is this denial?

Throughout the day I slept some more, thinking of home..

then I wake and look around me,
at four grey walls that surround me
And I realize.. yeeees, I was only dreaming..

Mai

up and trying to be running

At least I already passed the hard experience: waking up today thinking I am still in my room back home. I think going out will do me some good. I have to go out anyway to buy a few things including a train ticket to Cambridge for tomorrow. I know attending this conference will help me get back in the mood of work and get my mind off the other things..

Mai

interruption

I didn't have a good sleep because of the loud carnival music, so I got up with a big headache about half an hour ago. And just from a few minutes, the music stopped. I just had a quick sandwich and will go back to sleep again. I wish I can stop thinking that just a few hours ago I was home, with mum and dad and miro and what the hell I am doing alone here!!

lonely,
i am 'miss' lonely
i have no body
for my own

:(

Mai

i am back

I just came in about 10 minutes ago. I was hoping I would dump my things and go out to see Notting Hill Carnival. But it looks like I am not following this plan, although I can hear the music starting. I want to do one thing now: sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep, I want to sleep off my post-vacation depression, my loneliness, my worries, my homesickness, plus I just want to sleep because I am so tired.

The sound track of the day is Akon's "I am Lonely" which I listened to about 4 times already: once at Cairo airport, then on the plane to Amsterdam, then at Schiphol airport, then on the plane to London. I think I'll play one more time in bed :(

See you when I am a little better.

Mai

countdown to london

Maybe this is why I can't sleep? By the way, it is actually 5:43 am here in Cairo as I didn't change the time on my laptop since I came. So why can't I sleep? Is it nervousness? Excitement? Both? You know, on some level, my feelings this time are not much different from the first time I was going to London in terms of me being worried about the next stage. I was just thinking that the past 6 months were nothing compared to the real work coming ahead. I know, and hope, that it will be a lot more fun too but I can't help being a little anxious about it.

Anyway, since I can't sleep let me tell you a little about my latest activities. Besides running around, or rather driving around, buying things and meeting people, and eating (I was just having a quick snack 10 minutes ago, crazy huh? :) ), I was also involved in some major music importing operations to fill up my library. I got around 5 G worth of itunes thanks to my bro and his huge reservoir of music of all kinds.

And today I had a new hair cut. It looks great, but of course all hair cuts look gorgeous on me ;-) I didn't try having a hair cut in London yet, but I guess next time will be the one.

Oh.. and my brother bought me dinner tonight. We ordered Chinese. So why am I even saying this? I have no idea :) Ok, I should probably go lie in bed. Good night.. whatever is left of it anyway.

Mai

is this true?

According to a TV talk show I saw yesterday, the American dictionary Webster defines the word 'arab' in the most humiliating way. I will try to verify this myself. In the show, the heated discussion stirred a lot of angry feelings: anger at the Americans and anger at ourselves. Is this true?

According to an article in NYT, there may well be 10 planets or even 11 planets in our solar system. Why not, I say, it has been only 9 for a long time. But, is this true?

According to the well-known Egyptian proverb, our attitude in the upcoming presidential elections should be "the one we already know is better than the one we don't know". Is this true? I think we all know the answer to this one ;-)

Mai

new little people, new big people

Today was all about meeting people. First I had the pleasure of meeting Kareem, a 48-hour old baby boy who is so cute and so tiny. It's amazing how small newborns are. But the best part was seeing my bro's reaction. He was absolutely stunned by the experience of seeing such a small baby. I would love to see him try to hold a baby, he actually never did. And when Kareem opened his beautiful greenish eyes for 2 seconds, my bro was so excited that Kareem might have caught a glance of his carefully-chosen orange shirt and so he would be the one who introduced the orange colour into Kareem's world :)

Then it was time for the big people. I also had the pleasure of meeting someone I should have met long ago. He is the founder of Eurosafaris and we had a very nice chat about the vision of the group and its future development. There was also a nice bunch of people working in different countries in different fields but with an apparent common interest in cool things like travelling :)

Oh, and speaking of new things, today I got a new comment from my bro.. he likes the way I drive. cool :) for those of you who don't have big brothers, it's a big thing when a big brother complements the way his little sis drives :) right? :)


Mai

sleepless in cairo

A man is made
Of flesh and blood
Of eyes and bones and water.
The very same things make his son
As those that make
His daughter.

A tree is made
Of leaf and sap,
Of bark and fruit and berries.
It keeps a bird's nest
In its boughs
And blackbirds eat the cherries.

A table's made
Of naked wood
Planed smooth as milk, I wonder
If tables ever dream of sun,
Of wind, and rain, and thunder?

And when man takes
His axe and strikes
And sets the sawdust flying –
Is it a table being born?
Or just a tree that's dying?

drawing: dad
poem: don't know
sleepless in cairo: me

Mai

fun, work, sleep, fun, fun, sleep, work, fun

So did you have enough time to look at the first pictures I published in the blog? :) I know it has been a long time since I blogged and you are probably sick of those pictures, but honestly I don't have time. I have a lot of things to do and by the end of each day I find myself too tired to do anything. I am actually falling asleep right this minute, but I am fighting. I still have people to see, and places to go and, believe it or not, work to do. Speaking of work, according to Fortune magazine, some of the most hated business buzzwords in corporate America include the following: "synergy, let's synch up, cutting edge, spearhead a project, no-brainer, run up the flagpole, deliverables, win-win". So what do these expressions share linguistically? I think it is noticeable that the metaphorical element is present in most of them... hmm, it's probably good to always 'think outside the box", right? (btw, this is another one of those hated expressions).

Ok, that's it, I can't resist anymore. Good night.

Mai

my 6 months story in photos

first, the cute girl from Egypt arrived in lovely Enfield to live in flat 39 with a nice bunch of girls from Cyprus, Pakistan, and China.








after a while, she decided to explore the big city and move around a bit, so she visited this..









and stood over this..












and had to see this.. which is ours anyway ;-)









and suddenly.. something great happened:

it snowed :)








with time, she had the chance to go to other cities, like this..










and she even went to other countries, to learn something and stand in the so-called center of Europe :)







but, of course, the cute girl from Egypt was also studying all the time, and she put together a nice proposal so that when she gets back, she will be going to this place every day :)



The End

Mai

la solucion?

So what is 'the solution'? That was the title of an email I got today. Disregarding the fact that I have no idea why I got this email in the first place, the solution turned out to be a company that describes itself as:

"Somos lideres en el desarrollo y personalizacioَn de soluciones integrales de gestioَn documental y automatizaciَon de procesos "workflow".."

"We are leaders in the development and personalization of integral solutions for document management and automation of workflow processes.."

hmm.. so there is no Spanish word for "workflow"? I'll think about it for a while, after the pills I am taking kick in :)

Mai

is there ever a good time to be sick?

Of course not.. it's always when it's the worst time ever to be sick that you catch a cold or have a soar throat or start sneezing and coughing all over the place. That's me today. The ear infection and headache quickly developed into the full works, so I spent the day in bed and started taking pills and stuff. I just hope it wont take long. I'll try to make use of this inactive time and read something.

p.s.
i am starting to have a feeling that there are higher powers preventing me from watching a complete Arabic movie. It's either I catch one on TV too late, or I have to leave in the middle of it, or some technical problem causes the sound to turn off. Can I watch an Arabic movie pleeeeease? :)

Mai

sleepy head

Seriously, I want to sleep for a whole day. I've been going out every day since I came and I don't have enough sleep. Today I wasted the whole morning, noon and afternoon between banks cashing some old cheques and getting some money to spend through this vacation. Of course my financial point of view is very different now as I calculate everything in sterling and compare :) And I remembered when I was changing my life savings into sterling pounds in the beginning of my big move.. my heart was broken then :)

Browsing through the NYT headlines for the last 4 days, these are the ones which attracted my attention:

- Cellphones? Over There, Right Next to the Nachos

- Measuring the Blogosphere

- When Pigs Wi-Fi


Very nice collections of articles. Can you guess which headline I find most interesting from the linguistic point of view? :)

Ok, I am off to bed.

Mai

ding dong

I heard the first linguistic bells ring today. I was watching some old episodes of Seinfeld and Jerry had a problem not knowing if he's invited to some party so he asks Elaine to call the host and ask if he should bring anything with him to the party. So she does and then tells him that he said (are the pronouns confusing?): "Why would Jerry bring anything?". So Jerry asks her about emphasis: "Did he say: why would JERRY bring anything, or why would Jerry BRING anything?" Actually she replied: "I think he emphasized would" :) Is that even possible? :) I think he could've emphasised "anything".

So, this whole thing got me thinking about the effect of stress on meaning, which could either mean that I am a very dedicated researcher who can't resist linguistic thoughts even on the fifth day of vacation, or I only paid attention to this because I have been having an ear ache all day and spent the whole morning and afternoon watching TV until I went out in the evening for a coffee with my parents. I think I'll have to go to an ear doctor tomorrow.. hmm, wait a minute.. there is another word for 'ear doctor', right? What was it?.... ding dong :)

Mai

mrs. my best friend

Finally today I went to visit my best friend in her new home. Remember her? You know, the one who got married in April and I have been blogging your head off about how miserable I was to miss her wedding. I had another one of those weird feelings of being kind of a stranger while I was there. Again I was not part of something that I always expected, and wanted, to be part of. Anyway, it was great seeing her. I wish I can see her everyday until I leave.

p.s.
driving to and from my friend's place I was enjoying the sense of power it gives you. Isn't man a selfish creature? We just love the sense of control, but at least I am talking about a machine ;-)

Mai

good old Cairo

I know it's been only 6 months, but somehow Cairo seems busier and hotter. Our neighbourhood is the same, excpet for some new buildings here and there. All the Arabic satellite channels seem more boring and shallow. The highlights of my days so far have been a "night boat to Cairo" on the Nile yesterday :), and driving today. The one-hour cruise in the Nile at sunset in a boat called "Paris" was great. Then today I went to see our new flat, which I left as a big empty space. It was all furnished now. It felt kind of weird because I wasn't part of the furnishing process so I was like a stranger to the place. But I like it, it's much bigger and in a quieter area. Speaking of quiet, while we were there I thought it would be a good idea to drive for the first time in a street where there are no cars at all :) So I took my car for a spin, and actually it was very easy. My foot was kind of stiff on the gas and maybe the brakes too at first, but generally it was better than I expected. I even took my parents' car for a spin too :) And on the way back, I drove my car alone listening to my favourite radio station Nile FM 104.2 .

I am still tired though, and my back has been really hurting from carrying around my heavy backpack in the airports browsing through duty free shops. I feel like sleeping for a whole day, but I also want to do a lot of things. I'll just take it one step at a time.

p.s.
I dared today to wear shoes with heals, for the first time in 6 months. I survived for 2 hours then stopped by a shoe shop and bought slippers to make it through the day. It's true.. some girly things are just stupid and unhealthy but we still love doing them :)

Mai

el (= the) blog men (= from) Cairo

Wohoooooooo.. I am blogging from Cairo finally, and yes its 5 am. In the last 48 hours I had just 6 hours of sleep. I didn't sleep at all on either flights: from London to Amsterdam because I was too excited, and from Amsterdam to Cairo because I was too excited and our entire national football team, who were flying with us, were a bit noisy (ah well, football players.. what do you expect? :) but at least I enjoyed watching Finding Nemo, do you remember the part when Dory was trying to "speak whale" ? Oh and I remember how cool was the turtle referred to as "dude crush" :) I love that movie) And believe it or not I actually had something to eat, not because I am hungry but because I miss our food. And of course we all sat together for a chat about..well, whatever I did in the past 6 months. Now I am totally and utterly beat. I just couldn't go to bed before I tell you: I am blogging from home :)

Mai

airport blogging

Hey I am blogging now from heathrow and paid 1 pound for 10 minutes.. acually it's cool. I still have about an hour until I board. I can't tell you how excited and happy I am now. The highlight of my wait is when the shuffling process on my iPod brings an arabic song my way. I keep singing with it and smiling. I can't wait to land in Cairo and see mum, dad, and miro all waiting for me. oops.. I only have 2 minutes left.. I'll go have a look at tax free shops now.. see you in Cairo..

Mai