Minnesota Winter Fashion

Brrrrr! It's freakin cold out, people... AND snowy. At least when it was just cold I would wear flats anywhere. Now I have to actually think about where I'm going, because I might have to pull on my huge Doc Martin boots so I don't get snow in my shoe. lol. Sure it's all pretty, but it's messy and in a week or so, all the snow'll be brown and slushy with ice hidden underneath. So the cold, the snow, the ice, and the inevitable accident-per-winter bother me, but not as much as the following: FASHION! Who wants to be cute when it's -10 degrees out and you need like 4 layered sweatshirts to be warm and a coat! Especially on a big campus like mine. It gets windy, nigga! Man. It annoys the crap out of me when I'm too cold to wear anthing but a sweatshirt, hat, bulky scarf and coat and the chick next to me is looking all cute. It's too cold to be cute. It hurts me to say that, as those of you who know me would know. But it's true. Sometimes it just matters more not to slip and fall on your ass than to wear those cute stilettos that match your outfit. I've come to terms with it.

Holiday Season

So, I've decided to change the content of my Blog. No one wants to sit there and read about my whining everyday --not even me. Plus, how can I be negative on my blog every day if it's Christmas time? Sure, I'm Muslim, but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy the mood of Christmas! Everyone is in such good spirits, everything is covering in a blanket of beautiful white snow (that I hate driving in, but LOVE looking at), and the cheer is tangible in the air... and you can never forget the MUSIC! Who doesn't love XMas music?! You'd be coldhearted if you didn't get a warm fuzzy feeling in your stomach when you hear "Sleigh Ride" or "White Christmas" by Bing Crosby. Even "Silent Night" is good if it's by the right artist coughBOYZIIMENcough! I love those old school versions of the Xmas songs by Bing Crosby, Dean Martin, and the like... they are just so contentment-inducing. I'm pretty sure even the meanest among us cheers for Rudolph when they listen to Burl Ives' version of his song. Plus, it allows grown men to sing about something being "gay" and we actually think they mean "happy" instead of homosexual. And, really, who doesn't like Santa? Santa Claus is so cute and congenial. Awwwwh! I understand that he's a Coca Cola fabrication, however, the commerciality of Christmas is was makes it so easily universal. Would I like Xmas if all the songs were like "Holy Jesus angels sing around you, praise the lord"? C'mon, it would annoy the hell out of every one who isn't Christian if that's what Christmas was about, commercially. Imagine going in a store and hearing "Silent Night" or some hymn instead of "Rockin Around the Christmas Tree". It would be so weird. Way to alienate customers. I forgot the movies, too. They are so awesome. How great are the Home Alone movies? Or watching How the Grinch Stole Christmas for the umpteenth time. There's nothing like the tradition of watching Christmas movie after Christmas movie while you're in your pajamas on winter vacation. Ahhh..... Anyway, I love the holiday season. All the way from the first slice of turkey on the Thanksgiving until the last glass of (faux) champagne is downed on the morning of the New Year. Now remember to listen "Jingle Bell Rock" while you're plowing through the newly-fallen snow on your respective campuses. Just enjoy Xmas while it's here. Soon it'll be summer and 100 degrees. Happy holidays!

Loyalty

Loyalty. Now, like the sociologist I believe myself to be, I must define everything about which I speak. So, what is the definition of loyalty? Let's consult good old dictionary.com... The definitions I liked best were "feelings of allegiance or the act of binding yourself (intellectually or emotionally) to a course of action."

It seems to me that loyalty is a lost art. I'm not saying that I am loyal 100% of the time to my friends, because, after all, I am human and the mind games that some people play to trick you into disloyalty are usually quite underhanded and crafty. So if I am not always loyal, should I expect loyalty from my friends? I believe that in friendship, a certain level of loyalty should be present. One should try one's hardest to stay loyal to a friend.

Unfortunately, good friends are as hard to come by as is an honest salesperson. Once you find that salesperson, you must always go back to him. When I worked at Marshall Field's, I had about 35 customers who would call in specifically to know whether or not I was working, or they would jot down/make mental notes of when I worked so that they could come back to me. If there is no loyalty, how can a relationship be built? Sure, you can have your friends with whom you party, you can have friends with whom you study, and you can have friends with whom you chat about random things ---but that's it. They will never evolve into "friends friends" until you trust them and believe that they will be loyal to you in most, if not all, situations.

A few years ago, I was put into a quite awkward situation by a friend who conveniently forgot to whom she owed her allegiance. For some reason, however, I could never ask her the question I wanted her to answer most: how could she call herself my friend if she couldn't respect the sanctity of a conversation I have with her? I'm still haunted by my inability that night to metaphorically pull her by the collar and slap her across the face. I was so hurt by her betrayal, I decided that she did not deserve my allegiance either. Needless to say, our friendship was effectively ruined (although we pretended it was fine for a year or so longer).

If that friend hadn't been caught, I would never have known not to trust her. This made me think of the myriad of people in my life that I could be trusting who didn't deserve it and had kept their betrayal under wraps. I was so paranoid for the longest time and I'm nearly sure that it has made a lasting impression on me as a person. I've become a lot more cynical than I used to be.

But I guess everything happens for a reason. If my friend hadn't betrayed me, I'm sure someone else would have. Is it pathetic that I've lost so much faith in humanity because of one incident? I'd have to say that even now at the tender of age of (almost) 18, I'm already quite exhausted of the mind games that people play. Is it asking a lot from people to just be nice? Or should nice and loyal and other words of the same breed just be saved for after-school specials? I'd like to believe not. But then, I'm probably wrong.

What the hell, I have time to spare... "Calling it"

I've decided to add another post today because of the unbelievable boredom of the material I am reading for my class tomorrow. Let's see... what else annoys me?

"Calling it"

I know a number of people who tend to "call it". If you do not know this term, you have been blessed beyond your imagination. "Calling it" is the phenomenon in which people tell everyone that they told everyone about/came up with a certain thing or started a certain phrase or trend.
It's all good if you want credit for something you created, but if it's taking credit for getting "everyone" into a movie, book, or musical group, it's annoying as hell. Especially if every damn time someone brings it up, you say "I so got everyone on that!" I think it takes away some of the coolness of hooking people on things if you call it everytime it comes up.
One time, I met one of my friend Jane*'s friends, and found that he was using a term I always used. I said, "That's so weird. I always say that." And he told me he got it from Jane*, so Jane* piped up that she got it from me. Now, that's a cool situation: knowing you're cool enough for your coined phrases to go more than one degree away from you. But it's not like I went around after that policing every freakin person who said it and crying, "I came up with that!"
Now, calling it is annoying enough, but it actually came to the point where one of my friends, Billy*, was actually calling something I had found out. ME! Billy* was going around taking credit for this thing, and everyone was coming back to me and saying "Billy's* a riot. He was saying..." Really? Really?! I'm not making this up. And then when I told them how it got started, they would say "Oh you came up with it? I thought Billy did." Yeah. He did. That's exactly what happened. It was so blatant, too. Billy* was acting as if it were his idea and as if I didn't know it was mine, in fact. Freakin a.... Was I annoyed or what? If you guess that I was annoyed, you were right. Bravo.
Now, as I said before, I was freakin annoyed. Especially when that thing got annoying and my friend was like "Sorry, it's getting annoying, isn't it?" I was like "Why are you sorry? I made it up."
Another "calling it" favorite: songs. I hate when people call songs. "That's so my song." Did you write it? Are you the singer? Does it play whenever you walk into a room? Didn't think so. If none of the above apply, you can't say that a song is 'yours'. Especially if it's a widely known song that everyone loves like "The Way You Look Tonight" or something. If it holds a special meaning to you, tell someone you love this song when it comes on --just don't tell them "this is my song" because it isn't. Yours my ass. "Yours"...pfff. What a bunch of bollocks. The person to whom you say that is annoyed, even if they don't say it. They're rolling their eyes behind your back or gritting their teeth under their smiles.
Here's another example of sheer blatant dumbass-ity? lol. Anyway, I had this friend, Ross*, who called the term "retarded". RETARDED. Whenever someone said "that's so retarded", he would say "stop stealing my lines." Retarded. I couldn't fathom what his thought process was to coin "Retarded". How can you coin "retarded"? First, it's so damn politically incorrect, it makes me sick that someone would want to be associated with that word (I'm not saying I don't use that phrase, but I'm not gonna say that it's my word)! Second, you can't call a word that's so widely used. That's like me saying "I coined the word 'like' because I say it all the time." Dumbass.
Man, calling it is probably one of the most annoying things ever. I mean, it's annoying enough the way people act when they call something, but it also makes you look like such a follower if you like that thing as well. Even if you've liked/said/done this for longer than the "caller" has.
So here's the real problem with "calling it": does one have to broadcast their feelings about everything they encounter? If I get into a band, do I have to tell EVERYONE about them instantly so I don't become a follower when other people start hearing the band and I tell them I like the band as well? I don't think I should have to shout out my feelings about everything I like just so I won't be viewed as a follower.
My plea: DON'T "CALL" THINGS. IT'S LAME AS HELL AND IF NO ONE TELLS YOU IT'S ANNOYING THEM, IT STILL PROBABLY IS, SO STOP DOING IT.

NOTE: I realize it's hard to follow the ambiguity of the characters and subjects in my stories. But I don't want to offend anyone and get someone all pissed at me because I'm broadcasting some problem I have with him or her. I've started using a different name and astrik next to fake names a la Glamour. lol.
*Names have been changed.

invisible friends

So there is this person I know. Known him/her for quite a while. We were tight for a while, but now we are so completely freaking alienated that our past relationship seems like it was someone else's.
It's sad, I know. People say that you grow apart from your friends, but I don't think it's about growing apart; it's about the everlasting quest for popularity and acceptance. "Aren't we over that? We're in college, for God's sake."
Um...sorry to inform you, Naive Ayah (and her counterparts in you, the reader). The quest for popularity never ends for some people. It's all about maturity. It takes a lot for people to grow out of their search from popularity, their unquenched primal need for acceptance. This doesn't just happen randomly or from one isolated incident. It occurs from a tapestry of events --a multitude of schemas woven together to make a large, all-encompassing quilt of selfishness and self-doubt. Am I being too harsh? Sorry, but I've been hurt too often by others to be nice about anything anymore. Sure, you can tell me that my friend isn't worth all this heartache. If he/she did not want to put forth the effort to sustain our friendship, then he/she is not worth it. Screw him/her!
But I can't. Unfortunately I have a conscious that doesn't let me cut the heart strings with people like that. I may be a self-proclaimed bitch or want to act like a hard-ass and say "Whatever, nothing affects me", but I can't. I try to be as truthful with myself as I want others to be to me (pretty damn truthful), so I can't lie to myself and act like I'm not affected when one of my close friends is acting lame. That would be bullshit (and if you check my medical records, I'm pretty sure I'm allergic to bullshit).
So what happens now? Do I sit here and wait for my friend to grow up and realize who his/her friends are... or do I just move on and say, "Too bad, you lost your chance with me" if and when they come around? For my own peace of mind, I'm trying to drop him/her. He/she never offered anything to me to want to hold on to, so there's really nothing I'm losing. I think I just can't bare the idea that I put so much effort in so many years of friendship and now it's over --there was no result to my hard work.

I N D E C I S I O N. S U C K S.

Serendipity

Yesterday I was being quite lethargic; I sat on the couch all day, studied, and watching movie after movie on TBS. At 11, Serendipity, that John Cusack movie, came on. It got me thinking about love and whether or not everyone is destined to have it (as pretty much anything these days does).
Why is it so much harder for people to fall in love these days? I look at my parents, my aunts and uncles, even my cousins who are a lot older than me, and it seems like everyone has their amazing soulmate, happening upon them as easily as I would a penny when I'm walking down Washington Avenue. There are so many examples of such amazing love stories from our elders... but then you look at people our age (give or take 10 years), divorcing like incompatible magnets or else in their 30s without a serious relationship (marriage or one ending in such).
What the hell is going on? We see these people who are a bit older than us not being married till their 30s, what's next, us not being married til our 40s? Is it that we don't let ourselves love? Are we afraid of failure? I know that personally, I don't like taking risks that depend on anyone but myself. So is that the mentality everyone else has, too? Does everyone have the I'm-in-control-of-my-professional-life-and-I-want-to-have-the-same-control-in-my-social-life syndrome? Or maybe it's this whole thing with "I want to put my career first" and that "50 is the new 30" with women. FIFTY! Pretty soon it'll be that 60 is the new 30. Since when? People don't live forever. And the last half of the life of the average person is plagued by illness, so how can we keep delaying our chance at a real life?
Sure, go ahead and tell yourself that you don't care, if it happens that you end up single, it's not big deal. I'm not gonna worry about it. Or perhaps you'll take the route my friend Maggie decides to take and say "Everything is bound to work out." But will it?
It doesn't seem likely to me anymore. When I was a little girl, I imagined such amazing romance in my future, but now it's like that little girl was so stupid and naive. Shit doesn't go down that way.
What I know is that I miss the old Gone With The Wind, Casablanca, and Breakfast at Tiffany's romance. What happened to people that that kind of love is just a fantasy? Or was it a fantasy to begin with? Oh God, I hope not.
It doesn't seem fair to have this kind of amazing, unachievable love dangled in front of us and none of us are able to get it. Yeah, yeah, I'm too young to think of all this everlasting love stuff, but remember I'm an Egyptian girl. We pretty much are thinking of this stuff in the womb (I'm pretty sure all my Egyptian girls can attest to that).
Anyway, whichever choice we have in love, it's probably not going to be us ending up sitting in an empty saloon we own, listening to a black dude play "As Time Goes On", pining over a lost love like Humphrey Bogart --it'll probably be over a love never found.
Is that fair in the grand scheme of things? Probably not. But since when was life fair?

Welcome

Well, I started a blog about 8 months ago, but I wrote in it once and never told anyone aboutit. So, lo and behold, I've started a blog that I plan on actually writing on. For those of you who know me, you know I can really lay into anything that bugs me... so I've decided to start a blog to document the list of grievances which have come or will come to my attention. Also, suggestions are welcome.
WARNING: This will probably be some of the most random stuff you've ever read, but you can bear with me.
Let's start light:
" Grammar Troubles"
I am thoroughly annoyed by people who try to act smart by saying, for example, "John or myself will help you with this." or "between john and myself". COME ON! "ME" AND "I"! What happened to them? Or people who say "whom" for everything to sound smart. Sometimes it's who.
God, especially when it's a working professional. If you have a certain achieved status, you have to speak or act in a certain way to reflect said status, not sit there and talk like a hick who's trying to fake that he's from town.
I just feel bad for those people who are speaking in public and make these mistakes. It makes them sound so much more stupid than they actually are.
My only plea to you is to keep it simple if you are unsure of something. Even if you don't sound like you just graduated early from Harvard, you won't sound like someone who is striving to sound pompous.