MJ lives, football, and some other random things

Hey y'all
I have been snapping random pics lately, here are a few random ones:

1. Proof that MJ is still alive!!!! I guess it is more more fun to clean toilets in some small city in South England than it is to be followed by loads of crazy fans

(Note: I'm not that insensitive, I know the guy is dead and it is sad- especially that it may have been his doctor's fault ... I just thought it would be cool to share this pic)

2. The effect of football on men & how it brings them back to behaving according to their basic animal instinct: I went shopping last Satuday and just after I finished the whole town was going crazy. The roads were closed and there were loads of police office in their cars or on their horses. The only way to leave that area was to walk and then to call a cab.


3. Tas in the bus stop: We had just finished our Sunday lunch with Colin and his friend.


4. Coffee breaks are more fun when you travel the world (well, online at least :P). Last Friday, we spent every single coffee break using Google Earth to check countries on the BIG SCREEN that is in the coffee room (the screen needs to be hung on the wall but for some reason it is still on the floor). We viaited Pakistan, Lebanon, Romania, France, England, and Brazil


5. Empty coffee room : home is where the coffee is :P this is the coffee room for the postgrad students in IAM and LSL groups in ECS

Week of March 8th

Sunday March 8th:
I had Sunday Roast with Ji. It is a traditional English meal that people usually eat on ... Sundays - duh :P. I had agreed with her on Friday to have lunch together, so all weekend I knew I was gonna have Sunday lunch with her which was a weird feeling because it reminded me of the feeling I used to have during weekends at home because I would know that my family always has Sunday lunches together.
I then went shopping with Sheena, George, Becky, and Fleur - to ASDA of course *roll. I bought a new oven casserole because I had dropped the one I had before and it broke. I also bought a new dish because I broke two! OK, so I am clumsy ... :$ and this doesn't even count as news :P. The news is that I washed the new casserole and put it on the dish rack to dry. Then I was putting away the dishes and I took out two dishes and turned my back on the rack only to hear a crash and see George's puzzled looks. The new - washed and UNUSED - casserole had fell on the ground! Sometimes I feel so stupid because I am so clumsy :(. I later bought another one ... let us see how long this will survive :P

Monday March 9th:
Reena and I went to an event organized by BCS (British Computer Society) and WES (Women in Engineering and Sciences) for the occasion of International Women's Day. It was an OK evening. I was handed the task of giving raffle tickets to a free prize draw. The prize was a book published by BCS. I didn't win this time :P. The evening wasn't a big success because the organizers expected 50 people to show up and only about 15 came! There were two talks by two women; the first was a lady from WES who talked about the evolving role of women in science and technology over the past 100-and-so years. The second was a lady who described how they changed the IT structure and applications of the company that runs the airports and flight management. The second talk was really boring for me and I couldn't wait for it to finish. After the talk we had dinner and did a bit of 'networking'.
There is one thing I want to add. An English lady asked me where I was from and I said Lebanon. She then looked at me - in a strange way - and said: "I see you are keeping yourself warm; it must be really cold here compared to what you are used to". That frankly pissed me off. OK so I know that most people are ignorant about the weather and geography of Lebanon and think that it is some hot desert; and I sincerely don't expect people to even know what Lebanese is or where it is. But what pisses me off is when people make assumptions about things they don't know about then declare those assumptions in a not-so-friendly-way. But, I kept my cool and didn't say anything because Reena started talking about something related to the whether blablabla. Then I told the lady: "That reminded me of one winter when we were children and my grandmother came to take care of me and my brothers because my mom had to stay in the hospital with my youngest brother since he was sick and also my dad wasn't in Lebanon because he was travelling. Anyway, it was a very cold winter - we do get cold winters in Lebanon - but it was the first time my grandmother took care of us. So, she was afraid that we would get cold so she would dress up in a lot of heavy clothes. One day she dressed my brother in 7 blouses and sweaters! Can you imagine that! We still joke about it till now!" The lady was dumb-founded ... good thing I didn't tell her that my grandmother made my brother wear three trousers and three hats as well LOL

Tuesday March 10th:
I was intending on going to a talk about swarm robots organized by the IEEE chapter in ECS ... but I totally forgot D'oh! I don't know what is up with me these days - I am very forgetfull!

Thursday March 12th:
ECSWomen and Careers Services organized a Coffee and Cake event. I went along and enjoyed coffee, cake, chatting with people, and a tour in the careers services building. They are moving out of their current small building to new offices next year and they needed to hear people's opinions about how they can improve their services and what services people need from them.

Saturday March 14th:
I went to the zoo :P. Fleur, her uncle Mac, her grandpa Opa, and I went to Marwell Zoo. We spent the day there and then had lunch in Winchester. It was a really lovely day with nice weather and a great company. Fleur's grandpa is so nice and cute ... but hey, I think all grandpa's are cute :P. I miss my grandpa :( We took a lot of pictures of all the animals. I found the nicest were the leopard, flamingos, arabian cats, and lemurs - no wonder I don't get all excited about regular cats and dogs ... it is the leopards and other animals that are interesting to me LOL

Mother's day is in a couple of days and as previously mentioned I was the one who came up with all the ideas for gifts. We have settled on the presents; let us hope the two men in Lebanon (dad and Yahya) are capable of following gift-purchasing instructions :P LOL

Few Updates

Wendy's talk was on Monday. It was raining heavily. I put the food and juice that Pinky and I bought on Sunday in my handbag and dragged it to the Seminar Room. I had to use my handbag because carrying 6 liters of juice would have given me backache for a couple of days lol. I helped set the room up a bit but had to run off to class. After class I also ran back under the rain to attend what was left of the talk. Of the things I heard was how passionate Wendy is about the Web Science Research Initiative that she, Tim Berners-Lee, and two other profs at the uni of Southampton are in charge of. She also talked about how she ends up running any committee or organization she join; which kinda reminded me of how I do the same :) She, however, apparently can't park a car to save her life; while I am an expert on parking cars :P (no laughs, especially you Sarah, I did become an expert - conveniently after you went back to D.C. lol). Speaking of my handbag; people always make comments when they see me dragging my hand bag. They assume that I am either going on vacation or coming back from a vacation - I wish! Some think I have loads of books in it - ya, right! I just find it very convenient to throw my heavy things in it instead of carrying them :)

Fleur and I went to an exhibition in uni on Tuesday. Art works from ArtSoc and PhotoSoc were displayed. She had only two photos in the exhibition. There were photos, paintings, and pottery works. Most of them were very lovely displaying talents of their makers. I met Fluer's friend Ella who is also a PhotoSoc member and had several of her photos exhibited. We chatted for some time listening to a band playing music. I enjoy that type of music played at exhibitions, relaxing and energizing at the same time. Then it was time for a raffle and I won! My number came up second so I chose a kettle :) We finally walked back home and Fleur was very energetic jumping around, commenting on how lovely the full moon was, and trying to tease me by pretending to drop my kettle lol.

I attended the ECS Careers Fair on Wednesday; not that I have made my mind up on getting a job here in this country. Some companies were defense companies and so I didn't bother asking the representatives what vacancies they had. Some representatives said they don't have vacancies for people with AI experience and that I could work as a software engineer or developer - which I may end up doing though it is the last thing on my list. Also, one representative from a game development company wanted to hug me when I told him I was an MSC of AI student lol. Great old IBM said that they don't sponsor non-UK/EU nationals for a work permit - their loss ;).

I met with Noura over coffee today. She is a Syrian PhD student whom I had met on the first week here during ECS jumpstart program (a week of activities and lectures organized by ECS for new students). We caught up on what had been going on in our lives and promised to meet again before she travels to the U.S. in March. That reminded me of my uni friends Fida, Samar, and Nora. After graduation we agreed to meet au moins une fois par mois (at least once a month) - which ended up being once every three months in practice lol.
Also, speaking of coffee; I had my first cup of coffee yesterday and being a coffee addict it was definitely GOOOOOD :) For those of you who don't know, I stopped drinking coffee after my exams and was clean for two whole weeks lol; though was also sleepy most of the time haha.

Final thought: our grades won't come out till the 24th!!!!!!!!! that my friend is what I call torturing students :P

Last Weekend November 2008

This weekend was kinda 'interesting'. It started off with the screen of my laptop cracking on Friday.
On Saturday I went to London for the second time - don't envy me already; read this all the way through. During the whole week before that I was negotiating with my brother to come over to Southampton and bring me the rest of my winter clothes which he was nice enough to bring from Lebanon. When I went to London the first time, I took almost 70% of the clothes he got with him and left the really thick items for later. That was almost two months ago. I didn't have any time to go again and neither did my brother - and when one of us had time the other couldn't make it! Eventually we agreed that since he was already gonna be in London on Saturday because of some prior engagement then I can meet him there to get my stuff. So, I left home at 9:10 and walked to the bus interchange to take a bus to the train station. I arrived at the interchange at 9:25 - missing the bus by 5 minutes - damn. So, I waited 15 minutes for the next bus and got on it. The bus arrived at the station at 9:55 and I immediately queued to buy a ticket. Unfortunately, the queue was really slow and by the time it was my turn to buy a ticket it was 10:05 and I had missed the 10:00 train - damn again. So, I bought a ticket for the 10:30 train. I then got some coffee - ESSENTIAL (and as I am writing this I am thinking of getting some coffee as well hehehe) - and waited for the 10:30 train. The train trip took around 1hr25mins and I was in London Waterloo station at 11:55. I got off the train, met Tarek, took my bag from him, chatted with him for a few minutes and then we decided to check the schedules of the trains going back back to Southampton. There was one leaving at 12:10 so we decided I should take that train - and I did!!! The trip back to Southampton also took around 1hr30mins. I then took another bus to the interchange and walked from the interchange to the dorms. I was back in my dorm room by 2:00 PM - dizzy, nauseous, and tired!
I then had something to eat and met my friend for a course group study in the computer science lab. Luckily, the computer science lab is open in the weekends! We worked till the evening and then left.
Sunday, I woke up and went to the computer science lab to finish up working with my friend. We finished by lunch time and I was back in my room at 4:oo P.M. George then helped shop for a monitor online. We couldn't find any cheap ones :( but after a couple of hours we had narrowed our search to two used ones which we found on ebay and bid on them. We didn't win the bid on the first one; so we decided to wait for the second one. The bid on the second was gonna be over after 2 hrs so I decided to go do my laundry. I went to the laundry room and put my clothes in the washing machine then I went to have some tea with my friend while the 45 minutes time needed for the cycle passed by. Then I went to the laundry room and removed my clothes from the washing machine and put them in the tumble dryer. Then I went back to George's room and waited for the bid time to pass by and WE WON!!! We bought a 19'' monitor for £48 :) After that I used Google Earth to show him Lebanon. He thought it was very beautiful (who wouldn't :P) I even tagged my home, high school , uni, and grandpa's house. I also showed him the Cedars, the Bekaa valley, and some pictures of mountain villages. He was shocked to find out that Lebanon is green and that it snows there. He thought there was only a dessert! He was also very impressed by the fact that Beirut and Tripoli were directly on the coast of the Mediterranean sea.
After all that it was already 10 PM and I had forgotten all about my clothes in the tumble dryer hehehe. I ran back out to get my clothes, folded them, and tidied up my room. Then at 12 AM I decided to go to sleep but I went out to the kitchen and I saw Sheena and George talking. Sheena had been away in Sheffield for a Taekwondo competition during the past two days. We then chatted for a whole hour before deciding that it was time to go to sleep.
Btw, Sheena has a black belt in Taekwondo but she didn't win the competition. She has been playing Taekwondo for a few years now and she is very passionate about it. And, I think that it is cool living with someone who know how to kick ass hehehehe
AND, George thinks that Ossama bin Laden is Labanese and that he is hiding in Lebanon hehehehe I am not sure whether he was joking or not but he seemed rather convinced. I am still not sure I was able to convince him that Ossama bin Laden is Saudi and that he is 'supposedly' hiding in some cave in Afghanistan.