You Know When... Part 2

You know when you're walking or running and your pinkie toe hits the edge of a table, bed, door… etc.? That's gotta be the most painful thing your foot goes through :( and I really have no idea why it hurts so much! The other toes bump into stuff all the time but they never hurt as much.

Also, you know when you're wearing a new shoe and the pinkie toe gets all red or gets a disgusting blister that hurts so bad?

I hate that.

p.s. I love this scene of Seinfeld

Take a Minute

An earthquake of magnitude 8.8 has struck Chile earlier today. There's not much you can say in situations like these, except that it makes all the big things seem so small when you compare. 
Take a couple of minutes to watch this, then think about the small differences, the fights, the arguments, the times you thought your life was bad, the people you upset, the friends you lost over the stupidest problems, and the people you care about that have no clue that you do. Is everything really worth it? When the ground is shaking so hard beneath you, would you still feel angry, upset, hurt, jealous, would you still hold grudges? Then why do you now?

Love.

You Know When...

You know when you keep finding yourself in a situation, and when you mention it to someone they go "oh my God that happens to me too"?

There are hundreds of those things, I’ll talk about them when they pass me by in the future.

Anyway, what got me thinking about this is the fact that today is Wednesday :( you know when it's Wednesday and all day long you're thinking it's Thursday and mentally preparing yourself for the weekend? I hate it, every Thursday when I'm at work, I keep looking out the window of my office and checking out the weather, it's more like a habit, even if I'm not going anywhere after work, I want the weather to be good during the weekend, Thursday has that smell in the air, I can almost see butterflies dancing around, and today smelled like Thursday :( but after all the good news is that tomorrow is Thursday and I can look out the window as much as I want.

There's another one, it's so irrelevant but I'll just say it. You know when you're talking to someone who has a little something on their face or maybe between their teeth, and you keep staring at it but you're not really aware you're looking at it? It happens to me a lot, the whole time that person is talking I'm just staring at that eyelash under their eye that is about to either fall or get into their eye, and I'm worrying about it without actually knowing it, then all of a sudden I notice that and go "would you just remove that!? It's killing me!".

Does that happen to you?

The Ugly Duckling Goes to the Movies

Well not exactly. I’m not the kind of girl you’d find at the movie theatres every time a new movie is released, and I’ve never been a movie fan. However, I do get hooked on TV series of some sorts, well as long as they have a cynical sarcastic kind of mean character, you know the type.

What bugs me most in TV shows or movies, is that over the years there seems to have developed a template to be used for certain scenes, almost every show on TV or in theatres seems to have the cliché scenes I’m listing below, and it’s getting old.

1.     The woman-in-labor scene: lying in the delivery room at the hospital, a pregnant woman is giving birth to what most likely is her first baby, family sitting beside her telling her to breath, and while she’s in so much pain, a) she asks for the drugs and b) she grabs her husband’s hand and squeezes it as hard as she can, he’s suffering but not screaming, and the doctor says she’s 8cm dilated so she needs to push. I hate this scene, it makes me really awkward when males are around especially my little brother, it's very noisy with all the screaming going on, and mostly it's horrific! Women who've been there wouldn't like to be reminded of the experience and those who haven't are already scared to death! I'm telling ya Hollywood, do it the Arab way and get the husband to walk back and forth outside the hospital room and then get the baby to cry and the nurse to come out saying mabrook. Don’t do that I was kidding. But enough of those scenes please.

2.     The once-friends-now-lovers chase: the usual he loves her but she doesn’t think of him that way or she loves him but he doesn’t think of her that way situation, they're best friends, they hang out, they have fun, then one day they're messing around and playing and whatnot, she does something "cheeky" he tries to catch her and when he finally does, they're laughing, he looks into her eyes then kisses her, now the door to TV show plots is wide open thank you very much.

3.     The post-breakup scene: after what's his face breaks up with her, she's at home devastated and she reaches for the fridge to grab like a gallon of ice cream, then her roommate remembers she's miserable too, so she gets a spoon and digs in. Stop making fun of girls cause they love their calories, it's boring :(

4.     The car crash scene: of course after what's his face leaves that ice cream chick, he gets into his car, he's very upset, then a light flashes into his eyes which would mean that another car hits his, a blackout, and finally the ambulance going weee weee weee weee.

5.     The bomb scene: of course the bomb is about to explode, and time is running out, they show you that it's at exactly 00:01 seconds that the good guy disables it by cutting the blue wire without knowing whether or not it's the right wire to cut, he's just lucky that way.

6.     The car chase scene: which never seems to do the involved cars any damage but always hits the first car on the traffic light and sweeps it diagonally! Isn't it bad enough that the poor guy is held captive by the traffic light which won't be going green any time soon?

7.     The meet the parents scene: of course when he or she goes to meet the significant other's parents, all of a sudden he or she is a complete clutz! They spill their drinks, step on the cat's tail and might even start a fire.

There are just few out of dozens of those scenes (if you can tell me how many times I used the word scene in this post I'll give you a free pass behind the scenes of a Jordanian show filming. Not) the point is, they're always there, and they don’t seem to be going away anytime soon, so I'll stick to watching Seinfeld.

Thank God For... Potatoes

Since I'm in a really good mood -el 7amdellah- and being in my appreciate-all-the-good-things state of mind, which has been hitting me for an entire year now :) I've decided to start a new series of posts which I'll call: Thank God For…

Every now and then I'm dedicating a post to one of the things that make my life a dolce vita, today's episode is all about potatoes :)

Yep, potatoes. A lot of the people I know take them for granted; they just order them with their meals as a side dish :( ignore them lots of times and never think of them as an important part of their diet, well they are.

Whether they're French Fries:

Curly Fries:

Potato Wedges:

Potato Chips:

Mashed:

Baked with their skins:

Loaded then baked:

Or even Sweet Potatoes!

And for all the nerds out there this is the potato plant flower:

How do you like your potatoes?

Why the Sour Face?

I'm feeling a bit evil right now, so I'll just leave you with these. Enjoy

Do you remember this sour gum? it had a sweet centre filling 

Do you look like this?

A Couple of Minutes From the Past

This was one of my favourite songs when I was growing up :(
I bet Mr. Bandali regrets not putting it off till these days, now is the right time for us to "netra7am 3a eyyam zaman".
I want my childhood back please :'(

Where Do You Work?

My job is getting me more and more frustrated every day :( I work as a quality assurance auditor in a hotshot organization, it’s probably the hardest thing to do when you have employees that are very very resistant to change, especially the old 3ammoyat and khaltoyat :( you can’t just bring a petit 18-year-old looking girl to tell people who have been in their jobs for 20 years or more what to do, but the way of doing business has changed so much in the past few years and we need to change the way we handle tasks.

Also, it’s not just the old people that give me a hard time, there are the young “why-bother” guys, these are even harder to deal with, the first thing you hear when you suggest a development in a certain area is “fokkeena la twarteena, talama ma 7ada sa2elna khalleeha mashyeh” which leads to me having no work at all some days, no lots of days, no no, most of days :( then I have “Jerk” who’s the biggest tattletale in the world, because he thinks that’s what Quality Assurance is about!!! He goes to my director’s office, tells him who said what, who’s standing in the parking lot, who’s eating a sandwich, and who ate “sa7nain mansaf mesh sa7en wa7ad” when we celebrated an award! Aaaaaand “Jerk” is trying to become my boss because that position is still vacant and he’s not qualified enough. The problem is, people listen to him because on the outside, “Jerk” seems like a nice guy, very polite, very smart… only for those who don’t know him as well as I do, and can’t hear him when he talks about them in front of me cause he knows I’m not gonna go say anything :(

Anyways, I’ll bet every workplace has a “Jerk” and some others including these:

1. The donkey work specialist: usually someone with low self esteem or a desire to please the boss.

2. The boss’s pet: just like a teacher’s pet, gets away with almost everything, and the boss usually sticks up for them, Jerk here was the Ex-Boss’s pet, but his glory days ended when the ex-boss was let go.

3. The strong business woman: often found wearing pantsuits, very cocky and always acts busy even if she’s not, overuses the terms (action plan, asap, duplication, essential, brainstorming and tool) even when speaking Arabic, but if she’s your boss she will fight for your rights.

4. The catfight girls: a couple of girls at the office, always fighting and pulling each other’s hair. They were best friends at some point, but we know how girl friendships evolve :)

5. The ‘neswaneh’: a woman usually working as an assistant, secretary or accountant, her main topics are what she’s cooking for lunch and how she’s perfect at rolling vine leaves. She has the same advice for every young girl “deeri balek 3ala 7alek w shoufi 7ayatek barra, el bent bel akher ma elha ella jozha w wlaadha”

6. The introvert: always sitting in their office with the door closed and avoids gatherings.

7. The wussy boss: he gets yelled at by everyone, even people working for him, if he’s your boss, your life will be easy in terms of vacations and early leaves, but not in terms of work, he’ll be too afraid to submit anything you do.

8. The “I have so much work” people: act so busy when you ask them for anything, and they always tell you they have priorities and oh so many tasks to do.

9. The gossip girls: these are everywhere, you can’t get away with making a phone call without them talking about it, no matter who you’re calling.

10. The Innamorato\a: a guy or girl, head over heels secretly in love with someone from work, pays close attention when someone mentions their name, and found in a bad mood when that someone talks to somebody else.

11. The bitter single woman: I’m NOT saying all single women are bitter, but these are always jealous when someone gets engaged or married no matter how badly they try to hide it.

12. The frustrated single man: unable to find the wife of his dreams, although his demands are not as hard to meet as they were in the past.

13. The provide-for-a-big-family man: the sole purpose for this employee is to get his barely-enough salary at the end of the month to be able to support his family, not given all his rights and usually has the worst boss.

14. The “off” employee: always off, calling in sick or leaving early. Not the boss’s favorite person.

15. The transferred dude: keeps moving from one department to another, due to arguments with colleagues or boss.

16. The “cool” crew: these believe their positions are the most important for the business, they never hang out with the (in their opinion) low class employees and are always yelling at janitors, secretaries … etc.

17. The newbie: fresh guy or girl, doesn’t know what the heck is going on around them, and who’s who, we’ve all been there at some point.

18. The paranoid guy or girl: always afraid they will be let go, and scared to death when someone who’s not their biggest fan enters the boss’s office.

19. The mom: leaves early most of the days to pick up her sick kid from preschool, takes a couple of days off in the final exams season.

20. The visitor: going around from one office to another, drinking coffee and sharing news, never at their office and usually a #9.

Where do you work? Do you have these people too?

Milan Vs. ManU

AC Milan will play Manchester United in the first knockout round in Champions’ League tonight. I can’t wait for the frickin’ match to start :) I’ve been waiting ever since I watched the draw.

I’m a Die Hard AC Milan fan (although I'm very uncertain they're gonna be any good tonight) so I’m gonna be jumping up and down during the 90 minutes and maybe even between the two halves, which always makes my mom go crazy and then she plays that same old record “shw beddek b hal shaghleh, ya3ni shw estafadti gher enno bensamm badanek kol ma yeeji fihom goal, majnouneh, btes.hari w btet3abi bas 3ashan mbarah, hada hw Maldini?…etc”.

Anyway, so far, these are the confirmed squads for tonight’s match:

AC Milan:
IN: Abbiati, Dida, Abate, Antonini, Bonera, Favalli, Jankulovski, Kaladze, Nesta, Oddo, Thiago Silva, Ambrosini, Beckham, Flamini, Gattuso, Pirlo, Seedorf, Huntelaar, Inzaghi, Pato, Ronaldinho.
OUT: Borriello, Zambrotta

Manchester United:
IN: Van Der Sar, Foster, Kuszczak; Neville, Brown, J Evans, Fabio, Rafael, Evra; Valencia, Park, Nani, Obertan, Scholes, Fletcher, Carrick, Gibson; Rooney, Berbatov, Owen, Diouf.
OUT: O'Shea, Vidić, Giggs, Anderson
And Ferdinand is still unconfirmed

Let's go win this thing.

Swear it Again

اقسم بالله العظيم أني سوف أقرأ هذا الـبوست للنهاية وأرسله لكل المضافين عندي

Just kidding.

Since most of my posts so far have been takhweet, let’s talk about something serious this time. I have a thing or two to say about those “religion” e-mails that never seem to stop flooding my inbox.

First of all, 99% of them are made up. Not everything that’s written after “La Elaha Ella Allah” is true, if you do check every Hadeeth in those e-mails, you will find most of them are موضوعة أو مكذوبة some people go through a lot of trouble making up stories, miracles, and things like that, and whether their purpose is to mock Muslims or to invite other people to Islam (which would be very stupid done in that way) the end result is the same, a ton of messages telling you that you will go to hell if you do not forward, or a Hasanaat counter (which is the lamest invention since Arabic Video Clips). Let’s assume this counter is how things work, in this case, I’ll go out hurting people for fun, stealing, lying, cheating, killing and destroying the whole town, then I’d take a couple of minutes of my time, and erase all that by sending one e-mail to a thousand people. Right?

Wrong.

The other thing, that “oath” they let you read at the beginning of some e-mails (like the one I made you read :P), I wonder what kind of idiot came up with that idea, whoever they are, what they’re basically saying is that if you read it then you are in that case obliged to do it, I really don’t think reading something that was written by someone else makes you like the one who wrote it, case in mind, if you read the Quraan, you will find dozens of sentences and phrases from atheists or polytheists, in stories about those people, does reading those phrases make you an atheist? No? So why would reading that qasam mean you must do it?

Don’t stop reading now, انت حلفت ولازم تكمل :)

If Muslims really want to get more Hasanat, maybe they could start with the way they’re dealing with each other, why do you get all religious when you see those e-mails, but not when you have to deal with another human being? Does forwarding an e-mail make it ok for you to take something that is clearly not yours? Will it erase the nasty words you just said about another person? Can it undo lying or cheating? Most certainly not, but why can’t we start with those things, instead of looking at things that won’t do us any good (that is if they don’t do us bad) I’d really love to see something like driving in the streets of Amman controlled by Islamic ethics, no swearing, no name calling, no harassing others, impossible isn’t it?

But, if after all you are still worried not forwarding will get you in trouble Yom El Qeyameh, you have to know that it’s the contrary, as our Prophet Salla Allaho 3alayh wa sallam, warned us from passing on those lies, you will be making a sin spreading all those made up stories and Ahadeeth, so in case you still want to promote virtues, pass on the real stuff, then people will see that Islam is not about those details, it’s about what’s inside your heart, and how you take it out.

Now if you’ll excuse me I have a big meeting coming up, so I need to go steal some sucker’s work and present it as mine :) I still have some Hasanat left in my counter from forwarding my last e-mail.

Annoying Girly Habits

Sometimes I wonder what guys must be thinking when they're dealing with us girls, as a girl I sometimes wish I were a guy when I get so frustrated with the way some girls think, but then I think "if I'm having a hard time dealing with my own species, guys must be suffering from this" :(

Before females get all fired up at me, you will know what I mean when you read my points, and before guys start raising their victory signs, don't be so excited, you're up next, in the sequel.

In the 24 and a bit years of my life, these are the things that still get on my nerves whenever a girl does them, and in the years to come, I know they will still annoy me:

1.   The girls that blame everything bad that happens to them on envy: ok, so Al-Hasad is mentioned in the Holy Quraan, although nothing good or bad can happen to you without the will of God. But, come on! Not everything that happens is caused by people looking at you! No your bracelet did not fall because that girl said it's lovely! It was simply loose… No you are not sick because when you went to the wedding last night there were women looking at you! This is called a virus and it tends to do that when it's inside your body. And your wedding will definitely not get postponed or cancelled if you told me about it too soon! Neither will it go disastrously bad if someone asked you how you managed to get a reservation on that date!

2.   The girls that misinterpret chivalry as a crush: so you have a flat tire and you're standing outside the building where you work and that guy stops to help. The next morning rumors are going around the office that he's head-over-heels in love with you, do not complain about the death of chivalry if you're gonna do that, a guy who is changing your tire is not the same as the guy who is flirting with you.

3.   The girls that believe jealousy is the only reason behind their problems with friends: When a friend of yours stops talking to you, or when she's mad at you, there's a reason other than "she's just jealous" behind it, it's true, chicks are professionals when it comes to jealousy, but that doesn't mean it's behind every issue you have with another girl, there might actually be a real reason.

4.   So a normal looking girl is walking with a good looking guy and they seem happy, get over it, it's not like she stole your man, now get back to what you were doing before you gave her that death stare.

5.   You're at the wedding of a relative that is a couple of years younger than you but got married before you. Yes, this can happen, no, it doesn't mean she seduced the guy, now stuff that booz back in your face, it's blocking the view.

6.   The girls that take everything you say too personally, too literally: I asked if you were ok, I didn't suggest you look ugly today, and I said I like her hair, I didn't say anything bad about yours, also, stop complaining about something if you're gonna think I'm patronizing you by giving you advice.

7.   The "my husband is perfect and he's treating me like a queen" girls: I don't entirely believe you, and you're not making me jealous, I'm in fact happy for you, but now I'd like you to meet girl #1, she has some advice for you.

8.    Girls who wear these:

Sorry but white pointy-toed boots make me want to trip the girl, I just had to include them.

In Celebration of the Weekend

In celebration of the (almost over) weekend, I'm doing a weekend themed post, and what better characterizes Friday and Saturday in Jordan than... yep you've guessed it, Jareedet Al Waseet :) about a hundred pages full of 3ahat and meaningless offers, I was once looking for a car in the classifieds and there was this ad that said "سيارة مطور افرهول" what they're actually trying to say is "motor", it's fascinating how car parts' names change drastically in Al-Wehdat.

El mohem, I gathered the ads that I found interesting and here are my favourites:

Starting to see a pattern here? 

Ok, here are the ones that made my day :D

Read what's in the top left corner "khedmeh zay el loaz" something to be proud of:

Can you at least put a picture of a girl wearing winter clothes? After all it's what the ad is about!

Next, what I can't understand is why they're asking for confidentiality :S can anyone enlighten me?

This store is located both on the 7th and 8th circles, ya3ni howweh 3al sabe3, bs wara Zain el tamen:

This one just speaks for itself: hamm haamm haaammm

There is a big LA to the right side

Read the little poem inside the box

Surpriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiise:

These don't quite get the expression "khedmet el tawseel".

Caesar Salattt:

And last but not least, a hair salon ad, if they're gonna make me look like that then I'd better book my appointment NOW, some people's idea of beauty is very distorted.

These are just a few ones that I picked from a couple of issues, there are tons more every week, some even worse but in the mean time enjoy these :)