Hold on to your feathers!

Little One started driving lessons yesterday. She turns 19 in November (read about her entrance into adulthood here!), and we've figured it's about time she starts paying her dues and earning her keep in this family. I've been chauffeuring her around for the past six years (I was a late bloomer and didn't get my license till I turned 20), and I'm sick of always having to be the one responsible for the late-night ice cream runs. So, Little One, good luck and don't let the jerks honking their horns at you while you restart the manual car you've managed to stall while changing gears get you down. Until then, I'll be the one dodging behind parked cars when I see you inch by at 14 miles an hour with your clammy hands clenching the steering wheel in a death grip.

Friends Shmends

(Warning: I'm going to mention my BlackBerry in this post. Please don't roll your eyes so far back that they get stuck that way.)

So, a couple months ago, I bought a BlackBerry. You can read about my love for it here. Since then, I've been pretty good about not letting it take over my life, I haven't downloaded every application under the sun, and almost (but didn't) broke into tears when I dropped and scratched it a few weeks back.

This morning, one of my best friends (let's call her EVIL [just for now, though]) told me to download the latest BlackBerry Messenger application. I resisted, citing my dislike for 'change.' However, under EVIL and G-Money's peer pressure, I buckled. The son of a gun downloaded in three seconds, and for the past three hours, I've been trying to get the piece of crap OFF MY PHONE. This is the worst application I've ever seen, it makes my phone think it's battery power is equivalent to the memory of a goldfish (three seconds, if you're wondering), and all around SUCKS.

I rue the day I listened to EVIL and G-Money and will not rest until my precious phone is back to normal. Moral of this story, if your friends, even those with dimples and charm, tell you to do something that goes against your gut instinct, refuse and PUNCH THEM IN THE FACE.

GRE. BAD.

Today marked my first official study day for the GRE. I didn't have to take an entrance exam for grad school back in 2005, so the last time I filled in one of those dreaded bubbles with a number 2 pencil was back in 2001. That would also mark the last time I did math. Needless to say, while doing my practice test this morning (you know, to determine your starting score so you can assess how much blood, sweat and tears (O THE TEARS!) you have to put into your studying), I might as well have taken a nap.

I reckon it'll be easier to learn formulas than reading comprehension, but if you happen to pass by my house and find pencils in my ear instead of on my scratch paper, call for help. Please?

You wish you had these

So, I might NOT HAVE TOTALLY STOLEN THIS IDEA AT ALL from some other blogger, but her's are totally weird and make you want to look off to the side and casually close the lid of your laptop so people can't see what you're reading. I give you...texts saved on my BlackBerry:

• Today in class, the professor asked us how we would identify ourselves in one word. Some said egyptian. Others said arab. Some said muslim. Others said coptic. Ezbeligy said, "i am the pharoahs."

• Hey little goose! Just a little text to remind u that i think about u with or without appendix.

• Brother. Locked, loaded. Ready to poke, flare and stomp. Let's smite ugly goons and move constantly upward. I'll keep sending you secret love messages on facebook.

• I'm sorry, i was just blinded by the food, you know you're the one.

• Moose is gay.

• Never said i liked her. Just that i don't hate her as much as my brain thought i did. Doesn't excuse personal space violations.

• Think accounting guy might secretly be a muppet.

• Shove it.

• Worst. Day. Ever.

• Lol re [professor] trying to convince us that the cultural revolution in china was good for the country. Someone needs to send this woman some wikipedia links.

• You should shoot me out of pity like at the end of of mice and men.

• The results of a genetics experiment gone awry?

• Hey Boo!!! Holla at ya boy - This text is the most productive thing i've done at work today!

• You win that one a thousand times.

• I.T. probs or dead in ditch?

• Someone in my computer science class just asked the TA if we would all get A's if the professor died.

• One of my co-workers in fayoum started a diet and will begin exercising too. She joined a gym and will start working out tonight. What will she do u ask? Well, sauna of course.

• I can orchestrate a simultaneous make out session. Just to drive it home.

• Hate you!

• Your toes are like baby shrimp! Birds!

Overheard

Comments directed at me while walking around the office in my new kuffiyeh (I was wearing pants too, ask anyone) today:

1. Is that the Palestinian flag?
2. IS THAT A SOCCER JERSEY?! (Pretty sure this was in reference to my shirt and not my kuffiyeh, but the Intern's not the sharpest tool in the shed)
3. Oh, are you going to Gaza? (My response: Yes, yes I am. For lunch. I'll be back tonight.)

Remember when I quit this job, but I'm somehow back in the office? Yeah, should we discuss that?

*Hey you! Have you seen this blog's new masthead up there at the top of the page? Tell me what you think. This blog's lookin' at you. *wink. *gag.

Fancy Fresh

So, More Positive Than Your Average Bear has gained roughly 8 zillion cool points today. He texted me this afternoon telling me to check my mail, and the only things that came to mind were that he a) confessed his undying love for me (it'll happen one day), b) sent me a forward with baby heads sticking out of felt flower petals (has happened before), or c) suggested new music for me to listen to (ha, who was I kidding? Only I do that).

What was waiting for me was WAY AWESOMER. There were MULTIPLE masthead options for me to choose from. MPTYAB and I have been throwing ideas around for new blog mastheads for a while, and after maaaybe getting a little emotional the other day when in his presence, he put his nimble fingers to good use and came up with a few ideas.

I'm pretty much IN LOVE with the one I've replaced the old one with, but maybe in a couple months you can tell me that you're bored and I'll put up one of his other designs. Happy days!

Gifting

I'll be 26 (yikes!) next month, and I thought I wanted a new iPod, or a laptop, or perhaps even a job (yeah, remember that new job I mentioned? Scratch that...), but no. In case you're sitting around, wracking your brain, making Santa-like lists of the perfect gift for me, I'll make it easy for you. Get me this. You don't even have to wait until next month.



What does one do with a baby elephant? Take her/him for walks around Maadi? Give them the creative freedom to paint masterpieces with their trunks? Carry them around in a Baby Bjorn? I don't know. I just want one. LEAVE ME ALONE.

Something I won't apologize for...

...is laughing profusely when people fall. Hard. I can't help it. My first reaction isn't to ask people if they're okay, or lend a helping hand. It's to point, laugh until I cry (happy tears), point again, ask everyone in a 10 meter radius if they saw what happened, and then laugh some more.

I thought I had a soft spot for children, and really, Internet, who wouldn't instinctively run up to a child and ask if they were okay if they saw them take a nose dive? Apparently me, because this photo had me on the floor.



Does this make me an awful person? Probably. Do I care? Not at all.

All in a day's work

"Started" my new job yesterday. I don't know if paragraphs will do the day justice, because it was JUST.THAT.GREAT. (read: sarcasm), so please, let me list for you what my day consisted of.

• 10:45 am - Get to work
  
• 10:46 am - Give three kisses to a woman I've only met once
• 10:50 am - Realize that my work-issued laptop didn't have an operating system on it
  
• 11:30 am - Eat everything I brought to eat for the day
  
• 2:30 pm - Leave work after sitting around for four hours harassing everyone I know on BlackBerry Messenger
• 2:37 pm - Return to my old office, only to be asked "ALREADY?!" by my ex-boss who thought I was coming to ask for my job back

Day 2 at the job went a lot better. I had two meetings, told the director that something was "not my job," and e-mailed some work to More Positive Than Your Average Bear to fix up and make look sharp so I didn't have to fiddle with it myself. Come to think of it, this new job may have potential!