Drove Again.

Yep, what the post-title says. Had my second driving lesson today–different teacher this time. I was supposed to have him last time but he wasn’t available, so I had Mohamad instead. This teacher’s name was Jaber. He was also very calm and articulate, and did a lot to make me feel comfortable. The man who makes my appointments with the teachers recommended Jaber, so I guess I’m going to stick with him from now on.

Things went pretty smoothly today. It’s only the second lesson but I’ve gotten loads better with the clutch and stick-shift. It also helps that today I decided to wear one of Madi’s pairs of Converse shoes. They feel more like socks so I had a much higher awareness of how much I was pressing the gas pedal and clutch. I only made the car shut down two or three times! Better than the eight or ten that I did last time–hehe. Plus I now know how to move the stick-shift more comfortably without having to glance down at it.

All I have to do now is get over my fear of trucks and other bigger vehicles when driving. I have a tendency to pretty much slide the car off the friggin’ road to avoid them. (They’re HUGE, all right??) I got chastised for that a couple of times.

Another thing…I hope my teacher doesn’t think that for all my 20 years, I still can’t differentiate between my left and right. I mean, I was doing just fine for the most part….until at one point  when we were driving and he told me, “Go right”. I, like a weirdo, saw an opening on my left and veered sharply toward it and he’s still going, “Uh, right! Go right!”. I had completely overlooked the fact that just ahead was a street that he had meant for me to take a right curve on. I had seen an opening on the left just before that street, somehow concluded that’s where he wanted me to go, and I went. It was…awkward…to say the least. Thankfully, he didn’t make a big deal out of it, just guided me out.

*Shifty eyes, embarrased smile*

Oh, another funny story–’cept it didn’t involve a decrease in IQ points on my part. We were driving and this cat started crossing the road. I’ve seen too many run-over dead cats in Qatar to even think about trying to drive around them. I braked, and waited for the cat to get out of the way. He didn’t. I swear, he plopped his rear down in the middle of the road and stared at God-knows-what, after which he started sniffing the ground. Jaber was like, “Go, go…” and I was shaking my head, “No, no, the cat…he’s not moving.” I honked my horn twice just to get him to move out of the way but he didn’t flinch! Another cat came and sat near him also sniffing the ground. I figured, “FINE, you stupid cats…” and took a right instead of going straight like what was first intended. If that’s the way they behave no wonder they end up blood-spattered mats of fur in the middle of the highway…it’s no joke when people say cats believe the world revolves around them. They honestly do believe it–with every fibre of their beings.

Well, that’s my story-of-the-day.

Tune in next time…for Another Episode in Jubne’s….Life.

Yay!

Thought I’d put the opposite of “Guh” as the subject–’cause that’s just how I am. Guess what?

I took my first driving lesson today!

It was fun! Tiring and filled with points of confusion–but fun!

They teach on manual cars here in Qatar–the kind with a clutch and a stick-shift. My God, I never had to drive using both feet before. That was confusing…and keeping track of when to press the clutch, when to change speed, how to brake and how to slow down…GOD. But I’ve been told that I did very well for a first-timer. Some people take days just learning how to start the car–which itself is a complicated process for me. You have to push the clutch as far as it would go, start the car, put the stick-shift on one, then very, very lightly press on the gas pedal, and then slowly and gently lift your foot off the clutch. That’s the point of mess-ups, because if you take your foot off the clutch too fast the car would just shut itself off and you have to restart it. I shut the car down five times in a row–and that’s not counting the four or five other times that, well, weren’t in a row. That was frustrating…

Not only was the use of the clutch (which my left foot has to control) very foriegn to me, but I can’t tell if I’m pressing on the gas pedal or not. My teacher said that in order to start the car I have to press it “very lightly”…and when I think I am doing it lightly the car is growling like a wounded tiger and the teacher’s like, “Too hard, too hard!”

Then when I think I’m doing it right it turns out I’m not pushing it hard enough. I wish I could just wear socks or something so I can feel what kind of pressure I’m putting…’cause my sneakers sure didn’t help.

The good thing is I managed to start it properly two or three times–and I mean very properly. The car did not growl nor jerk back and forth…just a beautiful smooth start…and that felt good. J’aime la sweet smell of success!

Most of the time, though, it would be very vocal and slightly epileptic before I managed to get it to start moving. At one point, I don’t know what the heck I did, but the car pretty much took a very unexpected forward leap, resulting in my frenzied, half-giggled apology to the teacher and my mom, who was accompanying me in the back seat. (My first lesson, so she wanted to be with me. I suppose the underlying reason was that she wanted to make sure the teacher was competent enough to stop me from killing myself.)

But you know, it turned out much better than I thought it would be. The stick shift is generally easy to maneuver, although I have to remember to press the clutch when I want to switch gears or else the thing won’t work. (You have to press the clutch any time you want to do anything–start the car, stop the car, switch gears…hell, even if I want to press the brake just to slow down, I have to press the clutch or else the car would just stop dead in its tracks. And throw all the passengers forward.)

As you know, I’ve had quite a bit of practice on my mom’s Jeep…which is an automatic. So driving itself was not too hard, I was good at driving on the open road, turning curves and maintaining a good speed. Although sometimes, I end up going a tad too fast for my liking because I press the gas pedal too hard without knowing it. On my mom’s car, how much pressure to put is second nature…and I end up applying it to this car whose brake and gas is much more sensitive. So either the car abruptly stops or is speeding. Took a bit of time to find the middle ground…but I found it!

My teacher was a Sudanese man named Mohamad. He was very sweet, patient and articulate, which was a huge relief. I was half-scared at first that I’d get a teacher that I might get intimidated from–but he was a cool guy. When I was at that point where the  car would not stop shutting itself down, he just kept re-instructing me until I did it right–even though I was ready to yell at myself.

All in all, it was a fantastic experience. I think it’s really cool to know how to drive a manual car, even though I’ll probably never drive one for the rest of my life. But it’s nice to have the know-how, no? Hehehe…

Guh…

I was scheduled to take my first driving lesson today at 10:00 a.m. I was pretty excited too. ‘Cept that when we got there (I went with my mom), for some reason, no teacher was available until 11:00 a.m. and it was only 10:15 or so. We couldn’t hang around doing nothing for 45 minutes…so we went back home. It was a heck of a long ride to get there in the first place too–the school is pretty far from my house. The closest one is full–they said they won’t have spaces for another two months…

Argh…

Well…the day wasn’t totally wasted. My mom and I went to a French cafe and had cake and a couple of drinks. She had an espresso and I had a fruit cocktail. It was really good! Especially the cake–my mom ordered a tiramisu. I don’t even like tiramisu but I took a bite–and wow. *Sucks back some drool*

Mmm-hmm…

Funny thing…see, after we left the cafe we went grocery shopping and came home so that Mom could get lunch (dinner–WHATEVER) started before we had to go pick up Madi from school, which was out by three.

It was 12:40 when Madi called on Mom’s cell phone, asking me where we were. I told her we were at home–wondering why she was asking. She then said something but her voice was cutting–I had no idea what she was talking about, and still clueless as to why she was calling in the middle of the day…didn’t she have class? Or was it lunch time?

I handed the cell phone to Mom–and then, to both of our horrors, it was REVEALED! We completely forgot that Tuesdays were early days! School’s out at 12:30! And now it was 12:45 and Madi was at the gate wondering what the heck was keeping us.

That was a mess. There was a lot of traffic on the way there, and by the time we reached it was a little after 1:00. Then we had to drop Madi’s friend off at her house because–heh heh–her mom forgot that it was Tuesday too. And let me tell you, that girl has one complicated address. It seemed we were turning lefts and rights every two seconds. We even got lost (temporarily thank God) trying to find our way back home. Hehehehehe…it was fun though. I like getting lost–as long as I’m not the driver. The responsibility of trying to differentiate all the identical roads would not be on me! Mwahahahahaha!

Yeah.

Random Question…

I have a question to anyone willing to give their two cents.

Who thinks it’s cute to dress all your kids in the exact same or very similar outfits? And I’m not talking twins here.

I’m asking because it seems to be an epidemic here in Qatar. Everywhere I go, especially in The Mall, there are women stringing along kids that are all dressed exactly the same. I once saw two boys that were maybe a year or two apart dressed identically, from the Asian Games caps on their heads to their sneakers. It’s like stepping into a different dimension, where every three or so kids are different-sized clones.

Is this some kind of parenting fad? Or do they just think it’s cute?

The reason I’m asking is because I don’t understand the reasons behind it. What’s wrong with dressing your kids as individuals? Is it an attempt to spread equality? Everyone has the same clothes…so they can’t complain that one sibling got a prettier dress or a cooler T-shirt? I guess I can understand that but–meh–I don’t know.

See, I’ve always loved the fact that although my parents have three girls they never made a point out of dressing us similarly. We all had our own clothes and style. Obviously all our clothes were from high quality places, and no one got a worse deal than another, but we all had something different. My parents always made it a priority to treat us equally, but also as individuals. There was no need to make us look like fraternal triplets to establish that.

The only times I remember that we had identical clothing was during this Ramadan tradition of ours where we get new pajamas every Ramadan. Once my mom bought us each a one-piece pink Minnie Mouse pajamas, and another Ramadan it was 101 Dalmatian pajamas. I think that’s it. Other times we’d get similar clothes, or toys, but they’d each be a different color. Usually, Lana’s would be blue, mine would be pink and Madi’s would be purple. (Our favorite colors.)

I’m not saying I hate it, or that it drives me nuts, when I see kids dressed identically. But when I see it happening very often, I wonder why. I mean, wouldn’t kids like it better if they had something that all their other siblings didn’t have? Aren’t there other ways of expressing equality without taking away individuality? Unless kids actually like dressing like their brothers or sisters…

Ah, I don’t know. What do you guys think? What’s your experience?

Neighbors…

My first double-post in a single day. I ought to be congratulated. Woo-hoo!

Anyways.

I live on a compound. A compound means I live in an area where there are a bunch of houses that all look the same and the people are supposed to live in happy harmony.

Most of the time, we do.

‘Cept today…today people are being LOUD. Especially the next door neighbors…they play horrendous music at an obscenely high volume, for absolutely no reason, and expect everyone to party with them. All I want to do is shoot them in the head, except I don’t have a gun nor a desire to spend time in a Qatari jail cell.

There is also a very, very large number of kids. I can’t tell if they all live on the compound–and if they do I haven’t seen some of them before–or if they’re visiting some friends. They’re screaming like there’s no tomorrow and biking around like crazy.  I don’t mind kids playing around, but coupled with the disgusting music and the drunkenly talkative neighbors it gets to be more than a tad irritating. Make that VERY irritating.

It’s quieted down now…which is very good. Hehe, at one point during the noisefest there was a knock on our door loud enough for me to think there was some kind of emergency. But no, it was Omar wanting to show me a bike he was borrowing from a friend–a weird-looking bike with levers that maneuver the back wheels. (Let me tell you something, that knock was loud enough for me to think it was some hysterical adult. This kid barely reaches my kneecaps in height (that’s an exaggeration but he’s still a small kid)…so that’s some knock he’s got.)

Anyways he tried to show me how he rode it but he had a lot of trouble turning the bike around, so I basically amused myself watching him struggle. My God, I’m so evil…

Well…that’s all I have to say for now…and pics of my dark hair will be put up soon…! er or later. I’m a procrastinator, sue me.

Ciao.

:’-((

Good thing about today: I woke up early. 7:50 a.m. to be exact. Better than my usual 12:00 – 1:00 p.m wake-ups.

Bad thing about today. My grandparents, after a beautiful three month stay, went back to Lebanon.

The house feels so empty without them…they filled it up with so much warmth and laughter…and now it feels so strange. I miss them like crazy already. I gave them the tightest hugs I could muster before they had go through Passport Control and make their way to their gate. My fingers are crossed for the hope that it won’t be long before we see each other again. God I miss Lebanon so much…

And quite frankly, I don’t know how I’m going to sleep in my room again…it’s been theirs for three whole months. That’s gonna be awkward.

Anyways…

Funny/annoying airport glitch. Dad, Madi and I went to the airport ahead of my mom and grandparents to check in the luggage and get their tickets and stuff–save them a lot of standing up and waiting around. We ended up with a very picky guy. He checked their passports and stuff but said that the luggage was way too heavy–especially one of them because it was 38 kg when the limit was 32 kg. We tried to talk him into letting the suitcases through anyways but he’d have none of it. We told him they were seniors and it wasn’t exactly easy for them to carry around 5 kg of luggage by hand but he wouldn’t budge…he also wouldn’t get that irritatingly condescending tone out of his voice. I mean, I know the weight limit is law and all but, really, some people skills never hurt anyone.

So my dad went back to pick up my mom and grandparents and they brought with them another bag, and they shoved a lot of clothes in…finally the weight was fine and they ended up checking in three bags instead of two.

When we dropped them off at the aiport I didn’t want to come back home because I didn’t want to see the house empty–Madi shared my sentiments. We came back for a while and then went out to eat for a change of scenery. Then we dropped Madi off at a friend’s house to work on a history/English project and then came home. We got some Baskin Robbins ice cream, watched a bit of TV and now I’m here typing this up on my LJ. And I still miss them.

*Sighs…*

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

WHAT-THE-TITLE-OF-THIS-POST-SAYS, EVERYONE!

Hope you all had a great time! If you’re going to comment, you better include details on YOUR New Year’s Eve! And Day!

As for us. Well.

We got dressed and went to an open-buffet restaurant at the Intercontinental Hotel. The same hotel we saw the bikers in, except they weren’t there on this particular day. They were serving seafood galore, steaks, pasta, rice…you-name-it-they-have-it.

‘Cept pork. For obvious reasons.

There were six of us: Mom, Dad, Sitto (Grandma), Jiddo (Grandpa), Madi and me.

We arrived at around 9:30 p.m. At first, we were disappointed with the seating arrangements. The only table that was available was in the corner of the “Family Section” and it was cut off  from most of the crowd and action. However, I thought the situation served us well when I saw what the entertainment was.

All I heard was that their were going to be Brazilian dancers. None of us had any idea in the world that the dancers weren’t going to be wearing (enough) clothes. Let’s just say it was NOT what I expected. A lot more jiggling and skin than I ever even thought I’d see in a five-star hotel in a conservative Islamic country. It was definitely a unique experience…but quite unexpected. Heh…

There was also a singer. She had a pretty good voice and sang mainstream popular Arabic songs. The audience was very receptive, often belting out lyrics with her–hehe. She was also the one who did the countdown–after which there was a lot of screaming, cheering, clapping and honking of plastic horns. Oh the honking of the plastic horns! New Year’s Day must feel so pleased to be ushered in with such rambunctious music made by cheap plastic. Booyah!

Madi suggested we dance. So I got up with her and we did a little dabkeh–just the two of us. Then we saw a group of people holding hands in a circle and, to use an English-ized Arabic word, “odboking”. Madi pleaded with meuntil I agreed to just shove in and dance with them. (I was reluctant at first because I thought they were a family or something and it’d be weird to just shove yourself in there when they don’t know you. But when we saw others join in from very different tables I thought, “What the hey, might as well.”)

It was fun! I had no idea what kind of dabkeh they were doing, I swear, each one was doing a different step! So much for synchronized dancing, hehe. So I ended up doing some kind of one-step, two-step, kick, three step routine thingie. Or something like that. (I am not completely clueless when it comes to doing dabkehs. But I won’t deny I’m mostly clueless. I only know two Lebanese ones, one of which I’m shaky on, and one that’s Afghani or Kurdish.)

There was this one dude who was holding my left hand (Madi being on my right) and he was INTO it! All jumping and bending and kicking his legs all willy nilly. My left arm was doing a dance on it’s own thanks to him. The guy on his left wasn’t even holding his hand, but kept close so that the circle wouldn’t be broken. Hehe, I don’t blame the dude. This guy was really into it!  It was superbly fun though! Dancing with random strangers–everyone should do it at least once in their lives.

Of course, I saved the best part of New Year’s Eve for last. My parent’s wedding anniversary! Twenty-Five Years! Plus it also happened to be Eid el-Adha. Triple celebration! So we celebrated with cake when we came home, took loads of pictures, and exchanged gifts. The prettiest was the one my dad got for my mom–a diamond necklace from my father with “Allah” written on it. It was very shiny and beautiful : ). My dad also got a cozy cotton robe from my mom because of the frigid weather. All in all, it was an outstanding New Year’s Eve!

On New Year’s Day I slept. A lot. The house is VERY cold. So I cuddled under the blankets on the couch, dozed and watched TV with the rest of the family. It was incredibly cozy. Yes indeedy.

*Goes to cuddle on the couch*