Friday, August 27, 2010

please don't wake me, no

i wish my inner alarm clock could be turned off... or had a snooze button at the very least. after a chaotic day yesterday of barely sleeping, doing umrah, finishing 87% of packing, cleaning 93% of the house, going to eat at an aunt's house which entailed some cleaning up, more confusion than my tired head was ready for, and giant mugs of green tea that could probably feed half of the country, and then coming to the cousins' house which means walks to stores for snack shopping and hanging out with their nieces which requires more energy than you might think, and then making plans to go out and canceling those plans, and eating cheeseburgers at three in the morning with giant cups of pepsi even bigger than the green tea mugs, and then watching a movie up until a few minutes before 6 am... i just really wish i didnt have to wake up at 9:30 all the time. you know? at the moment, i feel fine, but i'm pretty sure the hours of non-sleep i am currently stacking up between today and yesterday will rear their ugly heads sooner or later. i'm going with sooner, too... like right when i need my energy the most because the two kids we're sitting with will more than likely multiply to six or eight by the end of the day. have you ever sat with eight kids each vying for your attention who want you to play/talk/sit with them and only them?? not as fun as the sudden rise in your popularity may seem.

anyway, two more days here before my sunday morning flight back home... or other home. and then i have a list of things i've been having shipped to my sister's to read and watch. and i have school to get started with and parking permits and ridiculously priced textbooks to buy. and there may be a few other big things brewing that may possibly give me a few interesting blog posts so that's something.

*I'm Only Sleeping - The Beatles

Monday, August 23, 2010

i hate packing. i really, truly do. and i hate thinking about the fact that i have to start packing. i heard somewhere that some people actually like packing. that they get some sort of enjoyment out of it or find some amusement in it or something. i think that someone should find these people and introduce them to the million other things they could be doing that are so much more enjoyable than packing. the list is long, ranging from being mauled by a starved lion to watching a movie to riding a roller coaster. i think the only thing worse than packing is folding clothes, and of course you often have to do that prior to packing so it pretty much just sucks all over.

instead of trying to organize my things and maybe get a head start on packing my bag, i am sitting here staring at my computer screen and thinking about sheep mentality. have you ever thought about just how many people get sucked into doing/thinking just how many things just because they've been deluded into thinking it's right because everyone else is doing it? (that is a long convoluted sentence that i don't feel like fixing so sorry.) i think it's important in life to remember that a lot of people agreeing on something does not make it true. for example, tattoos are stupid no matter how many people get them. leggings should not be worn as pants no matter how many people say otherwise. georgetown cupcakes are nowhere near the best cupcakes in the world no matter how many people swear to you they are. and you are never too old to color on a kid's menu no matter how many waiters make fun of you.

five days left of jeddah.
six days until we're back in america and doing the post-travel house clean.
seven days until i start what will hopefully be the last year of school ever ever ever in my entire life because i have finally gotten over whatever perverse enjoyment i used to get out of being a student.

it disgusts me how my mind insists on bringing everything back to the fact that summer is over and school is starting every five minutes.

Thursday, August 19, 2010

the things i never said

so there are a few things that i've been meaning to write out here but they have been reduced to notes written in drafts for so long that i dont really think any of them can hold their own in individual posts anymore. so here is a list of (some of) them:

[one] we had a crazy sandstorm the other day. like one second the sky was completely clear and the next there was thunder and lightning and you could barely see out the window because of all the dust blowing around. trees were practically touching the ground under its force. it lasted less than half an hour but the aftermath was crazy. there's this automall near our house which is basically like a big mall of car dealerships and stuff. lots of glass walls, as you can imagine. or, there used to be before the storm broke them all. billboards toppled over and signs were fallen. like the metal pole things that holds the signs were bent over so it looked like it had just fell. trash was everywhere too. anyway, lots of destruction and im not gonna list all of it now but it was crazy for such a short and sudden storm.

[two] while sleeping over at my cousins the other day (who had work from 9-1 in the morning) we spent a lot of time with their nieces who live with them. do you know how hard it is to do disney song kereoke when you've never heard the song before? they did not understand that reading the lyrics did not automatically mean you could sing the song. but it was still lots of fun. we also went down to the store and bought a bunch of drinks (which one of the nieces mixed together into a mixed drink of juices and soda which was good at first but after the fourth cup was making me sick but there was a lot and we had to finish it) and snacks and watched cloudy with a chance of meatballs in the dark. the next morning me and one of the nieces had woken up early and watched hannah montana for a couple of hours. all in all, it was two days of me being a complete teeny bopper.

[three] as if i couldnt be excited enough for august twenty fourth releases, i just found out that city island is also being released that day. i think it may very well become my favorite day of the year. so hannah, that is also being shipped to your house. it kinda sucks that im excited for all this stuff that i will not be getting until almost a week later. also, the fact that a large chunk of money will suddenly disappear from my bank account on that day when the preorders become orders is totally worth it.

[four] too many people have been telling me i look tired lately. it's the second thing said to me after "hi" and is getting kind of old. okay. i know i look tired. yes, i do sleep enough. stop rubbing it in my face. it's getting old.

[five] actually, i think that's enough pointlessness for today. plus, im getting tired of typing this while also trying to help my brother with his arabic homework. and i just taught my other brother long division which he totally got and did easily so i feel surprisingly accomplished today. oh, and school is like practically tomorrow. ugh.

*Things I Never Said - Deep Purple

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Scarlett: Oh, Rhett, Rhett please don't say that. I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry for everything.
Rhett: My darling, you're such a child. You think that by saying "I'm sorry," all the past can be corrected. Here, take my handkerchief. Never, at any crisis of your life, have I known you to have a handkerchief.
~
"i'm sorry" falling from your lips in the dark when i am barely awake does not make anything okay.

Saturday, August 14, 2010

everyone is sleeping, i'm just here on my own

my sister tells me that we're sleeping over at my cousins' yesterday so i throw some stuff together and after we break our fast at our uncle's we are dropped off here. partly due to waking up early and being tired and partly from feeling off for the past few days and partly from the fact that there were a few people also at the cousins' i wasnt too thrilled to see just then, i went to sleep ridiculously early. ridiculously. everyone else stayed up until around 4:30 or 5 to eat before starting today's fast. as a result of my old ladiness, i woke up at 7:20 while everyone was still sleeping. it is now almost nine and ive been sitting in the living room in the eerie quiet of the house broken only by the fan revolving on the ceiling, and i can't help but think, what was the point of this again??

at least if i was home i'd have my brothers for company and a pool for entertainment.

also, there are around two weeks left of this weird summer vacation ive been floating in for the past two months. i'm not sure if i'm happy about that or not.

also number two, there is around ten days until mockingjay and the LOST complete series dvd collection are coming out. i'm excited. mockingjay will be sent to my sister's house and you have until i get back to read it and are not allowed to talk to anyone about it until after i have read it. okay? okay.

well, im off to find amusement. wish me luck.

*Everyone is Sleeping - Little Birdy

Thursday, August 12, 2010

'why do you waste my time?' is the answer to the question on your mind

a couple days late, but happy ramadan people! this year we'll actually spend more than half of the month here, which is pretty awesome. and next year we'll probably be here for eid which means a lot more money than we get when we're all alone in america... and of course being with the family and stuff will be pretty cool too.

anyway, here are the past month's (i think?) formspring questions:

You're writing sounds forced. Like you are trying to use big words and be confusing to sound smart. And you always write the same thing, but just change it a littlw. You should stop trying to be a writer, because you are really bad and its not gonna work.
huh. well, to be perfectly honest, i think so too a lot of the time. thing is, that's not gonna get me to stop writing or posting what i write seeing as it's MY blog and all. the smart, mature thing for you to do would be to just not read what you don't like. the internet is a big place, i'm sure there's something better for you out there. but why do that when you can send anonymous hate messages, right?
oh, and for future reference: you're means you are, and its is the possessive form.

i wanna know who asked you about someone special.. probably the anonymous commenter..and i have no idea what A&A building you're talking about..
i dunno who asked.
and are you serious?? it has two giant red A's on it, and you have to pass it when you leave our house to go anywhere further into the city. i'm positive you know it.

LOL you're an idiot.. well guess what Hamza doesn't miss you.. he only misses A&A..
theres a building with a big red A&A on it here. you know the one?? that's what your comment reminded me of.

Is there some1 special in your life?
uh yeah... me.

Write about a serious time that seems funny in hind sight.
http://todefineistolimit.blogspot.com/2010/07/look-at-this-photograph-every-time-i-do.html

how much do you miss Hamza?
more than i do you.

yes i meant the formspring format....i liked the old format better.
i did too at first, but i'm used to the new one now.

Favorite piece of writing by Sylvia Plath?
gah i answered this twice and both times the connection ate my answer. here's a short version that i will fix later, maybe. poem: mad girl's love song. novel: the bell jar. other: her complete journals.

did the format change on its own or did you change it?
format of what exactly?? formspring changed a while ago on its own if that's what you mean. my blog hasnt changed in a year so i'm pretty sure that's not it.

*Sam's Town - The Killers

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

your indecisive mind shows me that you are just another girl

"If neurotic is wanting two mutually exclusive things at one and the same time, then I'm neurotic as hell. I'll be flying back and forth between one mutually exclusive thing and another for the rest of my days." 
~Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar, pg 76

the other day, i was convinced that i had never felt sure about a thing in my life. i didn't know what certainty felt like, had never tasted it, couldn't smell it. certainty just didnt exist for me. but now i think that i might have been wrong. maybe instead of never being sure, i'm just completely sure of too many things. do i want to work as a computer teacher at my old school? i'm sure i do and could be good at it. i'm sure i don't and think the school is going down the drain (or the students at least). do i want to get married? i am 100% certain yes and 100% certain no. i want to live on a beach and in the city. i want to travel the world and stay near my family. i want to devote all my time to writing and devote all my time to computer forensics. i want to go out and stay in. for almost everything i'm sure i want, i'm just as sure i want the opposite. but then again, maybe that's not the case with me.

this is why decisions are so impossible for me. i want everything so badly that killing off an option would kill me. there are times that i prefer having my decisions made for me because at least then, it won't be me closing the door on everything else. i will have one choice and make the best of it and be happy. i won't be second guessing myself and doubting my decision until the end of forever. sometimes it feels like there are just so many things i want with all my heart that choosing between them is impossible and at the end my indecisiveness will have caused me to lose all the opportunities. i just need to grit my teeth and choose.

"I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. 
From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out.
I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet."
~Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar, pg 62-3

*All Hail the Heartbreaker - The Spill Canvas

Sunday, August 8, 2010

just see how she makes them love her, twisting the world around her finger

[hey look a link to read.]

if you tell me that i stole your heart because i thought it would looksoundtaste pretty collecting dust in the back of my closet. if you say that i swallowed your happiness, your pain, your tears because i was never able to find any emotions of my own. if you tell me that i ran you off the edge of reason just to watch you as you fell. if you say that i took your breath away just to see how many shades of blue you'd turn. if you tell me that i asked for your dreams just to listen to the tinkling they made as they shattered. if you say that i electrocuted your nervous system because the sparks could keep the shadows away better than a night-light. if you tell me that i melted your spine and buckled your knees because it made me look taller. if you say that the bruises on your ego are the exact size of my fists.

if you tell me that i made you love me just because i could...

then i'd just smile and turn away because you'd be right.

*Truth Behind Her Smile - Culture Cab

you are such a fool to worry like you do

i'm exhaling cliches and forgetting to inhale, seeing diamonds sparkle in the night sky and eternity twinkle in your eye. but you think the stars look like scratches in the surface of every puddle and we can never see eye to eye when i'm looking up and you're looking down.

the poetry i paint down your spine and in the crook of your elbow and in the space between your fingers can never mean anything when you're illiterate and don't understand it anyway. you're finger-painting lollipop trees over the words and calling it art. you can't see the beauty in a slit wrist or the poetry in pooling blood and the glare of the tv you refuse to turn off is giving imagination a headache and making inspiration nauseous.

you're struggling to keep up and trying to dig your fingers into me to slow me down, but i slip from your grasp and laugh as you bend over panting for breath. i cut my teeth on the moon and swallowed the sun whole to feel it burning through my veins while you were busy coughing up your dreams and picking hopes out from between your teeth.

i'm grabbing your hand and jumping off buildings and not letting you gain the footing that you so desperately want. i'm pulling you under the ocean to look for the mermaids but you won't cut gills into the side of your neck and are trying to wipe the salt from your eyes. you're backpedaling and digging in your heels and pulling on the emergency break and talking about planting roots and calming down.

i'm letting the wind blow me over the horizon and not looking back to see you getting caught by time and measured for shackles.

*Stuck in a Moment - U2

Friday, August 6, 2010

i wanna watch you sleeping peaceful

i slept over at my cousins' house last night. when we were younger, our parents used to drop us off at their house in the beginning of the summer and we'd see them once a week until it was time to go back to america. now, we rarely sleep over and this summer hardly even get to see them. so when we do sleep over, they get super excited (because, yes, we really are that awesome). anyway, i wake up this morning and have the following conversation with my cousin:

her: did you sleep last night?
me: yeah.
her: did you snore?
me: uh.. i wouldn't know. i don't think so.
her: did you sleep on your stomach?
me: um yeah... why? how do you know?
her: cause i was watching you.
me: uh...
her: creepy, right?
me: just a little.

*Watch You Sleeping - Blue Foundation

what if i got it wrong

there is the vaguest whisper of a thought floating just outside the reach of my mind. i'm sure that if i could just grab it, it would be beautiful. i'm sure that it would be the very thing i've been waiting so long for. but it stays away, a flitting shadow, a faraway mist, and i'm left longing for something i don't even know. i'm missing something i've never had and nostalgic for a time that has never been. there is a gaping hole in me that i'm sure only it can fill, but no matter how far i stretch, it dances just a hair away. my finger tips graze it, but before i can fully wrap my mind around it, it's gone, and i'm left wondering 'what if...'

*What If - Coldplay

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

sometimes i wake up and i'm falling asleep

i've been sleeping ridiculous hours lately, but my dreams have been so stressful that i wake up from them more tired than i was going in. i wake up anxious. i haven't felt rested in weeks. i sleep seven or eight hours a night on average and then end up falling asleep the second i have a moment of still time. i just came back from my cousin's house. i slept the entire time i was there. the only time i saw them was when i was leaving to say bye, and one was already asleep. this has to stop because it is wasting the few moments that could possibly be confused with a summer vacation with pointless sleep. if i'm going to be exhausting myself, i'd much rather be awake for it. also, some of the dreams i dont even do anything in. everyone else is doing everything and i'm just stressing out and trying to get everything under control. the least my brain could do is let my dream self do something fun if it's going to be ruining my waking self's day. gosh.

*No More Keeping My Feet on the Ground - Coldplay

Monday, August 2, 2010

the possibilities keep walking in on me

do you ever get those days that you kinda wonder what you love about the screaming bratty children that you'd supposedly give your life for and think that maybe things would be really really better without them? yeah.

but i'm not gonna get into that. instead, let me tell you people about helen's bakery and how i am so jealous of this woman words cannot even begin to describe it. so after years of catering and selling her baked goods to cafes, helen (a friend of my mom's) finally opened her own bakery. yesterday, my sister and i went to see it for the first time. it is amazing. from the storefront you know it is going to be awesome. and then you go in and it's just so different from any of the other cafes around. it's bright and has a bookshelf with books you can read while drinking coffee (one of my favorite parts obviously) and is colorful and awesomely designed and decorated. anyway, looking at it i couldn't help think that that was exactly what i wanted my bookstore to be like (not the colors but the feel of it). and if helen could make a bakery that made you feel like you had been transported out of jeddah when you walked into it, then i could too. maybe. so moving to saudi arabia doesn't have to put an end to that if i still feel like doing it like i had originally thought. i was happy.

the other exciting thing from yesterday happened while looking through the most unorganized grocery store i have ever had the displeasure of entering. i came across jars of marmite, and after years of hearing about how australians live on the stuff and how great it is, i obviously had to try it. so i bought the smallest jar and my siblings and i tried it for dinner. i dunno if i was eating it wrong or something, but it was perfectly disgusting to me. my sister says it's probably an acquired taste but i could barely get the stuff down. if anyone who likes marmite reads this blog, i'd really love to know how you eat it because i still have a full jar of the stuff.

***Update:*** so apparently i was falling into an american stereotype and being completely ignorant of other countries. go figure. turns out, australians eat vegemite, not marmite. oops. that means, i still have to find it and try it. and marmite is still gross.

*Possibilities - Teddy Geiger