I am suffering from an all time phase of depression. It’s good that I can wake up in the morning and still go to work. In the meantime, my posting will be limited, and it has been for the past week cause I can’t get words out of my mouth anymore. I am just really tired and my head is spinning in a million directions.

In the meantime, read my old posts. See how my life went down, more down, ultimately down, and barely picking up. This blog is a vault of random buried thoughts.

Oh how I long for the day when things completely change in my life.

It’s that time of year again. Sorry I was late in notifying, again, but here goes it! Since so many people celebrate St. Patty’s day tomorrow and all, I declared March 16 to be Kiss Me I am Arab Day!! Come on, don’t be shy. Share the Arab love with everyone!!

Wear your t-shirt with pride!

On a side note, some people asked me to make some t-shirts that say Rebellious Arab or anything Arab related, but my life is hectic as it is. Maybe some day I will! Until then, I am sticking with online virtual ones. lol

Kiss me! Kiss them! Kiss every one of them and share some good stories and a sheesha or two!

Poll!!

I saw a very good commercial today on TV from values.com. Click to watch video. The site has inspirational quotes and ideas to help everyone live their life in a more positive manner.

The commercial presented an angry man at his day job at a deli who couldn’t stand dealing with people and the customers. He was just having a bad day, and then a man came up to him and told him, “Hey excuse me!” The angry man said screaming, “WHAT!” The other man said, “Great sandwich! Thanks!” That instantly turned the man to a completely different person with a smile on his face. Some one complimented him today and his whole day changed!

The commercial affected me a lot, because I need a boost of confidence since I have been feeling so low about my life and the life of this blog. Therefore, when I feel like I had enough and I just can’t take it anymore, good positive people pop out of no where to put a smile on my face.

I received this email a couple of days ago from a lovely lady that complimented me and brought up a lot of good points about Arab life.

She said the following,

Gosh, how refreshing it is to see an Arab girl stepping out and sharing her mind. I’m not Arab, but my husband is. He’s very modern and a great father, I love him. But it saddens me that although I live in an area with tons of muslims/arabs, I don’t have any Arab female friends. In fact, when I go to the mosque, or their community events, I am avoided like the plague. I’m a very modest, very articulate and cultured woman. I dress respectfully and even wear a hijab when I enter the mosque.

So I always ask my husband – what is up with this?? I tire when I hear muslims in the USA complain that they aren’t treated well, but they don’t try to be a part of society. If they would live outside of their little boxes, get to know their neighbors and coworkers, maybe the general Americans opinion of them would change for the good. (Same goes for Canada or any country they have exported themselves to.) I love my husband and his family is wonderful to me. It’s just something I wish the Arab culture would change about themselves for the betterment of the global community.

Ok that rant said – you’re adorable and I love your posts. Keep it coming. There is no sin in expressing your thoughts – otherwise Allah would have created women to be robots that simply cook, clean, and give their husband sexual satisfaction without the work of thinking so much. Wake up world!

Now, I want to discuss her first point about the way Arabs perceive non-Arabs, and how they seclude themselves or think they are better than everyone else. I don’t know what to say. I have seen it. I know lots of non-Arabs that have been through this and have emailed me about it. Why does the Arab culture do this to non-Arabs? I don’t know. They will never accept the difference. Look at me. I am the most unique example out there. I am an Arab with a slightly (180 degree) different opinion that 95% of the Arabs, and I am hated and ridiculed by my Arab culture. The 5% who are like me somehow found their way to my blog, and end up sending me compliments or stories of how similar their lives and opinions are. Good to know. It’s really good to know I am not alone in this world.

Anyways, I can’t solve this huge problem, but I can help by voicing my opinion and tell Arabs that they need to accept the differences. God doesn’t judge Arabs differently than non-Arabs. We are all human beings in the end. Same goes for non-Arabs that think that way too. We are all the same and need to learn to live together and accept the DIFFERENCES!

Put a smile on someone’s face today. Point out the positives and compliment them.

This is the second part of yesterday’s post.. or in other words, today’s latest events. Ok, so this is what happened today! I went to work early, like always. So one of the guys came in soon after me and discussed what happened in yesterday’s meeting. I told him other things that have been going on and he told me, “Don’t worry about it. Just learn to say no.”

About 15 minutes later, I had to step out. I came back within 10 minutes, and the moment I got off the elevator, I could hear a loud women’s voice arguing. You must know, that the office suite is one of three on that floor. If I could hear her right off the elevator, then anyone else can.

I heard the raging voice, and I quickly ran down the hall way to another quicker access door to where my desk is. (The bosses are not there from today and all of next week). Then I told the other programmer, she is at the front angry and won’t stop complaining. He said, “Why?” I told him, “Don’t you remember yesterday?” (He doesn’t care at all really.)

I sat quietly on my desk working with my headphone on and groovy Mona music. Few minutes later, she raged down the hall with a frantic voice and said, “Good morning! This is the new tech support lady!”

When I heard that, I refused to answer back or even bother with her. She scares the hell out of me. I don’t understand her problem. She works in a small company that is quickly turning its focus to software only, and she is supposedly managing the customers. Why does she complain? She doesn’t even have to do anything technical at all. The work has been delegated equally to everyone that has the knowledge and experience to do it. Her job is to take off the load from me when people ask me stupid questions about how to find this in the software or do you have this yet? She does not understand that, and she thinks she is doing the “technical” part now.

She refused to talk to me most of the day, like I did something horrible to her. I didn’t do shit. All I know I was hired for one very important thing that is pretty much keeping the place alive and keeping her job. She just wanted to take advantage of me because I am nice and responsive. Now her scapegoat (me) is no longer available!

Technical to me means something totally different. To me technical is understanding technology and how it works. To me technical is solving complicated technical problems from years of experience and practice. To me technical is trying to figure out bugs, and quickly solving them in order for someone else to continue on using the technical product. That’s it!

You see, this is life. The majority of people who have a job are incompetent fools. Or they are people who only know how to do one thing, and do not ever want to learn or refuse to learn anything new. They are stationary in their fields, and to them change is a big stumbling block to their life! They hate it. They don’t want to do it, and they argue any way they can to not have to do it.

Unfortunately, if you are not ready for what will happen next week, then yesterday seems like last year in this rapidly moving world.

I didn’t complain at work. I didn’t do anything. People observe and see that I am getting beyond stressed. The company is growing so fast, and there are only two programmers, me and another guy. Not only that, somehow when I started this job, I automatically was thought of as the Technical Customer Support by computer illiterate women without the bosses knowledge.

Did I go to school to become a technical support? Did I even accept this job as a technical support to customers and illiterate computer women at work? No. They just kept piling the work on me and make me do it because I was the only one responsive. I was polite and I never said no. That’s my problem, I don’t tell people to back off because I have more important things to get done.

So today, we finally had the “meeting.” Oh, some old bitchy women were not happy with the decision. The bosses said, “Mona is no longer doing technical support at all unless it is critical.” In my head I was like YES! God answered my prayers and I am back to doing what I was hired to do. You guys should have seen me yesterday at work. Oh my Lord! My blood pressure was up the roof. I got a very bad migraine and I couldn’t see anymore. I could feel my hair turning gray from all the stress. I was about to explode.

Later in the meeting, one of the bosses said, “The problem is that you guys are taking advantage of Mona because she is PLEASANT and always says YES! She is very polite.”

See people! This is me in real life. I am very quite. I never say no and very nice to everyone. You guys should see me on the phone. The customers bitch at the women at work with their problems, but once they give up and tell me to talk to them instead, then the customers have a totally different tone. The customers love me and always say before they say good bye, “Thanks Doll!” Or they say, “Your amazing and that was so easy!” Or they say, “You are peach!”

I could be the customer support and nice to people all the time, and I am very successful at it, but I am a programmer. I like to think and problem solve.

Back to normal.. for now! However, the bosses will be away for a week.. I am scared!

I don’t care about nasty emails or nasty comments. I am immune to them and I don’t care who wrote them. I placed a big bold message on my contact page a long time ago that says that if you insult me, then I will publicly display it. If you posted the wrong email address, then you have wasted my time. Can you imagine if someone did both? It is like a hit and run situation thinking that they will never get caught.

A lot of people think outside of the box, which is great, and they pointed out different possibilities from the previous post. That is fine, except you guys missed the bigger picture. I do not purposely provoke people to reach this level of personal insults. I don’t do it to get attention. Some said that I don’t deserve it. Most people judge me from one post, and I got used to it. People cannot accept the difference, and I am very different.

You guys think I just get nasty emails or horrible comments? Think again. Many websites and forums discuss my “teenage immature writing style” by emphasizing the very old posts that caused and still causing a commotion. I just write this way. I don’t think hard and try to come up with sophisticated attention grabbing posts. That is never my intention when I write. I just write what is on my mind, and my mind is an infinite sized mass of ideas.

Let’s think outside the box for a bit and discuss an important issue. You see, many people think when I write about Canada, that I hate being an Arab and forgot my roots. If I write about being an Arab and loving it, then people think I don’t appreciate the land that I live in now with the “better” life, and I have to thank God because many people back home don’t have food and water. There is no happy medium. No one is ever satisfied with my way of thinking or living.

I discussed a very important subject with my mother yesterday. I asked her, “Why are Arabs back home in the Arab world have serious dislike to Arabs living here?” She said, “They are just jealous and resentful of the Arabs here. The moment they get a Visa or are accepted for immigration, they will leave everything behind such as: family, friends, and loved ones without hesitating to look back. It’s the land of opportunity and it is worth it! Some of us wish to go back home and live there, but we were kicked out and told to leave our homes. It’s not like we had a choice to be here. We are lucky someone accepted us to live a peaceful life with human rights.”

While I was snooping the internet searching for the essence of my Rebellious name online, all I found was mostly negative feedback from Arabs back home toward me. They hate my site. They call me names. They ridicule me and make an instant judgment that I live in USA and that’s why my thought process is like “this.” Not like there is no other Westernized country in the world that speaks English other than USA. No no.. Auto-Arab-Judgment. Speaks fluent English: USA. Has absurd but truthful ideas: westernized Arab in USA. Totally unashamed to speak the truth: totally USA.

I learned to accept the difference and move on, why didn’t you?

I just woke up and checked my lovely emails, and one was so straight forward and to the point, that I had to post it on my blog.

Actually, I have to post it because I tried to reply to this person, but it seems they misspelled their email or something.

Your Name: zaher
Email: lacoperon@fastpost.net
Website: http://
Message:
I am an Arab, and I think that you are a brainwashed and superficial lady, with no dignity or honor. You are a disgrace to your people and culture. Please go to Hell soon.

He asked me nicely to go to Hell soon. He said Please! All I wanted to reply saying, “See you there soon too!”

My dad pointed out that we have arrived to Canada 13 years ago today. Add that to the 5 years I lived in USA, and you got a legal age! Yep, I have been living outside of the Arab world officially for 18 years. I am officially legally westernized.

Oh dear, I cannot believe it. 13 years in this country and I spent around 12 years of it complaining. You have to realize that I had a personal website live on the inter-web back then. That’s how much of a loser I was. I wrote poems (complaining about my life), shared favourite actors pictures (Brad Pitt, Antonio Banderas, Bruce Willis, etc), and the best thing of all, I was in still in highschool studying the process of photosynthesis and the detailed stages of meiosis.

Was I destined to be a programmer? Was I destined to complain all my life? I keep telling a lady at work that all I do is complain. I just love it, and I find fault in everything. I just love perfection and being super organized. I get a headache when there is chaos and disorganization.

Therefore, I should be thankful that a country accepted us as citizens. The funny thing that 13 years ago, when I arrived to this land, it was written in my immigration papers that my country of birth nationality was the following: Stateless. I was a gal without a country. Now, I got a second beautiful home, and a beautiful story and love of my Palestinian country and ancestors to share with the world.

Isn’t it funny that a person would admit that there is something wrong with them?

Would you admit to the world if something is wrong with you?

The Disruptive Sleeping Patterns

So here it goes. I am a mentally disturbed person, and it is getting worse daily with my lack of sleep. I sleep for about 4 hours a day now. Why? I have no clue. I just wake up in the middle of the night and can’t go back to sleep.

Yesterday night, I woke up at 2 am and I tried to close my eyes again and doze off, then I had a weird feeling that someone is shoving me and I woke up again! I know, I am mentally disturbed. The problem is that I go to work half asleep and the high dosage of caffeine is not helping.

Bitter Thoughts Resulted from People

Isn’t it funny that people spend 100’s of dollars on clothes and purses just to show off? Yet, they were cheap asses and horrible money managers and always ask you for money for gas or food? I wonder how they would feel if someone suggested for them to donate their money to I don’t know, some organization to help children and dying people in Palestine for example.

I am Not a People Person

I don’t like people. Simple as that. But you have to realize that people are the cause of my mentally disturbed thought process. Look at me! Do I write normal? Do I speak normal? Am I typical?

Emailing Back

For those people subscribed to my blog through email must realize that you CANNOT reply back me through those emails. The return sender on those emails are noreply@rebelliousarabgirl.net. I will not answer you back if you reply to them. Come to my site and comment, or send me a question through my contact page. It’s unbelievable the number of people that have replied in the former method and bitch at me for not replying back to them.

Enough ranting for today. Time to make some coffee.

My sister told me today, “Mona, you are evil and mean!” I agree with her and it brings me to a bigger point! Oh points.. some are small, some are tiny, some are huge and bold! Anyways, to the main point: sorry to so and so who sent me a message on Facebook the past weekend. When I read your message I thought, “ok, I am not that pretty or my beauty is so extravagant or so precious. Therefore, I don’t give a crap who sees me.”

I am assuming this person was going through my Twitpic album and read the comments some dumb ass lonely guys wrote. What will happen if she read all the comments in my blog? My blog is a SIN! Anyways, I got tired of deleting comments. What am I to do? Hide behind an internet veil? I am human. I want people to see who I am. It’s like going to work. Is a woman not allowed to go to work? Men are not allowed to see her? It’s a sin to show your beauty?

By the way, we are all beautiful people, because God created us that way. So those extreme Muslims that think I am a walking sin, then you are openly telling me that being a woman is a sin. You are a walking sin too! Cover up! Cause dammit.. I don’t wear a veil and tight ass clothes and heavy makeup walking down the street. I rather sin completely! I don’t do it in parts like some people!

This is what SHE said,

stop showing ur ebeauty ya helwa!!! its haram habibti u take soo many pics no one eneds to see a womens’s beauty and ur comments by those men are haram also wat they say is dsgusting

You can tell she is not from my side of the sinful world.

Future Goal

I want to do this one thing one day. I want to go around other people’s blogs and tell them that they are wrong! What they are writing, presenting, or discussing on their blogs is wrong! I feel that I am obligated to tell other Arab bloggers they are wrong! Wow! That would relieve a lot of stress to tell you the truth. I might end up being obnoxious and liking it!

If you hate me or think I am a walking sin, then bravo, bravo. You have accomplished a great deal in life by pointing the obvious. Now go back to watching your music videos and obsessing over celebrities’ beauty and how to make your self look like one, so other Muslim/Arab girls envy you.