Changes & من عاشر قوماً أربعين يوماً (Part II)

3) Chores: so it is not a big secret that I never lifted a finger when it came to house chores ... all that has changed now (sadly *sighs)
a. Washing clothes: the first time I wanted to do the laundry I was quite nervous about ruining my entire wardrobe. Luckily, my friend Fleur also had to wash her clothes so we decided to go together. To my relief, there was a big poster in the laundry room that guides (ignorant) students like me what cycle to choose for what type of clothes. Fleur helped me sort my clothes out and we chose the proper cycle for each load and thankfully no disasters resulted. Then it was the turn of the tumble-dryer. Needless to say I was clueless. Fleur chose the correct cycle and showed me how to clean the filter and in no time our clothes were fully loaded.
The next time I did the laundry I was again nervous because I had to do it alone. But it was easy and in retrospect I needn't worry because it is a simple chore really. The only thing that bothers me about it is that I have to walk for 7 minutes from my room to the laundry carrying my heavy clothes (accumulated over a period of three weeks :P)
b. Cooking: I have "miraculously" only burnt my food once (was a few days ago, left the pan unattended on the hob for 45 minutes *shame). Although I have been "cooking" mainly pizzas and pastas lately - because they are quickest - (or oven-cooked chicken nuggets because they are so good) I have managed to cook some Lebanese dishes as well.
bazilla w riz, loubyi w riz, loubyi b zet, riz b loubyi (haidi l tabkha yalli 7tara2et), riz b khodra (haidi kamen 7tara2et ma3i awal marra tabakhta), mjadra safra, djej bel furn, shorbet khodra....w 3am yetla3o ma eshbon shi ;)
I find it really annoying that most dishes require frying onions - makes me & my clothes smell like onions - so I have rarely cooked such dishes. Oh, w kamen la2et ino l foul l m3alab bel 'khalta l lebneniyi' kter tayeb.
c. Cleaning the toilet: definitely the least favourite of all chores. The only time I ever cleand a toilet at home was during a Red Cross training camp - not a tent/sleep-on-the-ground camp, but a camp in a monastery where we slept in proper beds and had proper bathrooms. I was assigned to clean the toilet on the second day - mainly because I was a committee member and one of the organizers of the camp so I wouldn't object on such a task - and so I couldn't object on the task because I had to be a role model to the other members and actually clean the toilet without nagging,,, hmmm,,, one problem arose: how? Another committee member Souha - who later became one of my best friends - was also assigned to clean another toilet so she volunteered to show me how ... learning by observation :p , she cleaned her toilet in no time then it was my turn and *shame i faced (some) difficulties and couldn't finish on time and I had to leave it to attend the next scheduled lecture so I locked the toilet so no one would use it. After the lecture was over, I headed back to deal with the un-finished business of cleaning the toilet - this time Souha came along - and with some help I successfully cleaned the toilet (Souha asked me to re-sweep the floor twice but let's keep that a secret ;) )
Back to the year 2008 - about 10 days after I came here I thought it was time to clean my toilet ... Of course I don't remember how I managed to clean that toilet 4 years ago, and I didn't want to call my mum and ask her about that hideous chore (I am a grown up now and I shouldn't be running to my mummy at the first sight of toilet-cleaning trouble hehehe). So, I did what any grown up educated adult would do in my place --> I Googled it, DUH! hehehe Yes! I actually googled 'How to Clean a Toilet' hehehe, well I watched some videos and read some how-to sites then I shopped for toilet cleaning stuff and I conquered that toilet and after one hour it was sparkling clean (I can see you rolling on your backs laughing that it DID take me an hour but come on I had to clean the mirror, shelf, sink, toilet seat, and shower! :p) ... it was so clean I didn't want to use it again and I was so proud of my accomplishment that I showed it off to my flatmates hehehe.
But afterwards, I was very careful to keep it clean so I won't have to clean it as often and I soak the toilet and sink with toilet bleach ever few days.
But, here are a couple of pictures of my toilet directly after I cleaned it two days ago:


















Anyhoo, that's about it for now, if I remember anything else there will be part III ;)

Changes & من عاشر قوماً أربعين يوماً

An Arabic proverb states that if someone lives amongst a group of people for 40 days he becomes one of them ... or he would leave them because he couldn't adapt ...
I have been living here for almost three months now and so I think it is time for me to write down some of the changes that I have been going through

1) Biggest and most important change: swearing! I never sweared in public before (except if I am really angry and only my close friends are around). It is not lady-like in my country and people would be insulted if someone swears around them. Guys swear but never in front of girls - out of respect to the girls present. My brothers don't swear in front of me and one of them uses the word fudge instead of fuck when needed. Fuck is a very expressive word and I have been using it a lot recently. There were also some times when the word fuck can be heard more than a few times in sentences coming out of my mouth, for example (please go to point 2 if you would feel insulted from reading the examples :P):
oh, for fuck's sake
The fucking broken laptop screen will cost me 100 fucking pounds to replace
I have to fucking finish 5 fucking assignments in the Christmas vacation - that is only 3 fucking weeks; and i haven't done fuckall
Well, you get the point (i am having second thoughts on publishing that now out of respect for the people at home hehehe)

2) Second most important change: my accent! I have officially lost my beautiful American-like accent and I speak more like the British now - wait make that like the Bri'ish now. OK, so I can't yet be mistaken for an English but the changes to my accent are noticeable to everyone and to me as well. My flatmate Sheena commented on this change by saying "At least now you're speaking proper English" hehehe
I am also using some British English words now, the most common of which are: cheers (an informal Thank you), ini' (= isn't it), quid (=pounds), ... I wonder when I will stop saying elevator and start saying lift instead hehehe ;)
Again, من عاشرقوما اربعين يوما صارت لهجته مثل لهجتهم :p

ECSWomen Birthday Dinner

ECSWomen is a committee that was founded last year aiming to support women in the School of Electronics and Computer Science (in the uni of Southampton of course).
We are nine committee members this year and we have organized some activities directed to supporting women in their careers in technology - or just to have fun :D
Our latest activity was our birthday dinner. When the event was first being prepared it was called 'Girl Geek Dinner' ... can u believe that hehehe? But then the organizers changed their name because apparently 'Girl Geek' was copyrighted or something so since the night of the event was exactly one year after the first ECSWomen event we decided to celebrate its birthday.
I wasn't planning to go because I had to submit an assignment the very next day. But two hours before the dinner started Kate - the committee current president - called me to tell me that someone wasn't going anymore and that there was an extra ticket and asked me if I would go. My coursework wasn't going any further - I had two bugs which I couldn't fix and had decided earlier to submit it as-is so I said yes.
The room was lovely. My friends on the committee had prepared everything so nicely. There were balloons, birthday decorations, Christmas crackers, and of course a birthday cake.
There was a lady from accenture - our sponsor - who gave a talk about her career in accenture. She was lovely and more importantly not boring. Then it was time for dinner. It was a buffet dinner and having a hot meal was nice. Then it was desert time and we had Christmas pudding which was also nice. Finally, it was cake cutting time AND one of the ECS lecturers sang Happy Birthday to us hehehe. There was a debate on who should cut the cake so finally the lady from accenture was asked to do the honor of the cutting hehe. Then it was time to go home but we stayed for a while in a coffee shop in the same building chatting and having fun. I finally went home after wishing the committee members a nice vacation because we won't be seeing each others till after New Year's. I went back home and my flatmates started teasing me that I looked nice - which I enjoyed ;)

Salty hands = ايدي مالحة

Lebanese describe a person who breaks everything he touches as having 'salty hands'. My hands have been very salty recently!
The screen of my laptop broke ... must be replaced
Zippers on two of my jackets broke ... must be replaced
The zipper of my laptop bag broke ... must be replaced
Buttons have been falling off my clothes ... i sewed one back on my jeans, one back on a jacket, and still need to sew one back on my coat
My gloves have torn threads in them - and yes they are new!
Dropped water and juice (lost count of the number of times) on my desk, table, floor, etc ... thankfully i use plastic cups :$

Lost my cell phone three times in one day!

A streak of bad luck ... don't you think?

Road Trip to Kent and My New Monitor

NEW MONITOR!!!!!!!!!!!!! weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
FINALLYYYYYYYYYYYYY more like it hehehehe
but we had to drive to Kent to get it!
George was so nice to offer to drive me to Kent to get the new monitor we bought on ebay. We got into the car - loaded it with fuel - and started our trip at 4:45. It took us only 2 hours to get there. Probably because George was driving at an average speed of 100 miles per hour - I didn't mind it but I kept my eyes on the speedometer and the heat-indicator during the whole duration of our trip (talk about bad experiences hehehe). Sheena came along but she slept almost all the time; and when she didn't sleep she was reading in her book (it gets dark after 4:30 so she brought a torch along so she can read in the dark car hehehe)
Although it was really dark, we thought that Rochester, Kent was fancier than Southampton. The houses were bigger and more elegant. It looked nicer because there is a lake with hills surrounding it and the lights shining around the lake were beautiful. We went to the seller's house. His house was overlooking the lake. We tested the monitor, paid him, and left - the whole thing didn't take more than 10 minutes. So, we decided to shop in Kent's ASDA hahaha. I am starting to think we are ASDA addicts :p. We shopped, used the toilet, and were back in the car by 7:55. Off to Southampton - this time with an average speed of 120 mile/hr and with Arabic music playing from my laptop (yeeey). I had to blindly navigate to the music directory because I just can't see anything on the screen! We were back in the dorms at 9:45!!!! I directly hooked up my monitor and was so relieved because I can finally use my laptop properly. The monitor is really BIG and everyone is so jealous hehehe George didn't accept that I pay him for the fuel; so we agreed that I either bail him out of jail or pay for his pizza next time we buy takeaway food hahaha

Hisham Didn't Turn 29 - Truthful Reflections on the Death of a Friend

Hisham should have turned 29; he didn't. He didn't turn 28 either. He turned 27 on November 20th 2006 but died four months before his 28th birthday.
I have seen him twice already - not him personally of course but someone who looked like him. The first time I saw the guy who resembles him my heart raced so quickly as I looked - stared - at the guy as he walked past me. I must have looked like I have seen a ghost. A thousand thoughts rushed through my head as I experienced shock, reasonable thinking about the fact that it is impossible that this guy is him - and immediate sorrow of re-living the loss of a friend. Remembering causes sorrow that is as painful as living a loss for the first time. Or maybe it is like that just for me. I never really acknowledged the fact that Hisham doesn't exist anymore. Even writing it down now is so hurtful - yet it feels unreal at the same time. Up until now I have managed to avoid writing it down - or saying it out loud. I just pretended that his death never happened. I would tell myself that he is well and living in some other city - lie to myself to make myself feel better just like you would lie to a child who can't handle some brutal truth. It is not like his death was so sudden that it left me shocked and in total denial. I visited him several times in his hideous ICU room in the hospital. I called his parents - or made someone else call them - every single day to check on how he was doing. On the day of his funeral I went to his parent's house to offer condolences. I wore black. I saw his coffin. And I cried all day long. Yet, all these never managed to really convince me that he is really gone because every time I try to logically think about this fact it seems so horrific, painful, distant, and unreal that I just shrug my shoulders and tell myself that he has to be alive and well and preferably in another city which is why we can't see him any more.
Remembering him is very painful. Walking into his office and seeing someone else sitting in his chair on his desk was something I was never able to handle. I know that companies don't turn office spaces into shrines - I didn't expect that but deep inside I wanted his office to stay as it was - and I know that the only logical thing big corporations can do is to fill up empty spaces. I know that because I was the one who was expected to and assigned to do his work. Working in his place and trying to fill his shoes was one of the hardest things I had to do. It only took me a couple of days to discover that he was protecting me from the cruelty of all the people around me. I also discovered that he dealt with insanity without ever complaining and that he always simplified things for me and asked me to focus on getting things done instead of drawing my attention to all the problems that were happening. I discovered that he was one of very few people that were honest, pure, and genuinely truthful. I had never been able to understand the extreme form of honesty he used to express. It frequently shocked me, occasionally bothered me, and in some rare cases hurt me. Within less than a week from when he was hospitalized I developed a deep appreciation and respect to his over-honesty and a disdain to everyone else's fake smiles and attitudes. I never had the brevity to stand up to people the way he did. He called things as they were. I always chose my battles and most of the times I would just ignore the backstabbing, lies, and endless gossip. I knew about them but chose to ignore them indefinitely and focus on getting things done. He would never have chosen my approach. He was very interested in fairness, justice, rights, and Truth. Seeking these made Hisham what he was and defined his death as a loss to all of us whether we realize it or not.

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.