CONGRATULATIONS :-)

My joy shall not be clouded by those crazy restrictions. Not today anyway.

Is it just me or is this a beautiful sight? 

2 Weeks

My To-Do List:
1. Provide the boys' schools with new address to send transcripts.
2. Disconnect phone, cable, power, internet, cell phones, hotspot, blockbuster.
3. Call furniture store to pick up furniture.
4. Change address with Bank.
5. Call Kuwait Airways.
6. Arrange time and date with shipping company.
7. Return books to library.
8. Call Cecilia and Murphy to thank for their help.
9. Find buyer for car.
10. Get rid of extra furniture.

And if there's time: shop, shop, and shop. Barnes & Noble and Gap (I hate shopping for boys in Kuwait) I'm gonna miss dearly :(

Oh and of course, PACK. The horror! The horror!

Am I Faithful Am I Strong

It's 7:30. I'm getting ready to leave, and X sends an msn message. Now I haven't talked to X in ages (ages is a relative term of course, it could be one hour or 10 years, depending on the person), but I have to go. Sarah is waiting on stage, N and B in the car. How can I dismiss someone I haven't talked to for that long? Can't I give them at least 5 minutes. Sarah would still be there and N and B won't mind waiting too much. Except of course, I wanna go out and have fun and I'm worried that a conversation longer than 'hi how are you gotta go' might ruin the experience for me. I tend to obsess over my friends. I don't show it, I almost never show my true feelings. Some call me cold, some pure rude, some a snob. I think what it is is that I don't have enough confidence to say and do what I would want to say and do. Of course this might just be an excuse for someone who is really just cold, rude, and a snob. A cold-hearted bitch.

So I tell X I gotta go. I'm heading to enjoy Sarah but I know even before that msn message that I won't be in the right mood. So when she appears on stage to do a duo with The Perishers, I don't cheer with the rest, I don't see it in me, again obsessing about losing a friend. The Perishers retire and I think what I need to get in the mood is a glass of Chardonnay (sp?), and that does help a little. When Sarah says Am I faithful am I strong, I finally kick it with her, regardless of the fact that I am neither faithful nor strong. Now is it the wine or does that song actually speaks my mind? 'All your expectations bury me':
>>All my insecurities
>>Try to own my destiny
>>But I can make or break it if I choose
>>You take my words and twist them around
>>Till I'm the one who brings you down
>>Make me feel like I'm the one to blame
>>For all this
Does Sarah know me that well? And then she says:
>>I have to take myself away from you
>>Cause I can't compete
>>I can't deny
>>There's nothing that I hadn't tried
>>How did I go so wrong in loving you?
And I immediately want to sms X those words. What stops me, what stops me every single time I think I should let go, is fear of letting go. I don't wanna lose X for good.

If you know you're causing pain to someone close, if you know that your words of comfort are bringing them down, if you know they're better off without your cold-hearted friendship, do you let go?

The truth is I am neither faithful nor strong enough to do that.

 

A Dedication

When the day is long and the night, the night is yours alone,
When you’re sure you’ve had enough of this life, well hang on
Don’t let yourself go, everybody cries and everybody hurts sometimes

Sometimes everything is wrong. now it’s time to sing along
When your day is night alone, hold on, hold on
If you feel like letting go, hold on
When you think you’ve had too much of this life, well hang on

’cause everybody hurts. take comfort in your friends
Everybody hurts. don’t throw your hand. oh, no. don’t throw your hand
If you feel like you’re alone, no, no, no, you are not alone

If you’re on your own in this life, the days and nights are long,
When you think you’ve had too much of this life to hang on

Well, everybody hurts sometimes,
Everybody cries. and everybody hurts sometimes
And everybody hurts sometimes. so, hold on, hold on
Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on
Everybody hurts. you are not alone

Goodbye Book Club

Today I said goodbye to my book club. Six meetings only, lasting two hours each, but an interesting experience while it lasted. I figured taking a picture of the books is faster than typing their names. Secret Life of Bees and Kite Runner were my favorite two. Very dramatic the way I like my novels to be :) Paradise Alley was good too but a little too depressing, reminded us all of Gangs of New York. Me Talk Pretty One Day is a fun read, The Professor and the Madman interesting in a way, The Bridge Across Forever is supposed to develop into some sort of science fiction but the first 100 pages didn't appeal to me so I stopped reading.

Wanna Live In A Perfect World?

What is a perfect world? Is it the end of hunger, war, genocide, hatred, headaches? Seriously, if the killing ended, would we be complaining about how bad it is to live in a world where we have to have headaches every once in a while? Am I making sense? Well, I am, in my headache-less head. And since this is my blog, my creation, ‘my own,’ I can make as much non-sense as I want.

Paradise. Toni Morrison. Blacks created their paradise, made only of blue blacks. Worked until the kids started rephrasing Beware the Forrow of His Brow into Be the Forrow of His Brow.
Brave New World. Aldous Huxley. Suma takes away all your pain and gives you happiness. And it is 100% legal, and encouraged.
The Time Machine. HG Wells. I still remember an old movie production in which the time machine lands in a world made only of beautiful young blonds. And then the siren goes off.
The Female Man. Joanna Russ. Another time travel plot that looks at 3 (or maybe 4) futuristic worlds.
Herland. Carlottle Perkins Gilman. Amazon-like world. No men to be found. When they come, they mess it up :)
And of course what started it all: Plato’s Republic and More's Utopia.
I’m leaving out a lot. But I’m always intrigued by Utopias/Dystopias.

So. A Perfect World. You wanna?

This post is brought to you by inspiration of Hotel Rwanda.

What troubles Africa?

Politics is not my game. But even with my level of ignorance I know that that place is havoc, one I tend to mostly forget about until I see movies that remind me that there's a dark continent somewhere on this earth that has been made into the big mess it is today because a group of blonds decided that borders have to be drawn. (OK I know that not all Europeans are blond)

I've lately been very sensitive to putting labels and defining people or actions. I don't want to theorize but it's precisely that act of defining that enables people to think they're better than others. I know that labeling is useful in many cases, but so are drugs and knives and even guns. What to do?

I remember the controversy over Alexander and how I insisted on clarifying for those who called him gay that labeling a person based on an act he or she does is a very modern way of looking into things, relatively speaking, and that at that time, Alexander was merely a man who engaged in homosexual activities, which is a long stretch from calling him gay. (I read Foucault late in life, but it was quite a read) We have labels for everything. You scream once, you're hysteric; you worry a little, you're obsessive compulsive; your mind drifts off a bit, you have ADD; and the list goes on. I know that defining helps limit the problem, contain it, and as such, treat it, but in doing all that aren't we also inflating the problem?

I don't have answers I never do. It's always questions but never answers.

I'm lecturing. My favorite pastime :) Occupational hazard so to speak.

On a lighter note: Kidman is gorgeous.
"I'll be honest with you," she says, "I don't know how honest I can be with you." Don't you just love this line? Or "vengeance is a lazy form of grief." I tell you. That woman is amazing. Yeah yeah I know she didn't write those lines, but still...

جريمة الـجهراء

This story brought tears to my eyes while reading it. And I am not one to cry easily. What is this? Reads like a Wally Lamb. How grotesque. The poor children, those who died and those who will hopefully make it. What life awaits them?

Still can't stop those tears from falling...

وجودكِ بالبيت راحة

A Johnson&Johnson ad shows dad taking care of baby.
A Stainmaster ad shows dad trying to help baby to sleep by putting him down on the carpet.
A Cheerios ad shows dad and baby sharing cereal.
A Dairy Queen ad shows baby trying to snatch dad's ice-cream.

Media has a great effect in prescribing while supposedly describing our way of life. Our Kuwaiti TV perpetually shows images of moms as the sole caretakers of babies and dads as the sole breadwinners. No wonder sexism seems on the rise in Kuwait. If it existed before only in our heads, it's now being enforced by good sweet media.

One of the images that really get to me, still, even after almost a year spent here, is seeing dads pushing their babies' strollers while going for their morning jogs in the park. Nothing especially amazing in the image except for the fact that it will be missed when I head back home. How rare is this image in Kuwait? Does it even exist? How can it even begin to be incorporated when what meets us in the streets is a billboard reading "wejodich bilbait ra7a" (translation: Your staying home is comforting) under the picture of a woman, never a man of course? Not to mention our wonderfully educational Ramadan Kuwaiti series that add more flame to this image.
What does it even perpetuate? That women should quit their jobs and stay home for their children?

Rights to vote!!! Are you kidding me? How about the simple right to choose a life?

A MidApril Night's Dream

Immediately after taking this picture, this woman to the right came to tell me photography isn't allowed. So the only picture I have of Shakespeare in the park is this barren stage.

It was freezing but most enjoyable.

I leave you, dear blog, with the bard himself:

If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumbered here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend,
If you pardon, we will mend.

UCF Library

So my laptop's busted which makes it a great opportunity for me to go to the library. Cyber world usually distracts me from more frequent visits. I have a slight cold, but I figure a walk will do me good, especially since the sun's out and there's light breeze in the air. So I pack my bag and head to UCF Library which reminds me of my rare visits to our own library in Shuwaikh and the rows upon rows of empty shelves. The disgrace!!! Why build a library this huge when you can't fill it with books? It looks pathetic.
Anyway, back to UCF, the actual library where shelves are stacked. I finish part of my research and decide to head home to rest my cold. Two steps out of the place and it starts pouring. Now if you're not familiar with rain in Florida; it usually is a quick shower that soaks you wet, ending within a few minutes. In my case, it lasted exactly from the library to my car. By the time I get in the car, my clothes are soaked, my feet frozen, my headache worse than ever, and my cold … oh well, you catch my drift. Now any sane person would know never to leave home without an umbrella in Florida. But I'm a Kuwaiti to the bones and rain for us is not to be shielded by umbrellas, but enjoyed for its rarity. (Though from what I heard of the last heavy rainstorm in Kuwait and what it did to traffic, that might soon change)
That was yesterday. Laptop still sick, so is its owner. Yet today's visit to the library was sunnier and less painful. So I leave you and me with a picture of a place I will soon miss when I go back to KU.
Taking the family to Lake Eola's Amphitheatre later tonight for A Midsummer Nights Dream. Will fill you in later dear blog.

Medieval Times on Camera

Don't know how to add a picture to a previous post. So this goes separately as it was taken when we actually arrived (10 minutes late) to the event.

Medieval Times

Its almost 5:30. Boys all ready. But mommy needs more time of course. I mean going to Medieval Times is quite the cultural experience and mommy has to be suitably attired. Mommy is also chatting on the net and it’s ill manners to leave in the middle of someone’s conversation pouring their hearts out. OK well, that was a lie. Mommy just got ticked off by another one of her so-called best friends (not the one mentioned in the previous post) so mommy decided to just surf blogville randomly. So, instead of getting ready on time like she asked the boys to do, she chooses to take a walk down blogville – this thing’s becoming quite an addiction.

Need to get dressed.

So, properly attired – in a faded jeans and white top, high heels and colorful purses are the only fashion statement I occasionally make here. Skirts have gathered dust. Worn every once in a while when I feel in the mood for shaving. I’m telling you, jeans and white tops are the proper costume when visiting those medieval times. I mean can you imagine what a superb invention that would’ve been for those living in those times. I mean milking cows and tilling the land in those clothes. Damn, that must’ve been quite a burden. This paragraph begins with an incomplete statement. A fragment? Really? Shame on me. Gotta fix that.
So, properly attired, I offer this blog one last touch before I head out.

Random thoughts: yes because so far this wasn’t random :)
Earlier today I made sha66a o ba66a. A scrupulous meal of cheese, tomatoes, olive oil, and hot sauce eaten with pita bread since Irani bread is not an option here. No actual duck (ba66a) in the recipe.
Downloaded MSN Messenger 7. I wasted some time playing with the new additions last night.
Listening to (hmmm as appears on my new MSN page) Switchfoot’s Only Hope
Time to go….no really….running extremely late….so get off your lazy ass already and go.

Excluded...exiled...omitted...the horror the horror

So my so-called best friend just wrote a so-called article about her so-called life. And guess what? I was not included. I, her best friend, the best thing that ever happened to her, the richest part of her life, was not included.

Supposedly we're a group, a group of four, a foursome. But her stupid article refers to them as the infamous trio :@ trio my ass :@ infamous my ass :@ how dare she exclude me from their shopping spree story?

Okay I know. I'm not currently living in Kuwait so naturally their actual shopping spree does not include me. But this is fiction. It's her so called life. Enmbelish a little. Go back to a time when I actually was there. So I'm miles and miles away. So I'm exiled to Orlando. Does that excuse her for excluding and omitting me...the horror the horror.

To show my anger, I refuse to link this page to that so-called friend's. 

Payback time

This is a rather late response. But I just came across this in a fellow blogger's house. A vulgar response much needed for a vulgar argument.

Check it out

Tori Amos in Orlando

Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us, only sky
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one

OK. That’s not Tori Amos. But she did her own version of Lennon and I loved it. Of course she preceded this by My Favorite Things:

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things

And even that was quite an act.
I wouldn’t rate Tori among my most favorite artists, but seeing her perform on those pianos was quite a treat.

OK I have to do Tori some justice. So here’s Tori from Jackie’s Strength:

Make me laugh
Say you know
What you want
You said we were the real thing
So I show
You some more
And I learn
What black magic can do
Make me laugh
Say you know
You can turn
Me into the real thing
So I show
You some more
And I learn

She also did Horses, Cloud on My Tongue, Josephine, Not the Red Baron, hmmm and some other songs I’m not sure I remember now.

Amazing show.

I’m off to bed :)

Wine and the City

What is it in a city that gives it its special charm. I've been in Orlando for about 8 months, and only today, I ventured into its downtown. I have to say I am impressed. It's a small area, a few streets intersecting each other, coffee shops and nightclubs scattered all around, with a few galleries, a library and some other little shops. Nothing especially alluring I'm sure. This is not New York. This is not Paris. It's downtown Orlando. Yet unlike downtown Kuwait, there's a certain feeling that touches you when you're strolling down those streets just before the clubs are officially open. It's a weekend, but not late enough yet for the streets to be crowded with club hoppers. With a stomach fully satisfied after a meal of luscious and delicious pot roast, our walk downtown proved more entertaining than ever. The restaurant itself was quite impressive. Other than its wonderful meal, the ambience was quite something. Again, nothing special. Maybe it's that glass of shiraz wine. Maybe it's the vibes you get from other customers enjoying the beginning of their weekend, a weekend most needed for those with a 9-5 work schedule. Is that we do not attack our weekends in Kuwait with as much vigor? Most of us have pretty relaxing working hours during the week. But then again, what would an employee do in Kuwait to attack his or her weekend? How are we to relax and kick back? Without that most lip smacking glass of wine, can our weekends really be fully appreciated?
 

Starbucks at Winter Park

I'm sitting at Starbucks, trying to finish my paper. But of course I specifically choose the Starbucks with internet connection. So instead of working on my paper, I'm chatting and surfing the web. The advances of technology that I applauded in another blog seem to be my downfall here.

Weather was amazing. Sunny but with a cold breeze. So I took my bike and pedaled the 5 miles to this place. I love it here. It's right next to this private college so you occasionally see students going over their calculus books. But it's also in the middle of an open mall, well more of a street with cute little shops, cafes and such. So you get a mixture of people and occasionally some business men and women meeting with their clients to discuss their stocks, or the house offered for sale. Yes, I also listen to what goes on around me, so between that, chatting, surfing the net and listening to (hmm let's see. Its Tracy Chapman right now), my paper's taking longer and longer to finish. But that's fine with me. Beats working at home any time.

JUST SAY NO

Could there be a Kuwaiti Lysistrata? No more rallies. No more Blue days. All we need to do is “just say no”, well, not to drugs this time, but to our men. Can we do it? Maybe with the help of Chocolate Bar. We might need to open more chocolate bars before we can do that. But once that’s done, that should be the new cry. No need to go door to door collecting signatures for women’s rights. JUST SAY NO. That should be our new motto.

p.s. isn’t that the one obligation, according to Islam, that a woman has towards her husband? I’m not sure here. I’m asking. But I remember from attending some religious classes ages ago that cooking, keeping house, raising children, etc., are all optional jobs for which the wife can demand a pay, sex being the only obligation. In which case abstaining would be another ‘atheist’ action that a Kuwaiti feminist would have to undertake. Oh well…