close to his chin –his non-existent chin - leaving a wide expanse of forehead that develops startlingly large wrinkles just above his eyebrows anytime he talks. Which is ALL THE TIME. I want to pull his stupid blue baseball cap down over his face and chuck him out the window. And I swear to god he’s wearing a toupe. I spend most of the class coming up with devious ways in which I could accidentally arrange for a giant hook -out of those toy vending machines. the ones that are impossible to beat? seriously its all a scam- to come out of the sky and pluck it off his head. And if its real hair then he would end up dangling from a giant hook protruding from the sky which would be almost as entertaining. I haven’t found a giant hook. but ill keep you updated.
Anyway sorry about the 4 month blog hiatus. Blogs are like hygiene. They don’t exist without routine. Am I wrong? Am I wrong? … Maybe hygiene was a poor choice of comparison since I would prefer to keep my friends. Exercise also works. But, well, so I spent the weekend in the desert being hardcore and bedoin-like. Now, one does not shower in the desert. In fact, one doesn’t really do much of anything in the desert beyond the occasional cleaning of one’s fingernails when one feels the need to demonstrate boredom. The art of demonstrating boredom is important even in bedoin culture. So hygiene seemed particularly relevant.
But I get ahead of myself. So… since my last blog. To do a total recap, I went to Sweden over eid holiday in october to visit mathilda and spent the 10 days I was there feeling very short and brunette. We watched grease, etc.
While I was in Sweden the youths of Egypt decided to rise up in large groups and exert their rights to grope unprotected females, and the Egyptian government decided to let them. Who needs personal responsibility when your society quite rightly lets you blame your actions on immoral females provoking uncontrollable lusts through inappropriate hip-movements? Seriously the American govt should really look into this. My world makes so much more sense now.
Sooo November meant I could dress modestly and not melt. Good times. Eight of us took a trip to Jordan over a long weekend. Very long story ask me about it sometime im too lazy to write it here. Winnie! visited in December. Official shout-out to her for braving terrorists and camels to come see her dear friend Rachel. Almost directly following that I went to Jerusalem with joey (exams were between the two but theyre sort of a formality at AUC. As is homework. And classes in general) and it was there at the holy of holies that I came to the conclusion that god doesn’t really exist. And decided to be a religious studies major. yay irony. Then I went home and quickly remembered why I had moved to Egypt as my toes turned blue in my cute shoes. And visited Stanford and developed intimate relations with parilee’s couch.
So now im back. Ive changed apts and im living in zamalek, an island on the nile. Im on the 21st floor of a building on the main street in a beautiful apt owned by the guy who writes nancy g___’s song lyrics (yes, he is my neighbor). The view is unbelievable – it actually gives the impression that cairo is an attractive city. My flatmates are both Norwegian with the adorable accents we all secretly wish we had. Damn yankee parents. We have weekly Norwegian lessons with a group of friends that involve Sweden-bashing and alcohol. We also go through about 10 eggs a day. Protein, yes. Also advantagious in that ive learned how to use my stove. Ill find me a husband yet!
Oh! And im going to iran over spring break. HOW COOL IS THAT. Although apparently Israel is negotiating with the US for a clear air-way over iraq in case they decide to bomb iran. As martine would say “wtf. Jesus in a bucket” which I think adequately describes my feelings on the matter. Hopefully they’ll hold off until after april 12th. Book recommendation: “We Are Iran” by…um… ill get back to you on that. It’s a collection of Iranian blogs. Absolutely splendiferous. Why aren’t I taking farsi again? Ill put that down on my list of things to do. After Hebrew. And before plumbing. Actually maybe before Hebrew. Iran rocks.
Anyway. Its half an hour before this lecture is supposed to end. Do you think I can leave now? Decisions decisions… it’s a small class so I wont be able to slip out without everyone noticing. But they’ll just assume I have something important to do. Ha. Like I ever have anything important to do. Yay Egypt. Oh god Stanford is going to eat me when I get back.
This class will seriously be the death of me- my teacher is this tiny arab man who sits in a chair at the front of the class room – legs too short to reach the floor – and profounds on the evolution of Islamic law. He waves his arms and pauses at inappropriate moments for three – count that three hours. And mind you the very name of this class made me drool and im thrilled to be taking it but… but. and of course you have the requisite guy-everyone-imagines-taking-out-back-and-shooting in the class. This one’s like 3 feet tall with this abnormally small head. It really makes me want to squoosh it for some reason, monty python style. Except his face looks like someone else got to him first - All of his features have been placed maybe an inch or 2 too close to his chin –his non-existent chin - leaving a wide expanse of forehead that develops startlingly large wrinkles just above his eyebrows anytime he talks. Which is ALL THE TIME. I want to pull his stupid blue baseball cap down over his face and chuck him out the window. And I swear to god he’s wearing a toupe. I spend most of the class coming up with devious ways in which I could accidentally arrange for a giant hook -out of those toy vending machines. the ones that are impossible to beat? seriously its all a scam- to come out of the sky and pluck it off his head. And if its real hair then he would end up dangling from a giant hook protruding from the sky which would be almost as entertaining. I haven’t found a giant hook. but ill keep you updated.
Anyway sorry about the 4 month blog hiatus. Blogs are like hygiene. They don’t exist without routine. Am I wrong? Am I wrong? … Maybe hygiene was a poor choice of comparison since I would prefer to keep my friends. Exercise also works. But, well, so I spent the weekend in the desert being hardcore and bedoin-like. Now, one does not shower in the desert. In fact, one doesn’t really do much of anything in the desert beyond the occasional cleaning of one’s fingernails when one feels the need to demonstrate boredom. The art of demonstrating boredom is important even in bedoin culture. So hygiene seemed particularly relevant.
But I get ahead of myself. So… since my last blog. To do a total recap, I went to Sweden over eid holiday in october to visit mathilda and spent the 10 days I was there feeling very short and brunette. We watched grease, etc.
While I was in Sweden the youths of Egypt decided to rise up in large groups and exert their rights to grope unprotected females, and the Egyptian government decided to let them. Who needs personal responsibility when your society quite rightly lets you blame your actions on immoral females provoking uncontrollable lusts through inappropriate hip-movements? Seriously the American govt should really look into this. My world makes so much more sense now.
Sooo November meant I could dress modestly and not melt. Good times. Eight of us took a trip to Jordan over a long weekend. Very long story ask me about it sometime im too lazy to write it here. Winnie! visited in December. Official shout-out to her for braving terrorists and camels to come see her dear friend Rachel. Almost directly following that I went to Jerusalem with joey (exams were between the two but theyre sort of a formality at AUC. As is homework. And classes in general) and it was there at the holy of holies that I came to the conclusion that god doesn’t really exist. And decided to be a religious studies major. yay irony. Then I went home and quickly remembered why I had moved to Egypt as my toes turned blue in my cute shoes. And visited Stanford and developed intimate relations with parilee’s couch.
So now im back. Ive changed apts and im living in zamalek, an island on the nile. Im on the 21st floor of a building on the main street in a beautiful apt owned by the guy who writes nancy g___’s song lyrics (yes, he is my neighbor). The view is unbelievable – it actually gives the impression that cairo is an attractive city. My flatmates are both Norwegian with the adorable accents we all secretly wish we had. Damn yankee parents. We have weekly Norwegian lessons with a group of friends that involve Sweden-bashing and alcohol. We also go through about 10 eggs a day. Protein, yes. Also advantagious in that ive learned how to use my stove. Ill find me a husband yet!
Oh! And im going to iran over spring break. HOW COOL IS THAT. Although apparently Israel is negotiating with the US for a clear air-way over iraq in case they decide to bomb iran. As martine would say “wtf. Jesus in a bucket” which I think adequately describes my feelings on the matter. Hopefully they’ll hold off until after april 12th. Book recommendation: “We Are Iran” by…um… ill get back to you on that. It’s a collection of Iranian blogs. Absolutely splendiferous. Why aren’t I taking farsi again? Ill put that down on my list of things to do. After Hebrew. And before plumbing. Actually maybe before Hebrew. Iran rocks.
Anyway. Its half an hour before this lecture is supposed to end. Do you think I can leave now? Decisions decisions… it’s a small class so I wont be able to slip out without everyone noticing. But they’ll just assume I have something important to do. Ha. Like I ever have anything important to do. Yay Egypt. Oh god Stanford is going to eat me when I get back.
Monday, November 27, 2006
an amputated thanksgiving
i just found this piece of an old post i never got around to publishing. im too lazy to finish it but i figured id publish it anyway... yeah.
hello all - hope all of your thanksgivings were as splendiferous as mine was.
so i just finished writing a gender studies paper that is, miraculously, without thesis. and for a paper without a thesis, it took me waaaaay too long to write.
i was trying to come up with a metaphore for my thesis-less paper but the only one i could come up with was a headless baby and thats a bit morbid, yes? so i didnt include it. look at my restraint.
anyway so i spent thanksgiving weekend in roma with a bunch of my highschool friends who are studying in europa this semester. (the intelligent ones go home after a semester. and yet... i stay. what have i discovered about myself from this if-then statement.) we are so cosmopolitan. no really. but it was a lot of fun. evan told us stories about st. petersburg that made cairo seem tame. owen got mugged. the riedel's provided obscene amounts of alcohol. good times. rome, btw, is gorgeous. and clean. and orderly. i miss the first world. although owen pretty much calling italy a third world country/cess pitt from hell by the time we left. lots of pigeons. owen called them "flying rats". i think owen was bitter. (dont worry we understand).
anyway i flew in wednesday afternoon and, with the help of VERY exact directions from owen, managed to make my way from the airport to the train station. the old guy sitting across from me on the train kept making awkward eye-contact with me though. swear to god if i hadnt decided to take a "nap" he would have spent the entire train ride staring into the windows of my soul. and then asked me out to dinner. to his villa in florence. where he would show me his world class art collection and teach me italian. too bad he was so old.
anyway so i fled the italian santa clause, dodged this greasy italian guy (surprise!) who literally rushed me when i made a coo-ing noise at his cute dog (apparently italian guys use the dog trick too - first i learn not to make eye contact with strange men. then i learn not to make eye contact with strange dogs) and found myself outside of the train station. now, owen had very specific instructions here. there is a taxi stand directly in front of the train station. i am to go stand in line, and wait for a taxi. so, i go stand in line. this line was like 20 ppl long, and there was not a single taxi in sight. this confused me. actually, it confused everyone in line. we all stared awkwardly at each other for about 5 minutes, and then i decided to take matters into my own hands. the adventurous rachel strikes out into the city of rome. she doesnt speak the language. she doesnt know where she's going. but she's confident it will all work out for the best.
and it did! i eventually found a taxi. after berating myself soundly.
sensible rachel: what the hell are you doing. go back to the train station.
adventurous rachel: no! i dont want to wait in line for an hour when i can just go out and find a taxi on my own
sr: rachel. you dont speak the language. its 9pm. youre dragging a suitcase. where are you going?
ar: i think i see some lights down there... i bet thats a big street. come on. have a little faith
sr: how stupid will you feel when you get killed off on a dirty street in downtown rome bc you were too impatient to wait for a taxi. your tombstone will read: survived the middle east. couldnt survive her own stupidity
ar: be a little more optomistic dear. yours will read: death by boredom
swear to god those are my parents. ive been brainwashed. anyway it did work out - i found a taxi a few blocks down, and when i drove back past the train station on the way to my hotel, i waved at all the poor shmucks still waiting in the taxi line.
oh and the receptionist at my hotel was this big, bald, white guy who was absolutely adorable, didnt speak a word of english and was wearing this leather jacket that said "PHAT FARM" across the back. by far my favorite person in rome.
hello all - hope all of your thanksgivings were as splendiferous as mine was.
so i just finished writing a gender studies paper that is, miraculously, without thesis. and for a paper without a thesis, it took me waaaaay too long to write.
i was trying to come up with a metaphore for my thesis-less paper but the only one i could come up with was a headless baby and thats a bit morbid, yes? so i didnt include it. look at my restraint.
anyway so i spent thanksgiving weekend in roma with a bunch of my highschool friends who are studying in europa this semester. (the intelligent ones go home after a semester. and yet... i stay. what have i discovered about myself from this if-then statement.) we are so cosmopolitan. no really. but it was a lot of fun. evan told us stories about st. petersburg that made cairo seem tame. owen got mugged. the riedel's provided obscene amounts of alcohol. good times. rome, btw, is gorgeous. and clean. and orderly. i miss the first world. although owen pretty much calling italy a third world country/cess pitt from hell by the time we left. lots of pigeons. owen called them "flying rats". i think owen was bitter. (dont worry we understand).
anyway i flew in wednesday afternoon and, with the help of VERY exact directions from owen, managed to make my way from the airport to the train station. the old guy sitting across from me on the train kept making awkward eye-contact with me though. swear to god if i hadnt decided to take a "nap" he would have spent the entire train ride staring into the windows of my soul. and then asked me out to dinner. to his villa in florence. where he would show me his world class art collection and teach me italian. too bad he was so old.
anyway so i fled the italian santa clause, dodged this greasy italian guy (surprise!) who literally rushed me when i made a coo-ing noise at his cute dog (apparently italian guys use the dog trick too - first i learn not to make eye contact with strange men. then i learn not to make eye contact with strange dogs) and found myself outside of the train station. now, owen had very specific instructions here. there is a taxi stand directly in front of the train station. i am to go stand in line, and wait for a taxi. so, i go stand in line. this line was like 20 ppl long, and there was not a single taxi in sight. this confused me. actually, it confused everyone in line. we all stared awkwardly at each other for about 5 minutes, and then i decided to take matters into my own hands. the adventurous rachel strikes out into the city of rome. she doesnt speak the language. she doesnt know where she's going. but she's confident it will all work out for the best.
and it did! i eventually found a taxi. after berating myself soundly.
sensible rachel: what the hell are you doing. go back to the train station.
adventurous rachel: no! i dont want to wait in line for an hour when i can just go out and find a taxi on my own
sr: rachel. you dont speak the language. its 9pm. youre dragging a suitcase. where are you going?
ar: i think i see some lights down there... i bet thats a big street. come on. have a little faith
sr: how stupid will you feel when you get killed off on a dirty street in downtown rome bc you were too impatient to wait for a taxi. your tombstone will read: survived the middle east. couldnt survive her own stupidity
ar: be a little more optomistic dear. yours will read: death by boredom
swear to god those are my parents. ive been brainwashed. anyway it did work out - i found a taxi a few blocks down, and when i drove back past the train station on the way to my hotel, i waved at all the poor shmucks still waiting in the taxi line.
oh and the receptionist at my hotel was this big, bald, white guy who was absolutely adorable, didnt speak a word of english and was wearing this leather jacket that said "PHAT FARM" across the back. by far my favorite person in rome.
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Excuse me please, one more drink.
Could you make it strong cause I dont need to think...no no one broke my heart and as far as I know my grace is not gone but ive been listening to that song pretty much non-stop for 3 days now. who knew dave mathews band was any good?
ok i havent given up on my blog. its just i want to update it aaall the way, which is quite an intimidating task since now we're talking about a month of caironian excitement. but, i have decided ill do a more current blog entry and save the full update for later. just to get something down. feed the ravenous hounds.
so today is wednesday...always a good day, wednesday. im over the hump in the week and i only have one class left before the weekend. and my dad is flying in tomorrow! this is post visiting jordan and riyadh, and pre his visits to hong kong and japan. i honestly am of the opinion that he's either a CIA operative or some sort of international arms dealer. maybe i should keep his weekend jaunt in cairo this weekend on the DL. wouldnt want any of the massive amounts of enemies he's sure to have tracking him down to my humble abode. and trust me, it is HUMBLE. we've pretty much given up on the whole presentable-aspect of things. and one of the ceiling light fictures has decided to unscrew and is now dangling from the ceiling by some wires. is this unsafe?
but yeah. i have big plans but i wont share any of them with you in case they dont go through. wouldnt want to get your hopes up. ive been trying to decide just how honest a look at cairo-life i should give him. does he really need to know how many times a day i almost die? i now fully understand the "insha'alla" concept. when youre in a position where you miss being run over by inches on a fairly regular basis, it just takes too much energy do the life-flashing-before-your-eyes thing. you just have to shrug and say, you know what. if god wants me to die, ill die. and there's nothing i can do about it. or rather, if the great spagetti monster wants me to die. wouldnt want to be politically incorrect here. this chain of thought feels familiar. if ive already shared this epiphany with you, my apologies. obviously its on my mind a lot.
so life here is progressing normally. my friend has a new boytoy who has - god bless him - good looking friends. i really think thats the duty of the guys my friends date. i mean, theyre not doing anything for me, are they? but they need to somehow pay me back not only for their monopolization of my friend's time and the inordinant amount of gushing i have to listen to on my friend's part, but i also need some compensation for training my friends so well in the first place. none of them had any manners before i got to them. really.
so last night i was persuaded to go out with my friend and said boytoy and HIS friends. this was the second time id hung out with them - i mainly go as moral support for my friend although i dont think she really needs me anymore. sniff. my little girl, all grown up. at this point i think she and her boy are keeping themselves busy by trying to set me up with one of his friends. why do couples try to do this? such a strange form of entertainment... i guess theyre trying to spread the wealth. or fill awkward silences. i dont hold it against them. but what they dont seem to understand is that there is a scientifically proven limit on the number of happy couples there can be in the world at one time, and i think cairo just hit its quota. and, as predicted, i was unfortunately disapointed last night in the friends dept. her boy has one particularly noticable friend. tall. black. and gorgeous, of course. ok who am i kidding they all look like that. apparently he's stumbled into the sudanese community in cairo? but this one has an english accent which is just icing on the cake. and we were dancing together and whatnot and this boy, his dance style... well i wont go into it in too much detail. suffice to say i spent most of the time dodging thrusting hips. and i mean literally leading him around the dance floor as i backed away and he followed. some guys cannot take a hint. it was actually a rather amusing competition of sorts. anyway, he left me less than enthralled and vivedly reminded me of a certain - ahem - someone who was also ridiculously goodlooking and severely lacking in just about everything else. we shall see if im being too judgemental. me? judgemental? no.
this exciting evening kept me out until about 2:30am when i stumbled back to my apt only to discover that i didnt have a key. and i hadnt brought my cellphone with me in the first place. i really need a keeper. so i spent about 20 minutes ringing the doorbell and pounding on the door and was seriously considering heading back to the club and imposing on one of the boytoy's friends for the night when one of my other roommates came home and let me in. i dont like this girl, but at that moment she ranked right up there with karl rove. then i checked email, listened to my older sister talk about how perfect her bf is for about ten minutes (not that he isnt. it just wasnt the best timing on her part), and then went to bed. and woke up at 7am for my 8am three-hr arabic class. yes i did not plan this very well. but it was an interesting evening so i forgive myself. oh AND i managed to give a successful presentation on the death penalty first thing in class. in arabic. what.
ok im off to a study partay with a few friends. and then maybe my first american movie since august? mumkin? how sweet would that be.
ok i havent given up on my blog. its just i want to update it aaall the way, which is quite an intimidating task since now we're talking about a month of caironian excitement. but, i have decided ill do a more current blog entry and save the full update for later. just to get something down. feed the ravenous hounds.
so today is wednesday...always a good day, wednesday. im over the hump in the week and i only have one class left before the weekend. and my dad is flying in tomorrow! this is post visiting jordan and riyadh, and pre his visits to hong kong and japan. i honestly am of the opinion that he's either a CIA operative or some sort of international arms dealer. maybe i should keep his weekend jaunt in cairo this weekend on the DL. wouldnt want any of the massive amounts of enemies he's sure to have tracking him down to my humble abode. and trust me, it is HUMBLE. we've pretty much given up on the whole presentable-aspect of things. and one of the ceiling light fictures has decided to unscrew and is now dangling from the ceiling by some wires. is this unsafe?
but yeah. i have big plans but i wont share any of them with you in case they dont go through. wouldnt want to get your hopes up. ive been trying to decide just how honest a look at cairo-life i should give him. does he really need to know how many times a day i almost die? i now fully understand the "insha'alla" concept. when youre in a position where you miss being run over by inches on a fairly regular basis, it just takes too much energy do the life-flashing-before-your-eyes thing. you just have to shrug and say, you know what. if god wants me to die, ill die. and there's nothing i can do about it. or rather, if the great spagetti monster wants me to die. wouldnt want to be politically incorrect here. this chain of thought feels familiar. if ive already shared this epiphany with you, my apologies. obviously its on my mind a lot.
so life here is progressing normally. my friend has a new boytoy who has - god bless him - good looking friends. i really think thats the duty of the guys my friends date. i mean, theyre not doing anything for me, are they? but they need to somehow pay me back not only for their monopolization of my friend's time and the inordinant amount of gushing i have to listen to on my friend's part, but i also need some compensation for training my friends so well in the first place. none of them had any manners before i got to them. really.
so last night i was persuaded to go out with my friend and said boytoy and HIS friends. this was the second time id hung out with them - i mainly go as moral support for my friend although i dont think she really needs me anymore. sniff. my little girl, all grown up. at this point i think she and her boy are keeping themselves busy by trying to set me up with one of his friends. why do couples try to do this? such a strange form of entertainment... i guess theyre trying to spread the wealth. or fill awkward silences. i dont hold it against them. but what they dont seem to understand is that there is a scientifically proven limit on the number of happy couples there can be in the world at one time, and i think cairo just hit its quota. and, as predicted, i was unfortunately disapointed last night in the friends dept. her boy has one particularly noticable friend. tall. black. and gorgeous, of course. ok who am i kidding they all look like that. apparently he's stumbled into the sudanese community in cairo? but this one has an english accent which is just icing on the cake. and we were dancing together and whatnot and this boy, his dance style... well i wont go into it in too much detail. suffice to say i spent most of the time dodging thrusting hips. and i mean literally leading him around the dance floor as i backed away and he followed. some guys cannot take a hint. it was actually a rather amusing competition of sorts. anyway, he left me less than enthralled and vivedly reminded me of a certain - ahem - someone who was also ridiculously goodlooking and severely lacking in just about everything else. we shall see if im being too judgemental. me? judgemental? no.
this exciting evening kept me out until about 2:30am when i stumbled back to my apt only to discover that i didnt have a key. and i hadnt brought my cellphone with me in the first place. i really need a keeper. so i spent about 20 minutes ringing the doorbell and pounding on the door and was seriously considering heading back to the club and imposing on one of the boytoy's friends for the night when one of my other roommates came home and let me in. i dont like this girl, but at that moment she ranked right up there with karl rove. then i checked email, listened to my older sister talk about how perfect her bf is for about ten minutes (not that he isnt. it just wasnt the best timing on her part), and then went to bed. and woke up at 7am for my 8am three-hr arabic class. yes i did not plan this very well. but it was an interesting evening so i forgive myself. oh AND i managed to give a successful presentation on the death penalty first thing in class. in arabic. what.
ok im off to a study partay with a few friends. and then maybe my first american movie since august? mumkin? how sweet would that be.
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