College is a Pain (Again)

Remember when the registrar’s office called me and told me my work term papers weren’t complete?

Well I forgot about the Ramadan timings, and since I’ve been staying up ’til 6:00 a.m. and waking up at 3:00 or 4:00, I’d forget to try to lug myself out of bed earlier to call my former workplace. They close at 2:00 p.m. So today I wake up at around 1:15 and gave them a ring when I noticed that the e-mail I sent didn’t get a reply. The secretary’s voice was all sing-songy and happy when she heard me. (I used to sit with her and talk for a while when I was waiting to see my boss, who was also the Administration and Finance Manager, and thus friggin’ busy most of the time). My boss also spent lots of time asking about me, my family and if I traveled or not. Hehe, such is the Lebanese way—–and generally the Arab way.

Anyways, to get to it, I told him that my college called me and told me that the employer evaluation form wasn’t sent. He was shocked and said that he had filled it out and sent it the day after I told him when the deadline was. He said it was very odd that they didn’t receive it. I believe him—–he was very good about everything else work term-related and the fact my college isn’t extremely well-known for its ability to be very organized plays a big factor into why they may have lost it. I sighed inwardly and apologized for the inconvenience but told him to please try to find it again and send it to me. I figure I’ll print it out myself and hand it in personally either tomorrow during registration or when college starts again on the sixth.

Anyways, I’m gonna go downstairs and busy myself with something. I’m SO freaking thirsty right now, it’s insane. My mouth feels like cotton.

Ciao!

What Was She THINKING?!

Was she even thinking at all?

Check this out: Woman almost goes blind because she decided she wanted to have blue eyes.

This made me cringe several times. Seriously…why would you put yourself at that kind of a risk? Dammit, some people really seem to have too much time on their hands.

Weather Station 1 also had something to say about it. I had to put my hands over my eyes when I read #3. Bloody freaking hell…

C’est Moi Encore…

I’m on a posting spree today. I don’t know why. Readers should enjoy this while they can because it’s likely that this blog will be almost completely ignored in the near future—-once college starts anyways. (Registration’s on September 1st but I still have no idea when the first day of classes is. Not long after that, I’m sure).

I wanted to share something I found when I clicked on a random Facebook link. I just thought it was oddly funny in a weird kind of way, hehe. Being a cartoonist should freaking rock—-look at the random stuff they can come up with that no one ever really thinks about:

Can’t Get Over It…

No, seriously, I can’t quite get over how seriously bad this video is. I think the only thing worse than the video is the song.

Your brain might hurt for a while, so let this be a warning. I don’t know why I’m even giving this horrible singer (who suffers from a major turn-off of mine—-arrogance) space on my blog. It’s just…he’s so bad. So horrifically bad. The only redeeming thing about this is that he seems to believe he’s doing something really innovative, and that—-as the category I put this post in suggests—-seriously cracks me up.

I apologize in advance if you have a sudden urge to wash your eyes and ears out with bleach. Resist the temptation, it’s not worth it.

Broken Record

Song that’s currently been stuck in my head on a more on than off basis since…quite a while now.

Love Etc. – Pet Shop Boys

Video’s rather trippy, hehe, but I really like the song which is why I don’t mind that it’s been on a loop in my head for days now. Here are lyrics if you’re interested.

Grrr…

I got a phone call at around noon today—-or rather yesterday—-from the registrar’s office. The lady on the other end informed me that my work term papers were not complete.

Why it took them this long to tell me this is not something I’ll pretend to understand.

Anyways, she told me that they didn’t have the employer evaluation form. This is the form that my boss/supervisor was supposed to fill out after I was finished with my term. It’s like “grading” my performance.

I had sent the evaluation form to my boss ages ago. I had also come up to him personally to tell him about it and when he should send it to my work term coordinator. He told me sincerely that I had nothing to worry about and he’d take care of it.

Either he did and something went wrong with the sending of the form…or he forgot about it somehow. I’m going to have to call him on Saturday to get it all sorted out.

Le sigh.

The Legacy of Mr. Reck

Yesterday (or rather today in the early morning), after the movie was over, our talk came around to our high school experiences. When this happens, one name almost always pops up and the stories start to roll out. Many people already know the real name, but for the sake of anonymity I will give him a pseudonym: Mr. Reck.

Mr. Reck was my economics teacher in Grade 11 which was my senior year in high school. (That’s how they roll in Quebec). He also taught my class Career Education, Personal and Social Development and Moral Education. But mostly, I just refer to him as my economics teacher because that’s the only subject out of the four that should mean anything. He was also Madi’s Grade 8 homeroom teacher and taught her several subjects as well.

Before I go on, let me give a background of my school: It went from Grade 1 to Grade 11. It was very small, only about 150 students. Each grade had one classroom, except for Grade 10 which was divided into two—-depending on the kind of math you’re taking. Madi’s grade was maybe 20 or so students. Mine was 15, including me. (That means my graduating class was a whopping 15 people. Yessiree). Anyways—-Mr. Reck graduated from my high school and got his degree in education from McGill University. Then he came back to teach.

Usually, our teachers were competent enough to keep us under control, even if we were being noisy. (In my class’ case, were only fully quiet when my chemistry teacher was there—-because we liked him a lot—and my English teacher, because she was very strict and had that kind of aura that made you not want to mess with her).  But Mr. Reck? The poor guy didn’t know where to begin. We have tons of stories about him, but I’ll just give two cases to illustrate my point:

Gouda…

It’s 4:56 a.m. as I’m typing this and I’m not in the least bit sleepy. So I’m gonna post. Again.

My sisters and I were watching Another Cinderella Story on Madi’s laptop because we were in the mood for some laughs from the lame and cheesy variety.  The movie sucked but it cracked me up several times because the acting was so freaking over-the-top. I especially loved the stepmother. She was quite outlandishly evil and got most of the laughs out of me. Like when she told her stepdaughter to not follow her into her dressing room because “I hate your aura. It’s ugly, sad and lonely.” (Or something along those lines )

Her stepdaughters were also borderline insane and rather spastic. It’s a seriously stupid movie, but it has enough cheese to make it an excellent candidate for those times when you want to watch something insipid just because you like to make fun of things. My only bone of contention is Joey Parker, who was supposed to be this big teen pop star who falls in love with the Cinderella of the movie—-a girl named Mary who is her stepmother’s slave. If I’m not mistaken, these kids are in their junior year of high school. They should be between 17-19, and 19 is pushing it. Joey Parker (played by Andrew Seeley), looked every one of his 26 years. He looked more like a high school counselor then a teen heartthrob, which was distracting. I know there are a lot of instances where much older people play teens, but you can only pull that off when people actually LOOK as young as the character they’re playing. It helps. Plus he just didn’t look like a pop star…he looked like a wannabe and did an excellent job of making me cringe over and over again.

But why am I analyzing this stupid movie? We had a great laughter session, but it’s no masterpiece of any kind. I say download it if you’re interested in a large helping of lame-induced giggles.

Upper Dater

I thought I’d update from the last post, hehe. We went back to City Center today because Lana found a cover that she sort of liked (wasn’t quite what she wanted, but definitely better than the other options) and decided to go for it anyways. So the mission’s finally been accomplished, hehe. We did pass by Al Nasser (dunno if I spelled that right) street because there is a Samsung store there as well, but the covers they had were indeed too big for Lana’s version of the Omnia. Plus they were rather pricey. The one Lana got from CC cost 50 riyals while Samsung was selling theirs for 100.

Driving around today was nice. Madi wasn’t feeling too well so she stayed at home—-it was just Lana and me. There were some crazies (of the “weaver” sub-type…the people who like to weave in and out of traffic without using signals or any kind of safety protocol) but not too many. We also got lost a couple of times, but since Doha is about the size of a dot (map-wise anyways, heh) it’s relatively easy to get back on track. You just have to find some kind of landmark that is familiar enough to pinpoint a way back to a more familiar road. But because of our accidental detour it took us about 15-20 more minutes than originally planned to get to City Center. Ah well, at least we got there.

We also, by some miracle, managed to find some pretty damn good parking. City Center is notorious for making you spend several minutes going around and around and around trying to find a space. But we managed to find one just as the car occupying it was getting out. (So much for tailing a couple with their shopping cart. I was slowly following them hoping they’d lead me to their car so I could take their spot. I just ended up not curving fast enough when they turned, and seriously ticking off the cars behind me ) I managed to reverse-park for maybe the third time ever. I always need instructions from Lana but I think I’m getting better at it. (I parked rather crookedly, but at least I didn’t take up two spaces )

Our television’s reciever decided to die yesterday for reasons that remain unknown to me. Perhaps it is not fond of our taste in television, although I’m sure we enjoy a higher class of TV than most of the reality-show freaks of today. (Technically I don’t really like watching TV unless it’s one of the few shows I like. Usually, I find the Internet more entertaining). Anyways, since we were heading off to City Center we passed by Carrefour and picked up another reciever. Lana’s downstairs trying it out right now. While we were there, I was distracted by a bunch of TV’s that were showing a Judo (could have been Jiu Jitsu but I’m leaning more towards Judo) woman’s tournament. There was a Korean versus what I think was a Belgian. The Belgian lady pinned the Korean about six times. It was awesome. (I wasn’t rooting for either one, I just thought the moves were great). I miss the martial arts…

And, to round off this ramble, I’ll leave you with a dose of damned-lame-but-oddly-funny:

Did You Know…

…that buying a friggin’ case for your phone is well nigh impossible in this country?

Allow me to elaborate:

Lana has a Samsung Omnia cell phone. It’s about the size and shape of an iPhone, but obviously doesn’t look exactly the same. It didn’t come with its own case, so she wanted to buy one as a kind of protection for it—-especially so the touchscreen doesn’t get scratched up.

Now there are a lot of covers for iPhones. But none of them cover the screen as well. Moreover, the Omnia has a couple of buttons on the bottom as compared to the one button in the middle on an iPhone—-and iPhone covers are made to only reveal that one button.

Believe it when I say we went to all these places in the past three days (but not in this order):

1. Carrefour in both Villagio and City Center
2. Virgin Megastore in Villagio
3. Every freaking electronics shop in City Center
4. The Center
5. The Samsung shop near The Center
6. Jarir

We even called another Samsung center and they said they only had covers for the newer version of the Omnia—-which is much bigger than the one Lana has.

All she’s asking for is a freaking cover that will adequately (and efficiently) encase the phone as well as protect the touchscreen. That is all. Is that really too darn much to ask for?

It’s a good thing that I love to drive around. Seriously.