Random thoughts

Goodbye Granny

2011-08-02T12:00:00.001+01:00

It’s been months since my last post. I didn’t mean for it to be so long, but life kinda got ahead of me. My teaching schedule got a bit more hectic April through to June, making life a bit more hectic - but it was more money, so it was all good. :D

In April I booked a three week trip to Ireland and London for June. My mum’s Irish, so we were going to be spending two weeks with my Granny as well as uncles, aunts and cousins. Originally it was just going to be myself, my mum and my brother going, but Granny called at the end of April and said she’d really like to see my sister too, so she offered to pay for her ticket. It was all set, and we were really excited. It’d been 4 years since I’d last been back to see her and she’d had a few health scares over that time (obviously my mum goes back more often, as it‘s her mum!).

In the second week of May, after we’d bought all the tickets and were planning our shopping, packing, etc my mum got a phone call from my aunt to say that my Granny had been very confused, she wasn’t herself and that they’d taken her to hospital. The next day doctors discovered that she had tumours in her liver. She was given morphine to make her comfortable and the doctors said that she wouldn’t survive the night. But she did. And the next night. And the night after that, too. My poor mum was in an awful mess. My brothers and sisters were in the middle of exams and, from what the doctors were saying, she’d never make it over in time anyway. She really couldn’t decide whether to go back or not. In the end she decided that she wouldn’t, and my eldest aunt really reassured her in this by telling her that there really wasn’t any point. Granny wasn’t conscious, she wouldn’t even know that my mum was there if she did go. And moreover, Granny wouldn’t have wanted it. She wouldn’t have wanted my mum to ruin our holiday plans (because it would have) to go and see her when she wasn’t even conscious. So mum didn’t go.

Granny finally passed away, peacefully, in the early hours of Wednesday 24th of May. It still doesn’t seem real - she’s always been there so how can she not be now?

Two and a half weeks later we travelled out to Ireland. I was dreading going into Granny’s house for the first time and not seeing her there, but it wasn’t actually all that bad. My eldest aunt and her husband moved over from Scotland a few years ago to take care of Granny, so the house was rather different from the last time I’d been there, and none of us were immediately struck with the loss.

The day after we arrived was a Sunday and we had a bit of a family get-together. My younger aunt came with her kids, my uncle came with his wife and my other uncle (who lives next door) came up with his wife and kids too.

The most difficult day for me personally was the day when my mum and all her brothers and sisters went to the solicitors for the reading of the will. Left at home, in Granny’s house, were myself, my brother and sister and five of my cousins (aged between 19 and 9). We had a good dinner, washed up and had a good laugh. Granny would have loved it. Although her hearing wasn’t all that good anymore, she loved to sit and watch us - her grandchildren - spending time together. She loved watching us chat, laugh, fight, play, mess around, eat, drink and joke together. She would sit in her armchair in the sun and just watch us for hours. Just thinking about it tears me up, because she would have loved to watch us all that day.

When the parents all returned we had tea, homemade scones and plenty of goodies. Then somebody decided to take down the box of photographs and we all spent much of the evening pouring over them - laughing at some tragic fashions, trying to figure out who some people were, remembering and listening to stories that had been forgotten before. Again, Granny would have loved it. At one point, I went upstairs, into the guest bedroom that I was sharing with my mum and sister, and just sobbed. I missed my Granny and my Granddad. I miss sitting at the kitchen table having breakfast, with Granny serving up soft boiled eggs, homemade Irish soda bread, homemade jam and Irish breakfast tea from tea leaves, while Granddad and I chatted from opposite ends of the table, his blue eyes twinkling. Granddad died 13 years ago and I still miss him, and missing Granny only makes me miss him more.

Over the course of the rest of the holiday, my mum went through all the family photos - thousands of them. She sorted them out by era, and labelled the more obscure ones. Then my brother started to scan them onto the computer. He only got as far as the 70s after about 3 days work!

Here are some of my favourite old photos of Granny and Granddad (I know I’m biased, but weren’t they a beautiful couple?!):

This is their engagement photo.

Granny and Granddad cutting the cake on their wedding day.

Granny.

Granddad.

When a rut becomes a manhole

2011-04-22T22:52:00.000+01:00

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For ages I've been saying that I'm stuck in a rut. A few months ago - around December time - that rut became a very deep, dark manhole. Since then I've not really been able to function. It was the beginning of March that I realised that there was something seriously wrong and that this was no ordinary stuck-in-a-rut scenario. Not even for me.

I was on the bus going into uni, that March day. It was a lovely sunny day, not too hot and not too cold. As I was going in I realised that this was the first time in two months that I had voluntarily left the house. For two months, I hadn't opened the shutters to my bedroom. I hadn't been able to sleep at night and I'd had serious difficulty getting up in the morning. Even when I was awake, I still coudn't be bothered to get up. I only did the absolute bare minimum necessary - teaching, chores for my mum and that's it. I spent the rest of the time in bed on my laptop reading crappy celebrity gossip blogs or asleep. I didn't even feel like watching any films or TV, or reading any books. I stopped my knitting and as for exercising - hah! When having a shower is an effort, forget working out. I also stopped reading blogs. With my life being such a dismal existence, I really didn't want to read about other people successfully getting on with their lives. Occasionally I'd read a post, but rarely could I find anything to say in a comment.

As I sat on that bus, passing some beautiful green fields, I realised that this was not normal. It wasn’t a normal down-in-the-dumps phase, and even if it were, it'd gone on for far too long. What did I do? Nothing. I don't know why, but it really didn't occur to me to go to the doctor, even though I knew that I was depressed. Somehow, by the grace of God, this depression has lifted, and now, a few weeks later, I'm starting to get my life back.

I'm not gonna lie - it's not like I realised I was depressed and suddenly chose to snap out of it, because it’s just not in my control. It's not even like it's decided to go away suddenly, because that’s just not how it works. It's taken a few weeks for it to gradually lift, and then I got some really, really good news not that long ago and it's made a world of a difference to me in terms of motivation. That, combined with my newfound ability to get out of bed and get off my arse and do things, has made me feel much better about myself and my life. Today I was dusting my telly and I realised: I'm happy. That's the first time that I've felt genuinely happy for longer than I can remember.

(And I wasn't happy because I was cleaning. I was happy because I am happy.)

It's amazing to me that today, a day that I had deliberately set aside to do nothing, was one in which I still chose to do stuff. I did a bit of baking, a bit of cleaning, and here I am now, writing this blog post - the first in 4 months.

So why didn’t I write about this before? Why didn’t I go to the doctor? Well, I think that a very big part of my problem is that I hate being negative. I hate other people thinking I'm less than fine. I know it's normal to get down from time to time, I just don't like to show it. It makes me feel like a failure. So I suppose it's no coincidence that the first time I get around to writing a blogpost in all this time is when I'm feeling happy again, and can talk about all the horrible stuff in the past. It's over. I'm happy. So obviously I'm not a failure. I know it's stupid - depression isn't anyone's fault. But when I couldn't even get out of bed in the morning I just felt like such a loser.

Things I need to work on

2010-12-20T21:07:00.000+01:00

As usual I’m not happy with the way I’m living my life right now. I’m permanently tired because I’m not getting enough sleep - for the past three days I’ve had about 3-4 hours of sleep a night. And I’m not even taking long siestas or anything to compensate for it, so that’s one hell of a sleep deficit I’m building.

Here's a list of the things that I really need to work on:

1. Getting to bed early. I can’t function during the day properly and I ain’t doing what I’m supposed to be doing until the last minute before bed. Feeling permanently tired is so old already.

2. Get my exercise in earlier. It has to be done. And no cheating. These days I’ve been working out in the wee hours - around 12 or even 1 in the morning. See, I said I need to get to bed earlier.

3. Write more. Throughout the day and not just 20 minutes before bed so that I can tick the ruddy habitforge update.

4. Quit playing Mahjong Titans. I’m wasting HOURS everyday on this s**t. Seriously, I spent over 10 hours on it last week. (As per my Rescue Time weekly summary - boy did I not like this week's report. Rescue Time, by the way, is an online time tracking program that logs how long you spend on every program that you use, whilst running in the background. It's actually pretty nifty.)

5. Preparing lessons properly and ahead of time. Also, I need to be stricter about logging hours and pay. I’m not feeling the whole teaching thing right now. A large part of my problem is that I teach several one-to-ones, but I prefer teaching groups (more varied interactions and it’s sooooooooo much easier), so I’m not very enthusiastic. This means that I leave my lesson planning until the last minute the night before. It would be so much better if I just did it ahead of time and had one less thing to stress over.

6. Work on my review of 2010. This year was basically an unmitigated disaster in terms of my New Year’s Resolutions and goals, for various reasons. I know that if I don’t want to repeat this next year then I’m going to have to really take a long hard look at what went wrong this year. I also want to do some of the various end-of-year reviews that are out there.

7. Pick goals for next year. I think this one’s fairly obvious.

It’s not much, but it does require willpower, which I’m kinda low on these days.

Anything you need to work on? Or is everyone just gonna wait until the New Year?

I am a warrior.

2010-12-12T17:13:00.000+01:00

I recently discovered habitforge, a site that allows you to list habits you want to form and then sends you an email every day to check up on you. But the best bit? You have to do the activity every day for 21 days straight. If you skip one day, you have to start again from zero. It’s very effective. I'm currently working on two habits: working out for 50 minutes and writing every day.

So far it’s been 5 days since I started and I can say, hand-on-heart, that the previous two days especially, I would not have worked out if it were not for the threat of starting all over again. And you know what? It feels great! Every workout I finish I feel so proud of myself - this is a HUGE accomplishment for me. Consistency isn’t my forte, or so I keep telling myself, but I’m really beginning to think that’s a load of BS. I can do anything consistently, provided I have the right motivation, it’s something I truly believe in and it’s something that I really want to do, and not just something that I think I should be doing.

With regards to my workouts, I’m generally doing whatever workout I feel like doing and/or is convenient. Yesterday, that was yoga. I didn’t follow any set workout plan or DVD or anything, I just did a few rounds of sun salutation to warm up and then did whatever poses I felt like doing, for however long I felt like doing them for. The one pose I kept going back to and staying in the longest was this warrior pose (though perhaps not quite as deep as the picture in the link!). I am a warrior. ;)

After my little yoga sesh, I read through some blogs in my reader, and I came across this post from The Simple Dollar. In it, the author (Trent) shares that his wife writes a very simple daily journal: every day she notes down what the best moment of her day was. It seems so simple, yet so darn useful! I really think that if I were to note down the best moment of my day everyday I’d start to see what I really love to do.

So, what was my best moment of yesterday? When I realised I had about 10minutes left of my workout, I spent the rest of that 10 minutes smiling my way through the poses. I was happy with myself, and I felt strong, successful, centred and in control of my life.

What was the best moment of your day?

Fasting in Islam

2010-12-08T20:10:00.001+01:00

I've mentioned a few times on my blog about fasting, usually with regards to Ramadan. After Melanie's comment, I thought I could elaborate a little bit more about fasting in Islam. Because I don't want to complicate things, I've decided to use Rudyard Kipling's poem 'I Keep Six Honest Serving Men' as a guide to explaining the most important things.

Rudyard Kipling wrote:

I keep six honest serving-men

(They taught me all I knew);

Their names are What and Why and When

And How and Where and Who.

So first up: What is fasting in Islam? Basically it's going without food or drink from dawn to dusk. It also involves staying away from all vices (sex, smoking, etc) during those hours, as well as working harder to please God through every act of worship from kindness to prayer.

Next: Why do Muslims fast? For much the same reason that Jews fast Yom Kippur and some of the reasons that Christians fast - to attain piety through humility, and develop a closer relationship with God. You can't show off when you're fasting, because only God knows if you're not cheating.

Thirdly: When do Muslims fast? It's just Ramadan, right? Wrong! Although Ramadan is the one time when Muslims HAVE to fast, it's not the only time that we are encouraged to do so. The other important religious fasts include six days in the month following Ramadan, the first 10 days of the last month in the Islamic calendar (which is the month in which the Hajj pilgrimage takes place) especially the 9th Day (the Day of Arafat) and other days, too.

Also, there are times when fasting is forbidden in Islam, most notably the two Eid celebrations.

Then there's How Muslims fast. Other than the fact that everyone doesn't eat, drink or have sex between sun-up and sun-down, there are no specific rituals involved. This has led to great cultural diversity across Muslim lands, which sparks a lot of curiousity and comparing of notes. All good fun. A lot of people get up early before dawn to have a breakfast, that can consist of anything from cereal to a full, several course dinner. (I’m not kidding, I’ve personally witnessed people eat 3+ courses for breakfast in Ramadan).

And then there is breaking the fast. The Prophet Muhammed (peace and blessings be upon him) said that God says that the two happiest times in a Muslim's life are when they break their fast and when they meet their Lord. This is so true. The pure bliss when breaking your fast is unparalleled. But what to break the fast with? Traditionally, it's dates, but it can be anything, from water, milk, soup, dinner, an entree, anything at all. This is then followed by a dinner, called Iftar.

Next up: Where do Muslims fast? Everywhere ... unless they are travelling. If you're on a journey or are away from home for a few days you don't have to fast, as the toll of travel can make you weaker.

Last, but not least: Who has to fast? Everybody at, or over, the age of puberty, male and female, who will not harm their health by doing so. So kids and anyone with a medical reason not to fast, as well as pregnant/breastfeeding women who fear for their and/or their child's wellbeing are exempt. Also, women on their period don't fast.

Now that I’m done with that, I’ll address one of the biggest misconceptions regarding Ramadan: that fasting for a whole month will make you lose weight. It doesn’t. Trust me on this. My mum once fasted Ramadan before she became a Muslim with the hope of losing weight and she lost nothing. Why? Well, because you can still eating anything you like in the evening. And worse yet, a lot of people put on weight in Ramadan because they think that having eaten nothing all day they can eat whatever they want, and however much of it, they like. Sadly, that’s not true.

And it’s quite common for non-Muslims to try it out, for various reasons. I know one person who did it just to see if they could, and another who lived in an area with a large Muslim community and wanted to join in. Also, there are lots of opportunities for people to meet up for an evening meal.

A member of a fire department participates in an Iftar.source

For some truly amazing photos of Muslims during Ramadan/Eid from around the world, check out the Boston Globe's Ramadan 2010 photo gallery.

La Vida Loca

2010-11-05T22:50:00.000+01:00

When I posted over a week ago I honestly thought that the crazy of my life was over. I was very wrong. Since that last post I sat The Last Ever Exam of my life (hopefully). My parents left for a trip to Makkah for Hajj (pilgramage), leaving me in charge at home for a full month. I've started teaching English classes again. And the cherry on the cake is that I've only just discovered that the final deadline for my thesis proposal is the 15th of November.

All this has got me wondering if my life is ever gonna be anything less than crazy. Maybe it's just life in general. Maybe it's my procrastination that's resulted in me having to do a ton of stuff last minute (especially with regards to my thesis proposal). Maybe I'm trying to do too much...

Whatever the reason, I can't see it changing any time soon. I'm gonna have to get on with it all. And learn to make time for the things that I love to do, like blogging, exercising, reading, watching TV, etc. Knowing my abilities regarding self-discipline and putting things off, I won't be holding my breathe for any serious breakthrough any time soon.

Does your life get this crazy? And if it does, how often does it get crazy? Cause it feels like my life has been crazy for waaaaaaaaaaayy too long now.

Return from AWOL land

2010-10-25T19:08:00.000+01:00

This post has been a long time in the writing. I've been meaning to write it, and thereby get back into blogging again, for about a month now, but I just kept putting it off.

Why did I stop blogging in the first place? Simple: life got too much. Or rather uni did and I decided to just quit as many things as possible in my life, culminating in my skipping the last 3 weeks of uni (they STILL didn't kick me out, though) and not doing much instead. I spent the summer teaching English and swimming at some of the local beaches. Pretty nice, all round.

Then Ramadan hit. I always enjoy Ramadan - always. Except this year. This year was tough. I wasn't in the right frame of mind when it started, I didn't ever really get into the right frame of mind and I don't feel like I actually made the most of it. In Islam we believe that fasting Ramadan correctly and performing extra prayers will atone for all past sins. So at the end you (hopefully) get to start again with a fresh slate. While I believe/know that God's mercy is infinite, I really feel like I blew it this year.

After Ramadan I had to go back to uni, and that has been more of the same old stress, culminating yesterday in total depression. It was so bad that I decided to cancel the day and just veg out in front of the TV and/or sleep.

Today, I'm back. :D I've been reading blogs for about a month now, (although, I haven't been commenting) and trying to find my groove. Part of the reason that I haven't blogged in so long is that I basically felt that I sucked at this. Then today I decided just to look up my blog (to see if I could remember the address, *blush*) and reading through a few posts, I really didn't think they were all that bad... so here I am. Ready to keep my arse in gear and write blogposts on a highly irregular, erratic basis.

I'm back.

Complaining

2010-06-12T14:01:00.000+01:00

I was told by a friend – a good friend – a few months ago that I like to complain. She was actually talking about her daughter, who she told me was fine because she was complaining, and when she complained it meant she was happy, like me. I was like: WHAT?! I’m not like that!!! And she told me that I was – that when I was happy I liked to complain. I was flabbergasted, to say the least. And she was completely wrong, of course. I mean, who likes to complain when they’re happy? Surely happiness is not having anything to complain about and therefore not complaining, right?

But then I started to think about what she said, and the more I thought, the more I started to realise that she has a point. (That’s one of the reasons I like this friend so much. She comes at me with a totally different perspective that knocks my socks off, but really gets me thinking.) I do like to complain. But for it to be true that I complain when I’m happy, then the inverse (that I don’t complain when I’m not happy) must also be true. Which, I’ve realised, it is.

Let me give you an example: when I was in my last year at university as an undergrad, happily studying my course, I complained incessantly about my lecturers/tutors, modules, timetable, research papers, exams, extra reading, essays, admin, transport and plenty more to anyone who would listen. However, at the beginning of ’09 when I was engaged and knew it wasn’t a good idea and therefore totally stressed out, I didn’t complain. Seriously, over a period of 3 months, I only made about 3 or 4 comments to my mum, a couple of conversations with my 2 best friends and that’s it. It wasn’t until I’d made up my mind that I was going to end it, and was feeling happy about it, that I started to complain to everyone else, too.

So, I don’t complain when I’m unhappy, but I do when I’m happy. That’s twisted. Really, it’s just wrong. It makes me a miserable cow. Not good. Not what I want to be.

Worst of all, I’m quite a cheerful person, really. No, honestly, I am – I’m a perpetual optimist, always looking on the bright side. But what if, upon meeting me, people hear me complaining and think I’m a miserable cow?

(Note: there is a distinction between complaining and whining: I do not whine. I cannot stand whingers/whiners. I just complain. I’m still working on the defining the difference between whining and complaining, though.)

I Am Happy

2010-06-08T12:00:00.001+01:00

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Except when I think about university.

I took all of last week off for no reason other than that I couldn’t be bothered to go. I’m seriously considering quitting my Masters. It’s depressing me: I hate the subject (it’s not what I thought I’d be studying), I don’t really want it for any future jobs (I don’t want to go into academia, which is all my subject’s really fit for), I cannot be bothered writing a 150-200 page thesis on something I’m not interested in (which seems to be what I’ll have to do), I hate attending (don’t like the modules, the lecturers, or anything), and basically it just feels like a monumental waste of time. So I should quit. But this is probably a one-off chance - I don’t think that this is the kind of thing that I’ll have the opportunity, time or will to do ever again. Especially if I quit now.

So, what’s a girl to do?

Go shopping, of course. For chick flicks, specifically. How does this help? Simple: shopping is relaxing, chick flicks always make me feel good - thereby prolonging the feel-good factor from the shopping – and a relaxed me is a lot more positive than normal and better at finding solutions.

My shopping trip culminated in my deciding to do the following:

1) Email some lecturers at other universities regarding my situation and try to get some advice. There’s no point asking my lecturers, obviously, because they all think that they’re wonderful. I will also seek out and ask lecturers at my university who aren’t teaching me.

2) Get back into teaching English again – I stopped in May for various reasons, but I should definitely pick it back up again now. If I do quit my Masters course I need to have something that’ll get me out of the house regularly, and it’ll probably be teaching. Not to mention it’s my only source of steady income at the moment, which is a pretty big incentive in and of itself.

3) I did a freelance translation job last week and earned a considerable amount in a very short time, which reminded me of why I liked translating. Of course, that was after I remembered how much I hated deadlines. But, let’s face it; every single job has deadlines in some form or another, so I’m ok with it. Now I need to put together a portfolio and get more clients.

4) Now that I finally have my own laptop, it’s high time I took on some work online. The mere thought scares the living daylights out of me (I’m terrified of screwing up) but I know that I need to just do it, and then I’ll be like ‘oh, that wasn’t so bad!’

This week, I’m going to start on steps 1 and 2, which will probably take me at least two weeks, and then I hope to take on the rest when I know how that all goes.

At least my university timetable has been adjusted so I only have one and a half days of attendance, instead of my previous 2 and a half, so that’s something.

(Random side-note: I googled the words 'depressed student college girl', whilst trying to find a picture for this post, and a picture of Robert Pattinson as Edward Cullen came up as one of the suggestions. Google's weird.)

Guess What

2010-06-07T21:19:00.000+01:00

I have finally got a new laptop. My last laptop went kaput back in January, and it’s only taken me five full months to get a new one. It’s a refurbished Advent, which basically means that it has everything that I want, for a reduced price, because it’s second-hand, even though it looks and feels brand new (seriously, it’s brand spanking new).

I knew that I was supposed to be getting it soon (my parents were issued orders to buy and bring me one) but I didn’t really want to write about it until it was here, under my fingers, because whenever I write about anything that may/should happen soon it inevitably doesn’t. Like the treadmill I was hoping to get back in February. Anyways, it doesn’t matter, the fact is my laptop is here now and I’m a supremely happy bunny.

I’m currently trying to copy files from both my mum and dad’s laptops as well as my old one, and to free up some space on my USB stick. Not happiness –inducing work, but I’ll be happy when it’s done. I can’t wait to be able to use my laptop without having to figure out where half my stuff is!

Last word: I love my laptop.

Friday Five

2010-05-28T13:43:00.000+01:00

I haven't been able to think of anything to blog about recently, mainly because I haven't felt like blogging or doing anything that might count as constructive. Except make huge lemon meringue pies, but even that could be considered destructive in terms of my overall diet and health. :D But I got this idea from Amber who's doing the same thing today.

ONE:

Before my mum went away she cooked some meals and put them in the freezer for the days when I'll be at uni. I skipped uni several days this week, but have been using them anyway, which means that I've only cooked one meal from scratch this week. That's how lazy I've been.

TWO:

I am now, for the first time in my life, addicted to reality TV, specifically Discovery's T&L (TLC in the US) channel. I'm glued to Cake Boss, Say Yes to the Dress, What Not to Wear, I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant (now that's what I call an Oh-My-God show) and even Miami Ink. What's wrong with me??? It actually feels like my brain is frying. I've gotta stop this.

THREE:

I have still yet to get back to an exercise routine. It's May already. Heck, it's the end of May - next week is the first week of June. My aim is to work out today.

FOUR:

University is officially depressing me. For some reason that is completely beyond my comprehension, we don't finish this summer until mid JULY. Then we get a two month summer holiday, followed by another month of uni before we do our 2nd Semester exams. Shoot me please.

On the plus side, I have perfected the art of skipping lectures: out of the three lectures I missed this week, two were cancelled at the last minute. :D

FIVE:

Yesterday I finally caught up with my Google Reader. It took me around three hours, but I really felt that I didn't have an excuse to click the 'mark all as read' button when I've done nothing all week. I'm actually really proud of myself for catching up.

Holding Down the Fort

2010-05-21T16:59:00.000+01:00

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My parents have gone away for 2 weeks today, leaving me holding down the fort at home taking care of my 4 younger siblings, the youngest of whom is still in primary school. As a result, I've cancelled all my teaching lessons and have given myself a carte blanche to miss as many days at uni as I ~~choose~~ need. It's all good.

Life's been really crazy for too long now - it feels like I'm running on a little hamster wheel - and I need to take a break and get back to what I want to do, what I love, what makes me feel healthy and happy. This complete break from my routine is perfect. I have to cook, bake, clean house, do laundry, go food shopping, etc, etc, for 5 people and I LOVE doing it all. (I think it's the novelty of it, though. I'm not sure I'd like it so much if I had to do it all the time...) Being a student, most of the results of my work take a while to come through. It's satisfying when I make a meal to see the meal that I've made, and it's even better when I get compliments for it. The fact that it's gone in 10minutes flat, is a little disappointing, but hey - I can't have it all, can I?

So over the next couple of weeks, I'm hoping to post a few recipes (if I make anything interesting), maybe blog what I eat for a day (I've always wanted to try that), but above all, blog more regularly!

Random Acts of Kindness

2010-05-17T18:55:00.000+01:00

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I'm trying to maintain my postivity after a long and exhausting day, so I thought that it'd be a good idea to go over some random acts of kindness that I have been luckily enough to receive over the past few days:

- A guy from one of my classes came up to me and thanked me for questioning our lecturer about the correction of our exams. He said that he totally agreed with me, but felt a bit shy about calling out the lecturer in class. (When it comes down to exam marks, I'm never shy. The particular lesson he was referring to was the first - and so far, only - class in that subject in which I have actively participated.)

- One of my classmates offered to help me with my presentation, giving me lots of advice to make it less boring and quicker. Bless her, she even offered to help me with a bit of last-minute research.

- I had to get some paperwork today and the two men in two different bureaus were just so nice! They were pleasant, chatty, helpful and efficient. It just made the whole process pain-free.

All these little things really cheered me up and left me walking away with a smile on my face. We all need these little things every now and then.

On and Off the Band-Wagon

2010-05-15T17:26:00.000+01:00

*Plop*

I think that was the sound of me falling off the band-wagon. It couldn't have been a much louder noise, because I've only just figured it out and it happened a while ago. Unfortunately, it's spreading. I've stopped exercising entirely (every week I say 'next week'), I've started watching way too much TV (every day I say 'just this show'), I've stopped going to bed/getting up early (everyday I say 'tomorrow') and I've basically stopped blogging, just when I'd gotten into a nice little routine with it all.

So, this week is going to be 'one day at a time' week. I'm gonna try to do my best and tackle the major areas I've been slacking, one day at a time.

And I'm starting off with this blog post about nothing. I could whine about how I'm still 2lbs over the weight I should be. I could complain about uni - honestly, in complaining terms, university is the gift that just keeps giving! I could complain about all the paperwork I have to run after this week. But I won't. I was thinking yesterday that I haven't been focusing enough on my accomplishments this year, which is leaving me feeling dejected and completely devoid of motivation. So, my top accomplishments so far (in no order):

- I've taught two students to a Beginner's level in English.
- I've taught a six year old basic English (alphabet, colours, numbers, phrases and nouns).
- I've saved up and researched for my Driving License so that I can get it later this year.
- I managed to pass my first term at university as a post-grad.
- I gave my first ever 1.5hour presentation at university, and while it was boring as hell, it went well. I didn't stammer or stutter and I was able to speak loud enough for the class to hear me. That it was boring was the least of my problems - I DID IT!!

Considering that I've done all this in a mere 4 month period, I'm extremly pleased with my progress. Moreover, these are not accomplishments that I've acheived in a day - they've taken hard work over a period of weeks, if not months, to achieve. So obviously a little every day has been working for me. :D

Proof of Life

2010-05-08T14:40:00.000+01:00

I'm still alive, despite the fact that I've been completely absent online for a good week now. I haven't really done anything interesting or been any busier than usual, but I was feeling rather overwhelmed with a lot of 'need to do asap' surprise things. I have some paperwork that suddenly jumped out at me and needs to get done post haste. Unfortunately, it'll take me at least one day to do it, but most likely at least two and I don't have two whole days to waste running around after paperwork.

Then, I was told that I'd have to start a presentation on Wednesday concerning a really long book that I've only had a couple of weeks to read. (It's basically an economic and philosophical argument for a political phenomena, so it's not even interesting. Oh, and it's also kinda out of date.) In addition to this I really have to come up with a topic for my thesis, and get myself a thesis advisor. Eek.

Oh yeah, and my parents are going away shortly and I'll be left babysitting for a couple of weeks, which also involves cooking, etc. Plus there was a bunch of compulsory social engagements due up. (Don't ask.)

Oh, and I nearly got killed/seriously injured by a very heavy falling metal window guard thing. Thank God I was 30 seconds late!

Net result? I got really stressed out by life in general and just gave up on the internet, friends, exercise (although I have cut back on eating and am on the losing path again) and everything else that wasn't imminently involved with my survival. My motto this week has been a Dori-quote from Finding Nemo:

Source

It worked and somehow I got through the week (it helped that my presentation has been delayed another week - phew!), which I am truly grateful for. Now I just need to be strong and get through this week and my presentation on Wednesday, and then it's downhill from there!

Bullets.

2010-04-28T21:21:00.000+01:00

I can't seem to pull together a post on one topic, so I'm doing bullets instead.

- Why oh why is it so hard to work out how much tax-free electrial goods are in Heathrow airport? I'm not going, but my parents will be going through it soon and I want to give them a shopping list. And if they're gonna be passing through the tax-free part of the airport, then I'd like them to buy it as cheap as possible. But then maybe I should just get it off ebay...

- I taught three English lessons today, which is unusual, but my lecture this morning was cancelled, so I took over one of my mum's lessons. I must say, it's nice to see my students making progress.

- I just typed the above a minute ago, before I accidentally hit something and lost it. The strange thing is that the first bullet didn't disappear. Weird.

- I'm going shopping tomorrow - YAY!! Don't know what I'm looking for, but I'm going shopping.

- I watched the Twilight Eclipse trailer yesterday and I really liked it. Believe it or not, I was debating whether or not I was going to watch it. Now I know that I definitely will. The only thing I don't like is Bryce Dallas Howard. She just looks so wrong, they really shouldn't have switched out Rachelle LeFevre. Here it is, just in case you haven't already seen it/want to re-watch it.

- Speaking of films, I can't wait to see the new Robert Pattinson film Remember Me. A friend told me the story line and it sounds great. Sad, but great. Furthermore, she said that he actually acts in this one, and does so really well (and she's not an RPattz fan, so I trust her). I don't think that looking washed-out and sombre in Twilight truly counts as acting. Just my opinion. Anyways, here's the trailer for Remember Me:

What's your take on RPattz's acting skills? Is there anything you're looking forward to over the next few days?

When In Doubt, Quote.

2010-04-26T21:33:00.000+01:00

Source

I have nothing worth saying today, nor have I had anything for the past few days, hence the reason I haven't posted for near enough a week. It's not because life has come to a standstill - because, let's face it, it never does that - but rather, because I have nothing to share. So, instead I'm just sharing other people's words, people who had some real wisdom to share.

"No man needs a vacation so much as the man who has just had one" - Elbert Hubbard. Amen.

"Experience is a brutal teacher. But you learn -- my God, do you learn." C.S. Lewis

"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." Ralph Waldo Emerson (Who I keep confusing with Robert Frost, for some reason. I don't understand why - they lived at different times and they have very different names. I guess it's because I know they're both poets and I love their poetry, despite having read very little of it.)

"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty." - Winston Churchill

I don't know if it's the fact that I was born and raised in the UK, or just my personality, but I love Winston Churchill quotes. I always find them amusing, quirky and soooo true!

"You will make all kinds of mistakes; but as long as you are generous and true, and also fierce, you cannot hurt the world or even seriously distress her." - Winston Churchill

"Only the stupid need organization, the genius controls the chaos!" - Albert Einstein. This is quite possibly my favourite quote of all time. I'm thinking of making it my motto.

And my hands-down favourite poem of all time:

Leisure
What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?—
No time to stand beneath the boughs,
And stare as long as sheep and cows:

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass:

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night:

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance:

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began?

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
- W.H. Davies

What are your favourite quotes/poems?

Wednesday Reminder

2010-04-22T12:36:00.000+01:00

Source

Wednesdays are my early morning days, as it's the only day of the week that I have to leave home at 7.15am (ish). (The rest of the days I get to leave home at 8.30ish.) It's not that big a deal though, because I only have one lecture and it's finished by 10.30am, so I'm home for dinner (I prefer to eat my main meal as early as possible). This tends to mean that I'm often extremely tempted to go shopping on my way home.

For some reason, Wednesdays are also my 'Ooooh! That's cute' days. You know, the days when you see loads of stuff and think 'Oooh! That's sooo cute! It'd look great with *insert any wardrobe/household item*'. I notice what other people are wearing, I see all the lovely clothes through shop doors and the shoes in the window displays... and I want it all!

As I finish early, it's very tempting to go shopping on the way home. However, this adoration of stuff is remarkably short-lived. In fact, I'm usually over all the cute stuff by the time I get to uni. Why? Because it's the only morning I hit the rush hour traffic and take forever to get to uni. Once, I was so late I actually missed my lecture. The only lecture I have to attend. I was so annoyed.

Anyway, back to topic. Being stuck in traffic on a bus that takes the busiest route, is a great incentive to save money to pay for my driving lessons, and therefore not shop. It's also a weekly reminder that keeps me on goal. Net result? I've now got enough money to pay for all the lessons. (I wanted to have all the money together before I start, just in case I somehow lose my income - I like to cover all bases.) I'm so proud of myself.

But now I seriously need to go on a shopping trip. I've only bought ONE pair of shoes this year and 11 DVDs. That's it. I need retail therapy!

Why I watch The Biggest Loser. Sometimes.

2010-04-19T21:46:00.000+01:00

Source

I really like watching The Biggest Loser. I mean, I wouldn't add it to the schedule of TV programmes I watch, but when I catch it, I'm happy. In all honesty, I think it's because the size of the contestants scares the living daylights out of me. I'm terrified of getting that big. I know people who are obese and it's so not a walk in the park. They have issues with mobility, with seating (which is just plain embarrasing) and eventually with health. What's worse is that it's really difficult for them to lose the weight because there's so much of it.

I think the reason that it scares me so much is because an obese family friend once turned around to me when I was eating a huge plate of curry and said: 'I used to eat like that', meaning that now that she's older she can't eat such large portions. It freaked me out, because I started to think if she used to eat that much - i.e. doesn't anymore - and is that big, what the hell is going to happen to me? That's when I got into healthy living.

It's also why I watch The Biggest Loser: seeing people that heavily overweight struggling so much to get healthy makes me want to work even harder to not get there, to not become them. It makes me start eating more fruit and veg, cut back on portion sizes and make exercise a priority.

And funnily enough it's almost always on when I'm having my dinner. :D

Time-Out

2010-04-17T19:01:00.000+01:00

This week I took a time-out from ... well, everything really. I went to uni, but skipped my most depressing lecture, didn't exercise once and spent most of my time vegetating on the couch watching TV, drinking tea and eating. Basically, I took this past week to recharge my batteries and, thank God, it worked because I'm raring to go now as a result.

That and the fact that today is weigh-in day and I discovered that I've gained FOUR WHOLE POUNDS in just one week! And it's not even girly-time yet. *wail*

Mind you, I did have pasta twice this week. And a pizza. And a couple of croissants. Yeah, ok, so I know why I've put on the weight and yes, I know it's not really a big deal - I mean 4 pounds? People on The Biggest Loser lose 100s! So I know it's not that bad, it's just that this is the first time since last September that I've actually gained and it has basically scared the crap out of me.

But it's ok, because I have now recharged my batteries and, although I'm not entirely sure I've got my mojo back, I do feel able to take on my life again. I can do this. My only hurdle now is sorting out my sleeping pattern because doing nothing and eating loads totally wrecks my sleeping habits. As do mosquitos. *grrr*

The Path of Least Resistance.

2010-04-12T17:09:00.000+01:00

For a while now - I don't know how long, but it's definitely over a month and a half - I've been stretching myself a little too thinly. Too much planning, trying to do too much, trying to do the absolute best, etc, etc, etc. Net result? I've run myself into the ground. Ok, so not quite into the ground, but I've definitely run myself down and I'm suffering as a result.

So, what to do? I've decided to take the path of least resistance. If there's a quick/easy route out of something, then I'm taking it. If I can get out of something I don't particularly like, then I'm gone. This week I'm taking it easy, because I need to get back to being 100%, but then after that it'll be a whole bunch easier. I hope.

Why the path of least resistance? Because sometimes water, electricity and volcanoes have the right idea: just take the easiest route to your destination. Ok, so pretty much all routes are easy for a volcano, but whatever. For me, the path of least resistance started yesterday when I changed one of my paper titles. Coincidently, it now just happens to have the exact same title as a paper I wrote last year. Don't you just love it when coincidences like that happen? ;) (FYI: I will be editing it - it's going to be an exercise in discovering the true extent of my perfectionism.)

Do you ever feel like following the path of least resistance? Does it work out for you (please say it does)? Are there some areas of your life in which you're more inclined to follow the path of least resistance?

What a week.

2010-04-09T21:25:00.000+01:00

It's been one long, hard, horrible week. For too long now, I've felt that my life is overscheduled, and this week was burn-out week. Here's a run through:

- Monday:
Actually, this wasn't so bad, it just wasn't any good either. I didn't get much done and, well, it was just so meh.

- Tuesday:
This was so bad that I decided to cancel it. Seriously. I got home at about 5pm, had dinner, removed my nail polish and went to bed as there was no point in even considering continuing with this day. By rights, I should never have gotten out of bed. Want to know how bad this day was? Let me count the ways:

1) Up late. Ok, my fault, but it's not a good start.

2) Crazy lady attack. A lady in my neighbourhood called me (not by name she used mademoiselle) and I, innocently thinking she wanted directions or something, went up to her. She then, very loudly, accosted me for cussing the neighbourhood (not likely, seeing as I live in it). I realised she was a slice short of a sandwich, so I walked away to the bus stop. She followed me, shouting insults the whole way. Apparantly people who wear black (boy did I wish I'd stuck with plan A and worn green) are filthy sluts, bitches, whores, and a litany of other things and this woman was on a mission to out us all. In front of people in my neighbourhood who all know me. Yay. Admittedly, everyone else knew/recognised that she wasn't all there and they were nice to me, but still, it was kinda shocking.

3) I finally get to uni and my first lecturere doesn't show up, so I've got to hang around from 10.30am until 1pm for my next lecture.

4) I discover that for this semester my timetable is the same (which is good) and so too are my lecturers (which is not good). I do not like my lecturers because they are, for the most part, wasting my time.

5) My 1pm lecturer showed up and spent the entire 2 hour lecture talking about nothing. And I mean nothing. He didn't even have our program for the subject, so he couldn't teach us anything. But he didn't let us go home either. Instead, he gave us all headaches.
After that I just gave up.

- Wednesday:
Early start, trouble with transport, too many lessons to teach, a lecturer dictated the title of a research paper to me (and it's soooo boring).

- Thursday:
Ok, actually I enjoyed yesterday (a lesson with a 6 year old, which was great fun, and an afternoon at a friend's meeting a newborn), but I really just wanted a day away from scheduledness.

Today, however has been a blessing. I got up late, hung around the house in track bottoms and a sweatshirt, watched loads of tv, ate, and did nothing more strenuous than the washing up, making my bed and bringing in some washing from the line. I feel like I've recharged my batteries somewhat. Now I really need to sort out this coming week. I'm not looking forward to it, and in all honesty, I'm not loving my life at the moment.

My Quarterlife Crisis

2010-04-05T20:59:00.001+01:00

image found here

I'm a big believer in labelling things. Putting a label on something makes me feel that there's something that I can do about it, that I can take care of it. It makes me feel in charge. And obviously I'm not talking about people here, cause that would be stupid (and prejudiced). It's like when I was diagnosed with PCOS: just knowing what was wrong with me made me feel better, that I could conquer it. (Soulcysters is a great support group, by the way.)

So, after doing a fair amount of harrumphing over my complete lack of direction in life, I have reached the conclusion that I am suffering from a Quarterlife Crisis. Of the ~~extensive~~ list on wikipedia, I've decided that I have the following:

- realizing that the pursuits of one's peers are useless
- insecurity regarding the fact that my actions are meaningless
- insecurity regarding present accomplishments
- re-evaluation of close interpersonal relationships
- lack of friendships or romantic relationships (heck yeah!)
- disappointment with one's job
- nostalgia for my high school life, specifically my first year.
- tendency to hold stronger opinions (I've always had this, but, hey, if I can blame it on a quarterlife crisis then great!)
- boredom with social interactions
- loss of closeness to high school and college friends
- financially-rooted stress
- a sense that everyone is, somehow, doing better than me
- frustration with social skills.

Now that I've finally stuck a label on the way that I'm feeling/where I am in life, I can start trying to fix it. This is the bit I love the most: the reading around bit. Then I'll actually have to do something about it, I guess...

Anyone else feel the same way? Anyone??

Some People I Knew ...

2010-04-04T18:49:00.000+01:00

I was feeling completely uninspired to write anything today, but it's on my to-do list and I need to get into the habit of posting regularly, so here I am. In my search for inspiration I trawled through a bunch of old photos with messages from icanread for inspiration (I like to keep the ones that I find thought-provoking/interesting/true/funny for just such occasions as today) and found this:

image from this tumblog

It got me thinking of all the friends I've had that I'm no longer in touch with. People who were and still are very dear to me, but aren't in my life anymore.

First off, there's my best friend from pre-school. We went on to the same infants school after that and remained friends, but then I changed schools and that was that. I saw her about 10 years ago in my old neighbourhood, but she didn't see me. I remember playing in pre-school together on the plastic slide and having biscuits and juice in break time.

Then there are my two childhood best friends, two girls (unrelated) that I used to see really often. I lost touch when one of them moved away and the other's dad remarried (I don't know why that was, but hey..). A few years later I got in touch with both. One's parents had split and the other had gotten married. The first girl was dealing with a truckload of crap in her life at the time and we lost touch again pretty soon. I often think about her. The other girl got miffed when I didn't phone her back one week (ok, I know I said I would, but I'm terrible with the phone - everyone who knows me knows that, and I did phone eventually). She stopped talking to me as a result, and after my apologies were sadly unaccepted, I decided to let it be.

Then there's my aunty Aisha (who's not really my aunty, but always was an aunty to me) who passed away last month. She was the first person I knew who had a computer at home - back in the day when Windows 95 was the bees knees and paint rocked. But best of all, she had a swivel chair. Oh the hours I spent swiveling on that chair!

It's funny, of all the friends I've had that are no longer a part of my life, these four are the most significant. They are the ones that I often think of and wonder if they're ok now. I hope they're happy wherever they are.

What friends have you lost touch with? And what do you do when you're looking for writing inspiration?

Busy Lizzy

2010-04-01T20:08:00.000+01:00

image found here - aren't these gorgeous? I love the colours!

No, this is not about flowers, although buzzy lizzys are amongst my favourite. They take me back to being a little girl and going shopping for seeds with my mum in early spring sunshine.

This post is about how busy my next few days are gonna be. :(

Today I was out touring the old part of Algiers, the Casbah, which was great fun - thoroughly fascinating (I'll be a-blogging about that soon, I just need to go through my photos first).

Tomorrow I will be going to a family friend's house for the afternoon and evening, which I'm not looking forward to, but feel that I have to go. I'll enjoy it when it's over.

Saturday I have an English lesson in the morning (which is nothing new - I have that student every morning) followed by an afternoon of socialising with a bunch of expats. With cream cakes and loadsa tea. Yeah, I'm looking forward to Saturday. :D

Sunday I'm back at uni. Bleugh. This means that I've got to clean house (my intended spring clean this holiday didn't happen), start my next research paper and prepare to present it as well as start thinking about my thesis. Eek! The mere thought of all that makes me just want to crawl into bed and pull the duvet over my head.

On the bright side though, I'm hoping to start my driving lessons soon - yay!

Other People Rant

2010-03-31T20:14:00.000+01:00

Sorry, but this is a rant.

Why do people have so much difficulty not understanding that I do, in fact, have a life? You know, one that doesn't involve waiting around all day for them to grace me with their presence. Or hours of boredom only relieved by their phone calls. Seriously, I have a life! EERRRGH!

A friend who lives a way away called me to arrange a meet up. Great! Only she's just got in town and is going away again in 2 days. And I'm supposed to shift my schedule around to suit her spontaneity? I don't think so.

Don't get me wrong, I like spontaneity, but sometimes you have to plan fun things out, too. You can't always just roll out of bed and decide what to do. You especially can't do that if you have scheduled lessons to teach and a short 2 week holiday filled with places to go/see.

I just find it so insulting when people phone up thinking I've got nothing better to do. That I'm just waiting around for them to drop by when it suits them. And, to make matters worse, I hate that I come across as the ultimate b*tch for turning them down. Which I do, obviously, because I HAVE OTHER ENGAGEMENTS!!

*Deep Breath*

Ok, I feel better now. I enjoyed that rant.

Anyone else have the same problem? Or maybe something to rant about? Please, feel free to share.

Trapsing around Roman Ruins (Long Post)

2010-03-28T12:11:00.002+01:00

Being in Africa, Algeria's history goes back a long way. In the southern regions there are caves with drawings by early men, in the Northern regions there are the much more recent Roman ruins, throughout the country you can see architecture from the Ottomon era and from the French occupation. All in all, there's quite a bit to see, and because we're having a 'staycation' - we're not going away anywhere this spring break - my family and I decided to pay the Roman ruins in the nearby province of Tipaza a long over due visit.

It was a beautiful day, with some lovely views on the way down:

The ruins are of a city from the late 2nd Century-early 3rd Century, and it was amazing to be able to walk in the footsteps of people who lived there nearly 2000 years. You can climb up the steps of the temple, walk through the doorway of the ampitheater and stand in their rooms. It was incredible.

We saw the ampitheater:

A couple of temples:

Some houses:

With this amazing tile detail on the floor of one of the rooms of a ruin:

There was also a fortress:

And a theatre:

By this stage we were all totally cream crackered (cockney slang for knackered), so we headed off for ice-cream and then home. Everyone had a lie-in the next day. ;)

Film Review: Julie & Julia + Blogging

2010-03-27T20:58:00.000+01:00

Ok, so last night I watched Julie & Julia. I've been wanting to watch it for a while because it stars Meryl Streep (gotta love Meryl), it's about a blogger and everyone keeps going on about how great it is. So, I finally sat down to watch it last night with my little sister. In all honesty, I didn't really enjoy it. I mean, I did. But I didn't. Overall, it was just kinda meh.

First up, the positives: Meryl Streep's performance was amazing, of course, and Amy Adams looked suitably knackered throughout the film, which was appropriate, considering that her character (Julie Powell) works a job and cooks for hours by night. Also, the portrayal of a blogger was really good - it's like so much that I've come across on my reader. lol. I liked the fact that things went wrong for Julie - not because I'm mean, but because it's realistic. Things don't always work out great.

(For anyone who's interested, Julie Powell still blogs here.)

What I really didn't like? Let me count the ways:

1) There's no real story. It's just one woman blogging about cooking and another woman first learning to cook then trying to get her book published. That's it. Whoopee. Nothing else happens. I mean, I know it's a drama and all, but something has to happen. There has to be a reason for the story. But there isn't.

2) Too much making out. I mean, really?!?! It didn't add to the film. At. All. It wasn't demonstrative of the two married couples' relationships, and it honestly just felt like a filler, just something interesting to put on the screen during a talk-over.

3) It made me feel like a crap blogger. It also brought up that whole, should-I-have-a-central-theme thing again. Although this initially bugged me and got me down, it really prompted me to start thinking about my little bloggy, which lately I've been feeling needs a total re-vamp. So, I guess this aspect of the film really turned out to be a good thing. It made me think about how I want to change my blog around, and what I want to focus on, if I want to focus on anything.

Therefore, over the next week (I hope it won't be longer) I'll be changing this blog around - just messing with the design, fonts, colours, etc, as well as deleting some of the rubbish I once wrote a while ago. I might also pick a central theme, because I think I'm having a growing epiphany on that subject.

Scientific weight loss videos

2010-03-24T12:00:00.001+01:00

I recently came across this really interesting, scientific approach to what does and doesn't work with weightloss. As someone who leans towards the nerdy side of life, I like to know not only what works, but also how it works and how they know it works.

This is a 10 minute clip of a programme, which is continued in about 6 other clips on youtube. You can watch the rest if you want to from there on.

Spring Break, I love thee.

2010-03-22T12:00:00.000+01:00

Last week was a bit of a nightmare. It was the last week of term, which means that I had a load of exams, plus a research paper due. Unfortunately, that meant that I had to give up exercise, sleep and sanity. It also meant that I wound up clicking the 'mark all as read' button in my Reader a bit too often. Oh dear.

The exams seemed to go ok and I don't get the results until early April anyway, so I'm not going to stress out over them. What's done is done. All my revision was last minute, but it wasn't anything too difficult and I understood the lectures in situ, so I'm sure I did the best I could have done - even if I'd been revising for weeks.

As for the paper, I finally finished it at 3am the night before it was due in. I know, I know, that's really last minute, but part of my problem is that I'm a bit obsessive and perfectionistic. This means that it's almost never going to be good enough. I finish it, I'm happy with it and then I think of something else I could add, delete or tweak. Grrr!

Anyways, I finished the paper, dragged my backside out of bed a mere 3 hours after climbing in, and revised for my last exam on the bus in to uni. When I went to hand in the paper, I was informed by my lecturer that the deadline has been moved to after the holidays. Lovely. Pity he couldn't have told us before the exams.

I'm glad, though, that it means that I don't have to be working on my paper over the holidays. Now I just have to resist the urge to change it. :D

So, what do I have planned for this Spring Break? Well, this first week I intend to catch up on all my major chores and then next week: RELAXATION. I can't wait!

Do you ever get really perfectionistic with tasks, so that they just drag on? How do you deal with it, if you do? And, on a nicer note, what are you looking forward to in the next week or next few weeks?

Arranged vs. Non-Arranged Marriage

2010-03-15T12:00:00.003+01:00

I love this picture, I think it's so cute! Image found here.

I've mentioned before that I've decided to go for the arranged marriage route. (Sorry, but I can't be bothered to find where to link to it! I'm aiming to tidy up my blog over Spring Break next week, anyways.) I find it hard to explain why sometimes, as it is such a complicated decision that depends on a lot of different factors, especially when you come from/live in the West.

I came across this article recently, in which Sheena Iyengar, a Sikh-American, mentions the whole non-arranged vs. arranged marriage thing. Here's an excerpt of her interview, which was actually about choice, by the way, not marriage:

One significant cultural difference, with regard to choice, is the way people find their spouses. You looked at non-arranged and arranged marriages in the book, and came away surprisingly positive about the latter.

The model is so different that it makes it very tough to compare them. The arranged marriage will lead in theory to less quarrels because you know, for example, what religion you’re going raise your child in. In the case of a love marriage, love is supposed to conquer all, but what do you do when you have different opinions about how to feed your child or save money? What we can learn from the arranged marriage is the importance and value of compatibility. I think what the love marriage can teach is the importance of shared understanding.

I really like her perspective about what we can learn from both models of marriage.

A Big Loss

2010-03-12T17:39:00.002+01:00

On Wednesday, at 4:30am local time, my aunty Aisha passed away. Although not my biological aunt, she was very much an aunty to me growing up. I went to see her family and got there after the funeral - in Islam people are buried very quickly. The reason for this is that we believe that the dead start to enjoy the peaceful tranquility of the after-life before Judgement day when they are buried, so we want to hasten them to that restful peace.

I didn't realise that losing aunty Aisha would hit me the way it has. I think part of it is that I've never really lost anyone before that I was really close to or was such a big part of my life as a child. Because my extended family were so far away when I was growing up (Ireland and Algeria), my true aunties and uncles were my parents' friends. Aunty Aisha was a huge part of that. I used to go stay over with her and she'd come over and stay with us, and for a good couple of years or so we all used to meet up every single weekend. She really was an aunty to me.

Another thing that makes it so hard is that I keep think about the last time I got to see her on the Friday before she died. Thank God, we both got a chance to say our goodbyes, and the last things she ever said to me were: To not forget her, to tell her son about her, that she was glad to have got to see me grow up and to make the most of my life.

Just thinking about that makes me cry.

The feeling of loss really took me by surprise. Although I've only seen her a handful of times over the last 9 years, I always knew that she was there. And the fact that she isn't anymore is just so hard. Her smile, her voice, her look when people said things that were a bit silly (really, it'd crack anyone up!), her outlook on life, her cheerfulness. It's all gone.

I'm pretty sure that soon enough, the hurting will stop, and I'll be able to just remember all the good times.

But one thing I know for sure: I will never forget her, I will tell her son about all my memories of her and I will make the most of the rest of my life, God willing.

Ten on Tuesday

2010-03-09T21:32:00.003+01:00

1. Of your current hobbies, which would you choose to spend more time, money, and effort on? Why?

This is tough. I'm gonna go with blogging, because I'm really beginning to enjoy it and I'm starting to realise just how much is out there that you can do. I think it's a really fascinating world, that links into so much else: photography, web design, programming, networking, writing (duh!), etc, etc. I'm actually hoping to block out some time in my upcoming Spring Break to redo my blog.

2. List the two other hobbies/habitual activies (not chores) besides the one listed above that you regularly do now and didn’t choose in question one.

Exercising.
Reading.

3. Why are you spending time on the above two hobbies/habitual activies at all if you really wanted to spend your time on the first one you chose? …or to put it another way, what are these two hobbies/habitual activities fullfilling that the first one doesn’t if you don’t want to put all your effort into the first hobby?

Exercise: I need to do for my health and, I'm realising, my sanity. It also helps inspire posts - you wouldn't believe how many posts I write in my head during a workout!
Reading: This is absolute relaxation time for me. It requires no effort and I can go have an adventure anywhere in the world whilst snuggling comfortably on the sofa.

4. Ready John 3:16 in the bible… In what way does this passage affect you? What are your feelings towards these words, positively or negatively?

Ok, I had to google that verse. No offense to Christians, but this verse is why I'm not Christian. I don't believe that God had a son - I believe Jesus was a prophet of God. Furthermore, I believe that whoever believes in God, and worships Him alone in this life will have go to Paradise.

5. M&M’s: nuts, no nuts, or peanut butter?

I don't really like any of these. I'm just not a nut person. And I don't really like the no nuts M&M's either. :(

6. Putting away the feeling of pride being a bad thing; what secretly/openly are you proud about yourself?

I don't believe that pride is a bad thing - there are some things in life that we should all be proud of: our identities, our strengths, our talents, our accomplishments. That doesn't mean lauding it over everyone else, but to acknowledge it to ourselves and truly enjoy it.
Now to the question :D, I'm proud that I'm fluent in two languages with a working grasp of a third. I'm also hugely grateful for it, as most of the work didn't come from me, but my parents.

7. Given one room in the house to do with what you want, not changing the actual size of the room and with all the money you would need, what would you do, and be specific? (this can range from bouncy floor,walls & ceilings; to hard wood floor with wood paneling and purple ceiling with a chair; to nothing)

My bedroom. I'd get new furniture, get my posters framed and hung on the wall, paint the walls a denimy shade of blue, get me a treadmill and a set of those oriental screens. I'd like to divide my room up into separate areas, but give it an overall feel of uncluttered relaxation. Which it really isn't right now.

8. What’s the next movie you’re going to see? Not what you’d LIKE to GO see, but the next movie you realistically are going to watch.

Umm, The Two Towers - I'm currently re-watching my Lord of the Rings DVDs. As for the next movie that I've never seen before? I truly don't know. It could be anything at this stage.

9. Use the keyboard only and make your best smiley/funny/cool face –> like this! 8^)

:D Lame, I know, but I like that one!

10. What makes you cry? What makes you pray? What makes you laugh?

Cry: PMS, death, films (movies), onions and crying men. That last one is my kryptonite. They don't even have to be crying, in fact, if I see a guy with tears in his eyes that's even worse. I will be blubbering wreck. And I don't even need to know why he's crying!
Pray: Religion, feeling lost, stress, feeling cornered in life, trying to improve myself, worry.
Laugh: RomComs, my friends on Facebook, good chick lit, my little brothers and sister, the rest of my family too, people.

Bullets

2010-03-08T19:11:00.004+01:00

I'm not in a writing mood, or even an editing mood to post a draft, so instead I'm just gonna do some bullets on random things that have been in my life/head recently:

- Bitchiness:
I hate it when people are bitchy. I hate it even more when they try to bring me in on their bitchiness. I mean, I can be bitchy, but I like to think it's not in an immature oh-my-God-she-said-something-mean-about-me-and-I-feel-sensitive-so-now-I'm-not-gonna-be-friends-with-her-and-I'm-not-gonna-be-friends-with-anyone-who's-friends-with-her way. Seriously, this has happened to me in the past week and all those involved were grown women. It's ridiculous. What's worse is the amount of behind-everyone's-backs whispering and tale-telling and whatnot. It's just plain sad and sick and infuriating when I get dragged in. It's so childish.

- Internet Connection:
Or rather, the lack thereof. It comes, it goes, I waste time. You see how that's frustrating? Anyways, it's here now. For now.

- Jinxs / evil eyes:
You know, this could probably be a post all by itself, but I can't be bothered doing the necessary research. In short, the evil eye is the belief that people's envy can affect things in your life. A jinx is pretty similar. And of course, you can give yourself both. Why is this a problem? It's a problem because I keep doing it to myself (unless one of my readers is...?). Everytime I write something on here that's good - like starting to exercise again, or buying a treadmill, or whatever, something goes wrong. This week my schedule has gone out the window, taking with it my exercise routine. Factor in a lot of cream cakes and we, my friends, are in serious trouble with the scales. And my treadmill is currently on hold.

- Routine:
My routine has gone clear out the window. Some weeks I totally nail it: up early, exercise done, work started / left home early, etc and plenty gets done. Not this week. And I have exams next week and a paper due. So naturally, I'm on here blogging.

- Masters:
I've been having serious doubts as to whether this is what I want to do. I'm not sure research is my thing. The only reason I haven't quit is because a) I don't want to be a quitter and b) I know that I pipped a lot of people to get a place in my course, and I owe it to them to not quit. I think that I'm gonna have to write up a list of reasons as to why I want to be in my masters course, why I want to succeed at this thing. An idea for another post.

- 2012:
I watched this film the other day and would just like to say that it totally sucked. Really, I thought this was a terrible film. I don't mind the whole end-of-the-world genre (I loved Independence Day!), but I found this film predictable, unbelievable and actually kinda sad. You can guess who'll die and who'll live within the first half an hour, and the dialogue is just meh. The only redeeming factor was John Cusack's acting - I do think he's good - and the cute Russian pilot eye-candy (played by this guy). However, I don't really think that either justifies watching the entire film.

- Nail Varnish:
I'll admit, I always underestimate the power of coloured nails. So much so, in fact, that I haven't bothered to wear nail varnish for over a year. At least. Last week, I decided to break this habit and just paint my nails. And how feminine and rocking did I feel afterwards? Yeah, I gotta do this more often. But not in bed - I spilt a bit of varnish on my bedspread and it really doesn't look that good. Any ideas as to how to get nail varnish out of duvet covers? Anyone?

Introvert / Extrovert Epiphany

2010-03-05T17:37:00.004+01:00

image found here.

All week I've been mulling over my loner tendencies. I like my own space, my own time, and I can't be around people all the time. That said, I have no problem talking to people, making friends with people, being the centre of attention (must admit: I ~~totally~~ kinda love that one!), etc, etc, etc. In short, I appear, to all intents and purposes, to be a people person. But I'm really not. I can go weeks without seeing/phoning/chatting to people, and I'm not exaggerating - I have actually gone weeks without social interaction. It's fine by me. What's more, I hate it when I have to interact with people for extended periods of time, or worse: for undefined periods of time. I need my own little bubble of space and time to just be.

Basically, I'm not shy or reserved (if you ever met me in person, you'd know just how true this is) and I do enjoy being with people to a degree, but there's one very big but: I need recovery time from being with people.

Today I read something that suddenly makes sense out of all of this for me. It was this post on Ben's blog (Ben, by the way, is a hysterically funny guy).
What he wrote was:

"... an introvert is someone who loses energy to social interactions unlike extroverts who gain energy from them."

Cha-Ching! Perfect sense. It's an epiphany! I'm an introvert because I lose energy from my social interactions, even though I'm kind of a people person in the sense that I interact with ease.

Well, with ease when I'm not offending/bugging anyone.

Love/Hate

2010-03-03T19:55:00.003+01:00

This idea was totally stolen from Nora today. I was going to do the Ten on Tuesday post yesterday, but my internet cut out before I managed to even finish reading the posts in my Google Reader. We've been having issues with our connection recently. :(

Love: the fact that it's going to be Spring Break (yeah, that's capitalised now - according to me) in two weeks time.
Hate: I have a research paper due in before then that I haven't finished yet, and at least 4, maybe 5 exams too. Yikes!

Love: It's warm outside, so I only have to wear a light jacket.
Hate: It's really windy, but I can't wear a coat to stop me from blowing away! We live near the sea - seriously, the wind is an issue.

Love: It's spring, so I'm coming out of hibernation. Seriously, I don't do winter. I don't like to go out much, or see people, or even phone them. Basically, all I want to do is stay in bed. All. Winter. Long.
Hate: Now I have even less time to myself, cause I'll be making up for lost time.

Love: My students are starting to make real progress and I'm unbelievably proud of them.
Hate: I have to start preparing lessons that really target their weak points to ensure that they're 100% ready to move on to the next level. That involves a lot more research, imagination, creativity, time and energy. I don't really have much of any of that right now.

Love: I'm close to being able to start driving lessons. FINALLY!
Hate: I'll actually have to learn to drive. It'll be something else to stress over.

Love: I think I might be getting a treadmill sometime soon.
Hate: That it's not certain. Otherwise, I'm thrilled!!!

Lost and Found

2010-02-28T14:40:00.002+01:00

I've decided to summarise February like the 'Lost and Found' section of a newspaper. One of those ideas that comes to me on bus journeys...

image found on google images

LOST: MOJO
Sorely missed life tool, needed for accomplishing tasks and improving general feeling of well-being. Last seen around the beginning of January. If found, please return.

Ok, I just looked up 'mojo' on wiktionary and apparantly it means either 'a magic charm or spell, supernatural power or luck, personal magnetism/charm, sex appeal/sex drive or illegal drugs'. None of that's how I meant it. What I mean is my groove, my rhythm, my motivation, my routine, my interest, etc.

FOUND: EX-FIANCE
Reconciliation and second-chance seeking fiance, with a caring personality recently contacted my father. Needs culturally compatible girl with similar communication style for wedded bliss. Will offer money to anyone who will take him off my hands.

LOST: DVDS
An entire stack of DVDs, last seen (for sure) the summer before last. Titles include: Pirates of the Carribean (all three films, although, finder may keep third film due to crappiness), Brother Bear, Night at the Musuem I and Kindom of Heaven. Other titles may also be at large.
Although unnecessary to quality of life, the loss is infuriating, especially as house has been torn apart and vital work hours lost, in attempting recovery.

FOUND: MONEY
Gleefully discovered a not-insignificant sum in post office account. Wisely and most maturely, not withdrawing it until final sum for driving lessons,etc is obtained.
Will not be returning any of it.

FOUND: MITTEN PATTERN
After extensive online searching, google's first link provided the perfect, easy-peasy, two-needle knitting pattern for a pair of adult mittens. Knitting has commenced and finder is most grateful for discovery.
Will post pic when project upon completion.

What's your color?

2010-02-27T20:51:00.003+01:00

Lisa mentioned earlier this week that she took this test that tells you what your colour is and how that translates to your personality. My result was as follows:

Nothing can stand between you and your demand for a calm environment. To be free of conflict and disagreement is the only way to live. In fact, it’s this philosophy that probably allows you to be comfortable in conditions that would normally bother others. Your ability to focus is undisputed, and while you enjoy attention, you still have problems understanding how to handle it. No other color out lives by the golden rule as much as you do.

All I can say is: WOW! This is amazingly accurate. 'Nothing can stand between you and your demand for a calm environment' is 100% accurate. That is me. Wow.

Venting

2010-02-26T16:39:00.003+01:00

What do you do when you feel frustrated / increasingly angry because of someone or something? When something truly starts to drive you insane and you can feel the anger coursing through your blood, what do you do? How do you handle that positively?

Don’t get me wrong – I don’t have anger management problems or anything. I am largely my own mistress in that sense, but I’m just wondering how people deal with these feelings. I usually feel like I want to hit, throw or smash something – most especially the thing that’s annoying me in the first place. I don’t do any of that, I hasten to add. Well, not in an uncontrolled, all-out rage kind of way. I will occasionally whack a remote control or a mouse or whatever when it won’t work, but I rarely throw things and I never smash them. I know it’ll only make things worse, if only in terms of having to clean up afterwards.

What brings this up, you may ask. Well, yesterday I was in the shower and I got really annoyed and frustrated (by the dodgy plumbing, if you must know) and I basically whacked the tiled wall near one of the shower pipes to vent a bit. Shortly thereafter, I realised that I must have hurt my finger on a pipe. I couldn’t figure out how though, I mean, it’s a pipe; it’s a smooth cylinder! Anyways, turns out, there was a thingumy bob for attaching the pipe to the wall and that’s what I hurt my finger on. Then I was rather peeved that I’d lost my temper only to hurt myself. Yay for me.

I spent the rest of my (long, calming) shower thinking about venting anger and frustration and a recent conversation I had with a friend who said that she throws things when she gets angry or frustrated. She will literally throw the first thing that comes to hand: a pot of bean soup, a plug-in modem, mugs of tea or coffee, books, etc, etc. Once she took out all her plates, picked up a rolling pin and stood over the bin, breaking each plate into it until there were no more left. She said it felt wonderful and completely de-stressed her. And then, of course, she had to go buy new plates.

I however, would never, ever do that. It takes me forever to replace / fix the things that break of their own accord, never mind something I broke on purpose. Also, if it breaks, it would only make me feel worse, like I’m out of control and I’m a bad person. So instead, I’ll punch a pillow, whack an unlikely-to-break inanimate object, bitch, whine and complain ad nauseaum. If I can’t do this then I take deep breaths, try to focus on the positive of whatever’s annoyed me and try to get away as soon as possible.

What do you do?

Ten on Tuesday

2010-02-23T18:12:00.004+01:00

1. What is your favorite flavor of ice cream?
Mint Choc Chip. Mmmm. Mmmm. Mmmm.

2. What is your earliest memory?
My earliest memory is when I was 2 and a half. My parents took me to London Zoo for Eid and I remember getting a camel ride with some random boy because I was too small to go on it myself and I was really annoyed about it. I also remember the lions and the giraffes. When I saw giraffes again years later as an eleven year old, I was so surprised that they were so short.

3. What is your earliest memory of a dessert?
Knickerbokerglories. There was a stint when I was little where my parents and me used to go to Pizza Hut every week and when I finished my dinner I'd get a knickerbockerglory. It's a humongous (I was little - everything was humongous) glass of layerd ice cream with sauces, fruit, cream, nuts and I can't even remember what else. I just remember the fact that I couldn't always finish it.

4. Do you have any recurring dreams?
Generally, no. But if something's on my mind, then it may pop up in my dreams in different forms several nights in a row, or until it's resolved. The past two nights my dreams have involved porridge oats in some form or other. My 3kg box has bugs in them, and I can't get oats here for some reason, so I want to de-bug the box. But I don't know how.

5. Have you ever dreamed about dessert?
Yeah... I just can't remember any examples. But I've definitely dreamed about dessert.

6. What is one thing (aside from a cell phone or computer) that you cannot go the entire day without?
~~Pen and paper~~. ~~Tea~~. TV. ~~Money~~. I honestly don't know. I can go the entire day without everything except my phone. Otherwise, it depends on whatever my latest obsession is.

7. What is one dessert you could go your entire life without ever having again?
Tiramisu - I hate coffee.

8. If you could go on vacation tomorrow, where would you go? (Assume someone else is footing the bill, but within reason…so “the moon” won’t work)
World tour - is that within reason? Just to Tanzania, Dubai, Milan, Rome, Beijing, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Sydney, Melbourne, Rio de Janiro and Saudi. If that's not within reason, then just let me go back to London for a shopping trip. Fully funded shopping trip.

9. If you could have any dessert tomorrow, what would you have (assume someone else is buying it for you. Within reason though, no “gold sprinkled ice cream cones.”)
Either a knickerbokerglory or lemon meringue pie or apple crumble with custard.

10. What was your first impression of your significant other? If you’re single, what was your first impression of your best friend?
We were 8 years old. I loved her - she was warm, didn't talk and she let me gab on and on and on. She kept going into her mum every now and then. I later found out it was to complain because she didn't like me. :D

11. What is your first impression of dessert pizza? (Personally, I think it’s weird. I love dessert but I don’t want any on my pizza.)
Yuck. And I don't actually understand why there were 11 questions this time and not just 10...

Done

2010-02-22T12:28:00.004+01:00

I'm not really in the mood for blogging today, nor have I been for the past ... however long it's been since my last post. BUT I'm being self-disciplined (hurrah) and doing it anyway. I think, however, that I'm gonna have to start preparing some random blogposts on various topics so that I can post them when I don't feel like writing. I'm gonna have to work to slack off. There's something wrong there. Isn't slacking supposed to involve no work? Hmmmm....

Anyways, I've been meaning to make a confession on here for a while, but I didn't want to say anything until after I got my backside in gear and sorted myself out. It's taken me all of January and February to get my backside in gear, but I am glad to announce that I finally have. So, my confession:

I have only exercised 3 times since the beginning of the year.

So much for getting healthier and forming good habits and all that blah blah that I thought I'd done at the end of the last year.

BUT I have started again. I've exercised 3 times this week so far (starting on Saturday) and I'm fitting it in early in the morning. And boy do I ache! But I am so proud of myself for finally just sucking it up and getting on with it. I intend to write a post some time soon - maybe this week? - about how Jillian Michael's 30-Day Shred has kinda ruined me, but I can't be bothered to turn this post into anything remotely informative or expressive of my opinions. I just wanted to congratulate myself for getting back to working out and cross of 'post to blog' from my to-do list. :D

Hope everyone has a great week!!

What's in a weeked?

2010-02-15T20:30:00.003+01:00

When I lived in the UK, the weekend was Saturday and Sunday - like everywhere else in the Western world, and much of the non-Western world, too. Then I moved here and the weekend was on Thursday and Friday, like the rest of the Islamic world.

Then countries across the Islamic world realised that this meant that they had 4 days of no-trading with most of the rest of the world and that wasn't good for their economies. So several countries changed the weekend to Friday and Saturday. You can't get Muslims to work on a Friday, because
a) Friday is supposed to be a weekly religious holiday, and
b)Friday prayer is slap bang in the middle of the day (around 1pm ish) and lasts about an hour. Add in lunch and you've lost the entire afternoon. And whether people actually attend the prayer or not is utterly irrelevant - they'll just take the time off anyway. Saturdays most world banks are closed and there's no business anyway so it's kind of a no-brainer.

Last August, Algeria joined the list of Muslim countries that changed their weekend. I'm not gonna lie: it was really weird at first, and I'm still not sure what days the Post Office is open now. ;)

Anyways, all this means that my week is from Sunday-Thursday and my weekend is Friday and Saturday. Except that it isn't. Thanks to my light schedule at uni (it's all research based, so we need more time off to do the research. Apparantly) I have Thursday-Satuday off. Yup, I have a 3-day weekend. And believe you me, I appreciate it, I make the most of it and I am HUGELY grateful for it. :D

Which means that I was actually off for my birthday on Thursday. But I didn't celebrate. Because I don't actually celebrate birthdays. The reason for this is religious: as a Muslim, I don't believe that celebrating birthdays is a part of my religion. That said, I know plenty of Muslims who do celebrate birthdays, and that's their opinion/choice/way/whatever-the-appropriate-word-is. Each to their own.

This doesn't mean that I don't appreciate everyone's wishing me a great day - I do. I lived in the UK for forever, so I know that this is something that's a normal part of Western culture and I understand the kindness and warm-heartedness behind the sentiments. And whether I celebrate it or not, it's still a milestone in the year.

The weekend difference also means that I was at uni for Valentine's Day. And guess what? I don't, and therefore didn't, celebrate that either. :)

So now you know that I'm not simply avoiding writing about what I did for my bday or Vday, but I honestly don't have anything to write about!

In other peoples’ cars

2010-02-13T20:24:00.001+01:00

I like to watch other people in their cars whenever I’m going anywhere. I don’t drive (obviously, as it’s on my list of resolutions this year) and whenever I get a lift anywhere or take the bus I like to stare out the window at the drivers and passengers of other cars. (I would read, but I get travel sick.) And I like watching people in cars more than buses – people in buses aren’t as relaxed, whereas those in cars feel right at home, even though they’re in the middle of the motorway.

I love it when you see a woman laying into her husband – and you can tell it’s her husband from the look on his face: either sulky or brow-beaten. If he’s not her husband he’s usually arguing back, which is entertaining because Algerians – like all Mediterraneans – use their hands to gesticulate wildly, so you can often work out what they’re arguing over. And the more the guy waves his hands about, the more the woman does too. Thankfully, it seems as though you don’t actually have to use the steering wheel that much, so people drive ‘hands-free’.

Then towards the weekend you get those who drive home to one of the near and not-so-near provinces. You know that they’re going for the weekend, because it’s not holiday time. Holidays in Algeria are taken to coincide with Winter Break (end Dec – beginning Jan), Spring Break, the Eid festivals, Ramadhan and either July or August (deemed the hottest months of the year – too hot to work). Note: not all these times are taken as holidays by everyone, but because kids, etc are off, it’s the time you see more people going away for longer periods of time. Otherwise, they’re weekenders. But they pack loads of stuff in their cars: everything from bedding, to stuff ordered by relatives and neighbours back in the provinces. Some people have very nice blankets, others have clothes and some have food. Whatever, it fuels the imagination.

Then there are the (very few, thank God) men who read the newspaper as they drive. That makes me laugh. It’s so dangerous, obviously, even if you’re in slow moving traffic, because people here drive like lunatics. Clearly, seeing as some are reading the paper. But it makes me laugh because it looks so ... so incongruent. And they do it like it’s totally normal.

Perhaps the most interesting drivers (to me, at least) are women in cars by themselves. They always look really put-together and then you glance into the seat beside them and there is chucked their briefcase/folders (if they have them) and on top, their handbag. And the handbag’s always open. Now, we all know, it’s bad form to poke though another girls bag without her permission – it’s like reading her diary. So this is like a sneak peak into another person’s inner sanctum. Only a lot less interesting. Disappointingly, they almost always have stuff similar to me, varying only if they work closer or further to home. But I keep looking anyway. I see hairbrushes (if they don’t wear hijab), pins (if they wear hijab), body spray, pens, notebooks, mirrors, make-up, books and plenty more.

I think that watching other people in their cars is like looking into a tiny snapshot of their lives. That’s why it’s so interesting.

25 Years A-Growing

2010-02-12T17:55:00.004+01:00

Ok, so now I’m 25 (as of Thursday the 11th). What have I learnt over the past 25 years? This is just a random list, organised by the order they popped into my mind.

1)How to walk
2)How to talk
3)How to ride a bike
4)That I can’t rollerblade
5)How to knit
6)How to write
7)How to read
8)Never run in a classroom – slipped when I was 6 and hit my head off the corner of a table. I now have a dent in my skull that very convienently looks like a dimple, only it’s in the wrong place.
9)The teachers you hate in the beginning of the year you’ll love at the end of the year.
10) You never forget your best friends from pre-school or primary school, even if you never see or hear from them again.
11)Be careful not to get spattered when frying food. Burns caused by hot oil are very painful, no matter how small they are.
12)How to swim and nearly drown.
13)That I really can’t dance.
14)Or sing.
15)And I probably never will, but that’s ok.
16)Because people often find it highly entertaining to listen to someone sing badly and they can’t stop laughing when I try to dance.
17)Plans often go wrong.
18)So always have plans B and C prepared.
19)And be flexible.
20)Life is short.
21)A friend is timeless. No matter how much time passes between calls or visits, you can pick up right where you left off. And when you’re together, time is forgotten.
22)It’s the little things in life that make you smile that make life so enjoyable.
23)That washing up liquid is a pretty damn good stain remover.
24)That every day and every journey can be an adventure, if you have the right attitude.
25)That growing-up is a myth.
26)Kids films are some of the funniest around. Night at the Museum 1&2 and Bedtime Stories, anyone?
27)Never judge a book by another book. Just because you don’t like a particular book, it doesn’t mean you won’t like another book by the same author. And never, ever, EVER dismiss an entire genre. I don’t like fantasy, but I love the Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. I hated David Copperfield and thought I didn’t like classics, only discover that I absolutely love them. You get the idea.
28)Turning into my mother, and in turn, my grandmother, is inevitable. Get over it.
29)Just because the food may not look good, doesn’t mean it doesn’t taste great.
30)Conversely, just because the food does look good, it doesn’t mean that it won’t taste gross.
31)Moderation brings balance which brings peace.
32)Always pray, and remember God in my life.
33)You will laugh at yourself and you will be amazed at all the crazy things you did when you look back.
34)So will everyone else.
35)Hindsight is the universe’s way of saying ‘I told you so’. And it’s very annoying.
36)Uniqueness is not limited to our fingerprints, but also extends to our smiles, our laughs and our voices.
37)Loneliness and being alone are mutually exclusive, despite their occasional overlapping.
38)Education and academic success are not the same thing.Nothing beats a good teacher.
39)Nothing beats a good teacher.
40)A good teacher teaches their subject and important life lessons.
41)It takes years to get over a bad teacher. If ever.
42)My parents did their best and there is nothing more that I could ask for.
43)Practice is key.
44)As is persistence.

And, umm, that's all I can think of. :D

Ten on Tuesday

2010-02-09T19:17:00.003+01:00

I've seen these on Lisa's and Amber's blogs and I really liked today's, so I've answered them here. Originally it comes from Chelsea. It's basically a list of 10 questions to be answered by the blogger.

1. Fill in the blank. Sometimes I wish my life was more ______.
Balanced. Definitely balanced.

2. How do you cure the hiccups?
I drink 3 big, huge gulps of water without taking a breath in between. It's basically an easier version of holding your breath, I think.

3. What are three of your favorite indulgences?
1)Sleeping.
2)Reading all day long. In bed. With a cuppa tea.
3)Sitting in bed watching a film with a mountain of munchies beside me and a cuppa tea.
Just thinking about this makes me feel good.

4. Where is the most exotic place you would like to travel to? The most mundane?
- Most exotic: Namibia or Tanzania.
- Most mundane: Ireland. I want to go there because I have family there that I want to see. It's mundane because I've been there a bajillion times and my family live in the country, so I feel like a right city-slicker even though I'm actually from a town.

5. Does having your time planned out stress you or relax you?
It stresses me. I like to know that I have a things to do within a specific time frame, but I like to be able to do them as I feel like it.

6. What are your favourite fabrics to wear?
Tough: I love linen, wool and whatever they make track bottoms from.

7. Do you sleep through the night?
I do, when I don't have any dairy products for a few hours before I go to sleep. For some reason if I have a glass of milk before bed I will sleep like a baby, waking up every 2 hours. Weird, huh? I think it gives me too much energy.

8. When you were younger, what did you think you would be doing at this age? How close is that to what you are doing?
LOL at my former naive self. I thought I'd be working, as a nurse or surgeon (depends on how 'younger' you mean) and thinking about getting married. I also thought I'd be an ultra-cool, chic erm something. You know, like in the films.
Reality: I'm at uni, not going into medicine AT ALL, but I am thinking about getting married. And I'm not an ultra-cool, chic anything.

9. What has surprised you most about growing up?
Three things:
1) I still feel like a kid.
2) I've discovered that ultra-cool, chic somethings don't exist. Except in films, of course. And even the actors aren't really ultra-cool or chic. It's kinda disappointing, really, so I'm trying not to burst other kids' bubbles.
3) 'It doesn't matter' applies to most of the things that I thought did matter.

10. Are you good at keeping secrets?
Yes. Oh yes. I love secrets. I love knowing things about people, so I love keeping secrets, so that more people will tell me stuff. :D

On having kids.

2010-02-04T14:18:00.004+01:00

I'm trying to stick to some sort of a blogging schedule this month, so I wasn't going to post today, but then I read this post by Angela on Oh She Glows about wanting to have kids. When I realised that my answer in the comments section was basically a blog post I copied it here and shortened my answer there!

Angela's question was this: Do you feel pressured to have kids or did you…and by whom? Do you feel pressure to have them by a certain age, or a certain number of kids? Are you judged because you don’t want kids?

My answer:
When I was in my teens I didn't want children. And in absolute honesty - a part of me still doesn't want them. This is the first time I've ever told anyone this since I turned 20. I feel huge pressure to get married and have kids - from EVERYONE! I had a friend turn around to me when I was 20 and ask me, in front of a room full of other people, when I was going to settle down already, get married and have kids. I've had people telling me for years (and I'm not quite 25 yet) that a woman's fertility decreases with age, blah blah blah.

It's horrible.

The part of me that doesn't want kids is the bit that doesn't want the responsibility of raising them, the part that rarely sees anything cute in a baby/small child, the part that kinda wishes they were neither seen nor heard. This doesn't mean that I don't like kids - I do. I just like other people's kids. I've worked in a playgroup and babysitting and people always say how good I am with kids. I just don't want to have to have them 24/7.

I was diagnosed with PCOS a few years ago and I can honestly say that if I don't have kids as a result, I'm fine. I know, right now, that I don't ever want to go through IVF, even if it was my only option. I've made that decision already. I haven't told anyone, because I reserve the right to change my mind, and it's my business anyway. But mostly, because I don't want to hear other people's condesending 'you'll change your mind later'. Yeah, I might change my mind, but what if I don't?

That said, there are times when I really want a child - usually when I'm PMT, but it happens.

So I don't know. But it's easier to tell people about the wanting kids eventually part of me, rather than the not too keen part. All this said, I think I'll probably have them anyway - if for no other reason than to find out what the fuss is about. That is, if I can have them.

R.I.P.

2010-02-03T19:01:00.003+01:00

My laptop died on me last week. After weeks of acting up, it finally breathed its last. I thought it might have been a loose wire in the screen, so I bravely did what no non-qualified, non-tech-person does and looked it up online and took my screen apart. (Found a wicked website for figuring out what’s wrong with your laptop and how to fix it right here. And it's for novices. It even has photos.) Long story short: it’s not a loose wire, and I did manage to get the whole thing back together again. But it’s still broken.

The screen’s been acting up for a while, but if I twist it a bit (it lost a screw a few months back, so it’s been hanging on by just one hinge – kinda like it’s owner) I could get it to work again. This has gotten progressively worse, until one night – about ¼ of the way through ‘Breaking Dawn’ – it breathed its last and the screen gave up altogether. I managed to read a few more pages by turning the laptop on its side and kneeling on part of the screen. Yes, you read that right: kneeling on part of the screen.

I honestly felt like crying, and I still feel totally gutted. Initially I hoped that was just because girly time was approaching, but, no, it’s got more to do with mourning the loss of what has just recently become my e-book reader.

I’m trying to look on the bright side – I can still get everything off it (it’s just the screen that’s gone, so I know my info is safe), and I had backups for a lot of stuff anyway. Plus, it’s not like it was the only computer/laptop in the house. We have a family computer downstairs and my mum has a laptop, too. So I will still have at home computer access and it really doesn’t affect my internet access at all because I use my mum’s laptop for that.

So why am I upset? Well, firstly, it was mine and I like my things intact (thanks to my internal spoilt brat, working in tandem with my residual five year-old). Secondly, I don’t know if I can get it fixed. My dad, our resident tech guy, just laughed and said ‘you call that a laptop!’ Him insulting my ancient IBM ThinkPad, which only has 1 USB port and no CD-Drive, didn’t improve my mood much. Thirdly, I’ve absolutely no idea when I’m gonna get it replaced. My mum’s supposed to be getting a new one soon, which’d leave me with her old one (I hope), but God only knows when that’ll be. As for buying one myself (the grown-up, non-scrounging-off-the-parents route. Ugh) I wouldn’t even know where to start over here. Fourthly, now I can’t read any ebooks in bed anymore! *bawl*

I’m trying to keep it together, though. If I stay calm and think straight then I hope that eventually I’ll come up with a decent or even good solution to my current problem. The torch of eternal optimism shines bright, eh?

Notice, however, that work/university/research just doesn’t figure into my sadness at all. Hmmm ... I think I need to sort out my priorities.

Maybe.

January Feeling, February Plan

2010-02-01T19:19:00.004+01:00

Over the past month I've focused a lot on writing. I've bought myself a notebook which I carry around with me at all times and in it I write ... whatever I feel like writing. All the posts I published in January came from that notebook, but I've written almost twice as much (if not more). I feel like it's a really good way to develop the habit of writing and of noting more interesting stuff down, so that I don't forget and then write a load of crap on here.

My problem now is that I'm not posting enough. I'm simply not typing up what I write. This needs fixing and I'm hoping that, as January was the month I focused on writing, February will be the month I focus on typing up my writing and then posting more regularly. I think that if I have some posts written up already, it'll make the whole process of posting regularly easier. We shall see.

Overall, I'd say that January's been a good month. I managed to save most of my earnings (which wasn't much, but hey *shrug*), I started some pretty good habits, hopefully finished all my paperwork run-around (it's the paperwork run-around that's the reason I didn't get to post at all last week), got back into reading in a MAJOR way and generally kept up with almost everything. So I feel kinda smug :D but also really motivated to make February even better. My milestone birthday - a quarter of a century on God's green earth! - will be here in little over a week, and I intend to do some serious long-term planning, soul-searching, and question-answering to mark it. I'm fed up with the drifting already.

e-books

2010-01-19T19:58:00.001+01:00

I have discovered the revolution that is e-books. Of course, I’ve heard of them before now, (I mean, Helloo! I do use the internet!) but I didn’t really get the full impact of what e-books actually mean. In all honesty, I thought that they were a bit naff. A crappy, techie, unnecessary version of a good thing. A book should have pages. Made of paper. That you can hold. It has a smell of its own and doesn’t come with a harsh background light. None of this is really all that surprising, because I’m really not much of a techie. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not a technophobe – but there are sometimes when the old fashioned way is just more appealing to me, it’s less of a headache. I mean, a real folder doesn’t get viruses and even when my binders crash on the floor, my stuff’s still there. E-books just didn’t appeal to me and I didn’t believe that it would feel the same to read e-books as it does to read dead tree books.

This was until a friend of mine mentioned that she’d read ‘The Da Vinci Code’ online. That made me stop in my tracks. I’ve been living in Algeria for a few years now and the hardest thing is the complete lack of books in the English language. The only English books here are the classics: Shakespeare, Austen, the Bronte sisters, Hemingway, etc. There’s no choice (said with a plaintive wail in my voice). And then this girl tells me that she read ‘The Da Vinci Code’, a book I’ve been wanting to read for years (which is altogether too long to wait to read a book).

Though I was largely sceptical of the whole e-book thing, I decided to try it out. It’s a question of necessity, as I feel like there’s something missing since I stopped reading fresh material. I miss a good book. I go online and read about all the books other people are reading and it’s torture, cause I know that I can’t read those books. So I decided to download a book – I actually downloaded 5 to see if it worked (if it’s worth doing, then it’s worth doing properly, right?). I picked the Twilight series, as I’ve been wanting to read it for ages and I’ve seen both Twilight and New Moon. It downloaded in a few minutes – a miracle considering how crappily slow our internet connection is. Holding my breathe, I opened Twilight in PDF form and voila! I had a book to read. An actual book!

I read a chapter to test it out. I still wasn’t convinced that it would draw me in the same way that a paper book would, that it wouldn’t be able to transport me to another world in the same way. I was wrong. In one chapter I was lost in another world – I was in rainy Forks, standing in Charlie’s house, looking at the old décor, seeing everything through Bella’s eyes. I was caught.

That night, I curled up in bed and read a third of the book straight, before going to sleep, and I realised that it’s the words and style of the writer that determine how good a book is, that catches you and takes you away to another world, not the format of the book. It’s a breakthrough like none other for me – a total Godsend – I now have books to read: YIPPEE!!! I’ve been doing the hyper version of a happy dance ever since. :D

Writing Style and Blogging

2010-01-18T19:58:00.001+01:00

I’m bored out of my mind with my current writing style here. It’s too … stuffy and it’s really not me. What brought this home to me was writing an email to a friend – my tone of writing was totally different. You know, it was a chatty, cheerful kinda email, with a good dose of b*tchiness, which, in my opinion at any rate, is always fun. It’s also more me.

So this led me to ask “ What’s stopping me from writing like this on my blog?” “What’s been holding me back?” Basically: Why can’t I blog like this? Here comes the answer:

- Microsoft Word: yup, I’m blaming my writing style on a computer programme. You gotta admit: I’m good at coming up with excuses. ;) but seriously, the spelling and grammar check thingy, especially the grammar checking part of it, questions how I write things, which makes me second-guess myself and sometimes (umm… read: 95% of the time) I wind up changing stuff. Which is stupid. Because it’s not like I’m gunning for the Nobel Prize for Literature with this blog. Or with anything I write, for that matter.

- The Dictionary and Thesaurus: this duo are a pair of creeps. They act like they’re your best friends and lull you into a false sense of confidence by helping you out when you need them, but then before you know it – bam – you’re overly dependant on them to provide you with precisely the right word. Because God forbid you should use the ‘wrong’ one, or worse: the same word more than once.

- My Primary School Teacher, Mrs. H: this is probably the most justifiable of all these reasons/excuses, even though I haven’t seen her for, oh, a mere 18 years or so. The thing is, I loved writing when I was 6. Honestly, I’d write 2-3 page stories with love – and that’s a lot for a 6 year old. But she made such a fuss out of my bad spelling, to the point that my parents got me a dictionary and I had to bring it to school at Mrs. H’s insistence. Every. Single. Day. (Yeah, I may have some issues now.) The result of this is that I began to associate writing with stress. I was good at maths, I was good at reading, I was pretty much average to good at everything else – writing included – but I got it into my head that I wasn’t good at languages. Please note, that I was raised in a bilingual household, so clearly I don’t have issues with languages. Anyways, it wasn’t until high school (I’m bowing to the American terminology here – I know if I write college you’ll be thinking uni, and these details are sooooooo important you know) that I realised that I was actually kinda good at writing. But then it was too late – I had dropped English like a hot brick when I was 16 and any writing I did after that was due to necessity.
But I still have it in my head that writing is not my forte, which leads me to my next reason for my boring writing style:

- I imitate other writer’s styles. Yeah, I’m like that American bird – what’s it called? Oh yeah, a Mockingbird. Only it’s just my writing, it doesn’t happen so much with speaking (although I do absorb other people’s accents, which is just plain weird), and certainly not singing, cause I can’t sing for love nor money. To make this worse, some of my favourite books are classics (my favourite author is Jane Austen), so my writing style is an attempt at a 21st Century imitation of a 19th Century literary genius. I’m doomed.

So now I’m gonna stop using Microsoft Word grammar checker, quit using the Dictionary & Thesaurus (if the word’s not in my head then it’s not mine and it won’t express me very well), I’ll try to write every day (don’t worry: I won’t post all the crap I do write, it’s just a practice makes perfect sort of thing) and I’m going to try to write these blog posts as if they were emails to a friend. My best friend. Except without the “hi” or “love Sarah xxx”.

Lets see how long this lasts.

Film Review: The Young Victoria

2010-01-16T13:23:00.002+01:00

I watched The Young Victoria recently and I absolutely LOVED it. As a Brit, someone who loves reading the history of the British royal family and as someone who loves a good classic this film was perfect. It has a very good cast, with Emily Blunt (from ‘The Devil Wears Prada’) in the title role and Rupert Friend (from ‘Pride and Prejudice’ – also, he’s Keira Knightley’s other half, just so you know) as Prince Albert, the love interest.

The story centres on Queen Victoria’s life during the year before her coronation and the first few years of her reign over England. It’s not so much a love story about Victoria and Albert (which is what it’s advertised as), but really about the struggle for control of Victoria as the monarch and sovereign of Great Britain, how she dealt with it and how her relationship with Albert was important in this respect. It focuses on her personal strength in resisting her mother, uncle and the politicians of the day, as well the general belief that she was unfit for her position due to her age and gender.

What I liked:

1) The Kensington System, which was put in place to protect the young princess Victoria, is mentioned and explained early on and featured throughout much of the beginning of the film. I think that understanding the Kensington System – a series of rules governing her life, like that she wasn’t allowed to sleep alone, or walk downstairs by herself, and that she had to have someone taste her food for her, etc – is crucial to understanding who Queen Victoria was, why she was that way, and why she was so fiercely independent.

2) The cast was stellar and their performances were excellent. Emily Blunt’s portrayal of the young Queen made her feel accessible and human. Rupert friend’s Prince Albert was likeable, which is an accomplishment, because I never liked Prince Albert - he always seems so severe. Friend, however, manages to depict the Prince’s shyness, reserve and a certain sense of helplessness as a younger son being used in a power game, which endeared him to me. I also enjoyed Paul Bettany’s performance as Lord Melbourne – he demonstrates the conflict of being both a politician, keen to take advantage of the young monarch’s inexperience, and a friend and advisor who cares for her and admires her strength. I could keep going on about the cast, but I won’t.

3) I particularly liked and appreciated the way in which the three key political figures of the time (Lord Melbourne, the Duke of Wellington, and Sir Robert Peele) were introduced, using Albert in Germany.

What I didn't like:

1) There is a huge jump between Victoria’s issues with her mother’s advisor and the sudden death of the king. It kind of confused me a bit.

2) Also, her 18th birthday – which was crucial to her ascension to the throne – was completely skipped. This is especially strange considering that the King mentions that he wants to live long enough for her to reach this milestone. I think they could have mentioned that she’d turned 18 at some point before the King’s death.

3) Of course, it’s not 100% accurate: Lord Melbourne was cast too young – he was in his 50s or 60s at the time, which Paul Bettany clearly isn’t. Queen Victoria’s relationship with her mother remained distant, the film leads you to believe that there was some kind of happy ending in this respect. There wasn’t. And, I’m sorry, but I still reckon that Prince Albert was a bit of a controlling git. But none of this is crucial to the film.

Overall, I thought it was an intelligent film set against a backdrop of difficult issues and concepts – the Regency Order, succession, the link between the different royal houses of Europe, and the connection between a British monarch and Parliament – and I think it manages to explain them all well enough. But then, I’m British. I’ve studied the Kings and Queens of England in History lessons in primary school so I know, or have heard of, a lot of this stuff anyway, and I did wonder as I watched the film if people abroad (especially in North America) would understand it. I think my answer is that, although Emily Blunt is (deservedly) nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance, the film was only released in limited cinemas in the US and then went straight to DVD. As such, I would only recommend this film to people who like period dramas or are into British history or the royal family.

Dodgy electricity.

2010-01-14T18:50:00.000+01:00

When the electricity went in England, it was exciting and fun. I was a kid, so it was really cool, sort of like an adventure. It was something to talk about at school the next day. I loved lighting the candles – it felt like something out of “The Little House on The Prairie”, or something. But then, it was extremely rare that the electricity did actually go, and it usually went for a very good reason.

Here it’s a different story altogether. The electricity goes, not regularly, but often enough. Too often. The candles are on standby, as are the matches. We have a back-up battery for the computer so that it doesn’t crash and sometimes we even put the heating on a bit earlier, just in case the power goes (the drawback of gas boilers with electric timer systems).

And it’s not cool. Nor is it fun or exciting. It’s annoying, plain annoying. It’s annoying when you’re online and the internet goes. It’s annoying when you’re trying to read, write or study by flickering candle light and you’re having to strain you’re eyes to see (honestly, I don’t know how they managed in the olden days – especially in England in the winter when the days are so short. No wonder so many people were illiterate then – they never had the light to read!). What’s more, it tends to go for so long that the batteries in the torches and camping lamps run out, not that the batteries are all that good anyway. And it’s super annoying when you’re sitting on the loo and the light goes. That just takes the biscuit.

Although, truth be told, the area we live in now isn’t that bad – the power only goes about a couple of dozen times a year, which is bearable – whereas the area we used to live in when we first came to Algeria was much worse. There, the electricity went with every puff of wind, every drop of rain, the very slightest hint of humidity and a mere glimpse of sunlight. In short, it went constantly. Perhaps the nicest thing about when it did come back was that we could hear all the kids in the block cheering.

Judgement, pressure and blogging

2010-01-08T19:03:00.003+01:00

When I was younger (here I go, sounding like a granny!) in my early teens I didn’t care what anyone thought of me. I know that’s kind of weird because when you’re in your teens that’s when you’re supposed to be most self-conscious about others’ approval, but that just wasn’t the case for me. I dunno, maybe it was because I was home educated and therefore not subject to the peer pressure most teens go through, but there it is. I just didn’t care.

It was only in my late teens that I started to be more aware of the impact of other people’s judgements on my life. Although I made plenty of mistakes before this time (obviously), they’d never been that public. Until my late teens. I made a couple of really minor mistakes – really, they weren’t that big a deal, in fact, they weren’t so much mistakes as misjudgements, but, whatever, some people found out. It’s worth noting that they only found out because a) I honestly didn’t think that there was anything wrong with what I was doing, and so didn’t try to hide it and b) I told people what I was doing, because I thought it was ok. To this day (nearly six years later), it is still held against me. It was a very sad experience to go through, and one from which I learnt a lot.

The most difficult part of the whole thing for me is that I no longer feel as though I stand alone, that I alone am held responsible for my mistakes. I feel as though if I screw up, someone or something else will also be blamed. Either one or other or both of my parents, Islam, home education, college (a.k.a. high school), university, UK, Algeria … the list is endless. The problem is that, yes, to a very large degree, these are the main influences in my life and have shaped who I am today, which means that I value them all highly and I don’t want to give people a bad impression of any of them. But my mistakes are not caused by them, either individually or together. My mistakes are my own. They happen because I am human, I am young and I don’t get everything right all the time (and, last time I checked, neither did anyone else, but apparently, that’s irrelevant).

The result of this is that I find it very hard to be me honestly. I play roles: university student, perfect Muslim girl, fun and free twenty-something year old, etc, etc, and it just gets depressing and tiring and fake. Moreover, it’s starting to make me feel angry and resentful. I don’t want to be the means of hurting the people and things that I love, but I need to be me.

And that’s why I haven’t told the people I know about my blog, yet. I’m afraid of all the judgement and its ramifications, even though I know that the vast majority would be very supportive and encouraging. There are, however, people I know who will read this blog determined to see their opinion of me confirmed, people who will use my blog to try to nitpick and point out all my flaws. And no matter what I do, they will find something to pick at and argue over and be hurt by, for the simple reason that I am not who they want me to be.

So that’s why I want to find my groove/niche with this blog before I tell them. I need to be who I am and accept that any repercussions that occur are not my fault so that I can represent myself authentically here. Otherwise, it’ll just be another way in which I have to juggle all the roles I play, and there’s no point in that.

2010 Resolutions

2010-01-06T16:04:00.003+01:00

Ok, I’ve finally put together my New Year’s Resolutions – it’s only 6 days late, which is pretty good by my standards. This year, I’ve decided to divide them into Goals I want to achieve and habits I want to form. The goals have pretty obvious stages, but some of the habits I’ve broken down into smaller steps. I haven’t bothered to list the steps or stages here, though because I think it would just go on too long.

The habits first:

1)Qur’an: both revising and memorising.
2)Extra prayers.
3)Reading: both in Arabic and English.
4)Extra fasting.

The goals:

1)Memorise ¼ of the Qur’an.
¼ is a lot, but I really feel that I can do it, if I’m dedicated enough and form the right habits. Over the last few years I’ve been learning about 1/12 a year, and that’s been really easy to do. There’s no reason why I can’t do more.

2)Learn the rules of recitation of the Qur’an (Ahkam).
This has been on my list for a while now, so I’m hoping to have set it up by the end of the month.

3)Find an outlet for my Islamic writing.
I have written on some Islamic topics, and would like to write more, but I have no outlet for my writing just yet. I don’t feel that this blog is the right place, although that may change, or else I may start another blog, or get involved with another website. I don’t know, but I need to really consider a reasonable outlet.

4)Pass my year at uni.

5)Get around about half way through my thesis.
I don’t know how long it’ll take me to figure out what I’m going to write my thesis on, or find a teacher to oversee it, or do the research or anything really, hence the reason this is such a vague goal. I just want to know at the end of the year what I’m doing in this area, which I think is about half the work.

6)Get a job online.
Online, because I want to work from home. Having to go out regularly or work in a specific space / time is not for me. Not long-term at any rate. I don’t mind deadlines, so long as I can make up my own schedule. Also, the Algerian currency isn’t too strong and I would really appreciate an income in another currency. So online is the best route for me. I’m giving myself 6 months to get myself together for this one, in terms of CV, cover letter, search, etc, etc.

7)Get a real, decent-paying job.
This kind of links in with the previous goal, only it differs because I do actually need to meet human beings, and not just at uni. I get that. But I don’t want to work all the hours God sends. Basically, I’m looking into teaching English at the moment. I’m offering private tuition and I’m hoping that will take off, and I may consider working in a school. We shall see. I just want a regular, dependable income, especially, while I’m working on the goal above.

8)Save some money.
Um, yeah, another vague goal, but I’m not really sure how much I want to save. I guess something like 10-20% of my earnings would be good, but then it depends on how much I earn, doesn’t it?

9)Get my driving license.
This one’s been on my list for too long. I’m hoping to get myself to save up for the lessons by buying a book on the topic. I’m quite sure it’ll motivate me – books generally do.

10)Complete 5 new and different knitting projects.
I enjoy knitting, and I want to do more to improve. I’ve picked 5 because I think that’s a decent number: not too much and completely attainable. They have to be new and different, because that way I’ll learn something new with each project, as well as expanding my list of things that I can knit. Also, completing just 5 means that if something’s a success I can make it again without spending the whole year making the same thing.

11)Expand my blog.
This means that I want to write more often, post more often, and reach a point where I’m happy enough to inform my family and friends about it.

12)Be consciously more positive and proactive.
By this I meant that I want to make up my mind to be positive and not be so easily annoyed / upset. I want to be more proactive because I want to get off my arse more. The reason I’ve lumped them together is because I feel that they are interrelated in my life.

13)Either go to the UK, or plan a trip back there for next year.
I haven’t been back for a long while now, and I’m really wanting to get back there. I don’t know if I’ll manage it this year, so I’m being flexible about it so long as I can plan a trip for next year.

That’s it. As most of these goals will, at some point or another, affect my life over the coming year, I will probably update as and when I have something to new to say.

What am I doing?

2010-01-03T19:32:00.001+01:00

This is a question I’ve started to ask myself sometimes with regards to my Masters degree. Some (not all) of my lecturers are not exactly great, and that’s putting it very kindly. I can sit in a 2 hour lecture and not learn a thing. Add to that the fact that admin is taking forever to sort out our paperwork, so I don’t have a student ID card, or even a library card, which is clearly a problem. Although, that’s not the real reason why I’m questioning myself. I know that admin will, eventually, sort themselves out – they always do – and my research projects will be researched and completed using library books and other resources and it’ll all end well.

My real problem is with my lecturers. Honestly, I think that the majority are – thus far – wasting my time. I’m not learning anything new. Today, for example, I spent over 45mins listening to a lecturer discuss an issue with some of the other students, whilst another lecturer last year explained the issue and summed it up, with all the different opinions in about 10mins. Furthermore, and what’s worse, is that they don’t really motivate me to study. Last year, I’d come out of a lecture and want to do more work. Not so this year. Although, I suppose, that motivating me isn’t really their job, thereby making it my issue with me. I’m going to have to motivate myself this year and push myself with my studying as well as the rest of my life, to accommodate the shift in my responsibilities, as a grad student, job-seeker, friend, Muslim, a member of 2 communities (expat and Algerian) and a family member. I guess I thought that it was going to be like last year.

So, I reckon that now would be a good time to state my New Year’s resolutions, except that I don’t think I will just yet. I need a little more time to stew on them, as I’ve read so much about setting resolutions that are keep-able that I would like to apply to my list this year. I’ve pretty much picked them out, but will probably divide them into things I want to do/have, and habits I wish to form... we shall see. I’ll probably have them up here by the end of the week.

13. Completion vs. Consistency.

2009-12-31T22:27:00.000+01:00

Received wisdom (or the wisdom that I’ve received, at any rate) dictates that in order to complete a task, you have to be consistent. You must set aside a regular time for a task and do a little every day in order to be successful. This year, I’ve discovered that this isn’t necessarily true. There’s nothing wrong with single-mindedly working on a task for hours at a time, a few times a week, when the fancy takes you – in a thoroughly inconsistent manner, so long as I get the task done.

Essentially, in most cases, consistent work isn’t all that important. What matters most is actually finishing the task, and that tends to require persistence, not consistency.

So, from here on out, consistency will generally be reserved for the tasks I don’t really like / struggle with, or for habits I need to develop. Otherwise, I’m focusing on sticking with completing any task I start, because I’m fed up with all of my unfinished projects. And the reason that I usually abandon them in the first place is because I get too caught up in the when and how often – in the insignificant details. So, in short, I’ve started to focus more on the big picture, and not leaving things unfinished.

12. Daring

2009-12-31T22:22:00.003+01:00

“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”
-T. S. Eliot.

There are a lot of things that I’d like to do, plenty that I want to do, and many more things I’ve never even considered doing, simply because I’m either not prepared to take a risk, or I lack a sense of adventure, or I’m just a plain, old-fashioned, scaredy-cat.

The thing is, I wasn’t always like this. I used to have a great sense of adventure. If it sounded like it was fun, and not painful in any way (I'm really not big on pain), then I was up for it. Be it jumping in puddles on the way home (to the shock of passers-by – whom I was careful not to splash, just so you know), getting pink highlights, talking to strangers, or just trying something new, I was there. It was soooo done. But in the past couple of years, I’ve kinda toned down and I seem to have lost my sense of adventure. And I miss it. A lot.

And yes, in a lot of instances I looked rather crazy (what would you think if you saw a grown woman jumping in all the big puddles in a street?), and sometimes I looked just plain stupid (like the doughnut-eating competition. Which, to make matters worse, I lost.), and sometimes I actually looked pretty cool (the pink highlights were amazing). But I always, always, always had fun. I always wound up laughing – and never by myself. I chatted to people I would never have come into contact with otherwise, and really enjoyed talking to them.

This year I realised just how much I love all of that, and how I really don’t love sitting on the sidelines watching other people have fun. I’ve realised just how much I need to reconnect with the more adventurous spirit in me. It’s hard, though, now that I’ve got so used to playing it safe. But finishing uni has kinda given me an impetus to get back in touch with my more daring side.

More often that not, it’s not about creating or actively seeking new experiences, but about recognising the fun right in front of you and making the most of the opportunities you have.

And it’s not that I’m getting older and moving on to the next stage in my life. That’s different. That’s ok. I can live with getting older – it means I get to be a little more polished (sometimes), and believe me, that’s a nice change, from being the punky one. But it’s no reason not to have fun – and that’s what I feel I’m missing when I’m less daring.

I’ve grown this year in the simple realisation that I need to be more adventurous and take advantage of any opportunities that come my way. As a result I’ve started to take risks and am getting back to my old habit of being a bit more daring, because it’s truer to who I am.

11. Attitude / Perspective.

2009-12-31T22:16:00.002+01:00

“Life is what we make it, always has been, always will be.”
- Grandma Moses

I tend to get stuck in a rut in terms of my attitude towards, well, everything really. Too often I find myself asking, “what’s the point?” and, for me, that is a fatal question. It sends me on a downward spiral of negative thoughts, which leads to my old friend, procrastination, and then a general lack of productivity.

Many times in the past, I’ve read about choosing to be more positive, about how nobody can change my mood without my permission, about being more proactive, and whilst I agree with it all, I just haven’t really believed it enough to put it into practice.

Over the last few months, however, I am starting to be more proactive in terms of my mindset. There have been several occasions where someone/thing was really annoying me, but where that would usually turn me into a snarky b*tch (which, by the way, I do really well – I have it down to a fine art), I tried to ignore it, focusing instead on being determined to be happy. In all these instances, it’s paid off and I’ve felt much better about myself and the day as a result. It actually felt really… empowering, strangely enough.

This has prompted a little voice in my head to question my attitude to doing things (only very occasionally, mind you). Basically, it’s started a slight shift in my attitude and has called into question my sense of perspective on things, causing me to make some adjustments. It’s still a small change, but it’s definitely a positive one, as it affects so much else in my life.

10. Knitting

2009-12-31T21:43:00.006+01:00

I learnt to knit when I was eight years old, and have re-learnt many times since then, but this year is really the first time I’ve actually followed a pattern, which – I’ve learnt the hard way – is crucial, if you want something functional, which my first ever completed project was not. What’s more, I’ve actually finished projects. Notice the ‘s’ at the end of ‘projects’ – I actually finished more than one thing! My aim is to be as good at knitting as Lisa, she's given me scarf-knitting envy. They are gorgeous. My accomplishements are a lot less impressive, but it's a start, and that's how I've grown this year: I've started!

I started off with this baby hat and then the matching booties to go with it:

Then I made two mobile phone cosies (one is actually supposed to be for a friend, but I’ve yet to give it to her. I might have to DHL it).

I love this button I found for the black one:

Last of all, I made this scarf, which I finished a few days ago and has prompted a request for a scarf from my brother:

And I think I might just oblige him.

9. Hobbies

2009-12-30T19:56:00.001+01:00

It’s rare that I make time for the things that I like to do, as I am usually so focused on all the things that I have to do. I have made considerable progress in that this year. As I’ve already mentioned in previous posts, I’ve started reading more, watching more films, exercising, knitting, writing and blogging – the last three of which I only started this year.

It’s been rather enlightening to discover that I can relax and unwind whilst still doing something. Usually, I relax and unwind by doing nothing. And then there’s the added bonus of finishing something, be it a book, a blog post, or whatever.

I’ve also learnt the amazing impact that giving value to an activity can have on prioritising it into my life. The more I value something, the more I regard it as something important to do, the more time I will find to actually do it. In fact, I find myself actively thinking about when I’m going to read a bit more of that book, or when I’m going to get a few more rows of knitting in, in the past I’ve only thought about work or university commitments in this way.

8. TV / Books

2009-12-30T19:53:00.000+01:00

I channel flick, watch crap, and will want to watch something on TV even if there’s nothing on and so I usually end up watching reality TV for a few hours, wasting all that time.

Earlier in the year, in an effort to curb this, I bought myself a TV for my bedroom, with no TV or satellite channels whatsoever, and nicked the DVD player from downstairs. Now, when I want to watch something (especially at breakfast) I stick a DVD in and watch about 20-30 minutes (or however long I want/have time for) of a film that I love, from the comfort of my own bed. Invariably, it puts me in a great mood, and then I turn it off.

I watch actual TV (like from a satellite) downstairs, but only for the length of the programme that I particularly want to watch. The only things I tend to watch now are films I don’t own, or series that I really love, like CSI (Vegas and NY – don’t like Miami), House, Criminal Minds, etc. This has freed up a lot of time for me.

Personally, I don’t believe that the TV is anything other than a tool. I can use it to enrich my life (entertainment is enriching, right?), or I can abuse it and let it waste my life. This year I’ve really learnt to use it and, more importantly, the off-button.

Instead of watching so much TV, I’ve started to read more books. I also haven’t re-read ‘Pride and Prejudice’ (my favourite book in the English language) or ‘The Lord of the Rings’, which is a good thing, because it’s kind of boring reading the same book several times a year, especially if you don’t get something new from it. I’ve not read a huge amount because I am a slow and irregular reader, but it is a definite improvement. I used to read quite a lot of books (more than 4 a month), but for some reason I stopped doing that over the past few years. I am very glad that I’m getting back into it again.

7. Following My Heart & Standing My Ground

2009-12-30T19:46:00.002+01:00

[NOTE: All the posts in this series have been written - they're either on my USB, or in my notebook, but between a dodgy internet connection, a suddenly hectic social life and a week of staying up late watching DVDs, they haven't been posted regularly. Ooops. They will however be posted eventually, because I've gone to all the trouble of writing them in the first place. :)]

At the beginning of this year, I was engaged and…, well, suffice to say that I am now neither married nor engaged. I called the whole thing off back in April because I knew in my heart that we weren’t right for each other, even though on paper it seemed great. It took a lot of guts, especially as we had been engaged for a few months, but I followed my heart and it really paid off. I am sooo grateful that I didn’t marry him, for both our sakes.

It really showed me the importance of following my heart, and standing my ground when I do. There have been a few other areas in my life where everyone keeps telling me that I don’t need to change/grow/improve, that I’m fine just the way I am, but my heart’s whispered otherwise. Areas including my weight (“You don’t need to lose weight!”), uni (“You’re smart! You’ll be fine, you shouldn’t work so hard.”) and my general lifestyle (“It’s normal for someone your age to stay up half the night and sleep all morning!”). Yeah, right. This year I’ve started to listen to my little ticker, rather than other peoples’ thoughts and I’ve had to really stand my ground to do so.

Honestly, I don’t think you can really follow your heart without also standing your ground. In order to do the former, you need to be able to say ‘no’, to walk away, to go against the flow and do your own thing, however hard it may be. I think that I’ve grown by recognising this and doing it more. In the past, I have always focused on following my heart, but then I live by other peoples’ schedules. This year I’ve learnt to say ‘no’ and I’ve come to realise that most people don’t have a problem with that. Those that do are simply not on the same wavelength as me, and that’s ok – it really doesn’t matter.

6. Career/work

2009-12-23T20:42:00.001+01:00

Because I graduated this year, these past six months are the first time that I have seriously thought about employment – real employment, not scanty, next-to-no-pay employment – and what I want to do with my life. Late, I know, but that’s because I procrastinate, and this is scary, so I procrastinated a lot. So now I’m poor.

I have learnt that I don’t really know what it is that I want to do for the rest of my life, nor do I know what area (teaching/translation/whatever) I want to aim for. More importantly, I’ve learnt that this is ok and I don’t need to start panicking about it. I don’t have to have all the answers now – they will come (eventually) with experience (I hope).

I have discovered that CVs are really, really, really hard to write, especially when
you don’t actually have any employment history to speak of.

I have realised that finding a job that I can/will do (without going crazy) is going to take a fair amount of time and research, but that this usually pays off in the end. I’ve also spent a lot of time thinking about what’s important to me in a job, and hopefully when my thoughts are more organised I’ll write a post on the topic.

Above all, I’ve learnt that I am utterly fed up of being a broke university student. I’ve done it for five years and I would like to grow out of this phase now, thank you.

5. Internet

2009-12-23T20:37:00.001+01:00

[Note: this should have been posted yesterday, but for some reason we lost our internet connection for a day – I really don’t know why. Anyways, it’s back now, so I’m going to do a double post today to make up for the day lost.]

For the past few years, I’ve used the internet mainly to read celebrity gossip, research obscure papers for uni, read celebrity gossip, scan the latest news, read celebrity gossip, catch up on fashion/beauty trends/tips and read celebrity gossip. It was essentially my biggest time-wasting tool, and it usually made me feel kinda crappy.

This year I started to read blogs and discovered Google Reader (a little late off the mark, I know). I only tend to pick blogs that I gain something from, be it inspiration, motivation, ideas, or even just a different perspective. Because I’m gaining something, it’s not a waste of time.

Also, despite having started this blog ages ago, I’ve only really begun to use it this year – albeit in a sporadic, inconsistent manner. And I’ve really enjoyed it. Don’t get me wrong, I find it extremely difficult and having to do write regularly challenges my two greatest problem areas: consistency and writing. But I feel such a sense of accomplishment when I post on my blog, and it’s good – even therapeutic – to externalise some of my thoughts. It’s also been hugely educational – trying to find my own writing style, discovering what I can write about with passion and what I really can’t write about, using language in a new way… the list goes on.

In addition to blogging, I’ve been using the internet to learn about new things – things I wouldn’t actually be bothered to do any real research on, but as I’m online, I might as well. These things are usually utterly useless in my daily life (like how guide dogs for the blind are trained), but it’s nice to satisfy one’s curiosity about these things. I’ve also used it to stay in touch with friends by signing up to Facebook – although I’m not really in love with it anymore.

4. Religion / faith

2009-12-21T13:37:00.001+01:00

[Note: these posts are organised from most obvious and easy to write about, to the least obvious and most difficult to write about. They are not ordered in priority, because to be honest they are all inter-connected. I would not have grown in terms of my education without perseverance and good health, for example.]

As a practising Muslim, my religion and faith are very important to me and yet this is the one area in which I am always dissatisfied. I could always have done more, been better, been more sincere. I always focus on my shortcomings, not my progress. But I can only determine how far I have to go, how I can actually improve, by acknowledging what I’m doing right. I am not writing this to become complacent in practising my religion, but to recognise the areas on which I can build upon.

I think that the main way in which I have grown this year is by incorporating faith in my daily activities. By this, I mean dedicating as much as possible (i.e. when I remember) of my day-to-day life to God. So for example, helping out with the dinner: I’ll do it with the intention of trying to please God, of trying to gain reward by dedicating it to God. In Islam, everything that you choose to dedicate to God counts as an act of worship, so long as you’re not doing anything harmful to yourself or others.

Also, I’ve revised more Quran this year than ever before. Muslim’s are strongly encouraged to memorise as much of the Quran as they can, to preserve it – the written word can be lost, but what is kept in the hearts of humanity will always be preserved.

I’ve also improved by doing some extra acts of worship, like saying extra prayers, etc. Although I admit, I’ve not been doing as much of this now as I was earlier in the year.

Most importantly, I feel that I’ve made an effort over the past year to become closer to my Creator and I feel a great sense of peace in my life as a result.

3. Diligence and Perseverance

2009-12-20T16:38:00.001+01:00

“The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they while their companions slept
Were toiling upward in the night.”

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

I’m a wimp. The minute the going gets tough or it’s just not fun anymore, I quit.

This year I’ve fought through that (in teeny, tiny, baby steps) and learnt to persevere: to suck it up from time to time and just keep going. This required a lot of diligence, and I’ve had to push myself to keep making an effort.

Honestly, it’s paid dividends. I’ve finished things I’d normally put off, I’ve passed exams I would have otherwise failed, I’ve achieved a lot – and more than that, I’ve had the kind of confidence that only comes from knowing that there’s nothing more you could have done, of knowing that I’ve done my best.

And that’s a very nice feeling indeed.

2. Health

2009-12-19T17:59:00.001+01:00

While taking care of one’s health sounds really obvious, and there is an abundance of information available on the ‘best’ way to do so, I’ve discovered just how much of a personal journey it is, and what that actually means. I always knew that it was a personal journey, but I thought that referred to the personal way in which a particular theory/plan/diet/routine/whatever is followed. It’s actually more personal than that. It’s a journey to discover what gives you vitality and not just a clean bill of health from a medical practitioner or a dress size. Through all the errors of the past few years in attempting to follow different plans, diets or theories with regards to both food and exercise, through all the years of out-of-control moods, excessive tiredness, difficulty sleeping, etc, etc, I have finally figured out what works for me.
I have finally learnt which foods are good for me – and which will send me on a rollercoaster ride. I have become more committed to getting more exercise. I (generally) am going to bed at a much more respectable hour, getting a good night’s rest, and then getting up at a decent time. I have lost around about 5lbs and have kept them off (without drastically changing my life) for a few months now. All this I have achieved by doing what is right for me.
I have also learnt that what works for me, will not work for everyone else – that all the pieces of ‘advice’ available are, in fact, just suggestions, which you can take or leave. I’m not saying that exercise and a healthy diet rich in all the nutrients necessary is not important – on the contrary, it’s absolutely crucial. What I am saying is that how you choose to get that exercise (running, aerobics classes, yoga, etc) and how you choose to eat a healthy diet is up to each individual.
Knowing this has completely changed my attitude to information on healthy eating and fitness. Before, I would just feel guilty about not doing whatever it was, or I would near kill myself trying. Now, I enjoy reading as much information as I can, because it’s not about what I should be doing, but rather about a different way of doing things – suggestions that I may or may not try, to stop things from getting boring.
Most importantly, I feel good, I feel strong, and I feel alive.

1. Education

2009-12-18T21:48:00.002+01:00

This year I finally graduated university, at long, long last and then went on to gain entry to the post-graduate Masters’ course. (Yay – still ecstatic over that!) I discovered a whole new passion for my subject area and it’s been a huge motivator.

I’m now truly fluent in Arabic reading and writing and I can understand my lectures and actually take my own notes (instead of borrowing someone else's) now – none of which was true when I started university four years ago.

Now that I have finally caught up linguistically, I am able to achieve the kind of marks that I used to get when I was studying in Englis and am now on an equal footing with my peers, academically speaking. It is a truly wonderful and liberating feeling to know that I’m not going to suck at everything because of my language problem.

However, I believe that a person’s education is not measured merely by academic success (we’ve all met academic geniuses who turn out to be total idiots). I’ve also got back to reading and writing, as well as watching more documentaries and less crappy reality TV (although I still watch a lot of that too). Generally, I’ve been pushing my mind in new, informal ways: reading poetry, and classics, watching interesting things on Youtube, trying to seek out and be open to different ways, opinions, information, etc.

Annual Growth.

2009-12-18T21:43:00.002+01:00

The idea for this is a series of posts by Lisa before Thanksgiving, in which she wrote about the 10 things for which she is most grateful. Taking her great idea and then tweaking it for my own purposes, I have decided to do a series of posts on how I think/feel that I’ve grown over the past year.

Today, Friday 18th December 2009, is the first day of the Islamic New Year (1431 – in case you were interested). It’s not actually a religious celebration, in fact, it’s not actually a celebration at all – it’s just a Bank Holiday throughout much of the Islamic world. So, for today and the next 13 days (until the Gregorian New Year on the 1st January), I have decided to blog about how I’ve grown these past twelve months, so as I can figure out what to work on in the coming year. After all, how can I move forward if I don’t know where I am right now?

It's raining!

2009-12-15T17:59:00.003+01:00

I know that for most people in the Northern hemisphere there's been a lot of rain and cold weather, because it is, after all, winter. Duh. (Honestly, I can't believe it's mid-December already.) Some places have had freakishly cold weather - I was watching Euronews yesterday and was rather surprised to see that Spain has been snowed down. They've had temperatures of -2C, generally unheard of in the Mediterranean.

This is in Madrid.

Here, on the other hand, the weather has been pretty mild (bar one crappy, cold week at the end of November). Until yesterday, that is. Yesterday afternoon the heavens opened, the wind picked up and the cold set in (cold, by the way, is a completely relative concept) and Winter really started. It's been raining ever since.

It doesn't really bug me that much because a) I know that Algeria needs all the water it can get in the short winter months, b) it won't last long and c) the cold actually gives me a reason to wear my lovely, long, warm winter coat. Honestly, I love winterwear. I think it's from having lived in England.

And, of course, as I finish writing this, the rain has finally stopped, the wind has died down and the sun has come out.

And I can't believe that I've actually written a post about the weather.

A fresh start.

2009-12-07T18:38:00.000+01:00

Having been sick for the past week or so, I decided (i.e.: was forced) to take a break from pretty much everything in my life: internet, exercise, uni, work, friends, everything. And to be honest, I’m actually feeling grateful for it. I’m not saying that I was grateful when I felt like death warmed up, because I really wasn’t. Nor was I grateful when I developed the world’s largest cold sore, but let’s not dwell on that. What I am grateful for is the time off from all the thinking and planning and worrying. See, that’s the great thing about being sick: all I could focus on is getting better.

So here I am now, back at uni with my first lesson teaching English on Wednesday. I feel like I’m getting a fresh start, simply because I had a week off between all the months of planning and the actual fruition and application of said plans. And this fresh start feeling has (mostly) removed the anxiety that I would normally feel. Instead, I’m excited to be back in action – yay!

One match. One goal. One helluva celebration.

2009-11-20T17:39:00.011+01:00

N.B.: This is about football (a.k.a. soccer). I'm not a fan, but this was big. Just so you know.

Wednesday 18th November 2009: Play off match between Egypt and Algeria to qualify for the World Cup in South Africa next year. Egypt was by far the stronger team as they have more experience than the newly formed Algerian team, but the under-dogs had played remarkably well in their group matches, and had they not lost the last match they would have automatically qualified. To make it all more interesting, the last match - which Algeria lost - was against Egypt the previous Saturday. (The match, played in Cairo, was tense, with the home team needing 2 goals to get to the play off and they made it in the last 30seconds of the match with what turned out to be an off-side goal, which the referee didn't spot.)

The play off was held in Sudan and supporters from both countries raced to get there in the 3 days between the matches. Now, I live in Algeria, so I have no idea how the Egyptians did it, but I can tell you how the Algerians did.

Sunday, with just three days to go, Algerian supporters gathered in the capital Algiers and held an impromptu rally, requesting that the President of Algeria, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, give them the airline tickets. Among the crowds' loud chants: 'Bouteflika, give us the tickets!'. Tickets to Khartoum cost 90,000DA (Algerian Dinars), which is more than 2months wages. The President knocked them back to a mere 20,000DA. Then Parliament went one step farther: they paid for all of the fans' tickets to Khartoum. In addition to this, visa requirements were dismissed. So, in just 3 days, thousands of Algerian fans took the five-hour flight across Africa to support their team.

The rest of the nation - and yes, I do mean ALL off the nation - decked themselves in the team colours (green/white), with loads of flag-themed accessories.

This is the Algerian flag, by the way.

Anyway, back to Wednesday night. I honestly couldn't stomach watching the match - I felt sick watching the last one, and I just couldn't face it again. Besides, pretty much the entire nation was watching - with TVs taken out into the streets for neighbours to watch together, and big screens put up in the major cities, so I knew that I'd find out the instant Algeria scored. And score they did. One goal towards the end of the first half. And that was it.

Algeria won and the entire nation erupted in cheers. Everyone spilled onto the streets celebrating the nation's first World Cup qualification in 24 years. I raced out with my family, to enjoy the celebrations, but I forgot to bring the camera! I did remember to bring my phone (thank God I also remembered the door keys!), but the photos aren't great quality.

Here they are anyway:

Notice the guy standing on the car window? Totally normal.

This crowd is nothing compared to those that gathered in the cities.

There were A LOT of flags around.

And there were loads of people on top of buses. It was ok, though, as they were (mostly) driving slow because of all the traffic.

It was a long night.

A work in progress: this blog's evolution thus far.

2009-11-16T18:38:00.006+01:00

I started this blog over a year ago in a fit of pique. Some ex-pats who are good friends of mine were writing blogs about their lives here in Algeria, and whilst their experiences were absolutely true, I felt that they portrayed a very one-sided, and - if I may say so - largely inaccurate view of life here.

(I am not comfortable discussing my reasons for this point of view, so let's just say I have my justifications.)

Anyway, my initial intention in starting this blog was to write about my experiences of life here in Algeria, to present a different perspective. This is a second world country, and some aspects of life here can be tough, but it does have it's charms and attractions (which I'd like to write a post on at some point - God only knows when).

After my first few posts I realised that this blog was not going in the direction I had originally intended. I was writing about my life, not about my life in Algeria. So, I decided to kind of follow this new direction. I soon discovered that nothing is as boring as writing about than the same old same old. So I tried blogging about my religion, but that didn't work because I was writing far too much in one blogpost which I could not sustain for long and so I stopped blogging for a few months. Anything I wrote about after that was more about my goals and trying to get out of a rut, etc.

Then I read this post on Brazen Careerist, which prompted me to write this post here, and then I read this post by Amber, all of which had me obsessing on blog topics. I have reached the decision that I don't want a specific blog topic, as I don't really know what I want to focus on.

That said, I do want to write here regularly, and I know that I don't just want to write about me, but the narcissist in me finds that sooo much easier to write about.

I have therefore reached the conclusion that I am going to try to do the following:

post at least 3 times a week,
Set aside a certain amount of time each day to get in the habit of writing regularly,
research posts
read online newspapers and magazines for inspiration.

Here's to hoping I follow through.

Battle plan - what's next.

2009-11-12T19:35:00.006+01:00

Having discovered that I passed the Master's entrance exam and will be enrolling in the course, which will probably start in early December (by my calculation - so I may be wrong), I have been really motivated to get back on track with, well, everything. Admittedly, I haven't actually done anything yet, but I know that if I want to study full-time, and work, and exercise, and have a social life, and keep up my hobbies, and try to do some evening classes I am going to have to get organised now. I need to start good habits and set my priorities - basically, figure out my battle plan - now.

And it is sooo energizing. As, of course, is the feel-good, on-cloud-nine feeling of actually having passed. :D

So, I'm blocking out time tomorrow afternoon to sit down and think it all through.

YAY!!!

2009-11-10T21:30:00.002+01:00

I. Am. Ecstatic.

Totally.

I found out yesterday, and confirmed today, that I PASSED THE ENTRANCE EXAM FOR THE MASTERS DEGREE PROGRAM!!!

I'm going back to uni!

I'm still in a mild state of disbelief - I totally thought I'd failed, as I didn't do much revision for it, so this is completely shocking. I'm so looking forward to getting back to uni and cranking up the study, although I won't be starting back until December at the earliest. Who cares? I'm going back!!

What they don't say about yoga.

2009-11-07T22:16:00.003+01:00

Yesterday I decided to do an hour of 'Geri's Yoga' - a yoga video (yes, video, not dvd - there's nothing wrong with old school. Other than the fact that I can't skip to what I want, but whatever.) featuring Geri Halliwell and her ~~slightly annoying?~~ yoga instuctor Katy Appleton. There's also another person in it called Tina who demonstrates a lot of the beginner poses, so Geri can do all/most of the badass stuff.

I totally enjoyed it. Yoga is one of those things that I really enjoy, but I just don't prioritise. I'm the kind of person who finds a type of exercise/dvd that I really like and then does it, and only it, for a month or 3 until I get supremely bored and quit exercising all together. In an effort to prevent that from happening now, I am trying to vary my exercise routine and make it a bit more fun, so I'm trying out all of my workout videos/dvds to try to figure out how to incorporate them weekly. (I'm also looking to expand my collection - but that's another thing.)

Anyways, I'm getting off-topic here. As much as I loved the yoga yesterday and felt that it totally relaxed me, which was good because I was in such a foul mood, today I woke up aching all over. Seriously, I felt like I'd done a couple of rounds with Mike Tyson (without the ear pain). My shoulders ache, my arms ache and my thighs(!) ache (but not my abs - hmmmm). Honestly, I don't mind it - it kind of makes me feel like I did a real kick ass workout, even though it wasn't actually hard to do. Which is, of course, great.

But the thing is... everyone that recommends yoga, all the articles promoting its practice, all the books and dvds that teach it, not one of those that I've come across (and they are many) mention the soreness the next day. I mean, it's no big deal, it's just that when I decide to do carido or strength training I know to expect sore muscles the day after. I don't with yoga.

So now I know: Yoga hurts.

And now that I know this, I have found this article explaining that I may feel some soreness when I begin as I'm using my muscles and joints in new ways.
Duh Sarah!
But seriously, why didn't I figure this out before, and why isn't it mentioned more often?

A bad start, but a good end.

2009-11-06T19:16:00.003+01:00

When I woke up this morning at 3:25am I automatically turned over to get back to sleep. Unfortunately my brain decided not to cooperate and instead began to run this really weird loop of worry about (and this is really sad, I know): how I was going to hem my sewing projects.

Honestly, that's why I couldn't go back to sleep.

By 5am I decided I would try to distract myself by watching a film - 'The Devil Wears Prada' was in my dvd player, so I hit play, confident that a bit of distraction would rest my mind and allow me to fall back to sleep.

It didn't work. By 5:30 I gave up and just got out of bed and decided to start my day. But, boy, was I in a foul mood. I prayed fajr (the dawn prayer) on time and I patted myself on the back mentally for doing something constructive. I then went downstairs, and saw the heap of washing up which my sister was supposed to have done last night.

Foul mood just got worse.

I decided to chill out a bit, have my brekkie, read my emails and check into google reader to read my blogs. After an hour I figured that just because I was having a bad day, it didn't mean everyone else had to have one too. I washed up for my mum's sake (I know how much she hates coming down to the washing up first thing in the morning) and felt really good afterwards, so I did some of Geri Yoga. By the end of it all I was so proud of myself for not letting my bad mood, or the bad start to my day, get the better of me.

I went on to have a really healthy lunch, and managed to avoid eating a single chip, even though I had to fry 3 basket loads for the rest of the family! So now I feel pretty smug. I've had a nap but have yet to do anything constructive with the sewing machine - mainly because I can't work out how to use it *blush*. My mum's going to give me a lesson shortly, I hope, and then I'm going to stitch together some pillows. I just hope that that'll give me the peace of mind with regards to hemming that might allow me to have a good night's rest.

Waiting

2009-11-05T17:22:00.002+01:00

I'm still waiting for the results of my Masters' entrance exam, over 3 weeks later. It's started to get extremely frustrating. Although I'm certain that I've failed, I would still really like confirmation of that fact before I move on and start to fill up my time with other things. Other things like work.

I thoroughly enjoyed the recent teacher's training course I took (I will write up about it soon, I just have to organise my notes, etc) and I'm planning on starting to teach private classes. I'd also like to be able to go back to the Hopeland Institue (where I did my training) to participate in their ongoing teacher training development course as I would like to work with them some time in the future. But I don't feel like I can plan all of this until I have the exam results.

So I'm losing time, valuable time waiting for these results. I mean, it's November already! So I'm hoping to start moving on with other projects in the meantime, as well as to begin researching for lessons now, so that I'm not totally freaked/stessed out trying to prepare for lessons when I do start teaching.

After all, too much of human life is lost in waiting.

Photo: from icanread.

A marriage call.

2009-11-04T17:04:00.001+01:00

Recently I received a text message from a ~~friend~~ acquaintance asking me if I was interested in a guy. She told me his age and that he looks ‘acceptable’ (I translated that from the message, I swear). I delayed replying to this message, as I felt it was a rather delicate issue, and that I should pray on it before informing her of my decision (a ‘no thank you’).

She phoned me the next day. Twice.

The first time was to inform me that, although he wasn’t a graduate, he was employed (a huge bonus over here) and that he was looking to marry someone who had a foreign passport, as he would like to travel abroad a bit and it would make things easier, although he doesn’t intend to actually live abroad.

Yeah. Right. Whatever. Anyone want to say the words ‘passport hunter’?

So I came up with the simple excuse that my dad does not approve of anyone who is not a foreign passport holder. Sorted, right? Wrong.

She goes on to tell me that he’s not like that at all, and then she tells me that he’s her BROTHER, which supremely pissed me off. Because obviously her brother is the best thing since sliced bread. They all are – it’s amazing how many age-appropriate, wonderful, good-looking, kind-hearted, strong, steady, hard-working, deep-thinking, make-Edward-Cullen-and-Mr.-Darcy-combined-seem-like-prats guys there are out there.

Really, it’s impressive.

Until you meet them.

Then you make yourself a huge mug of hot chocolate/tea grab loads of chocolate and biscuits and crap and watch your DVDs of Twilight and Pride and Prejudice (the Colin Firth version) back to back, because there is no hope/comparison.

I extricated myself from the predicament by telling her that I would pray on it and think about it. She then said that killer sentence that I hadn’t thought of yet (to busy trying to let her down gently): “I’d love to have you as a sister-in-law”.

Oh hell no.

Seriously, I’ve known this girl four years and I keep ‘losing her number’, and I could wind up being related to her? *i shudder*

Anyways, I kept my cool, told her I’d get back to her by Friday and managed to end the call.

Only she calls me a couple of hours later to ask if we could meet up in person to discuss this, as she feels that it would be best discussed face-to-face.

Abso-bloody-lutely not.

Not to mention a little too late.

I told her I was busy for the rest of the week (white lie) and that I didn’t know what I’d be doing next week and that I’d call her when I was done praying and thinking on it. I hung up again.

At this rate, the only thing I’ll be praying for will be the patience not to lay into the girl for bugging me out.

Why are people so persistent about something when you can’t tell them the real reason why you’re refusing them? (like: wannabe-sister-in-law stalkers are just as scary as all other stalkers and you freak me out, or: I don’t actually like your family, or: he looks like I could squish him with my little finger, or: he’s minging.)

And now, I’m going to have to phone her up and waste my phone credit to tell her what I could have told her tonight, except she wouldn’t have accepted it and would have gone on a long monologue about just how great he was, and hope to God that I don’t get the monologue next time either.

Great.

2009-11-03T11:27:00.005+01:00

Last Wednesday I went to go stay with my gran sot that I could take a three-day teacher training course that ended on Saturday (Friday here is like Sunday in Europe and the US), then we had some friends over on Sunday, then I had to catch up with reading all my blogs yesterday and generally just bum around.

So now I need to get back on track in terms of my health and fitness goals, AND organise work (I can teach English as a foreign language, yay!) (privately), AND sort out my bloody CV, AND make the most of the sewing machine I borrowed over 4 months ago and have to return next Saturday, AND figure out this whole blogging thing and how it's gonna work for me, cos I want to start posting more often. I'd love to do NaBloPoMo, but obviously I missed the beginning of the month. I might well try it for the rest of the month anyway, we shall see.

Anyways, saw this on icanread and it so definitely applies to me:

Forgiving my body.

2009-10-24T21:20:00.000+01:00

I have been thinking recently about how much I complain about my body, and the fact that I tend to treat it a bit like a spoilt child. The reality, however, is that I put my body through a lot of stress and get annoyed when I get aches and pains from the resulting tiredness, so, really, I’m the spoilt brat.

In the past, I have persistently eaten rubbish, not worked out for extended periods, kept what could be best described as erratic sleeping habits, and then pushed my body to do whatever random workout program I want it to, fully expecting to be able to just do it. I have not listened to my body when it’s tried to tell me of problems (admittedly, I did actually listen, it was my doctor who didn’t, but then I should have been more assertive and insistent). This includes the knee pain I suffered as a result of flat feet and the hormonal imbalances I have experienced due to my mild insulin resistance (my body is not as sensitive to insulin as it should be).

In spite of all this, my body generally works pretty well. I am one of those blessed people who do not get sick very often, tend to maintain a healthy weight with relative ease and a good level of general fitness, despite doing nothing to deserve it. Yet I get frustrated and angry with my body for shortcomings, like how when I eat a high GI meal I need to sleep for two hours afterwards (seriously), if I don’t wear insoles in my trainers my knees start to hurt and my body likes to store fat around my middle like it’s some sort of security blanket.

I guess what I’m trying to say, is that if my body can forgive me all my shortcomings in how I treat it, then maybe it’s time I forgive my body for its shortcomings. No matter what, I will always have to work out regularly and eat low GI to feel well (it works best for me) and maybe it’s time I stopped being angry with my body for that and instead accept that it is doing the best it can, but that it needs me to be responsible and make an effort too.

Feeling disheartened

2009-10-18T20:41:00.003+01:00

I'm feeling a little down at the moment. It just seems that, of all the things that I was planning on doing work-wise, none of those things are going to be at all possible. I already mentioned that I'm waiting for confirmation that I have failed my Masters entrance exam, and today I found out that I won't be getting a teaching job any time soon. The place is not looking for positions in the location near me, and as I have yet to get my driving license, I am very much restricted.

I've been meaning to get my license since I was old enough to, but, well... it just hasn't happened yet. Boy, do I regret it now.

I'm also concerned that the translation jobs are very competitive, and I don't seem to have the right credentials. Basically, it all feels a little hopeless at the moment.

Having said that, I'm not doing anything to maximise my chances of getting a job. I've thought of a few things, but I have yet to put them into action. Instead, I'm focusing on craft projects. Ahh, the art of procrastination: leave what you really have to do, for something that you feel that you have to do.

I'm also beginning to think about how I'm going to maintain my workout routine at a good intensity after I've finished the 30-Day Shred (I've reached the half way point, so I feel like it's sufficiently near to think about). I'd like to mix up workouts and do a variety of different programs, but I'm afraid that I might lose my rhythm if I do that.

So, my life at the moment is full of a lot of 'we'll see', which I guess, is not all that hopeless after all really.

Update on where I'm at / what I'm doing

2009-10-16T20:31:00.003+01:00

Last Tuesday I took the entrance exam for the Masters course at university and, although the results are not in yet, I’m pretty sure I have failed. We had three exam papers: one I aced, one I did okish and one I flunked. Ironically, I failed the exam that I had most prepared for. Ah well, at least I tried, right? Oh, yeah, and I have no idea when the results will be made available, so that I may confirm my awful fail.

As for looking for any other jobs, I am afraid to admit that I have been a completely lazy cow. My excuse is that I am fasting (still!) and I just do not have the energy to keep going. The reality is that I managed to push myself until my exam, and now I am suffering from a little burnout.

I am still doing Jillian Michael’s 30-Day Shred workout DVD. I had just about mastered level 1 (and by ‘mastered’ I mean ‘managed to get myself through it without wanting to give up’) when the first 10 days were up, and it was time to start level 2. Oh my God, I cannot believe how hard I found it, especially the first couple of days. There was actually a point during my workout when I said (aloud): that woman’s crazy! It was during a move called Plank-Squats, which essentially involves getting into a plank position (similar to full push-up position, but with the arms shoulder-width apart and your bum up in the air) and then jumping your legs forwards and backwards whilst keeping them closed, balancing on your arms and trying to remember to breathe. Admittedly, it works a lot of muscles: abs, thighs, arms and shoulders, and probably others too, but these were the loudest complainers. After a couple of days, however, I managed to get the hang of doing it so that it didn’t sound as though I was going to go through the floor, which is something I am immensely proud of. In all honesty, I’m dreading level 3, but I’m also really, really, really looking forward to finishing the whole damn thing!

I am also trying to get back into crafting as I have completely abandoned my knitting since the summer. Also, I borrowed a sewing machine a few months ago from a very kind friend who was not going to be using it for a while, and have yet to use it myself. I haven’t actually used a sewing machine at all since I was about 14 – and then all that I ever made was scrunchies (the teacher wanted to start with something small). Therefore, if I can manage to use her sewing machine and actually make something it will be a minor miracle. But in order to sew anything, I will need fabric (yup, I still haven’t gotten around to getting that yet), which necessitates a shopping trip (yay!) into Algiers. I might take the opportunity to go and stay with my Gran for a night while I’m there too.

Are blogs without a central theme a waste of time?

2009-10-07T21:16:00.002+01:00

Yesterday, I read a post over on Penelope Trunk’s blog Brazen Careerist entitled ‘Blogs without topics are a waste of time’, in which she explains that for a blog to be truly successful, as well as to really promote and develop a person’s writing skills, it must centre around a central theme. Her reasoning is understandable and makes complete sense: focusing on one topic forces a writer to be more creative in both how they approach their subject as well as in how they incorporate other themes in with their central focus. It also requires a writer to read around their chosen topic a lot, developing their knowledge of, and expertise in, that area. All of this is of course invaluable in the workforce and for those who wish to portray a particular digital persona (which is the focus of Trunk’s blog).

But what if you cannot choose one topic to blog about? What if you are unsure of the direction in which to pursue a career, or do not know which field to work in? What if you choose to blog as a hobby and not as a career-networking device? Moreover, what about all the successful blogs out there that do not seem to have any obvious central theme, other than the authors’ thoughts and experiences?

I have only just graduated this year and I have absolutely no idea whatsoever as to what I want to do concerning a career. Seriously, I’m at a total loss as to what field I would like to pursue (as this post confirms) and I do not want to limit myself to one central theme that I will then have to change and/or will restrict me at a later date.

Besides, what topic should I choose? My blog is called ‘Random Thoughts’ for a reason: my thoughts are random and I like the freedom to write about anything that concerns me at a particular time, without having to tie it in to a central theme, regardless of how much it would develop my writing skills. Therefore, if I were to pick a topic it would have to be sufficiently broad for me to sound-off on all of the issues I may wish to write about. I have considered focusing on the things that are important to me, such as my religion, health and fitness, cooking and crafting, career and education, travel, life in Algeria, etc, etc… but I feel that each of these topics would be far too restrictive. So I have considered broader, less concrete themes – such as self-motivation and will power – but in all honesty, I barely blog as it is, and such themes (which I could tie-in to pretty much everything) would also require some research. As well as the fact that I found this blog which covers the whole motivation issue better than I could.

Then again, who am I to argue? I have had this blog for over a year, and I am probably the most irregular blogger in all of blog-land. Almost all of the rest of her advice with regards blogging (write every single day for a few months before promoting your blog, using your real name, etc) is extremely helpful, and let’s face it: she knows what she’s doing, after all she does have over 40,000 subscribers.

So what is this blog to me? It is a chance for me to improve and practice my writing skills by writing on a regular basis. What I write about will vary and whether or not it is successful is not really the point. Besides surely success in blog-land is not unlike success in the real world – different people define it differently. Would it bother me if nobody ever read my blog? No, I really don’t think it would. This is a hobby and a tool in promoting my personal development, not a PR tool.

Procrastinating stresshead

2009-10-01T18:44:00.005+01:00

Ok, so I've registered to enter the Masters entrance exam at uni. Now all I have to do is revise. Why didn't I revise all summer when I knew that there was a strong likelihood that I would be going in for this exam? Because I'm a first-class procrastinator. (Seriously, I'm real good at procrastinating. I have it down to a fine art. But that's a whole other blog post.) The net result of all that procrastination is that I am now trying to cram in all my revision. And there's a lot to revise.

A hell of a lot.

As a result I have become a stresshead. I've divised a nice, overly-ambitious study program that is going to kill me if I actually stick with (it involves giving up sleep, food, fun, socialising and everything else), and will stress me out no end if I don't. Basically, I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't.

You know what the best bit is? (This is good.) I'm gonna be fasting for the next few weeks. Yep, it's Ramadhan, take two (making up the days I missed due to lady-times, plus the six extra days of this month).

So, obviously, this is the best time to re-start my exercise program. I started the 30 Day Shred (again) today, and Oh My God it nearly killed me. This time, I'm fairly sure I'm not gonna last the full 30 Days. I'm just trying to get through these 13 days, and then I'll deal with everything else after that.

Does that count as procrastinating again?

My career and education options

2009-09-28T23:21:00.001+01:00

After five years at university, I finally finished my degree last June. I’ve spent the summer bumming around, on holiday, enjoying myself and trying to figure out what to do with myself now. I’m very grateful for the fact that I live at home and don’t have to pay any bills and that my university education was free (Europe and America should pay attention to that detail); otherwise I would be in serious financial straits by now.

As it is, I am penniless with too much free time on my hands and I need to do something about it. My options are as follows:

1 – Masters degree: I can enrol in a Masters program at my old university. I have to take an entrance exam on the 13th of October and then it will depend on whether or not I am accepted.

2 – English teacher: I received a job offer at the beginning of the summer to work at a friend’s English Institute teaching foreign speakers. I don’t think that teaching is what I’m interested in, but, you never know, may be it could be a good thing. The experience would be valuable at any rate, and I would have to be trained up by them.

3 – Managing Translator: I’m not sure how to label this job, hence the not-very-obvious-or-descriptive title. Basically, I received a job offer from a friend who runs a translation company to organise and manage Arabic/French/English translations from here. I would have to hire a few translators and proofreaders, send them work and oversee it getting back to the clients. She would take care of the money side of things as well as advertising and be there to talk me through the whole thing. I think this is the most exciting and challenging offer I have – but the responsibility for someone (me) who has practically no experience in the business is insane. I know that she would support me and that she knows what she’s doing, but I’ve done so little translation work that I don’t feel like I know what I’m dealing with in the area. I need more experience in the industry at the basic translation level before I can progress to the business side of things.

4 – Translator: I’m thinking of sending my CV off to some publishing houses, especially the Islamic publishing houses and seeing if there are any translation jobs available that I could do from home, via internet (there’s no reason why not).

5 – Writing: Yeah, I’m thinking of writing as a career. I can’t believe that I’ve reached this decision as I have always been more of a science/maths person than a languages person and I made up my mind a long time ago that I don’t like writing. That said, I don’t dislike it and sometimes I actually do enjoy it. I’m not like my mum who actually finds writing relaxing, but it is something that I could do regularly. The only thing is I would have to practice more, develop my writing skills and try to become disciplined with it. And with my track record: that’s not very likely. But it is possible. This blog will be the true test of that.

I’ve decided to try almost everything. I am going to:
- take the Masters entrance exam,
- take the teaching job if it’s still available,
- ask my friend who offered me the whole managing translation job if she’ll hire me to do French-English translations and proofreading to gain some experience,
- Email my CV to some of the publishing houses and see what feedback I get.
- Try to maintain my blog regularly for the few months. If I manage that, and feel that my writing is somewhat improved, I may begin looking for some paid work online.

I’d also like to get my driving licence this year (that’s subject to getting a job) and maybe enrolling in some classes at the local Centre de Formation (technical college). I am thinking of doing one or all of the following: dressmaking, patisserie classes and – if they offer them – cooking classes, especially in French or Italian cuisine. I don’t like Algerian cuisine, so I would not be interested in anything like that. In addition, I may take up French in the New Year, who knows.

All summer I felt crippled by having so many options, not know which to take and being afraid of making the wrong choices, but now that I have been able to think about things and really consider them, I feel quite excited by my prospects. And dare I say optimistic too?

Eid Mubarak!

2009-09-20T02:11:00.002+01:00

The new moon has been sighted so tomorrow is Eid ul-Fitr (The Festival of Breaking Fast), the first of the two Muslim festivals celebrated by all Muslims across the world. After having spent an entire month going without food and drink from sunrise to sunset, we celebrate God's Blessing and Mercy upon us for providing us with food and allowing us to eat whenever we want to for the rest of the year.

Less fortunate Muslims are not forgotten, and it is compulsory for those who can afford it, that the head of every Muslim household donates a certain amount of money/food for each member of his/her family to poorer families. It's basically a socially distributed tax, that people pay directly to those who need it most. If people don't know who to give it to, then they can donate it to a mosque which will then distribute it to those who need it most.

How Eid is celebrated varies from country to country - but one thing remains common to almost all Muslim societies: People Meet Up. In most Muslim societies this means going to see family and calling in on neighbours and catching up. In non-Muslim societies, where Muslims may or may not have family in the same country, Muslims often try to gather together, either informally (BBQs, dinner parties, etc) or more formally (arranged by/at a local mosque / community centre).

Presents may be exchanged - but it's not the main focus, is not very prevalent and they are usually given to kids from parents, etc.

Cakes, however, are a big deal. Seriously. It's now gone 2:30 am and I've just finished baking 41 butterfly cakes that are just awaiting cream tomorrow morning, I've made a rather large lemon merangue pie, and a really small (it was an experiment) fudge cake. My mum's made 40 mini trifles as well as 1 big one. Yesterday she made 6 plates of no-cook chocolate cake, and my sister baked 3 large chocolate cakes, one of which I've just coated in melted chocolate and doused in hundreds and thousands. In short: we've made a lot of cakes.

Tomorrow we're gonna head out to my Gran's at a ridiculous hour of the morning (7am) - bringing a load of cakes - meet up with most of my extended family there, have dinner, and then basically swap cakes with them all.
Then we'll go to my aunty's house and swap cakes with her. Then we'll come home and swap cakes with our neighbours.
Then we'll sit down and stuff our faces with, you guessed it, cakes. In fact in my family, the only proper meal we have on Eid day is the one at my Gran's. The rest is all just cake, sweets, biscuits, chocolate, crisps and other such crap - which, by the way, is a lovely way of celebrating the end of a month's fasting.

Ramadan routine.

2009-09-12T02:05:00.003+01:00

As I've mentioned in previous posts, I have a problem with routines and sticking with them long-term. I know they help me to accomplish so much, but still I slack off, quit and then get down about it. It's very frustrating and kinda depressing. (Hey, maybe I have commitment issues... :D Seriously, I might have to look into the psychology of that.)

As annoying as that is, it's even worse when it comes at a time when I really need to commit to a steady plan in order to meet a deadline, or in the case of Ramadan, make the most of a short period of time. I've tried to get up early and pray Tarawih (night prayer) before fajr, but that's not worked for me for quite a while now, and that means that I've missed way to many precious nights of prayer. Last year this wasn't a problem as I went to the local mosque, but, as I mentioned here, then I tended to spend most of the prayer completely spaced out, which isn't really the spirit of things.

So it's now the last ten days of the month and I really need to change things up. I've decided to stay up a bit later and pray before going to bed. As in 2:30am later. I've done it tonight and it's worked out quite well for me, but I'm still behind. I want to pray with all the Quran I know in these last few days and so I'm praying 13 rakahs, in sets of 4 with witr by itself or tagged on, depending on how tired I am. Alhamdulillah, tonight was a success.

I hope I can keep it up.

In terms of my other goal of reading the entire Quran - I'm so behind it's embarrasing. Really, it's humiliating. But I haven't given up hope yet, Inshallah if I redouble my efforts I should be able to make it. Just.

Night prayer

2009-09-09T16:09:00.002+01:00

The Prophet used to offer night prayers till his feet became swollen. Somebody said, to him, "Allah has forgiven you, your faults of the past and those to follow." On that, he said, "Shouldn't I be a thankful slave of Allah?"

[Bukhari]

Unfortunately I have totally screwed up my body clock - I'm staying up too late and getting up waaaaaaaay to late - and so for the past few nights I haven't prayed Taraweeh (I like to pray it in the morning before fajr and suhoor - I concentrate better, plus it's the best time of the night).

Inshallah I'm hoping to change that now - I've signed up for Ramadan reminders and I'm hoping they'll make a difference. The last ten days are coming up and I really need to get my backside in gear to make the most of it.

Ramadan photos

2009-09-02T21:44:00.006+01:00

This is a bit late coming, but I've gathered some of my personal favourite Ramadhan pics from around the web (a la this blog post) here they are:

A man cleans a mosque in Pakistan as others read Qur'an.

A child holds sweets whilst reading the Qur'an in Amman.

A man takes a nap in a mosque in Kabul.

A man climbs a date palm in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia to pick dates.

These photos were taken from the Boston Globe's website:

A Kenyan child reads Qur'an in Nairobi.

Iraqi baker prepares sweets.

Friday prayer in a mosque in Beijing.

A boy sleeps during Tarawih prayers at a mosque in Tripoli.

A boy selles dates in Amman.

A taxi driver gets a glass of apple juice in Kabul.

A Palestinian vendors prepare sweets.

Crescent moon behind King Hussein Bin Talal Mosque in Amman.

Ramadhan reminder from Ummah films

2009-08-24T18:16:00.002+01:00

Here's my first Ramadhan reminder and it's from Baba Ali. Lets start the month off with a bit of humour eh?

RAMADHAN KAREEM!!!!!

2009-08-24T17:37:00.004+01:00

Ramadhan is finally here - YAY!

I love Ramadhan. Absolutely LOVE it. I love everything about it: the cooking, the late nights, the stressed out people, the long night prayers, the hunger at lunch time, the thirst in the afternoon and above all the joy, the pure elation of that first sip of milk at sunset.

I love Ramadhan.

I love the atmosphere of being part of a nation across the globe united, all doing the same thing. Knowing that people from Kabul to California, from Stockholm to Sydney are all fasting from sun-up to sun-down, and trying to take advantage of the blessings of this month. Knowing that when I break my fast and feel that sense of accomplishment (a day without food and drink to please my Lord) others feel and know it too.

Being a part of a 14 hundred year tradition, taught by the prophet Muhammed (may Allah's Peace and Blessings be upon him) makes me feel that - for once - I really am following in his footsteps. That I can be a good Muslimah. That I can do it!

So, yeah, I love Ramadhan.

And I would have written a Ramadhan post earlier except that: our internet connection is dodgy at best, I've been busy trying to adapt to the new Ramadhan routine and I didn't know what to write. You see, it's my ambition this month to try to keep up a Ramadhan reminder for myself, by blogging every day something to strengthen my faith.

I really want this Ramadhan to be my most successful so far. This is a month of worship where good deeds are worth more, and I want to make sure that I take full advantage of that. So having watched a very interesting program by Dr. Tariq Suidan (a Saudi Daee') last night about being defining your ambitions in life (and especially for the next life) and really going for it, I am going to list my Ramadhan goals:

- Read the entire Qur'an (it's on the list every year).

- Revise all the Qur'an that I have memorised

- Purify my intentions and make sure that when I'm cooking and cleaning I'm doing it to please God, therefore transforming it into a way of worship.

- Pray Tarawih myself at home (I normally go to the mosque, but the Imams aren't great so it works out as a bit of a waste of time - Inshallah I'll concentrate better praying myself).

- Fast without feasting. This is a big one. Every Ramadhan I put on weight. Why? Because when I break my fast I figure I've eaten nothing all day, therefore I can eat whatever I want and plenty of it. Alhamdulillah, last year wasn't bad, but Inshallah this year will be better.

I was also hoping that I would be able to workout this Ramadhan. That's really not happening. Uh-uh. There's no time. I have to read my Qur'an!

Ok, so I know that this isn't much of a reminder, but, it is in a way because it's to remind me of my goals this month. Inshallah, I'll get 29 or 30 posts in (I'll do multiple posts in a day when necessary) by the time the month is out. I'm a bit behind on my Qur'an, but Inshallah I'll catch up today.

Ramadhan Kareem!

Small victories

2009-07-24T22:05:00.000+01:00

I’ve had a really great week. I’ve worked out 3 times, got up at 7ish (almost) every day and revised 12 pages of Qur’an (which is less than I would like, but that’s just me being too hard on myself). I wanted to do way more, but I had to remind myself that the only way I’m going to improve is by taking baby steps. I’m the kind of person who wants to change overnight, so I take too much on board, then I can’t maintain all the changes I’ve made, so I start to slack off, eventually quitting and feeling like a total failure. This last week, however, may just turn out to be the fresh start that I was hoping it would be. I’m feeling very positive – I’m just so proud of myself for actually getting up early!

I’ve also been keeping a food diary (although not counting calories just yet – I don’t want to depress myself with how much I’m overeating, as I’d just throw in the towel if I did) which has been quite an education. I’ve finally discovered the importance of a mid-morning snack, something I’d never understood before, mainly because I always got up late and therefore had breakfast mid-morning, doing away with the need for a snack. This week, however, I found that if I didn’t eat a snack I wound up eating twice as much for lunch. (Once the food’s made I really cannot stop myself eating more.) Something else I’ve learned from writing a food diary is that when I eat late at night, I get up in the mother of bad moods the next day, and I find it really hard to drag myself out of bed. I know this isn’t true of everybody, but I just can’t afford to eat late at night. My cut off time is 7-8pm, before then I’m fine.

I’ve also learned that, so long as I take a nap (40 minutes to an hour will do), I can manage on just 4 to 6 hours of sleep a night. That has been a revelation. What have I done with all the extra time? Zilch, really. I’m re-reading the Lord of the Rings and that’s about it. But boy, am I enjoying doing nothing.

Although, if I’m honest (which I will be), I think the reason that I’m only working on these three areas (sleep, Qur’an and exercise) is that in a week’s time I shall be going on holiday for a couple of weeks, then when I get back I’ll have about another week before it’s Ramadan, and, realistically, I have little actual hope that I will maintain these (or any) new changes during either my holiday or Ramadan.

However, a small part of me is secretly rooting for me to succeed with these particular changes right through these times. We’ll see.

For this coming week I intend to improve on my current little achievements, as I feel that the fact that I’m going away is no reason for me not to do so. That and the fact that I’ve really enjoyed the feeling of accomplishment this week and I want more! So, I’m intending to workout 5 or 6 days this week (I’d love to say 7, but I know that that would just be setting me up for failure), revise 28 pages of Qur’an, continue to get up at 7am, and to eat better (i.e. watch my portions, eat regularly and eat before 8pm).

I’ve got Jillian Michael’s 30 Day Shred, which everyone seems to be raving about (seriously, I’ve seen it praised up on so many blogs and websites it’s ridiculous) and that’s what I’ll be working on this week. I’m just going to get used to the moves, is what I’m telling myself. I’ll start it properly when I start eating right and have 30 days continuously at home. Do I sound like I’m procrastinating?
Nah.

Routine..

2009-07-17T21:19:00.001+01:00

I came back yesterday from spending a couple of days at my grandmother’s place, where I took some of my younger siblings. I took them down to the beach, to a toy shop and let them stuff their faces with ice cream more than was probably healthy. Needless to say, they loved it. Plus, it was nice to spend some time with my gran and two aunts who were also there.

I came back a bit bored and with the realisation that in order to get more done in my life and actually achieve anything I’m going to have to do two things:

1) Develop a routine. The truth is: I’m scared of routines. I’m always afraid that if I get into a routine it’ll become routine – mindless and monotonous. I know (logically) that this wouldn’t be the case if the routine involved things I love (like exercising, reading, revising Qur’an) and that it would give me a sense of accomplishment every day.

2) Get up early. Every. Single. Day. I like the idea of being able to role out of bed at whatever hour pleases me and get everything I need done, but the reality is I get up too late to get anything done, never mind everything.

So, this week I intend to get up earlier, exercise 3 times (at least) and revise 10 pages of Qur’an. There are loads of other things I intend to do this week, but they’re all kinda mundane, like: finish the spring cleaning, decide on my next knitting project, upload photos to photobucket, blah, blah, blah.

My major tasks (read: time eaters) for this week are to stop by uni one day regarding some paperwork, go visit some family friends who’ve recently moved and I’ve also promised to take my little brothers for a day out buying DVDs. So if I can keep to my little routine I will be very impressed with myself.

Of course, whether or not the routine will last when I go on holiday in two weeks time (I’m guessing not) or even during Ramadan, which is little over a month away, remains to be seen.

2009-07-06T20:48:00.002+01:00

Today was a friend's leaving do. She's going away to live in Egypt next week, so I won't be seeing her for a long time. Not that I used to see much of her before anyway. In fact, since we met about a year and a half ago, I don't think I've ever seen her since. And her phone wasn't working, and I don't have her email address, so I've had no contact with her since then. And yet, she's my friend. And I will always consider her to be my friend, because she's someone that I really like, I feel like I can be myself with her and because I just felt like I clicked with her. I like people like that.

I also met a load of new people. I'd heard of most of these new people from the net (from my mum's net-use) and it was nice to actually find out what they're really like.

And there were a load of people there that I know, including one whom I have not seen for years. Seriously, it's been like a decade. When I last saw her she was newly wed. Now, she has four kids. Some change, huh?

Bullets

2009-07-03T21:52:00.003+01:00

I've been blogging in my head for two days now. I've mentally written really witty, intellectual, deep, complaining and uplifting blogposts. None of which i can recall now.

I've got back into my knitting, again, and I'm really happy with my progress. I'm making a pair of booties (actually, I've already made them) and a beanie hat for my cousin's baby who is due to arrive in this world sometime in October.

I'm nearly finished this years marathon annual clean - I've been working in two hour stints on-and-off for about a month now, so it's high time I finish up. I consider this my favour to my mum for doing hardly anything during exam and research time at uni. Can't wait till I'm finally done though.

I've started to go to Islamic study circles once a week in a mosque, but they've been cancelled for the next two weeks, so that's that.

I've started revising my Qur'an: 5 pages a few times a week. Usually done whilst sitting on the terrace working on my tan - I love to multitask! So far I've revised 30pages, which is pretty good, I think. I'll probably have to reduce it when I get to parts that I've forgotten more than where I am now, but that'll be ok.

I intend (hah!) to start my exercise routine tomorrow. It will go hand in hand with waking up early. Mmmmm, we'll have to see about that one.

With regards to the whole marriage thing, I found this on icanread.

And with that I've finally learnt how to link to another page and stick in an image. It was really hard, not. So now I feel a little bit stupid that I didn't do this before, but still glad that I finally got it done. ;)

The problem with wanting to get married.

2009-06-22T16:19:00.002+01:00

Ooooooooohhhhhhh. Where do I start? With the bloke? With my parents? With me? With everyone else?

I’ll start with me. I guess I’m what everyone calls a hopeless romantic. I truly believe that there is someone out there for me, that Allah knows who he his and will guide us together at the right time. I trust in Allah to show me who the right person is, and to make it easy for me when it is the right person. I trust Him 100% in this. I’m not going to lie, there are a lot of things where I should trust Allah more, but marriage is not one of them, for two reasons:

1) I went on Hajj when I was 18 and one of the things I prayed for really hard was a good, righteous husband who would be the joy of my life and I the joy of his. I have asked, the answer comes from Allah.
2) There really isn’t anything I can do about it. It really is in the hands of Allah. There is NOTHING I can do that will directly make a difference to my getting married to the right person.

Ok, so in all honesty, that last one’s not entirely true. I could improve myself. I mean, really, right now, I wouldn’t want to marry me. I’m a mess. I need to get my act together, especially in Islamic terms. I need to bring myself closer to Allah. But then that’s something I need to do regardless of whether or not I want to get married.

The next problem is my parents. I’ve always assumed – and you know what they say: to assume is to make an ass out of u and me – that my parents and I are on the same page with regards to this. We’re not. My mum and I are in the same chapter, but I’m not sure my dad’s even in the same book! We need to talk. I need to know that I have their 100% support in whatever decision I make… whether they like or agree with my decision or not.

The bloke isn’t really a problem… I’m just leaving him to the All-Wise. I’m human and I can’t worry about something I have zero control over. Done.

Everybody else, however, is a problem. An entire post of a problem, but basically it can be summed up in one word: pressure. Having been engaged for six months before, I know what I’m talking about. People have no idea of how the Islamic marriage system works (it’s way more complicated than the western single-meet someone-date-get engaged-married system) and so you say ‘engaged’ they think ‘wedding’ and ‘ooh lets re-enact the Spanish Inquisition and ask a gazillion questions’. ‘Engaged’, to them, means you know exactly what you’re doing, you’re madly in love and all you can think of is the guy, wedding stuff and living happily ever after. It doesn’t. BELIEVE me, it doesn’t.

Hence I no longer want to use the word ‘engaged’. It’s misleading. So, consulting my thesaurus, I’ve decided to change the word, for Islamic purposes of course, either to: ‘unavailable’, or to: ‘reserved’.

Hopefully, I’ll get around to explaining the Islamic marriage system soon. I just have to start writing…

P.S. This is not an entirely new thing in my life - my concentration on it since I've finally finished uni is what's new. However, the reason that I haven’t written about this before and why I won’t be writing about all about my experiences in this journey is that it's intensely personal and involves discussing things that I feel that I can only talk about if I’m not being judged. And this is neither the format nor the place for that.

I want to get married.

2009-06-22T16:17:00.000+01:00

A simple sentence, that, ‘I want to get married’. And oh so complicated, difficult and, well, scary. I feel like I’m ready for it now, really ready for it. I’ve done everything I wanted to do before I get married – and I’m so grateful to Allah that I’ve been able to do that, that I am able to say that I have. And now it’s time to move on to the next phase of my life.

I want to build a life with someone else… I want a partner to share life with… I want someone I can have a family with… I want someone to love… I want someone to love me (other than my family).

But I’m not desperate. This is still quite new to me, and I’m enjoying being right here, right now. It’s fun being in a new phase and being able to explore that.

2009 Resolutions:

2009-02-04T19:36:00.002+01:00

Last year I didn’t make any resolutions at the beginning of the year as I normally do, my thinking being that I rarely complete even half of them and well before six months are up I’ve abandoned them altogether, only to be faced with a sense of failure at the end of the year, when I’m writing the next lot. So 2008 was my resolution free year, and I found that I really missed the sense of direction I had in previous years simply from listing the things that are important to me. Come 2009, resolutions was back, but with a twist.
This year I decided to make my resolutions very simple and indefinite. I divided up the areas of my life I wanted to work on and then listed what was important in those areas, with just one word. The idea is that I’ll gain the sense of direction from having priorities, but without the predefined boundaries of set goals. This way I can update my resolutions each month, or according to the kind of progress I’m making with them. So here are my 2009 resolutions, with short explanations of each item or area:

Qur’an:
- Memorise
- Revise
- Ahkam

I want to learn the entire Qur’an, and I have no excuse really for not knowing more. Revision is obviously an important part of the learning process, and I need to really study the Ahkam, in order to recite it correctly.

Religion:
- Pray
- Read
- Apply

I need to really focus on my prayers – improving my concentration and sincerity as well as reciting longer surahs, and praying more voluntary prayers. Reading will help develop my concentration in prayer, as well as the fact that I have advanced enough in my religion to be able to read and understand more complex subjects. Application will, I believe, naturally follow on from this.

Health:
- Skincare routine
- Sunscreen
- TV
- Fiber
- Sleep

My body is a mess. I’m a wreck. Really, I am. I have awful skin, which I did not expect to have in my twenties, and no skincare routine whatsoever. And it’s not gonna get any better as I get older, because I don’t use sunscreen, so I’m gonna wind up with leathery, extra-wrinkled skin. Not nice. The TV fits in with the health thing because I can use my workout videos, etc, and so will get back to the whole exercise thing again (the gym didn’t work out). Fiber is important in any diet, and if I eat more of it, I’ll be eating less junk. I hope. And sleep is all-important – I need a routine to get my body clock back in order.

University:
- Work
- Attend
- Pass

this, I think is pretty obvious. I’m in my last year, I have a heap of research projects with my lecturers, tutors and myself rightly expecting a higher level of understanding and study. I also need to tighten up on attendance and, of course, pass.

Friends:
- Email
- Fone
- See

I’m a lousy friend. Really lousy. It’s not that I don’t think of my friends, that I don’t care about them, or that I’m so busy that I don’t have the time for them, because I do, but I’m just too darn lazy! So I’m gonna email the ones abroad, fone the ones here that I don’t see often, and meet up with my friends that live within my area.

Crafts:
- Knitting
- Crochet
- Other

I love the sense of accomplishment from making something and actually finishing it. I can’t count the number of projects I’ve started over the years, and I can’t think of one that I actually finished. I’ve been able to knit since I was 7 and able to crochet (basic crochet – nothing fancy) since I was about 12 or 13. I’ve never ever made anything with those skills. I’d also like to do more sketching, photography – I love landscape photography! – baking, and other stuff I haven’t even thought of yet.

Life:
- License
- Internet
- Work
- Writing
- Money
- Travel

This category consists of the things that will generally improve the quality of my life. I need to get my driving license so that I can drive places I need to go to. I need to start using the internet more to my advantage, that includes everything from online banking, to looking up stuff I’m interested in, to blogging. Work is a fairly obvious improvement, especially as I’m graduating this year. Initially I’ll carry on working in translation, expanding my work load (and therefore pay check ;-p) and developing my skills. I’d like to start working on some other projects in other areas, and just figure out what I want to do with my life, career-wise. I’d also like to look into writing more, with a view to getting something published. I don’t know if I’ve got what it takes for this, but the only way to find out is to try. And I need to sort out my money. I need to start saving money (I fancy myself a little nest egg), as well as spending it better and sort out my banking. Travel is something I love, and for me it doesn’t necessarily mean leaving the country, or even this city. There’s so much to see and experience right here, for free, or for very little money. Of course, that doesn’t mean that I don’t want to travel abroad, because I’d love to, but it’s not the only form of travel.

So there we have it: my resolutions for 2009. And the reason I’m only putting them in my blog now is that I’ve spent the last month testing them out to see if they’re any good, which they are.

Exam time again

2009-01-28T19:48:00.002+01:00

It's that time of year again: the end of 1st semester exams. Whilst i'm obviously a dab hand at exams by now, i'm finding myself suffering from some exam anxiety. This is a whole, totally and completely new feeling for me. Normally i feel fine and my bowel does the whole stress thing - a perk, i felt, of having IBS: no need to worry, my gut does it for me! However, this time around has been somewhat different: my tummy is pain free, but i have headaches and i actually feel stress! I think it's because it's my last year at uni and i've just realised that i didn't do evertything i wanted to do these past few years, added to the fact that i have no idea as to what i actually want to do with my life. And i want to do well in my exams - i want to leave uni with a bang, not a pathetic whimper.
And so the panic sets in. On the plus side, i've started doing things i wasn't doing before and i have a potential job or two lined up for when i am finished uni. The things i'm doing now are:
Studying
Revising
Knitting
Memorising / Reading more Qur'an
Watching less TV
Eating better (more fiber, less crap)
Reading

One other thing i wanted to mention is that as i have been under some stress for a while now, due to other things that have been going on, i've lost some weight - about 3kgs (6lbs), and i feel way better for it. Now, don't get me wrong, my weight isn't a major problem, and some would even argue that i don't need to lose any weight, but this little bit has transformed my life. I have some problems with my insulin levels and this is helping me to feel oh so much better. Now i just have to keep it off.