Back in Jordan I was teaching grade 8 up to 12 High school (Tawjihi). I was teaching 2 sisters one in 8th grade and one in 12th grade. The elder one was smart, pretty and funny. The 8th grader was the exact opposite. One main feature I noticed was that her mouth was always open, you know that dumb look with half open eyes. Anyway after the year was over my high school girl passed her ministry exams (tawjihi) -the ultimate nightmare- but she made it. You can only imagine how happy I was to get their results, so we started discussing her future plans and she was excited about going to college to study English. A few weeks later she comes by to school to check up on her sister, so we start talking and she tells me she’s not in college! Her parents wouldn’t let her go study! I was so pissed off, I started complaining to my sister about it and describing the difference between her and her sister. So my sis goes:

Well the younger one was wise, she knew what was going to happen so she took the short-cut out, she just opened her mouth throughout school

I know this is a sad story but this is what comes to mind and I start laughing.

So here’s my question:

What is the connection (alrabi6 al3ajeeb-too much Spacetoon) between low IQ and open mouth syndrome?

The bus journey is an hour and a half. I was on my own contemplating life’s serious questions with no one around to share my thoughts or give me an answer or opinion:

How did KJ find out that his tortoise was a Peter not a dutchess, is he feeding him enough? Will he get him a mate?

Stupid Kinan is getting closer to my premises. I’m so happy

Mac is gonna kill me if I don’t post anything soon

My 5 year old nephew’s hilarious video that I saw earlier, he looked like a drunk rapper singing and dancing to Shaggy’s bombastic!

England is soo green, I can’t stop taking pictures

I hope I’ll like my new job

Do I have enough clothes for work? He’ll kill me if he hears me.

Poor thing he’s working now while I’m going out for a nice walk in the park

I wish my sis was here, there’s so much I wanna show her

I want all my friends to move here

etc…

Then I notice this guy on the bus with his other personna, for an hour and a half he entertains himself in serious conversations with himself. It was too loud to hear what he was saying but i got a bit of it when the bus stopped:

Personna 1: (pointing and raising voice) That was a mistake!!

Personna 2: (nods head) yeah yeah

Personna 1: I shoudn’t have done that

Personna 2: (again) yeah yeah you shouldn’t have.

An elderly man gets on the bus and has a hearing problem along with many others bless him and our schizophrenic friend found him a source of entertainment and a start of another conversation with himself. This goes on with smiles, gestures, nods and some scolding til the end of the journey.

I just sat thinking this lucky bastard will never feel a moment of loneliness even if he were all by himself! He can have a companian and so much fun anywhere he goes!

So who needs treatment? him or us?

This is literally the first shop in the world! It doesn’t look that old, does it?

Well it’s not, but is the first shop location wise It’s at the center of the Earth in Greenwich. How cool is that!! It has a longitude of 00°00.4′ West. Just to put it into perspective Kuwait is 45°45′ East!

That dome in the middle is the Greenwich Observatory at the center of the Earth

Cyber world is amazing you can join this virtual world by choosing your own avatar and creating an online life for yourself. It’s called Second life.

A woman was married for ten years to a controlling husband that prevents her from socializing or doing anything fun, so she found solace in this imaginary world. She met another avatar (who is also an unhappy husband who’s been married for 24 years) and went on exotic virtual dates with him, they soon decided to get married and other avatars from all over the world attended their virtual wedding. A few months later they decide to meet in person. They liked each other, fell in love, left their spouses and now the woman is pregnant in real life and they are going to get married

They even have photographs of their avatars in their virtual home on the beach haha. Life seems so easy there, who wants to join?

On a more serious note though, I think it is quite cool to meet people that way, they go to a pub, cafe, concert…etc and socialize, without having to actually meet, it’s a lot like chatting but more creative cuz u’ll be with a group of people not one on one personal idiotic question like ASL.

Many people will say it’s pathetic and it kills real social life, but if u think of it how many of us actually run away from people we already know. Some people are quite shy and don’t know how to make friends or acquaintances. I think it’s quite cool even though I haven’t tried it. What do you think? We have people in real life living these double lives (which I will write about in another post).

PS. You don’t have to go for a wee in that world

I’ve been thinking for months about how to say goodbye to my Kuwait, but I came up with nothing, because what I’m saying goodbye to is a place where I found myself, became what I am today, became independent and grew. So it’s not really the land, the lifestyle or the weather (obviously) but it’s a deep emotional attachment that has grown on me over the 4 years I spent here. It’s so hard to let go.

Most of the people I met complained about life here, but I never did. I love it. Now they are all still here, saying goodbye to me while I’m the one taking that plane.

Ok enuf sappiness!

From now on, there will be no more:

1. 5 am wake up calls
2. Wafra dawns
3. seeing hot guys on motor bikes on the Gulf Road
4. of the easy life
5. thinking that my apartment keys can work on remote control (been here too long )
6. heat
7. morning coffees with my friends
8. crazy driving
9. calling the baqalah guy to bring up some snickers to the house
10. hearing the sexy Kuwaiti accent (IT IS)
11. WORK, for now at least
12. DVD’s for 1 KD each
13. weird fashion
14. outrageous make-up or is it paint?!
15. speaking pigeon English to buy some water.
16. hearing “same, same”
17. of my insane but lovely students
18. wondering what restaurant that new construction site is going to be
19. laying back and being lazy
20. Kuwait

I already miss Kuwait and all of you, but I’ll still be around.

kinan: I hate you for getting sick, you should’ve taken better care of yourself,  get well soon.

Mac and intlxpatr, sorry I didn’t get a chance to see you hopefully one day.

but I know this time it’s not the same.

When you were 4 and I was 2, you used to take me in the early mornings to Abul Abed’s ‘dukkaneh’ and buy biscuits and Mirinda and sit on his steps til we finish drinking, return the empty bottles and go home.

A couple of years later, times changed, life changed, and people changed, some we loved were taken away from us, others were cruel, we went through a heck of a time but we stuck together.

We fought our battles together.

We learned to steal and lie together.

We learned to stop that too (not the lying though :P)

You covered my back so many times when I was out late (studying

You stayed up listening to every detail of my lifeless days at school.

You took me for a walk and I cried my heart out when I started my first job.

You were always there to cheer me up no matter how wrong I was.

You always sit in the smoking section for me.

Without you I would’ve never made it through high school, or my depression days at uni.

I remember when the public street phones would get stuck and you’d spend over an hour just talking to us at 7 am. We started speaking nonsense just so we won’t hang up and waste a chance to speak some more.

Who’s gonna go walking and singing in the rain with me now?

The hardest time I cried was when I left you 4 years ago, but we came back together again, how am I going to survive doing it all over again?

I have changed, and so have you but the base is strong, no matter how different we are, to each other we are still those two little girls giggling, laughing, arguing and when in danger defending each other til the last drop of blood.

People come and go and some stay, but no one will ever take the spot in my heart that’s always reserved for you. No one dares.

This is the hardest post I’ve ever written, and I know it’s all jumbled thoughts, but no matter how tidy they are they cannot compare to the wonderful person that you are.

My mind has gone blank.

If I ever went to a shop without you, I knew I’d have to go again, cuz there was no way I’d buy anything without you seeing it first, and I remember how u did the same.

Many thought we were twins, we were even called Tom and Jerry. Yeah you used to hit me a lot you still do!!

I’m still amazed how our anti depression punching game still works. Finally, the other day I got a chance to punch you, but you still beat me in the end

You’d make me coffee in the morning with a finger massage too. Oh when I’m tired a whole massage.

You know I’m perfect or like me to believe that.

We knew when we had enough of sitting around with people, you just look at me or me at you and we make an excuse and leave.

I’m proud of what you’ve become, I should be, you helped me fight for my rights at work

I’ll never forget our drives home, they never were straight home. We just knew and we’d sing “Take the long way home’

Our cover up stories: flat tyres, needed to get a book from the library, traffic, no buses… and the list goes on.

LOL @ the time you spent the night at ur friend’s and we put pillows under ur blanket and mom thought u were asleep

When I’d get up late for work and miss the bus, I’d always panic and in the process wake you up to give me a solution. It was the same EVERY TIME. “Ok 7beebti just get up get dressed and take a taxi.” Then we’d laugh about it.

Same thing when I felt sick. Remember when I woke you up at 3 am to tell you my leg is hurting? You asked :”What do you want me to do?” I just said I don’t know! I just knew that you being with me was enough to get me through it.

When I had an ear infection, I was crying like a baby, you just sat in front of me and cried cuz you didn’t know how to let the pain go away. You are my angel.

Tears are forcing their way through right now and whenever I think of you not being there at the end of the day. 30 years with you is a damn hard habit to break.

I can’t write anymore though there is much more to say.

I love you with every ounce of blood that runs through me.

Happy Birthday ro7i

“A woman with a cigarette in her hand is like one sitting with her legs wide open” (A sick bastard)

Men, women, and teenagers fill the place with laughter and stories that go on throughout the night. Sheesha is what they are all there for. A way to escape reality, work and life. Society somehow became generous with women and sheesha. They do not give them condescending looks when they’re puffing the night away. It has even passed it on to the children, who see their parents with sheesha and do not give them a second glance. Many husbands ‘allow’ their wives a night out with friends to enjoy the pleasures of this killer.

In the midst of all this laughter, painted faces and heavy smoke, I too wanted to escape. My hand reaches for my typical female bag, I shuffle through the papers, receipts, make up, pens and coins until I find my haven; my pack of cigarettes. I ask for an ashtray and lift my hand daringly to light my cigarette, …..click……. sudden silence….. I raise my eyes to find men’s grinning faces light up barbarically. The lustful glare in their eyes reminds me of what a misogynist once said. They associate a woman smoking cigarettes with a woman willing to prostitute herself on the spot. They get excited and begin their mating game.

Women, on the other hand, heavily puffing out clouds of smoke, have a look of disgust on their faces. (Behind bedroom doors these same women indulge themselves in a pack to put a perfect finish to their night). Their whispers are so loud I could hear exactly what they’re saying. Staring at ‘this whore’ that’s openly smoking a cigarette clearly meant she was announcing to the world that she is a fallen woman willing to commit the 7 sins. Teenagers and kids also stare with astonishment. Parents use me as an example of what respectable women shouldn’t do. They lecture their children on how time is coming to an end, women are actually smoking in public, something only a man can do! In their eyes, I have lost my femininity, my morals, and my purity. I have violated every misogynistic social rule.

Despite the looks of disgust, horror and lust I receive every time, I will be back again and again until they are tamed.

My cigarette has become a double-edged sword voicing our overdue silence.

Like a painful tattoo pierced so deeply that it has become one with the skin, the blood in their veins has become intertwined so deliciously that if they were ever to part it would leave a permanent scar from within.

 

Like an old sweet melody whispering through the infinite valleys of life, their voices linger timelessly throughout space, day and night.

As eternal as hieroglyphic inscriptions on ancient Egyptian walls, they are engraved onto each other’s minds and hearts .

 

To that they solemnly vowed, until eternity, they were never to part.