One thing leads to another

Ever notice how just one thing that puts you in a bad mood for a few hours will turn into a whole week of Murphy's law? (Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong). 

   I have a quick and really bad temper, and it started with an Irish classmate from here telling me that he was in contact with the Irish ambassador to here and she wanted to have lunch with the Irish students who were studying here to get to know them. Sounds cool right? Little did I know what a complete waste of time it was going to be, because long story short he had messed up, told her he wasn't going to be able to make it and only decided to tell me this the night before. That as small as it may seem got me temper fired up because of all the other things that have been adding up to it, mainly;

   My left shoulder is in bits(pretty certain it's the same injury I had a few years ago, to which I didn't finish my antibiotics for, is coming back again), my throat is still soar because of the swollen tonsils (For the first time in my life I have tonsillitis) I've had for the last month to which my father continues to tell me will be fine, and leave them be, my eye is soar and red for no reason, I'm starving because all I've had to eat is coke and two cups of tea because I have no money left on my account and when I tried to ask my sister if dad has sent me money she got annoyed hung up on me cause I didn't want to go on skype cause I was already in a bad mood from my phone not working, and the fact that I haven't had a proper nights sleep for a week (because of the yet again number of exams I have) resulting in me sleeping during the day but being interrupted every time by the loud banging on the door coming from the bin man looking for my neighbour. And all I wanted to do was talk to two people about it both of whom chose to ditch me, so I turned off my phone, signed out of facebook, skype and msn. Locked myself in my room and sat down reading all the book blogs I've recently found out about. To of no avail I'm still in a bad mood and until one of these problems is solved it doesn't look like it's going to change. Still I'm going to go to sleep optimistic, maybe tomorrow things will change for the better?

 

Cynical Thoughts

I'm feeling very cynical today. Two things I learnt today

1. Being polite might make you feel like a better person, but it doesn't get you far in life
2. Stupidity, ignorance and rudeness is the devils temptation for people who are trying to control their temper

“Treat people the way you want to be treated, talk to people the way you want to be talked to, respect will get you respect” is the biggest load of crap I've heard and just an earnest dream.

Life is like a game of “the weakest link” wherever you are in life you'll be a team but don't forget it's a competition, if you're dragging down the team you'll be dropped so learn to pull your own weight. Cause there are only two people in this world you can truly count on no matter what; yourself and God.  

Observant People

You feel so significant in this world when these two questions are asked to you in one day

“Is it your birthday close?”Asked by someone I see on a daily basis

“Where you in class today? “ Asked by the person I met before class and we walked around trying to figure out where the class was today.

One day I will stop being so polite and just say to people what's REALLY on my mind.

Assumptions & Heritage

I just finished reading one of the posts from one of the blogs I follow, and it was all about how they get paranoid about when people asked about her heritage, and it made me think of why I've been getting angry lately.

        So I'm Sudanese, and for a long time I had a problem actually admitting that to people because I thought they would make assumptions about me, but as soon as I did that’s exactly what happened. Living here out in Europe means that my Arabic isn't as good as it should be, and while I was in school that was never a problem because the majority of my friends were “white” and even the ones that weren’t I spoke English with. But here in university, there are a lot of Arabs who actually come from Arab countries directly, and to say I was embarrassed to speak to them in Arabic at first is an understatement .But what made it worse was the majority of Arabs here come from one particular Arab country (I'm not going to mention it by name) And these people are the most patriotic people I have ever met, not that I care but when the extent of patriotism is to the degree where they think that there country is better, and they are better than all the Arabs, and insist that they do not speak Arabic but instead but their own language ( Not Arabic with a different accent, but a different language, even when they clearly are speaking Arabic!)

        It has gotten to the stage where I'm going against my own principle and hating most people from this country. The reason for it? I know that not all of them are like this, but the MAJORITY of them here are so arrogant, and when I first met them and they spoke to me in Arabic it took me a while to understand their accent, because at the time I only understood the Egyptian and my own accent. This resulted in them assuming that I couldn't speak Arabic, and then I felt like they were labelling me as the “wannabe Arab”, so I started making an effort only to have them make fun of my dialect . And even though they may have be joking, it resulted in me getting paranoid about my Arabic and now I only speaking with a few who I feel comfortable enough around.

        My (unwilling) hatred of these particular Arab people grew because on a few occasions they would be surprised that I could actually even understand Arabic because they “didn't know Sudanese people spoke Arabic” That would just get me even more paranoid cause it made me wonder if other Arabs saw us as Arabs or Africans? Because when you think of Egyptians, most people would call them Arabs. It's not that I have an problem about being either Arab or African, it's that it added to my many questions I had about my own identity, heritage, background and lingering question of where my home really is. And always reminded me of one of my most hated questions “where are you from?”

        I can't say I'm Saudi because even though it feels like home, Saudis would never consider me as one of them , I don't even have a Saudi passport. The two passports that I do have say that I'm both Sudanese and Irish, but there are times in Sudan when I feel like a foreigner because of my inability to express myself properly in Arabic or my lack of knowledge about my family history and culture, and yet I can't say I'm Irish because even if my accent can fool you I don't look like an Irish person.

        So what is the answer to that question? I guess for now I can only say that I'm from planet earth, on the other hand the Lithuanian here seem to always think I'm Indian! 

Egyptian Freedom

To all the Egyptian people out there, I could not be more proud to say that we are neighbours!  I, like the millions of people around the world was following the events in Egypt and when the news finally came on February 11^th, this song was playing in my room for days afterwards.

It honestly makes you believe that there is hope,  that people can unite together against one cause and actually win. It takes the meaning of the phrase “people power” to a whole new level!

Mabrouk le kolee masr! 

Sometimes with the best intentions

the best decisions that we make

turn to be the one mistake

we spend the rest of our lives

regretting

My own quote ©

Look away or pay attention?

This morning we had a class about diagnosis of different diseases and how to exam a patient. One of the guys was volunteered to be the “patient” for our teacher to explain to us how to do it, he was told to lift his shirt and as he did so I didn't know what to do . As I did I realised I was being stupid, because I'm going to have to get used to looking at naked people and examining them myself. Which got me thinking, if it usually frowned on for hijabi girls to hug guys why has there no one be complaining about them being doctors? After all there they have to do full body examination. While I know that in places like Saudia it's probably forbidden ( I think?) for female doctors to treat males , I don't know the law for other Islamic countries. When I really think about it though, it doesn't really bother me all that much because;

1. This is the life I chose
2. I've grown up here in Europe ,in an environment where being in contact with other guys is inevitable.

Don't get me wrong I tried for a while to not have any contact with other men, but in the Sudanese culture it is a custom to shake hands, and then when I came to university I hugged other guys because I know that for me it means nothing only me being friendly. What I'm wondering about is how other hijabi(doctor/non-doctor) who choose not to have any contact with other men, how do they deal with these situations? Anyone out there?