Eve-ntually...

For all those who are familiar with the Final Destination series (well, I wasn't), I got to watch part three yesterday. The impact of it on me in two words? let's just say I'm freaked out since then. All this blood and talk about signs and death and how it is triggered, and turning the whole thing into a philosophical matter about how you cannot escape what it is written and blah blah blah... well, I'm not the right person to handle it. Yes, I realize it's just a movie, but every damn object on the road, every car, person and darrab el sokhn started to look suspicious. w kamein, I'm not going into an amusement park again in my life. w huh! yeah, you heard me (people who have heard me nag about going there since months ago)

Ramadan started to show its effects on me. been sick since this morning. maybe it's the whole food diet change w tokhbees el akel :(

yalla, supposed to get ready for an iftar with friends. you see, it's a bit difficult when the smell of cooking in the nearby kitchen gives you the nausea.

ok, so I didn't get to go to Yemen after all, but at least I got to see the pictures!

oh and Saleh afandi won, no surprise about that..

A couple of days ago, while sitting in a café, I noticed that the woman at the table in front of me was my cousin, from my father’s side - (as in bint 3amti), whom I haven’t seen since more than ten years ago. Of course she didn’t recognize me because I was just a kid back then, but she, on the other hand, was easily spotted: beside the five-time-bigger minor detail, she almost never changed. Oh that was mean of me… make it seven times bigger.

Yesterday, while doing some window shopping, another cousin of mine, from my mother’s side this time (as in ibn khali) nearly touched shoulders with me, tellement on etait proche! And still la 7ayat li man tounadi… I followed him afterwards a la Sherlock Holmes, and watched how my little shy cute cousin met with his girlfriend at the end of the mall’s passageway. Cute! Hal fas3oun!

Anyway, I guess what I’m trying to say, in a way, is that... I do miss those big family gatherings, especially in Ramadan…

and kamein, in a way, I do envy those people with the 10 uncles and 15 aunts, and dozens of cousins, w sitto w jiddo w 3ammo w 3amto w ilakh ilakh...

Bon, end of break. see you when i'm in the mood for blogging.

It's hectic at work today: last minute preparations, last minute translations, last minute Tchador shopping etc...

The main question among us translators though was (for grammatical purposes): Dakhlek, is Yemen a boy or a girl?

haydi, hayda, haydi, hayda.. whatever. what sane person has this sort of a conversation in his daily life anyway...

So the previous weekend I indulged myself in a visit to the Movenpick Spa. worth every penny Im telling you! (regardless of the fact that you have to pay this huge sum to stay in an oven called sauna... among other things), but anyway, it was very relaxing (and the least thing to do since the vacation thing was not working at all, as you guys know). You actually reach a state of serenity with the oven heat. I think I even saw a naked man there, heik walking around. no, we're not talking the butt of a Brad Pitt, I mean a naked old man with a potbelly. thank God I wasn't wearing my glasses! Anyway, the showers there are so much fun! You just press a bunch of buttons, and you have flows of water coming either from the sides, or cold flashes on your head, or light gentle drizzles etc... ok, I sound like a baby who's having his first bath. But it's way better than those ads about the woman on a plane, washing her hair with Herbal Essence. (bof! Herbal Essence is such a "deceptive" shampoo btw). and we didn't even get to the hotstones massage part yet! to think they have asked me: "you prefer Joyce or George as your masseur?"! now that answer would have been interesting (in case I'm revealing it to you ya3neh)...

yalla, enough for today. zhe2et sarsara.

The high point of today: My Ashrafiyeh colleague walking in the room, in her Yemen tchador! Never thought something would crack me up hal add!

Can I at least know who called me today on my cell phone (international call), asked for my name in person, then strangely hung up on me?

Hmm... been drowning in dictionaries for too long; spending quite some time with my friend google over here too.

Well that’s what you do when you have a mixed document bita3 kollo. Khabissa ya3neh.

I have to figure out what a certain weird meal called “tapenade” means in Arabic... invent a new word barki... W kamein the ultra-low-rise jeans. Inno ma3leih ya3neh. W ba3dein a bunch of eye diseases and treatments like: monovision, LASIK surgery, PRK, retinoids, endermologie, keratome, conductive keratoplasy… dawwa rasseh. W stuff related to fung-shui, then this margarine butter that’s supposed to be healthy, w new fall shoe trends, w a lot lot more, all grouped in one single document. La2 w shu, a private pilates session is supposed to cost between 150 and 750 SR. SR? SR?! inno isn’t this supposed to be in dollars? Are we talking Saudi Riyal all of a sudden now?

don't authors know translators clean after them? can't they be a little more considerate ya3neh?

Anyway, don’t mind the mood. Add to that inno I haven't eaten anything since last night, and that I’m supposed to wait till seven again tonight. oh yes, that's called fasting. not working for me at all this year.

yalla have to run. later.

Work field trip to Yemen!

And I'm not going! :(

Apparently tribes during elections are not the perfect place for a girl.

Ma3 inno nothing else seems more right for me in this particular period.

Inno bye bye Italy vacation, w so long to the Turkey escape, and now this. inno pfff.

Oh and I hate blogs, wish I never started with the whole thing aslan. but once you start, you just cannot stop. you're doomed to blog till the remaining days of your life. to post about you heartbreaks, your wedding day, your first baby, your jobs, the colleagues that you absolutely hate etc... an everlasting mission (for your sake before anyone else's). they should have written that in their manuals. bastards.

So, is it possible to force oneself to stop doing something by... say hypnosis mathalan?

w 3ada zelek, it's a black day in the Kingdom of the Sun, w mish tay2a 7adan. But I guess it already shows.

Have to wait till seven ce soir to eat something. not complaining. can handle it. w killo tamem. 4 hours to go. will be catching a movie kamein after this long break. heard the assassination series (not the movie, the real-life one) is back to Lebanon min awwal w jdid. but if they think that will stop me, qu'ils aillent se faire foutre.

yalla. a toute.