Don’t expect much of others..

Stepping away from life really does do plenty of good for a person.. True it wasn’t a full out break but it was enough for me to set out in search of myself. I found what I was looking for too, much to my relief.. It’s greatly disconcerting not knowing where someone/something dear to you is, not knowing if they are dead or alive, just left hanging. I couldn’t take it anymore so I said my farewells to life and the living and went out searching. I found “myself” locked away in a prison for the crimes it had committed. That in itself was a relief but even better was the promise that “myself” would be released early on account of good behavior if it really wanted out of prison. That of course depends on how badly “myself” wants out.. but I think that shouldn’t even warrant a question or least I’m hoping “myself” wants out as much as I want it out.

I found the answer to half my problems in listing all my faults and keeping track of them with a self-imposed point system. I love games played for points.. obsessed with them maybe is more like it, so this is working pretty well for the time being. I’m betting that by the time I get bored with it I’ll already be in the habit of avoiding or doing whatever so I won’t need the point system anymore.

Reminds me of the saying Omar bin Khattab (RA) said: “Account yourselves before you will be taken to account, measure your deeds before they are measured for you on the Day of Judgement. It will ease your burden tomorrow if you account your deeds yourself today.”

I’m generally not the hand holding type but I’m grateful for the hand that was extended to me by a certain friend, she held my hand for as long as I needed it =) Those cookies were hardly befitting of a proper “thanx” but I guess one has to start somewhere right? Rabee Yahfadthich..ameen.

It was her idea to think of the “source” of my problems. I thought and thought and first pinned the blame totally on anger. I’ve always had a “warm” temper, ok at times it’s blazing but lately it’s been off the charts and I’ve been going off at the slightest things. I searched around and found an Online Anger Management course. I felt better thinking I’d enroll and that would be the cure for my temper. It dawned on me later when I was wondering if I expect too much from myself – the answer to that is the contrary I expect less and that’s why “myself” is locked away. I expect too much of people, no matter who they are or what background they are from be it religious or otherwise. There’s nothing wrong with thinking the best of people but in my case I get worked up if they act otherwise. It’s stupid, I know. People have God given freedom to act as they please whether right or wrong and it’s not my place to give a rat’s eye about it. They wanna act like heathens let them.

“Don’t expect much of people and you won’t be disappointed.”

Coach or whoever can say whatever they like and it wouldn’t surprise or offend me in the least cause I wasn’t expecting them to act any better anyways and in the end they’re only making an ass out of themselves. That definitely was good to remember when I looked at my results for this semester and found I had gotten a D from Monsieur Islamic Culture and a B+ from H.R.H Mr. Arabic.. I’d bet anything that he didn’t even bother to mark any of our exams. He still hadn’t bothered marking or giving us the results (guess u can’t well do that if u didn’t mark them in the first place) of our first and second midterms. I’m guessing he probably just glanced over our final exams if anything and pulled any marks out of the air to slap down on our report cards. I will not get worked up about any of that though, Islamic nor Arabic. I thought I worked pretty hard this semester but I guess in the end it wasn’t hard enough. No matter, next semester inshalla I so plan to roll up my sleeves and get down with that work even if I have to strangle out each A+ ( I got one lone A, three B’s – two of which were pluses and that damning D this semester.) My last words on the subject: I.Have.Learnt.My.Lesson. ;)

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking these past couple of days and aside from everything else I’ve finally come to terms with losing Bu6i (for those of you who may not know what 6 is, it represents the Arabic letter “ta” pronounced like “ta” in tall). Hats off to the little guy, he always wanted to explore beyond whatever I set as his boundaries and in the end he finally went beyond. He bargained me in return for exploring what was beyond the gate and I sincerely hope he’s getting all what he bargained for. I like to imagine that he’s with some super rich family that is totally into the whole spoil-your-pet thing and he’s comfortable inshalla. I miss him and if by chance I am in position in the next life to be requesting anything I will definitely request for him – tiger sized, extra soft and ultra cuddly albeit his size =P

Did I tell you guys how fortunate I think I am (Praise the Lord), fortunate to have some really great friends, fortunate to have gotten into uni this semester, fortunate to have passed Islamic by a hair, heck, before all of that fortunate to be living even if at times it’s dreadful business.. Aaaaand..Ready for the crown of all that fortune? Mother Dearest is going on holiday this summer to see Grandfather, WAIT it gets better Aaaaand she’s taking my brat kid brother with her! (The brat is 16 going on 17..or maybe 15 going on 16, sheesh I don’t know and really couldn’t careless but it sure would be bliss not having to see his cocky tail strutting around..) Hold your breath folks there’s bonus, yes I said bonus, the keys to the coonie mobile (nickname for mother’s car) will be left in my grateful hands… it’s very possible EL Hazard could die happy this summer. Course my nagging sister will be here but the club is just a short drive away. I just gots to deposit her over there and they’ll sister-sit her for the price of ice skating lessons, is that not super? Ya rabb please don’t let mother cancel her plans at the last minute.

Hmm, I think I’ve just about said all there is to be said. Oh yeah, during my off time I made a new blog that I was just posting pics to, I found it calming at times when I felt ready to burst. If any of you guys are interested the link is in my profile.

Islamic Culture

I used to like Islamic classes. When I found out it was one of the university requirements I felt happy that we got such an easy requirement instead of some nightmare of a math course. Ha ha HA.. It seems that guy’s definition of Islamic Culture and my definition (which I ain’t ashamed to believe must be the same definition that most other normal people would believe it means.) are two entirely different definitions. I spend the morning pumping myself up and mentally preparing to keep my eyes and ears open for the duration of his 40 min class and no matter how prepared I am, 10 mins of his running conspiracy theories and I’m out like a log. Sometimes I have pleasant dreams and wake up when I feel his eyes on me, other times I dream of tennis and suddenly a ball bounces in a direction I wasn’t expecting and then I jerk to change my position and get to it in time only to realize I not only jerked in my dream but in reality as well. So then I have the girls on both sides of me looking at me like I’m crazy.

When His Highness Shleibak (Mr. Islamic Culture) isn’t riding one of his conspiracy theories he’s repeating some story for the hundred and tenth time. Each time he tells it he acts as if it’s the first time he’s telling us. It’s really getting annoying and I shouldn’t even get into his exams – the results give you nightmares. (I studied a whole damn week and a half just for one of his exams and still got a shining crap mark below the failing mark – wonderful reward for busting ur tail studying huh?)

His Highness isn’t satisfied with your answers unless u write nearly a novel for each answer – unless you’re a med student, in which case regardless of the crap you write on the paper you can be assured you’re getting the highest mark. It’s annoying as hell. If an answer is right who the hell cares whether u busted your hand writing an essay to answer a question that could just as easily be answered in a 3-word sentence??? And as if all of that sheemot ain’t enough he marks up everyone’s paper has ¾’s of the class failing or dangerously close to the failing mark and doesn’t even bother to go over the questions and give us the correct answers so we have some vague idea as to what and how His Highness wants us to answer…

I guess in the end all of that doesn’t make a difference, either you’re preordained lucky by being a med student or gifted with the patience to write essay long answers for each of his questions which in my humble opinion doesn’t make a damn difference cuz in the end Mr. Islamic Culture is some where stuck in first year ESL.

I guess I’ll just have to carry the shame of settling for a C or D in that subject.


And thanx to his class I can forget about having an overall good GPA.


Smile EL Hazard; Sh!t happens.

Be Warned pt II

Second contemptible party.. dammit I just remembered someone else who pissed me off at school today, scratch 3: it’s 4.

The animals for classmates (including the two demon spawns for group mates lazy beasts). One girl, actually she’s my friend – I often have fun teasing her about usually being late for class- she knows it’s good natured teasing though. And it’s not really her fault she’s late...well at least not 95% of the time. She comes from the other end of the campus which takes at least a good ten minutes if u aren’t running. Anywayz some how she didn’t know we had our mid-term today. I feel badly about it cuz I see her all the time and I knew but it never occurred to me that she might not have known the exam was today. Anywayz she gets to class and asks if it was possible to postpone it till at least Tuesday. The teacher would have done it but then chaos broke out in the classroom. All of the “humans” agreed that they wanted to postpone the exam but then when the teacher said Tuesday some said Thursday, some said they have exams on Thursday so any other day they claimed they’d agree to (which was a lie cuz other days were proposed and they still whined) and then one idiot (I seriously wanted to get up and do violence on that chic) actually came up with: “But I spent the whole weekend studying for this exam cuz it was today and now that’s all going to be wasted.”

@#$%^& What kinda of a dumb @$$ excuse was that???!! I mean the girl really is an idiot if she even bothered to study then it shouldn’t matter whether she did the test today or the day after tomorrow the material should still be in her damn head (sheesh I’ll cut the profanity.. I’m really irritated.. maybe I’ll take a minute and go squeeze that stress ball I got a couple of times)

Ok, so as I was saying. With the exception of that one individual.. the teacher was so ready to postpone the exam till even next Sunday if everyone just shut up and agreed. Don’t you know even to have it postponed all the way till next Sunday the Mdala3een Niggas all raised hell whining they have exams. The policy is if we happen to have 3 exams on one day we have the right to go and complain. Going and complaining or rather whining is OPTIONAL if we feel we can’t study for all three at once. Those Mdala3een Niggas always whine whenever they have just TWO exams in one day. Where the hell do they think they are??? Is Uni not comprised of studying??? If they can’t handle a few exams go the hell back to KG…I’m sure they’d have lots of fun coloring and playing with puzzles. I’ve never seen such stupidity in my entire life – with a very few exceptions. Meanwhile while they are whining only thinking about the fact that THEY –Lord forbid- would have more than one exam in one day, are completely ignoring the fact that this poor girl who didn’t even know there was an exam today would have to sit for it even though she didn’t study a lick so Miss My-Whole-Weekend-was-Wasted can sit for the exam today instead of the day after and the rest of those pansies can have an exam per day. The last time we had Islamic Culture exam I had three exams in one day plus a quiz and they were all one right after the other with only break enough to walk from one class room to the next. It didn’t kill me. And I doubt they’d die if they did it once in their damned lives.

The girl stood in front of the whole class and begged for them to agree to postpone. They didn’t care. My Favorite Twins and the girl next to them argued the poor girl’s point. One of the twins pointed out that since it is religion class if someone did happen to spend their time studying all weekend for it it wasn’t wasted cuz that fool is supposed to know the stuff anywayz and if she didn’t maybe it’d benefit her. Two other girls gave another outburst about how if they postpone it they have other exams later. The other twin tried to explain to them to be rational and think of how they’d feel if they were in the girl’s position. They just shrugged and carried on. It was back and forth between the twins’ rational arguments and those of the uncaring rocks for classmates…actually I refuse to acknowledge those creatures as mates. In the end the teacher told the girl to sit down and the exam was going to be today since agreement on postponing couldn’t be reached.

I felt really bad for the girl. I hadn’t studied really myself (figured it was pointless since I had a feeling most of it was coming from what was discussed while I had my routine power naps during class times) and I would have rather gotten the test over with quickly just to get it out of the way but I raised my hand in favor of postponing – we WERE supposed to be mates so we should have all been sticking out for each other.. Unfortunately animals can’t act like anything other than animals much less caring civilized individuals.

Thankfully the teacher seems to have a shred of compassion in him, he told the girl after she sat down and I guess his conscience was about to kill him that she could leave and didn’t have to sit for the exam. I hope that means that she can sit for the exam later Inshalla.

Being that it was a religion class and all and in no religion is it tolerable for people of the same faith to act in such an uncaring manner towards their brethren of the same faith or even others of other faith (heck no person should be uncaring of another person whether that person be living or even dead) the teacher should have given all of those uncaring creatures an immediate and unchangeable “ F ”. What’s the point of taking a religion exam when u fail in basic etiquette/manners/protocol whatever the hell you wanna call it??? True it’s a uni requirement and all but it’s obvious that if they can’t even pass a simple test of consideration they need to go way back to the beginning and fill in the gaps their parents obviously neglected to teach them about.

I’m seriously considering not turning in that project I slaved over for 3 days and sleepless nights so those two can get an F.. I don’t care if I have to get an F with them as long as they get it.

My God… I am so irritated right now I think I’ll go strangle that poor stress ball. (Poor thing has eyes that bulge when u squeeze him too hard)

Nameless Post 111

Haven’t felt like posting in a while.. I was really depressed and frustrated with life. Everything about it, especially with the things I have no control over. I was losing interest in everything and it seemed anything I turned to to relieve or at least ease my frustration was either wrong or increased it. A great way to feel in the middle of midterm exam time. I’m not sure if it was the reason but for sure it must be part of the reason I failed the Islamic Culture exam – that and the fact I can’t stay awake during that class to save my damn life. (In the end the professor gave each of us – all of his students- 3 points, which was enough to lift me and a few other girls out of failure… In my opinion I still failed.)

The last thing I wanted to do was go to uni. When I’m in that mood I just lock myself in my room for hours at a time.. sometimes even for days straight. I’d regret accumulating all those absences if I stayed home these past 2 weeks so I was forced to go to school. I hated every minute of it and every thing and body annoyed me. I was living only for the moment I could get on the bus and return to my sanctuary.

I get picked up from the first stop on the busses route. Among the many advantages of being the first on the bus (after getting whatever seat I want) is getting to observe those who board the bus after me. I do it all the time. For more than a week I had completely ignored everyone on the bus and just stared out the window. Last Thursday I don’t know why but I found myself observing my bus mates as they boarded. I noticed that most of them get dropped at the stop by either one or both of their parents. It irritated my mood greatly. I was near turning away when I noticed one of the girls who always sits across the aisle from me. (by pure chance sometimes, no matter what bus we board or what row I sit in…heck even the times cuz lots of students have different schedules and go home at different times so that usually means on different buses – it is rare when I don’t see her on the bus.) I suspect she’s a freshman like me. We always get on the bus between 6:40 and 7:00 am which means we have to get up pretty early every morning. Anywayz, despite the earliness of the hour she always boards greeting everyone with a huge smile and amazing bounce in her step - just brimming with energy and eagerness to see what the next day of uni will bring. One of her parents drops her at the stop every morning as well but I seriously doubt that could be the reason for her bright mood every morning, maybe part of the reason… (Mashalla Alayha – I hope she continues to be bright every morning…amen ya rabb) Seeing her made me think.. think in a way that I hadn’t been thinking in the past two weeks. It made me realize that while everyone has things going on in their lives that they can’t control there are still plenty of things that they do have control over. These past few weeks I was letting all the things I have no control over get to me and the anger and frustration I was feeling due to that was causing me to lose control over the things that a person normally has control of. I’ve said before that I’m not normally a competitive person. Though that feeling of competitiveness bites me from time to time, sometimes over things totally trivial to other people. I couldn’t stand what my anger was turning me into and I certainly wasn’t about to lose to Miss Bright and Cheery on the bus. From that moment I resolved myself to control what is within my power and ability to control – completely. I desperately needed to loosen the tension that had built up. A certain good friend of mine decided we should go play tennis together – something we hadn’t done in ages. It was relaxing and for the first time in these long two weeks I felt happy. It was as if all my frustration, anger and problems were locked out of the court and all that remained was the relaxed feeling of being free. I tried to explain how grateful I was to my friend for coming out and playing with me but all I could come up with was that it was appreciated. Appreciated doesn’t seem like the right word. In the end I guess it’s a feeling that can’t be described or put into words. I hope that she always finds someone there for her when she is in need of a friend.

It’s only 10 pm but already I feel the urge to sleep.. This will be one of the few times I give in easily to the urge without a mini-war.

I’m exhausted.

(Btw, this post really is number 111)

Thank God it's Thursday =)

And I thought last week was crazy! Ha ha.. HA. I have seen some sights this week and I seriously believe my eyes will never be the same again.. EVer!

One morning as I was sitting in the bus, waiting for it to pull off, I saw something quite big run into the street. It half flew, half ran. I saw wings so I knew it wasn't cat or dog but it was too big to be a normal pigeon or the other small birds one normally sees. It did it's cross run/fly thingie to the median in a very ackward way. It was now closer and I could see it was in fact a duck (cute black and white one). It was then that I noticed there were two guys chasing it. That duck worked them as it zig-zagged on and off the streets and both duck and guys were dangerously close to being hit by one of the passing by cars (there was no traffic so the cars were driving normally). Finally they chased the duck to the other side of the road out of sight. A few minutes later I saw them passby with the now captured duck. I really felt bad for the duck cuz the guy who caught it was obviously angry after having such a workout so early in the morning and was carrying the duck by its wings (ouch!).

That was the morning.. after my last class that afternoon I was walking to the school cafeteria to see if the day's menu looked appealing and I happened to pass by the lounge room. The lounge room is part of the cafeteria but instead of the normal lunch tables and chairs there are sofas and coffee tables (we're allowed to carry food in there if we want). Anywayz, for no explainable reason I decided to have a look inside as a passed.... I seriously thought my eyes had definitely seen everything when I first saw two girls "necking" (I mean that in a literal sense..they were in fact kissing each other "passionately" on the necks) on campus. But the day I peaked in the lounge room was even worse. I saw a girl actually LAYING on top of another girl! (They were with a group of other girls also sitting around on the sofas. The two guilty girls were fully clothed but it was still pretty sick to see).

The final for that day which was less than the first two but still not something I expected to see - especially not on campus - a SUV with two girls hanging on to the sides as the SUV sped down the road..

I have absolutely no doubt that the world is coming to an end....

The next morning as I walked to the bus my eyes were graced by a cat's tail - which was about 5 or 6 inches long- just laying on the floor. I considered taking a pic of it for you guys but I wouldn't wanna be flagged for such graphic depictions of "violence" on my blog.. I do wonder how that tail got detached from its owner though. It's been there in the same place for 3 days now. I see it every morning on my way to the bus.

That was the sights of this week (rather the major ones that burned themselves in my memory).. Study wise it was also pretty crazy. Some how the professors for Islamic Culture and Language Developement (hardcore British English grammar) both decided that today was the day that they definitely had to have their exams. Speech Comm exam was supposed to be on Tuesday but the Doc canceled cuz he had to invigilate another class' exam. In the end that meant Speech Comm exams fell on the next Speech Comm day - THURSDAY. So Tuesday evening was when it finally set into my thick head that I would have 3 exams come Thursday.

Couldn't make up my mind which exam I was dreading the most but Speech Comm and Language Dev were definitely in close competition. It was crazy.. one day - Wednesday- to study / prepare for 3 exams plus the weekly quiz we have in Lang. Prac.. (Even though my presentation for Speech Comm was ok and ready on Tuesday I wasn't happy with it and there was alot of room for improvement..) I had classes on Wednesday and got home at 2. Relaxed a bit and studied before I had to go to the club for tennis. Team practice and the coach was already moody with me for missing 2 days in a row (The first time I didn't feel like going and roasting in the sun cuz it was in the afternoon instead of early morning or evening. The second time I was legitimately sick and there was no way I could have gone). I carried my books got there 2 hours early (had to take my sis for skating practice) studied. practiced. studied some more till 10 pm and then finally left the club came home and studied some more till I fell asleep on my sofa with my laptop on my lap.

Before I left this morning I downloaded a few anime and J-Drama pics to add to my presentation. I studied some more in the bus. Opted to skip breakfast and cram in a couple of minutes more studying and do some last minute touchups on my slideshow. My classmate came and forced me to have something so I had one of my fave drinks (Chocolate Caramel latte thingie.. excellent source of caffeine) and a part of cheese manakish. By the time I looked at the clock again it was 5 mins to 9. No more time, islamic cul. is all the way on the other side of the campus in relation to the cafeteria I was sitting in.

Islamic wasn't that bad.. I think I might have studied enough - "might have". Next it was off to the quiz. Praise the Lord it was easy. The teacher pissed me off though. She asked a question and the answer was a word that meant to give us the wrong info when we are looking for a correct answer. She said it begins with a "M". I thought and thought and thought and the girls gave her all kinds of wrong answers. Finally I called out "misleads us to the answer" She frowned and said that none of us understood what she was trying to point out and that the answer was "Misguides".. took me a few minutes to realize that she had misunderstood what I had called out and thought I said "Ms. - leads us to the answer." (we call her Ms.). I swallowed it and decided better not to start problems over a simple misunderstanding. Lang. Prac. ended and it was off to Speech Comm exam (between each of these is only 10 mins which get used in transit to the next classroom) I was so dreading Speech Comm exam the most. I decided before I got there that I was so not going to be first. I needed time to collect myself. Thankfully when I got to the classroom one of my mates A.A.T was setting up her laptop and then she proceeded on and went first.

A.A.T is really shy and had said so in her intro presentation when we first started the course. She said lots of things in her intro speech about herself and how she feels about things. I so could relate with 95% of what she was saying I immediately took a liking to her though I was too shy myself to go and make friends with her. Anywayz, so she went first today and her speech was really good. Her presentation was of course informative (we were supposed to give informative speeches) her topic was Ice Swimming. The topic was ok and all and her presentation also looked ok but what really got me was how she presented. I could tell she was a bit nervous at the beginning (we have both done the same amount of speeches - 2 before today which made 3) but as she got into her presentation she got more and more confident and I guess that was the result of her ambition to do well. Some of my own nervousness started to melt away. If she can drum up that amount of confidence and present like that then so can I!

After A.A.T another girl went. I reviewed my flashcards (advice from the great one =P) and mentally went through my slides. The girl finished and I parted with my seat moving to the front to become the next victim..

Breath...breath. Cleared my throat (cuz last time I just started talking and ended up doing more squeaking than talking) and started with "Ohayo" (we have to start with something that would catch our audiences attention and we also have to greet them so I decided to kill two birds with one stone) I went through the mandatory brief overview of the presentation and then on to the introduction (I had placed pics of cartoons that aired here that they might have seen as kids) there were immediate gasps and suddenly the classroom was filled with nostalgic air - I had their full attention. At the beginning I kept thinking that A.A. did it and that if she could then so could I. Before I knew it, like Kath had said happens, I got really into my presentation so much so that I didn't have to look at my flashcards except for once - I actually enjoyed it. My mates also really enjoyed it. At the end of my last presentation I handed out brochure things that I had made. So one of the girls said she thought since the presentation was about anime that I'd hand out anime CDs, Lol. If I had thought about it I probably would have made some to hand out at the end.

Later one of my mates complimented me on my presentation. She said it was very good and she felt it was 'different' than the previous two presentations I gave. In the end I just needed confidence and a suitable topic I felt most comfortable with. My thanx to Kath for the topic idea, to BW for lending the manga books (visual aids get us extra points during presentations) and the biggest thanx to A.A.T.. I wish you guys all the best in ur studies - heck in everything =D

The last exam for today was Lang. Dev. I finished in about 30 mins and spent the remaining 30 revising my answers. Inshalla those answers were correct!

Gosh, it's only 11:40 PM but I'm already ready to crash.. Thank God it's THURSDAY!