Random Qatar/ Doha Moments

Fancy Pointless Words:

Biggest example is the title of the conference I attended. The conference was about "knowledge parks". In other words, its basically a conference about knowledge management and hot to utilize, disseminate and share knowledge especially in development of ICT (Communication & Technology) sectors in countries. So the concept is simple. But they love using fancy words

e-schoolbags – another fancy word referring to a project of providing laptops for students at schools.

Tropical tolerant software – it refers to developing software that can be run on old computers that are mostly widespread all over Africa. This means that the software can be run on old Pentium PCs, doesn't require a lot of space or RAM, has auto-recovery features, and is offline (independent on online connectivity)

Other than the usual Human & Financial Capital,
there are new words like Intellectual Capital and Market Capital. Words such as policies and processes are now referred to as "Management Capital". Talk about pointless terms

The Heels

"man, those are the slimmest heels I've seen in my life. How can she walk with those?"

My friend shakes his head in disappointment "ya 7aram ya Hamza, you've been in Saudi Arabia for too long. Looks like you are used to looking at the floor when you pass by women. Man, go and entertain your eyes and appreciate womens' body beauty."

Suit Skin Care:

On one of the boring lectures in the conference, I fumble with the pockets of my suit and discover this. Point no.2 is so hilarious that I was having a hard time stopping from giggling in the middle of the presentation:

Pedestrian Sign:

This has to be smartest & most confusing pedestrian sign ever. I feel it captures both genders. My friend saw it as a guy crossing the street. I saw it as a lady crossing the street.

The Hot Girl:

So we go and explore one of the malls. Our walking pace is interrupted by the sight of a gorgeous girl who brushes by us. We are dazzled by her beauty.

"man, she is sooo beautiful. She is the most beautiful woman I've seen in my life."

"I gotta agree, she has to be the 2nd or 3rd gorgeous girl I've seen in my life"

15 minutes later, and we run into her again but she was with her family.

"Oh man…oh man..she can't be human. She must be an angel. I wanna talk to her. I want to know her"

"Well, her parents are with her. You can always ask them. ;)"

"you know what? You are right. I am talking to her parents."

"DUDE, you crazy? I was joking.."

"no no, you are right. I will never see someone like her. I can't waste my chance." And starts walking away

"Come back, you lunatic…."

They were sitting in a coffee shop and her father was away talking to the cashier and I guess was ordering drinks for the family. My friend approach him and started talking..What the? He is actually talking to her dad…a minute later, the dad calls the mom..woo, what's going on here? I look at the girl. She is alarmed. She looks at me..I smile at her. She smiles back…and we turn our heads to the 3 who are having the conversation. 2 minutes later, my friend comes back disappointed: "too young"

I find it kind of awkward. I never see myself doing such a move.