I had a pretty interesting conversation with my mother. She thinks since I am stable and happy, that maybe I should get out of the house more often and find Arab friends.

They are everywhere!

It’s so easy to find Arab girls who are in my age group to hang out with. So easy in this city, this country, this life time! NOT!

[Photo Source]

Mother: “Mona, why don’t you go out to restaurants with Arab friends and stuff?”

Me: “You want me to find Arab girls in my age group who want to be friends with me?”

Mother: “Sure. Why not?”

Me: “Yah, why would they even bother with a person like me?”

Mother: “Why, what is wrong with you?”

Me: “You are kidden? Where can I find Arab girls my age who are not married? Who would want to be friends with me? You know Arabs! If they are married or even engaged, and you are not, they don’t want to talk to you or be friends with you.”

Mother: “You know, you are right. Married Arab girls only have friends who are married. They don’t like to bring friends or hang out with friends that are not.”

Me: “Now you understand.”

Mother: “What about ‘Lisa’? Why doesn’t she come anymore or you talk to her?”

Me: “I don’t think she cares either. Why would she? I am living in another city, and she has friends over there that she can see more often. Why would she care anymore about me? She barely talks to me. Plus, what does it matter anymore? I am happy to have a job. I get out of the house. I am satisfied.”

Mother: “So you are gonna stay like this?”

Me: “I never complained. I got a job. I get out of the house half the day. That’s enough for me.”

Obviously she knows I will never get married, and now I gave her a confirmation that I am too old and no one in my Arab age group would be friends with me. Everyone moved on. This is the Arab Girl’s life who is not married by the time she is 25!

Blah Blah, Culture, Depressed, Random Thoughts, Ranting as usual!, They said what?, Whatever!

I can’t believe it, it has been one month since I have been employed! Wow, it feels just like yesterday I was complaining about the unfair working world, and my utter hate and evident depression of going to interviews.

Yesterday, some people wanted me to do a comparison between my old job, my time off, and my current job. Well then, this will be a long post! Be warned! I will be mocking and hating something from the past!

The Distant Past

When I first started this blog, I had a few reasons behind it. Obviously, all of you know what the main reason was, but that ended thank God; however, horribly. The second reason that somehow evolved on its own, was to complain about a job that I couldn’t stand. I had a job as a computer programmer for 6.5 years straight. From when I was 21 to 27 years of age.  Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t the pay per say. It was the unfair treatment between all the employees in one room, and co-workers that were arrogant show offs that I could not stand. After about 3 years into the job, I was going to work every day, and praying to God that no one will say anything stupid, selfish and beyond ridiculous for once. Not only that, most of them didn’t do any work. They were there because they were there. What’s the odd of firing people that kiss ass all day, and deliver a Monet software product? Most of our software products had no real hard deadlines, and kept being worked on for years and years? Job security? You think!?

Moreover, I hate sucking up to people. I hate it, hate it, hate it! I feel that I am kissing someone’s shoe when I do that. It’s disgusting. I feel that I am lowering my values and intelligence for someone who is not worth my time of day, and I could never benefit from in the future. To tell you the truth, that last part seems selfish, but there is a difference between friendships and friends for benefits. You can tell that type of friendship right away, and I will tell you eventually in this post how I started hating that particular type of friendship altogether.

So, if you have been an avid reader of my blog for at least three years or so, you would have noticed some posts about my old job. However, those posts were removed after a day or two. It took my brain that long to realize that, oh no, I am gonna get fired! My most regretful mistake at the time was telling some people about my blog, hence, my boss and certain co-workers that read it. I was sure they didn’t read it daily, and that saved my ass! However, I told them because I felt there was a trust, and I really didn’t care at the time. Unfortunately, over time, I just couldn’t hold my anger at all. There were some days when I went home crying and telling my self, that’s it, I am gonna resign tomorrow!

And three years later, I had the guts to do it! The suffering though throughout that time was not fun. I had a serious problem with my co-workers. I did not like any of them, and I had reasons that would have made anyone dumbfounded by my patience and tolerance of such behaviors.  I probably never complained about them directly to my boss, or bothered, because it was a favorites game, and I didn’t want to be a part of it. Hence, the world of IT managers is pointless! They do nothing but hold a title! Anyways, so, some of my x-co-workers over time called me fat, over weight, ugly, stupid coder, I get paid the most with full benefits and you don’t loser, ugly designer, stupid Palestinian and you should go back to your home land, and the list goes on.

I never mentioned these problems, because I decided that I rather take advantage of the stupid job. Like work part time at a full time salary, and take courses while I am at work. What job would have let me leave once or twice a day for an hour or two hour lecture? When the whole place was unfair and messed up, then anything ridiculous to the normal working work is tolerated.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to seem like I am one of those ungrateful people who should be thankful for having a job for that long. On the contrary, I benefited a lot from the job. I learned what type of people to avoid in any work place, to never be personal and overly friendly with anyone, and just do my work and keep enhancing my skills on my own.

That’s all I learned really from being there.

[source]

Self-Forced Vacation Time

I had to resign. I had to resign with my head high, and when every single ounce of patience within me has evaporated to thin air! August of 2008, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I was having serious physical problems such as the famous uncontrollable heart palpitations that creeps up on me every now and then. Don’t even get me started on the psychological problems I was having for all those years. When I resigned, I felt that the world was my oyster! I did it, and I was more proud of resigning from that job than earning a Bachelor of Science degree from a famous Canadian University! I was seriously hoping for a standing ovation, and a song to be sang with the title, “Mona rules, and takes shit from no one!”

Therefore, I resigned, and I took a vacation. However, my vacation after the month of January of this year seemed to have escalated into boredom and my parents said STOP BEING A LAZY ASS, and I felt that I needed to be useful to the world. I decided that maybe I should look for a job while I worked full time as a blogger making some money from this little venture. So, I spiced up that resume, and told some companies, “Yo computer peepz! I need a job, I got the skills, so do you want me to come and work for ya?”

After a time span of conception to birth, I got a job. People have labeled me as the most patient complaining person on earth! People said, “Mona, get a job, ANY JOB!” Mona said, “I am not desperate yet! I got money in the bank for two more years and I love to complain!”

Therefore, self-forced vacation time was the best time in my life. I learned patience. I learned what I wanted from life. I figured out that being a highly skilled programmer with eccentric design skills, is better than trying to reach over the top heights so quickly. Also, being lead by some incompetent IT manager who only knew how to talk and get people to like him or her, was not on my list of future tolerated jobs.

Let’s talk about friendships now. You see, I cannot have fake friendships, and I don’t even want to seem as the fake friend. I believe friendships are meaningful, and you feel that person can understand you and accepts you for who you are. Also, that friend should not question everything you say and your lifestyle, and does not act like they are better than you and know more, and force feed you unwanted advice. When you have a friend that you feel that you need a friendship only to benefit from, then that friendship will never last. Eventually, you will start distancing your self from them, and realizing that they don’t care anyways. They will only remember you when they realize that oh, “Where’s Mona this month?”

Current Blissful State of Mind

After a month into the job, I couldn’t be happier. I don’t have an IT manager. Thank the almighty Lord for my request! My bosses are the owners of a small successful business of a particular professional niche. Everyone is treated equally. Everyone is respectful and educated. Everyone is too busy, do incredible amount of work per day, and I don’t feel like the odd one out. Everyone is nice, and says hi to me every day with a smile. Also, they want to converse with me and tell me cute stories about the weather. I don’t care if they interrupt me while I am working. I love working with people around me while I am coding. When I concentrate too much, I feel lost in a brain of Mona with many mazes. They help me get out of that with their minor interruptions.

Therefore, I work with cute busy-bee people!

Oh, did I mention the free coffee? I was sold on that one, and I had no excuse to argue salary expectations with them. Just give a programmer free coffee, and they are sold on anything!

Joy to the world, I got a kick ass sweet job! Amen!

Angry, Blah Blah, Confused, Depressed, Funny, Happy, Idiots, Random Thoughts, Ranting as usual!, They said what?, Whatever!

Occipital bone, lobe, internal, external, tissues, inion, squama, Grey’s Anatomy, etc. All those small words may mean something to you or not, but means a lot to me. Especially since I enjoy reading more about human physiology, then normalizing a MySQL database, and having the best time complexity in my algorithm.

I feel like I am betraying my profession, but I was a Biology major for 2 years before I switched into this endeavor. Today, I spent my afternoon searching why my skull has a little rigid area with too much depth near the neck. Somehow I ended up reading the evolution of the human skull through time, biological Anthropology papers (which I took a course in in University), and histology. I was more drawn to it. I kept reading, looking at diagrams, reading research papers, etc for over two hours. I really killed my afternoon. I was bored, fasting, and I didn’t have any energy to do anything productive. Well, reading is productive no?

As I was reading and enjoying my time learning about human physiology and histology, I felt utter regret of my life. I asked my self a million questions about my past, and the mistakes that I made. I don’t know why I went to major in Computer Science. I didn’t even like it that much. Well, I like programming, and making user interfaces a lot nicer and easier to use, but I hated the theory. The advanced pure mathematics that I had to study along side of it actually kept me sane, because I love math. However, I just kept thinking, what would I have been like now if I did continue studying Biology?

I guess when you are fresh out of highschool, you have certain dreams and aspirations. Unfortunately, as time passes, your mind wonders into different possibilities and think other possibilities are better for your future. Don’t get me wrong, I loved computers at the same time. I loved making websites from the time the internet was a toddler still, and not many people knew what it was. However, I love science more. I like human physiology, learning about diseases and abnormalities. I love the history and genetics. I am looking back now to the year 1999 when I finished highschool and just entered University, and kept thinking, “Wow. I wish I can go back in time and slap my self silly to even have considered studying anything else. I could be doing my PhD now researching a cure for Cancer or something like that!”

Now, I am sort of stuck being a computer geek. I like it, but what did I get out of it? Look at me now. I have been unemployed for almost a year. I feel stressed out all the time, very depressed and extremely moody, my hair is rapidly turning gray, and I am not happy with my life. I try to start my own internet projects, and I have so many ideas that are unbelievable and could be the next big thing! However, I cannot sit down on the computer anymore for more than an hour without thinking to my self, “Is this my life? When can I start helping humanity out?”

My old job was a bit more humanitarian, because I made software for children with hearing problems. However, now, who am I helping? What’s my purpose?

I need to seriously get my self motivated again. People don’t have jobs anymore, and more and more people are stuck in a rut like me. I got to make the most out of my professional knowledge, and start something big soon. I need a real job again, with a real monthly pay cheque and even more. What do I lack expect motivation? The past is gone, I went off tangent, and I got to keep on walking that way. It’s a one way street now to the technology unknown. I hope the internet world will be kind to me, because people like me, and I know a lot, are not happy. We are tired, and we need to stop saying, “What if?” and start saying, “What can I do next?”

Advice, Blah Blah, Confused, Depressed, Random Thoughts, Ranting as usual!, Whatever!

Ladies and gentleman! Arabs and non-Arabs! I have returned home and writing from my beloved blog office!

Yeah baby yah!

The Goodbye

I hate saying good byes, especially when my 2 year old niece starts crying her lungs out and keeps calling my name. “Mona, Mooonaa.. MOOOONAA!!” My heart stopped, and I tried not to cry at the bag check in. It was just horrible. Now you guys know why I don’t like trips sometimes, or having to deal with such situations.

It can get a bit worse you know

On a lighter note, but is actually at a different tangent then saying good byes, something ALWAYS has to happen to me on a plane! Seriously, if I hear the word turbulence one more time, I am going to have a major anxiety attack. Coming from Calgary to London was the biggest and longest flight that I had to ever endure in Canada. It was awful! Above the province of Alberta, it was crazy weather. The plane wouldn’t stop shaking. It got to one point where I didn’t tighten the seat belt enough, that I felt my body lift up from the chair. My sister was going to cry and kept holding my hand in those awful seconds.

Then, when we were above the US State of Minnesota, more crazy turbulence. I didn’t understand how people were sleeping on the plane. The flight was late to leave anyways, it was delayed till 1:15 am local time, and we were supposed to land around 7 am in London local time. However, we reached London at 9:30 am. Ask me why? SURE! I will tell you why, and maybe if you were following my Twitter this morning, I sort of said why. This morning, we landed in Toronto to fill up gas!

A plane filling up gas 200 km further then its destination?

If you are still asking your self what the hell, then I will give you a simple answer, LONDON WEATHER IS HORRIBLE! If it is not raining, it is hot and humid. This humidity and crazy hot weather causes severe fog in the mornings. However, you ask your self, Gas? Weather? Umm? Mona, do tell us!

Ok, here it goes. We flew around London 6 or 7 times in circles. The captain was not allowed to land in London Ontario International Airport, and had to wait 30 minutes till the weather cleared up. Then, after 30 minutes, the captain said, “we will try to land. We were told the weather is permissible and cleared up a bit.” We looked out the window, the flaps of the wings got into position, we dropped in elevation, the plane barely touched the clouds, and two seconds later, VOOM! Accelerated upwards so fast and flew higher up! I felt I was in a rocket ship! I am like great, can’t land! Clouds are too thick and no visibility.

No message from the captain on the intercom. Nothing! I was like, umm, we are way higher up now than before. After ten minutes, the captain goes on the intercom and says, “Umm, we have bad news. We are going to land in Toronto’s Pearson International Airport because we can’t land in London, and we are running out of gas.”

You all know what went on my head in that very second! @#!@$#@!!@$!

After one minute, we saw Toronto’s CN Tower, and I thought, “yah, took him that long to spill it out that we are in Toronto. Someone would have panicked looking outside within a second of seeing that!”

So, we landed at the Toronto airport. However, we did not land in the domestic flights area, but in the international section. The captain came on the intercom and said, “well, we are in Toronto, but in the international section because we couldn’t land anywhere else. And none of you can get off the plane in this area anyways. So wait till more news.”

“Oh GREAT,” I thought. “I am in Toronto, and was supposed to be at home by now! I AM TIRED! NO sleep! I am scared shitless and I HATE planes!”

Fifteen or twenty minutes pass, and the captain comes on the intercom and says, “I would tell you guys Welcome to Toronto, but I don’t want to be here and none of you do either. We are going to fill up gas now, and be on our way back to London.”

Wohooo!!

The flight took 20 minutes, and we landed in London’s humid weather around 9:30 am. My hair went kaboom in two seconds!

The mother is back!

When we got home, mom started lecturing me on work, and told me to go study something else, or something extra, or whatever. I got instantly mad, since I have only been in the house for like fifteen minutes, and I said, “Listen, I don’t want to spend money now on more courses or whatever. I don’t have an income. The plan backfired mom. I need to start something on my own. There are no jobs. The economy is horrible. People are losing jobs left and right, and I am sick of going to interviews in companies where the owners are jack asses who had a simple plan, and became rich off of it. I am ten times smarter then them, and I am sick of this life and all this job hunting crap. No one wants to hire me! I will HIRE MY SELF!”

Mom wouldn’t stop arguing back, and from the lack of sleep and no food, I couldn’t move anymore. Then, I felt dizzy and extremely light headed. Unfortunately, the worst thing happened, and I was hoping I would not experience that again. I starting having uncontrollable heart palpitation. Did I tell you guys that I will die from a heart attack soon? I give my self another 10 years. Give or take a few if I CONTROL my ANGER!

So, I went to the living room and put my hand on my chest, and I tried 4 or 5 times to take deep breaths. The awful plane ride, the crazy weather, and crazy mother, have really put me on the edge. I stayed calm, and after a minute or two, my heart beats went back to normal. I think I had a lack of oxygen in my system.

Anyways, enough is enough. I am back, and ready to take over the world. One blog post at a time.

Blah Blah, Confused, Depressed, Thank you, They said what?, Travel, Whatever!

I am one of those people who do not use Facebook personally. I only use it for this blog, but my real account, with real people I know and relatives, I deactivated. So my involvement with that part of my world is non-existent because I don’t want to bother with them in this stage of my life. However, some news of some people related to me is not something I wanted to hear at all.

My brother said, “You know our so and so cousins in the US are no longer Muslim? They are Christian now and that’s the religion they have on their Facebook.”

I shockingly said, “You are kidden me right?”

My brother said, “I suspect they eat pork now too, and that’s not including the drinking. I think I glimpsed them doing so in a picture on their Facebook albums.”

I said, “Well, we lived with them and know how they were raised. That’s what happens when you are raised wrong and your step-mom is American and didn’t care to convert. Also they don’t know a word of Arabic. But changed their religion? Seriously?”

My brother said, “Yep, can you imagine how the family would feel if they found out, especially Grandma in Beirut?”

I said, “I am not saying anything. It is sad. Very sad and such a shame to the family.”

Blah Blah, Confused, Culture, Depressed, Idiots, Religion, They said what?, Whatever!