… and a happy new year

Written 31 Dec 08

and this title is said with a rhythm.

Remember the famous children song “we wish you a merry Christmas” … close your eyes and imagine your kindergarten teacher playing the music on the old black piano while all the children chanting happily and the song ends with a sort of slowing … and / a / ha/pp/y /new /year!

Today is the 31st of December and the song line is chasing me in a crazy way all the day long. It is a long day, as if 2008 is refusing to leave. Not only it doesn’t want to leave, it is also insisting on showing us its ugly face to the last minutes, the face  it used to show us for the past 12 months – 52 weeks – 365 days.

The day started wrong: Because I slept unhappy the day before I normally woke up still unhappy. I over slept, so I arrived work late going through an unpleasant driving experience because of the tension and the speeding trying to arrive  in a decent timing. Of course, I didn’t have my morning treat of breakfast or even coffee, I didn’t read anything in the morning. I had to get dressed in a couple of minutes and RUN.

Running late in the streets, I was having the line repeating in mind in a sarcastic way, it is making fun of me as if it is telling me … and you are thinking a happy new year !? so, here is what you are getting!

Arriving work with such a mode, I just hope it is going to be a calm day. On the contrary, it is not! A super busy, hectic, terrible day! Full of unlike tasks and contradicting requests at the same time; my manager and his manager both asking for a lot, and believe me; I don’t have dual minds or double hands.

The line is repeating again, making fun of me and my day … and you are thinking a happy new year!? So, here is what you are getting!

So this how the year is ending; No festive moods, no celebrations, no colorful costumes, no special plans … is this a last day of year, I really don’t believe it!

I wished at least to have something special at night  … a nice dinner maybe or a shared dessert… unfortunately, any of this happened. We arrived home tired to death waited for the count down in front of the TV… Greeted each others with a kiss and we went to sleep silently.

In spite all of this; I still have some hope that the coming year is going to be better. I will calm down in the week end and think deeply what I learned in 2008 and what are my resolutions for 2009, but this is going to be a separate post. Now, let’s just hope 2009 is going to really be “… a happy new year”

I have a HERO inside!

So .. I turned out to be a superman! I wished to be one of the Charlie’s Angels though …

You are Superman

Superman 70% Supergirl 68% Wonder Woman 63% Robin 57% Batman 55% Green Lantern 55% Spider-Man 45% Hulk 45% Iron Man 40% The Flash 30% Catwoman 15%

You are mild-mannered, good, strong and you love to help others.

Click here to take the “Which Superhero am I?” quiz…

I don’t relate …

This last Saturday night I was thinking that I am ok with the mornings wake up, with the commitments, with the work responsibilities, YET my problem seems to be the people around me at the office … simply, I don’t relate.

My colleagues are ok people, I don’t deny this. I also can’t say they are mean or bad persons, on the contrary, I think they are quite loved among their communities of families and friends. I just have this usual feeling of being an alien among them, we are on different grounds and from different zones … miles and miles separates me from them … and here are some examples of why I don’t relate …

Situation (1)

S: and your wife knows how to cook?

Mo: she didn’t know before, but I made here learn (3awedtaha) … this is how it should go, you should make your wife get used to it.

** me: here is an interesting talk, typical Egyptian man!

S: and how did you do this ?

Mo: During our engagement, I used to visit her at her parents and ask her to cook for me, as I feel disgused to eat from anyone else cooking  .. and because I know how to cook, I always gave her valuable feedback of adding some herbs or changing a cooking recipe or something.

** me: ewwwwwwwww … and if u know how to cook, why don’t you do from the early beginning!?

Situation (2)

D: I have just took this questionnaire downstairs, the one about women rights at working environments. It contained some weirdo questions, but overall I liked it and I respect the attempt of proving equal opportunities.

Mu: Yah, it was really cool .. but which questions were weird for you? maybe they were asking females different questions than males?

D: I believe so, because some of the questions are not applicable to males … these questions about harassment, double standards, and equal opportunities. By the way, did they ask you if would you accept to have a female manager ?

Mu: mm .. No I don’t recall so, But anyways my answer is NO.

D: ha, Why ????????

Mu: well, I don’t have a problem with the idea itself. Yet, I could not accept it my self, I can’t imagine having a female manager .. because I don’t believe there is a woman smarter than me !

D: ………………………

** me: ###@@^(W@&*(Y@*(!^W@^

Situation (3)

DA – enters the office and announces her decision of quitting corporate life and dedicating her life and energy to community service. DA is successful, heading a department while she is only 27 years old, therefore all people around were unbelieving her reasons and asking her to think twice …as it seemed unreasonable for them to leave all the success, career path, and salary increase for an unknown future! I saw she was really brave and a true believer …

A: but you know what, if DA left to her new decision she is not loosing much, she really knows how to succeed.

D: of course she is, at least she will find her soul and live happily ever after ..

A: eh, I meant she will make double what she is doing here- money wise ya3ny (with a wink)

D: huh !!!!!!!!

Thanks God they don’t read Blogs!

I am sitting here in the boring room

As expected, I had a busy day at work! have this task of preparing the category line performance presentation to be demonstrated in front of the director next Wednesday, and what really happened that I couldn’t focus for the whole day and I wasted my time between chatting, checking blogs, and downloading images for the so-called presentation.

Except for the last hour, my manager gave me some insights and here when I put some efforts. My manager is handling two categories, therefore he focused on the category he doesn’t have an assistant for and handed me the other one. Generally, he is a kind and respectable guy BUT he has his things bardo …. a big ego problem! After I created some slides, I went to show him the work done in order to make sure we are aligned … he checked and commented, then told me but this presentation is too small compared to mine!! I paused unbelieving, didn’t I tell him am still in the early beginning?! I calmly explained that I thought it is obvious that these slide are only 10% of the structure which means am still not done yet. Grrr … I always hated managers! he really annoyed me with his comment, sometimes I think he is not even listening to what am saying, or maybe he is too self focused.

Anyways, I arrived home at 7:00 pm planning to spend some quality time on the presentation, but what really happened is me proving the fact of being a procrastination queen. In spite of all the time management courses, I am still a procrastination master!

So I ate my fruits … prayed … then ate a lion bar along with a big Nescafe mug for alerting … Watched Grey’s anatomy on Dubai One … called mama on the phone, checked my favorite blogs, sent an unimportant email … wasted time and more time, it is 9:30 now and I still didn’t put a line in the presentation

I started to feel tired and I think it is gonna be a long night … sigh السهرة صباحي

Listening to: Lemon Tree – Fool’ Garden (typically matching the mood ha)

one more ugly week …

It is Sunday .. and you wont ever imagine how much I hate Sundays .. Simply, it declares the beginning of a new ugly week at work! This week in particular I am not handling easily, as it was scheduled to be my annual leave which I had to shift it one week due to an unplanned important business meeting with the director, the fact that it is making the weak a heavy one, full of tasks and work, and I am counting the days towards my week off.

Every morning, hearing the annoying alarm and doing the snooze activity for 3o minutes or more, I start thinking of a morning treat to help me get out of bed … and with this wide experience of getting up early unpleasantly for almost 9 years, I finally found that my daily happy motivator is my big mug of instant coffee along with the morning sweety biscuit or cookie.

Recently I developed a new morning treat and thanks to my sister who introduced me to it … it is the daily Mobinil wake up call on Nile Fm Radio Station … how lovely, inspiring, and fresh the show is! I love the powerful “good morning” of the show presenter Heba, it gives me a blast for the day! and I crack up loudly when Lou – the other show presenter – goes Arabic in between his perfect English talk. The show is really full of energy and tempting thoughts .. I regeret all the silly hours I wasted listening to 3eish saba7ak on Nogoum FM! ewww …  I DONT KNOW HOW I DID SO!

I believe Radio Presenting is a nice job, don’t you think so? It is even much better than a TV one! You talk to the audience, you have your space talking to the public, you are less famous yes BUT you still have your personal life untouched. I will put this on the list of jobs I am passionate about, and I will be blogging about this SOON.

Back to work stuff, our marketing director worth another story that I should be telling you about in a full dedicated post. Now, I just hope this week shall pass safely and our presentation to the director impresses him!!

Wish me LucK !

why keep a diary?

So I am not new to the blogging world at all …

I have been on blogspot as an active blogger since 2004 and am still there. The issue is this other blog dido’s life was initiated in Arabic, remained in Arabic, and never been a diary thing. Although when I started the blog, I never knew why exactly I did and what I am gonna do there, but this other place kept evolving and it ended up to be my window as a person trying to show something in writing … yes writing, creative writing, like short stories, self expression stories, and maybe novels one day. As a dear friend always says it is a workshop of creative writing and I am happy with the way it is.

Then, what is making me start this …

Recently, I noticed that I am having a flow of mental thoughts more than usual. The more I go, the more these mental thoughts flow and sometimes grow. I catch my self during the morning ride to work focusing on a certain idea or a particular line I hear on the Radio morning show and I just chase it .. it grows and grows, jumps to something else, evolves to a story, an observation, a resolution, and sometimes a decision.

I reach work, get busy with other things but the idea is till there .. a couple of days until it fades and suddenly I discover that I lost all these precious things I came with in these mornings. I then declared this as a big loss and I am letting it go that easily.

Also, I found out that I connect with my myself and my things more than I connect with people around me, specially some relatives, so-called friends, and for sure my colleagues. Therefore when I have something on my mind it stays, it preoccupies me because I don’t have a channel to get it out and the result is I never have a fresh mind. One good friend once told me “wanna organize yourself, get things out of your mind to papers” I know she was talking about time management but I am extending it to this.

Finally, because at work they blocked face book and due to the tight schedules am not checking it frequently as before. It in not the issue that I am not checking people’s new but I don’t have a place to write what I am doing now or what I have on mind, I don’t share my status anymore, I don’t write notes, add songs and videos, post links or news … and am not liking it this way!

For all this am keeping a diary … promise I will maintain it .. looking at it after time will definitely bring me a nice memory or show me how much I changed.