The Blackhole inside of me

How many times have I stared blankly at this screen?

wanted to type, and write but no words would come out.

15th May passed. I felt bad that all my blogger friends wrote about Palestine Day while I didn't.

21st May passed. Wanted to write about how I wanted to explore the number 23. By watching the movie "number 23". The first statement of the movie was describing me. "today is my birthday". Wanted to write about 23 unique things about me.....Yet I didn't

What's happening to me?

a month has passed since I watched any of my regular series..."Lost", "Prison Break" or "Smallville" or any other show. the same goes for movies.

Why have I stopped reading? I used to always read before I go to sleep. I barely read 30 pages in the last 3 weeks.

The gym--- heh...I just remembered that I have a subscription that i haven't used in a months time

What's happening to me?

I have not been faithful to my close friends like I used to. I am not in touch with them as i used to. I am missing out on their news. Has the choice of moving on with the new friends affected my relationships with the older & faithful ones who has always been supportive and gave too much for me? for how long will they tolerate me?

What's happening to me?

The first thing i used to do when I wake up was stare at my incomplete jigsaw puzzle. It was a simple of my incomplete life that I try to piece each day. I used to work on it whenever I had free time. Its the same jigsaw puzzle that I bought 16 months ago and I still didn't finish it. Nowadays, it is just sitting there collecting the dust.

I am afraid of this growing blackhole and what else it will strip from my inner core and the values that it will consume..

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3 family relatives in 3 weeks

they were 3 hectic weeks. All of a sudden, my relatives decided to utilize this time to visit us.It started around a month ago when my aunt came for an umra. A week later, our uncle joined us. A week after it, my other aunt and her daughter came out of Palestine for the same reason..i.e. doing Umra. As it is always the case, that situation has unsettled me and made me a prisoner in my own house as I had to be careful before walking into any room that my cousin is veiled. Other than that, I'll leave it to you to imagine the terrible situation we had at the house.

Thankfully, throughout the period, I still retained the luxury of sleeping in my own bed. My relatives have lived all their life in rural areas & its normal for them to sleep on floor mattresses. Thus, our spacious living room proved to be the ideal sleeping place.

Speaking of being accustomed to rural community, I was not saved from few embarrassing (yet funny) moments when driving with them & handling few errands they have here & there. Such moments were like:

1- Imagine this situation. All of us are sitting on the corniche near the sea. Me lying on the floor gazing at the moon and slowly entering that special place romantic private place in me before I get interrupted: "Hamza, they need to use the washroom. Drop them somewhere near by"...Oh boy, how much I hate this. How am I supposed to walk to a restaurant/ hotel just to use the washroom and leave? I wish I could take them to my house. But its half an hour away and judging from their standing posture, I highly doubt they could hold themselves. So, i end up complying to do it. the nearest thing to me was PIZZA HUT. I walked in with a high confidence and drawing that cheesy smile on my face. I scan the area around me..Men washroom here, I signal for my uncle. Further scanning, women washroom located..I signal for my aunt. Ok, I am all by myself. the Pizza Hut waiters are anticipating the moment I sit down so they could raid me with setting up the table and handing out the menu. I was walking around the area, trying to avoid eye contact with them and praying in my mind that my relatives won't embarrass me and hope that they know how to use the washroom that might be too advanced for their sophisticated minds to comprehend.. those were among the longest 8 to 10 minutes I spent. As soon as they both finished, I escorted them out of the restaurant not looking back. but I swear I could have felt the -ve vibes and hatred the staff had to me for abusing their facilities

2- My dad is usually smart. However, I doubt that taking my eldest aunt who have lived all her life in palestine to STEAK HOUSE was a good idea. She kept throwing hilarious comments here & there. "why are they cutting the salad like that?" "what are those weird sauces here?" "why is the meat cooked that way?" "what kind of bread is this?". But the best comment was when she saw one of the waiters who was changing the salad items on the salad bar and he was wearing a hair cover, a mask and gloves. My aunt was like: "allah yatmo, leish shaklo hada metl il dacatra? 3am bi3mal 3amaleyeh lal salata?" (why is he dressing up like a surgeon? is he doing surgery on the salad?)....My aunt is so hilarious.

I have always been nice to them but sometimes I face situations that make me hate their backward mentality. For example, me & my siblings were raised that each one of us should be collaborating on arranging, cleaning and organising the house. Sometimes, but not frequently, my sister end up doing more work than us because she is the "girl".
When my relatives were around, I was being myself where my actions have raised few eyebrows. My cousin jumped each time I attempt to serve drinks/ clean the table etc. She goes like: "no no you shouldn't. this is our job. OMG, what if my husband sees you? he'd never offer to do anything like that". My uncle shouts at me with this disgusting look of : "what are you doing? you are the man, Sit down". I am shocked by this backward mentality. What kind of stupid logic is that? and what of this extreme sexism? so what if a guy is helping in housekeeping? I only stopped coz my dad signaled to me a sign of: "just play along".

Oh well..but overall, I was happy to see them especially since I won't be visiting palestine/jordan anytime soon. I also felt a bit satisfied in attempting to try to repay them for their generous hospitality I receive each time I see them.

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I hate you Robert Zoellick

Who is he?

not a famous guy..he is just the freakin World Bank Group President.

What did he do?

Nothing much. He just decided to pay us a visit in our region in our headquarters and discuss possible areas of corporation in the areas of development

How did this affect me?

Apparently, we had to prepare a powerpoint presentation describing our activites and our plan for the future. In addition to two other colleagues, I have been assigned by 2 Senior Directors to help in the preparatoin of this presentation.

This was by far the most painful exercise I have gone through since I started working here. It was the first time I spend 22 hours spread over 2 days working on just one single presentation, which we prepared more than 5 different drafts for. We had to be careful with the selection of words, slides, contents as our image was on the line.

I left Tuesday at 8:30 p.m and 10:30 p.m. on Wednesday. This was by far the longest time I've stayed at work. It is when they switched off the lights and the ACs that we understood that we couldn't stay longer.

I barely slept few hours on Wednesday before i woke up at 7:30 to wear a suit for the first time on my weekend day (Thursday) to make sure all the necessary arrangments are being taken care of..and guess what? the damned projector's colors was displaying our supposedly white themed ppt presentation with a light disgusting green color. Who could have ever suspected that color display differ that much from one projector to another. We had to go through a crash exercis of changing the theme from white to blue and changing the color of the underlining text from dark green to yellow.

But overall, the presentation was a success. We were thanked for our efforts that were well-appreciated. Even some of the Directors were amazed that they asked us for a copy of the presentation.

Despite the long stressful hours, I was a bit overjoyed as it somehow reminded me of my university days, the stress that we went through, the teamwork, the 10 minute naps that each one of us was taking, the unconditional support from the Director's secretary in getting us food when we felt hungry.

nevertheless, I sincerely hope that our reputation as the powerpoint specialist team does not spread as I don't see myself doing those ad-hoc assignments as frequently as they are needed.

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