i want a maid :'(

Today, after 2 painkillers i was able to move.
dusting, cleaning, mopping ain't a picknick.
I wonder how our maid at home is so big, she should be a supermodel by now.

My mom disagrees with getting a maid and thinks that cleaning after myself will be a good discipline.
My strategy is next time i will fake an injury in my back, and call her crying.
If that doesn't work, then my starategy is what mommy doesn't know, won't hurt her.

As for nisrin, i will revert to the great tool of brainwashing, and nagging and pestering!
and if it doesn't work, i will get the maid to come for the two weeks i have to clean in, and nisrin can do the other two weeks :P

You can tell i have spent a great deal of time contemplating tbout this, that should give you an idea about how i feel :)

Bye Bye German

Today I worte an email to my favorite german teacher, in german.
I just butchered the german language and scarred it so bad that it will eternally suffer.

Damn that american University system - hehe

on a different note, today is cleaning day!
Part of being an independent person is cleaning after yourself (and sometimes your roommate)
Let's see how that goes
Something new every day huh?!

You know you've become too lazy when...

You go check out the gym
and wish they had escalators instead of stairs!

A new Race in town

With the Race for becoming President of Egypt over, a new race is in town.
The Race for the biggest presidential ball-sucker in Egypt.
And it's a tough one. Hundreds of prominent individuals are trying to guarantee their place, hanging big-ass signs and billboards costing thousands of Egyptian Pounds.

According to those business men's common sense, it is better to invest thousands of pounds in ball-sucking than donate them to the poor, or start a small project to help underprivileged families, or provide a few jobs for that endless supply of unemployment.

And the race is ongoing, so far the candidate that is ahead in my humble opinion, has a BIG giant billboard with fireworks and says "Mabrouk Mubarak" which was hung only few days after Mubarak's re-election. I guess it helped to know the results before hand huh?

Luli's Joint :)

No, it's not a cigarette full of "herbal remedies".
It's actually my new place!

- A newish fridge,
- No cockroaches anymore - well there are still some suvivors but they will DIE very soon!
- running water - finally
- a "haraami dish" (some cable that gets you some cool cable channels for 20 pounds a month)
and yes Susanne - haraami comes from haraam :P
- an awesome balcony - where your clothes dry off in exactly 6.5 minutes (I swear)
- pink wastebaskets
- a quilt with pink flowers on my bed
- 3 computers
- Elevator - HAH I wish! (I live in the 6th floor)

and last but not least a cool roommate!

Casa de Luli and Nisrin is up 'n running

Victory over Cairo!

I have finally had victory over the Streets of Cairo.
Today I showed the taxi driver a new route to go to maadi - well it was new for HIM!
and he actually thanked me for teaching him a new road.

On a different note, every time I go to work, and when the stupid taxi driver takes the route I tell him to take (which does not happen very often) I get on a bridge and see one of the most beautiful scenes in Cairo.

It's a view of the Nile, from one side there are big buildings but the other side has this big green area with trees and plants for agricultural purposes. That view is just awesome, in a grey city like Cairo.
It brings a smile on my face.

The biggest dumbass?!

I think I am the biggest dumbass in nomadlife who still cannot put pictures up on her weblog!

On another note, my quest for independence is still ongoing and not that pleasant at the moment.
Moving out is harder than I thought

MENA Number 1

Yep It's official, MENA GN is or the roll.

With the new member countries of Algeria, Oman, Qatar and Bahrain, we will be 8 countries! Yaay!
Which means, more MENA people!

Special thanks for the people who worked hard on those extentions, mainly Tamer and Jen, as well as others.

Hurraay for MENA

Thank you India !

So I am back in Egypt after 17 AMAZING days in India.
At first I had something to look forward to when I came back, but as it looks that thing is not happening.
So now I wish I were in India now ....

What I will miss about India:

1) the awesome parties :)
2) seeing old friends
3) Paneer!!
4) Naan
5) the elephant ride
6) driving next to a camel! - yes even for an Egyptian this is a first
7) the confusing traffic, crazy and on the wrong side (or right depending how you want to look at it)
8) Paneer and Naan
9) the rickshaw (or toktok)
10) the nice colorful clothes, and the beautiful scenery

Well, back to reality now - it's time to see what I want to do with the rest of my life, since in the society I am in, being female and 22 ain't fucking easy

The Graduate!

Yes! I am officially a graduate!
My graduation ceremony was yesterday night, and i celebrated in style!

The ceremony took place in Alexandria, Egypt - miles away from where i am.

Yet i celebrated by watching a bunch of guys, dressed up as girls giving lap-dances to poor AI dudes at the Miss IC party (great performance from Abhinav haha).
Only In AIESEC huh?!

So i guess this is the End of an Era, i am officially an adult now.



oh and by the way, ingrown toe nails SUCK!! 9 years of suffering and they are still going on - even in india - grrrrrrrrrrr

Branding Fiasco!

We just received our business cards today and my heart is broken!

The colors were totally wrong and AIESEC in Egypt is the "International Platform for young paople to discover and develop their potential"

GRRR - I am sooo Pissed!!

So now we can't hand out those ones :S - how can i be on the global communications team and have the WRONG LOGO!

It's like having a phone that says Mokia, or going to Pizza Hot and MacDonaaalds.

I am sad :(

Live from India I

So I am Finally in INDIA!!
YAAY!

So we left Egypt Tuesday night to Amaan, where your 21 hour transit became a 25 hour transit!!
Luckily Royal Jordanian Airlines were Angels and gave us a hotel! We got to tour the city for 3 hours. Jordanians were really nice to us, and some of them were really hot!!

In the Airport we waited for like 5 hours for our plane since it was delayed so we spent our time singing, and entertaining/annoying (however u wana look at it) our fellow passangers!

Surprizingly there were many Israeli's in Jordan - we sat next to quite a few - chatted with them for a while.
We also talked to a friendly indian woman who was surprized at how happy and jolly we were despite of that delay. She of course did not know how much we had been through to get to india!

SO after a long plane ride - not interesting at all, no turbulences at all - much to my dimay!
We arrive at the Airport and again surprisingly the Congress Committee IS ACTUALLY WAITING FOR US!! yaaay!! good job there boys!
We exchanged all our money and walked around with humungous stacks of money - IT FELT GREAT!!
My first surpize was that people drive on the other side of the road, it totally slipped my mind. I realize that i cam totally unprepared for this country, i had no time.
The weird thing is that all those cows in the street did not strike me as odd at all. I didn't notice them untill someone pointed them out.
when i looked outside my window it felt like i am still in Egypt, but in the smaller poorer cities like banha and the oasis and those places.
The women in their sari's are really cute, i think i may get one!
I slept for most of everything in the trip - in the hotel, on the plane, on the floor waiting for the bus, on the bus! and everyone was soo jealous of me. Comon i haven't slept in ages - i need some sleep sometime.

Indian time is worse than Egyptian time! can you imagine that?! the bus was meant to be leave at 1:30 and it left at 3:00!! in egypt you'd be 30 mins late, and hour tops - but 1.5?!
so you ask indians how long does the bus ride take and they say 3 to 5 hours! 3 to 5 hours?!! it's either 3 3and a half 4 4 and a half or five!! not from 3 to 5?! i found that funny.
I was talking to one indian frriend a minute ago and he is in AIESEC Switzerland now - amit
and he went to visit his family. so i asked him how far away they are from here he said 8 to 10 hours!! so i HAD to laugh!! 2 hours approximations are funny! so he commented " oh well i guess i am back on indian timing haha"

Now the conference site is breath taking!! it's huge! and very nice. The rooms are really nice with everything you can think of. Also there are gardens, pools and a beautiful scenery.
There are also monkeys!! Today while attedning one of the sessions i glanced out of the window and saw a monkey walking around. Quite interesting. On my window door it says do not open as there are monkeys outside. Now that was a surprize!

The food is okay - a bit too spiciy for my taste but bearable.
Sofar things are great!

that's it for now!

Salaam re-cap

So after the second year of the Salaam Program running, I have concluded that I may like the old salaam trainees better, but I have learned more from the new ones.

I learned more about my country, about AIESECers and about Americans.
The most interesting thing was the Jewish/Israeli issue that came up, as we had a few trainees that were either Jewish or Israeli.
Since I communicated with State Security about our situation I have realized that our government is not as closed minded as I thought it would be. No extra special procedures have been done for the Israeli and Jewish trainees. It was the same old thing. They were also more flexible with them going to Israel and the Westbank then previous years. One interesting comment I received when we informed them that they will be going to the Westbank, they said " westbank is Israel"
But in a nutshell, things went smoothly. My only problem was that most trainees were not very helpful in the process of communicating their travel schedule - which is a mean for us to guarantee their safety and to keep the officials updated about our activities to maintain their support.(that needed to be done for all trainees regardless of origin, religion or nationality).

The other interesting thing was seeing and hearing how people react to meeting and dealing with Jews or Israel's - it was just like I expected. And it proved that educated people are not necessarily cultured people.

Mixing the word Jewish and Israeli did not only happen with us Egyptians - but it happened when the trainees threw a Jewish dinner serving Jewish food. Sadly I couldn't attend as I was visiting my parents.
I wonder though - is there Muslim food? or Christian food? How come I have never tasted them !!

I have interacted very little with the Americans here, mostly because whenever I visited them I felt welcome by only a couple of individuals. But this little interaction gave me a better insight of what Americans are like.
Last year I thought they were amazing - and I was dying to go visit all of them in the US.
This year gave me a more realistic view.

Life - or something like it

So lately I figured out why people disappear once they start work.
I have now slipped back into my much anticipated routine of working from 9am till 10 pm!
with AIESEC and Ericsson there's always something to do.
Lately things have been quite crazy though. Too much work and no play!
I am in desperate need of a good laugh - but neither kaitlin, nor shady nor poo are here.
I am looking for my own place.
Also I am planning to go to India next week, still having trouble with the Airline as the Travel agent screwed us over big time.
It's voting time in Egypt, and sadly if I go to India I will not get to vote, as I will be missing my First presidential Elections and that means I have to wait for 6 more years for the next one.
I do not know what I want more - go to India, or vote!
But since my vote won't be counted, I guess India is the priority.
I would also be missing my graduation - which takes place on the 31st of August. So that's for the cap and gown I will never see. It would have been nice to be there, especially since my name will be the second name called in my class :) would have been a nice memory

Sometimes I think AIESEC asks too much of you.

Cairo is a chaos, I finally know my way a little better and can get myself to work without getting lost.

After IC I am planning to go have a retreat in Hurghada in September. Probably gona go solo for that one!
This summer I have become Tan-less! I have not been to the beach once! But I am now allergic to the crowd, which makes the beach a no-go for me.

That's all from louly's corner - now I will go back to my mega-ass to do list for the day.

:)

After a 2 of the longest busiest craziest hectic weeks - right before I switch into my Weekend mode I came across this:

"Thoughts from Gannat : Since I came here some of my perceptions about issues in life have been changing & I would like to share one of those with you, I'm an average Egyptian person that was raised seeing Rafet el hagan we Gom3a el Shawal knowing that Israel is a sort of enemy because of the Sinai war & the current problems with Palestinian & Jewish in general was associated with Israel But here I have met a Jewish person which is my boss & really she have changed my perception of all Jewish people she is a very nice, understanding, intelligent & professional person I even spend a weekend at her house where she took me in a tour in San Francisco & I really felt the Jewish hospitality & I have learned never to judge a whole group of people according to movies & stories that a person can hear "

Eventhough I did not directly contribute to this person's experience - but just being part of it put a big smile on my face!
One by one we change lives.

Loads of people work to achieve what has just been achieved - one outstanding person would be Suzanne, that super chicka who started all of this!
Hats off to Suzanne!

Another Super Chicka!

Now here's a Chicka who kicks some great ass!!
http://freedomforegyptians.blogspot.com/

May I just say - what Nancy Agram did, going to Sharm and checking up on the victims and trying in her line of work to help out those who are suffering make me like her even more!!
She Rocks Big Time!
Politicians get together and talk - others take active steps.

So here's for 5 more years of talking, talking and even more talking!

Presidents of Egypt!

Yesterday i looked at the newspaper! I know i said i won't do that anymore but i couldn't help it.
This week candidates from all over Egypt are putting themselves forward to run for the Presedential Elections.
At some point I managed to live a lie and assume there is a fair Election here - and i got really excited about seeing how they will campagin and how i can attend all their speeches and hear about their plans.
But living in La La Land hardly ever lasts - you can ask Bob Marley!

There are 9 candidates sofar! 7 from Parties - and 2 Independent.

Sofar the race is still starting!
Though i usually like to know the ending of a movie beforehand - in this drama, i wish the ending was at least unknown, and at most different.

A first!

On thursday i made my first purchase as a working woman!
my first salary - half of which was spent on the first day - was AWESOME!!
I got myself a brand new blowdryer!! nothing fancy but i am so happy with it.

yayayaaaaay!

Hate the news

I hate the news now!
I used to be addicted to reading the newspaper, watching CNN and checking all the websites that are related to news.
Since I read the constitutional amendment a few months back, it felt offended - I found it to be mocking my intelligence.
That is when I stopped reading local newspapers, it reminded me of how my country treats me like I am an idiot.
But my interest in international news was still ongoing.
This past month though I feel the news is bombarding us with London attacks, abducted ambassadors, bombs in London again, turkey, Egypt, and so many more.
And every time I read the news it just gets me depressed.
The first two attacks left me furious, and angry. But after that the rest left me just plain sad.

So my hate towards the news is growing by the second.
I wish I could stop reading the news!

A little honesty could work

So last night I am going out with a few friends. We were supposed to meet at 9:15.
Naturally I was late, for no good reason.

I arrived there at 10:45 and on the way I kept thinking of excuses for my being late, and I decided to try a new approach.

Upon my arrival I told them " I wish I had a better excuse for being late, but I am egyptian"

Surprizingly everyone found it quite amusing so they laughed and I was off the hook.

Sometimes honesty is the best way huh?