I'm Back!!

Yaa Halla!  Halla Wallah!  I have been away for so long but I had good reason and so much has happened.  Alhamdulillah, I have finally become a Citizen of the Good Ole United Arab Emirates.  Yaaaay!

Anyway............


As I have mentioned before, I have two teenaged kids at two different stages of teenagehood. 
Its interesting for me to see the differences between boys and girls. 


When I was about 13 years old I noticed the boys around me were are all about asserting their manhood and their toughness. "Nobody mess with me!" was their attitude. Another favourite attitude they had was "I don't have time for any nonsense" and sometimes "If your looking for trouble you'll find it with me, I'm gonna kick your a**". They became very territorial and even aggresive. Hormones were working overtime.


We girls were all "Am I beautiful?" (what other answer is there except "yes"?) "Do I look fat?" ,  " I need new clothes"  (said very loudly),  "Do you think he likes me?" (whispered to a friend)  ..................


*sigh........ I'm still saying the same things mostly....lol.

Copy / Paste

If you, like me, grew up elsewhere it will drive you insane when you see how some ("some' not all!) of the people here want to be rewarded for just being nationals.  They want certificates without getting an education, and they will take any shortcuts to get what they want. They cheat in exams and pay teachers to give them better grades.  They use hidden bluetooth headsets to listen to the answers from their partners in crime hiding in the corridor outside the exam rooms. All their assignments and thesis are copy /pasted from the internet.  Copy/paste is their best friend in this whole world.

A colleague came to me last week for help.  Her sister is in university and she had to do a  paper entiltled  "Factors that Affect Consumer Taste in Different Parts of the World".  (btw, we did this in 'A' Level Economics). She was very upset because they were told by their professor that he wanted them to do their own research and express it in their own words.  "Haram!" she said "How could he expect them to do that?  Maskinah my sister, she's crying, she can't do it, he is so mean, so cruel!  Please help her!" 

So her sister copy/pasted someone else's work from the internet and sent it to me to condense it into 1500 words and diguise it to look like it was originally done by her.  I did it because I am too kind, I should have just said NO, let her use her brains and write her own paper. Let her EARN her degree/diploma or whatever it was.  But I was sure she would not understand. She would think I am jealous of the fact that she's a national, sailing her way through university without doing any actual work or learning. She probably thinks that all of us want certificates without the education to back it up. After all these years, I know these characters well, so to avoid drama, I just rewrote it to make it look like "her own" and sent it back to her. It took me all of 25 minutes.  I wonder what grade I got?  I hope it was an "A"! 
I can see her a few years from now, clueless, crying again at the unfairness of it all, because they did not promote her after 3 months of mediocrity in her chosen field.

That's the UAE, baby!

Btw, I am so thankful to Allah for allowing my parents to provide me the education that they did. 

Keeping up with the Idiots!

 Show offs are just idiots trying to look interesting.  Even worse, they are trying to look interesting to people who either (a) don't give a damn!! or (b) are idiots themselves.

If you have to borrow a whole years salary to pay for that expensive holiday so you can bore your friends to tears with the 700+ pictures of you sitting in the airport, getting on the plane, stepping into the taxi, stepping out of the taxi, entering the hotel room, trying out the bed, brushing your teeth, changing into your pyjamas, etc., then you should probably skip vacation this year.  Staying home this year will be excellent not only for your pocket, but for our poor eyes.  It's better all round for the sanity of your fellow human beings!

If you haven't been able to pay your three maids their salaries for the past 6 months then you have to rethink your lifestyle, How about teaching your older kids how to use the washing machine, the iron and the vacuum?  Then you can let one of those poor, overworked girls go.  What's that you say?  Manual work is below you?  If our own Prophet Muhammed (SalAllahu alayhi wasallam) could wash and mend his own clothes, sweep his own floors and  prepare his own food, who are you to look down on that?

If you're going to be paying for your luxury car at 4% interest for the next 6 years, then you should have gone for that less expensive model, you'd have been done by now. 
What's that? As if!! You'll be damned if you're going to buy a cheaper car than your neighbour and you sure as heck are not going to drive that same old car for 6 whole years.  Next year, you'll sell it off and let someone else finish paying for it.  Then you'll take another huge loan to buy the latest luxury car you cannot afford. After all, you would rather go to jail than be seen in a 3 year old car. On your release, you can always tell everyone you were on a long vacation in the South of France.

You and your wife go to Dragon Mart (China Mall) because you can get shiny things at a reasonable price.  At Dragon Mart, you can buy that gigantic chandelier made with "Xhmalooski" crystals (the Chinese cousins of the Swarovskis) . People will "ooh!" and "aah!" when they see it glittering above your shiny furniture which you purchased with one of your many bank loans. And they will think you are millionares since only millionares can afford chandeliers.  Your wife instructs you, "If anyone asks you where we bought it, let's tell them "Dubai Mall"".

What's wrong with just saying "China Mall"??  Hey! Don't you know that many of those shiny things in Dubai Mall are also made in China???  Oh I see!  Bargains are for poor people. God forbid you should look like a sensible shopper who looks for bargains.

Must....look......rich......or...die...trying...must......NOT......look......poor.

We would all be so much happier if we realised that ultimately, in front of Allah, it's not what we HAVE,  it's what we ARE that really matters.