Disappointment, right vs. popular, etc.

I know I've already written a post about disappointment... but humor me, will ya? It seems that my expectations for people are too damn high. My mom tells me I'm living in a fantasy world. We were discussing friends and reasons people become friends with others. Her school of thought is that, while people search for common ground, life is mostly a popularity contest, and in her experience, it still occurs in middle-aged women.

I believe in being friends with a person, no matter what their origin, familial background, and other obstacles. I treat all my friends with equal love and respect, no matter what their economic or educational background is. Of course, friendships are easier with people of the same socio-economic and educational background, but those two things don't stop me from making someone my friend. As long as we connect and have basic beliefs, or equal respect for each other's differing beliefs so that our belief systems do not infringe on one another, then I can be friends with this person.

My mom said "inti 7asba 7isbitik '3alat", meaning "you made the wrong calculations"... and likens me to my father. Our thoughts and beliefs are noble, but most others don't have that kind of strong hold and positivity about others and life. And no matter how much I say I am sick of dealing with others and that I trust no one anymore, I will continue trying to see the good in people. Maybe I am wishful to a fault in that sense. But when someone is brought up a certain way, or believes in honor, dignity, and straightforwardness to a certain degree, then they believe that everyone is like them. Unfortunately, experience has taught me that not too many people are honorable, dignified, or straight forward. Even people who claim to be closer to you that yourself can let their innate jealousy and/or personal issues skew their friendship with you and they end up ass-raping you for no reason. AND YOU STILL GIVE THEM THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT!

Maybe I'm way too naive for my own good. Maybe I'm just looking for what's not there. Because people want to be good, but sometimes they are taken in a wrong path. Inshaa Allah, Allah will show everyone the right path to follow.
The honorable, straight-forward path.

Suckling at the teat of talent

I was thinking.... has college drained me of my talent as a writer? Now before you call me conceited for thinking that I ever was a talented writer, I've READ some of my old stuff. A sentence was so beautifully structured with minimal effort and I look back now, not remember a single one of the sentences. Has my constant doting on my writing robbed me of the natural, raw talent that used to seep through my old writings?

I was reading an essay I wrote last summer for myself and I was amazed at the writing, and I didn't even recognize it as my own. It was as if I was reading someone else's writings and thoughts. How weird is that? I'm scared and worried. Was I at pinnacle of my talent last year and now I'm spiralling down toward the mundane and ordinary writings of thousands of others, college students or not?

This isn't fair. I'm supposed to get better, not worse. But maybe college was suckling at the teat of my talent and it's slowing suckling it dry. How do I reverse this process? Has/Is anyone experiencing this?

Maybe this is just me being my same old critical self. I'm always critical of who I am. Maybe I'm so critical of who I am and how I write now that I don't see it as as good as my other stuff? Perhaps I'm still a good writer, but I'm reading into my random writing too much. I mean, Facebook posts aren't supposed to be brilliant pieces of literature. But I saw a comment I posted on a friends blog at the beginning of last semester and it was witty and powerful while being concise and meaningful. Now all my stuff is rambling nonsense that is meant for the dimwitted and the unassuming.

Maybe my problem is writing for a crowd. If I write for others, I alter it so much from its original form, that it loses the taste of Ayah Helmy and it turns into what the audience wants. Maybe if I stop judging myself and being so critical of myself, my natural beauty and vivaciousness will show through, unfettered.

I'll leave you with what seems to me to be a proper choice of lyrics (appropriately chosen by my iTunes' shuffle option):

You looks are laughable, unphotographable
Yet you're my favorite work of art

Is your figure less than greek
Is your mouth a little bit weak
When you open it to speak, are you smart?

But don't change a hair for me
Not if you care for me
Stay little valentine stay


Each day is valentine's day

Just some morning musings

So I picked up a shift for my buddy Sarah Ezzat starting at 8 am. Unfortunately, I did not wake up til SEVEN TWENTY SEVEN! And seeing that I live off-campus, it's not good that I opened my eyes half an hour before I was supposed to be at work. So I got up, took the shortest shower in human history, grabbed the closest thing (laundry, might I add), and went out into the world. Time SUCKS! I spend so much energy racing it, that I can't even enjoy what I'm doing. As I was running into Coffman, I noticed some lilac bushes; and I thought to myself, I always will have time to stop and smell the lilacs if I wanted to. And I did. I opened the lab 10 minutes late, but I stopped and smelled one of my favorite smells in nature.

So obviously, the first thing I did after opening all the computers (yes, I said opening, and I know it's FOBish, but I'm not changing it!!!) finally sitting down is check my email. And guess who emailed me: my college writing teacher from high school. She's an awesome lady. I'm pretty sure she doesn't know my blog, but who cares, I'm still gonna say: I love you, Webs! I had emailed her yesterday to see how her year's going and if she had heard about the kid in my graduating class who died of a drug overdose. How sad is that? There was a slow accumulation of facts when it came to this kid's death. At first, I heard he just died in his sleep because of an unknown complication; then I asked another friend what happened and she said it was an accident; then another friend came forward with inside info from one of his friends and it turned out to be a drug overdose. How tragic. But like my first informant said, "if he did it to himself, then I don't feel bad for him." But I guess I feel bad for anyone who never had any fulfillment in life.

On a random and brighter note, I was looking at facebook pics of some people I went to high school with, and I DON'T GET how these girls can have eyebrows that look like that and be okay with it. Even untamed brows are better than what they have going on. You know what I'm talking about: the chick with an eyebrow that starts like on the edge of her pupil because she over-plucks the middle, then has a ball of hair and a straight line. Allow the diagram to illustrate the atrocity:



Sorry the drawing is so hideous, but I had to do it on microsoft paint. Anyway, what pisses me off even more is that girls with eyebrows like these are still considered hot. In Egypt, if a girl had eyebrows like that, she would never hear the end of it. They KNOW the importance of eyebrows there. The eyebrows change the way someone looks completely. I don't understand how people don't care. It's so obvious. And it's so unnatural! I mean, even if God gave you weird eyebrows, they're never going to look like that. The whole point of beauty products is to make you look naturally beautiful, not make you look like you changed yourself to be beautiful. Seriously, it's girls like that who give beauty a bad name. Stop girls and stupid guys who don't notice stuff in this country (I don't care if it makes them quite metro, but guys in Egypt, that I know at least, notice every single thing. A friend of mine in Egypt saw a recent picture of me and was like "you're hair is lighter, isn't it?" and it's BARELY lighter. It changed from the sun slightly).

Anyway, that was my random diatribe. I just can't stand people's disregard for details. Details are what make the final product special and phenomenal. (For example, a couple of years ago, I was at a friend's house before a party where there was this guy she was trying to impress, and a friend of hers had done her make up for her. Unfortunately, this friend didn't do such a good job applying the eyeliner, so I told me friend to go get a cotton swab with eye makeup remover so I can smooth out the eyeliner (it stopped in the middle of her eye noticeably --it doesn't look NATURAL!) and she was like "No, ______ did my makeup and I like it. Plus he's not gonna notice my eyeliner." It's like JUST BECAUSE SOMEONE WHO HAS NICE MAKEUP DID IT DOESN'T MEAN IT'LL LOOK GOOD ON YOU! People are so retarded sometimes. And it's not that big of a deal, but little touches are what make the whole more enticing. Man, that was annoying. Fricken undermining my evaluation of makeup. That pisses me off. When it comes to makeup and fashion, if nothing else, I know what I'm talking about. DON'T UNDERMINE ME! argh....

Man, that crap pisses me off. I hate when I'm shopping with someone and they act like I don't know what's in fashion or if I like something, I'm following the trends or their ideas. Once, I was shopping with a friend and I saw a flower hair clip, and I was like "That's cute!" and tried it on. And she was like "those aren't really in anymore" and I was like "No, they're coming back." and she was like "Why, because they're in the store?" and I was like "No... I've seen it on Vogue and on the red carpet".... and my friend scoffed! GOD!!!

Oh well.

By the way, if you read to the end of this post, I know you love me, because this post SUCKS and is incoherent. So thanks for bearing with me. If you've reached this point, write a comment and you'll get a big hug from me when I see you --you are a true friend. :D Sorry if I sound like a chain letter.

One more summer task....

So I said that the list below is all I had SO FAR, and I've been thinking about yet another goal lately: learning a fourth language. I have English, Arabic, and French under my belt (although another summer plan is to take my french proficiency test so it'll go on my transcript), so I've decided I want to learn either Italian or Spanish.

I know Spanish will be an awesome tool for me in this melting pot called America, especially with what they like to call the "Latin Invasion", although I don't really feel that is a politically correct term (but what the hell, I'm not that politically correct, so screw it, Latin Invasion it is!). However, Italian is SUCH a beautiful language, and it's the language of Da Vinci, Michaelangelo, and so many operas I can't even count. Italian is the language of high culture. When's the last time someone was excited about a fashion show in Barcelona of Mexico City? Or a museum opening? It's always "You HAVE to see the Vatican!" or "The Pantheon is so inspiring!"

Now, I apologize to all those reading this blog and wanting to rise up and defend Spanish. I understand that it is a very beautiful language as well (all those rolling R's alone are so awesome to listen to)... AND it's Shakira's language, and I'm sure we all know how much we all worship her (even if we won't admit it).

Anyway, quite the conundrum, n'est-ce pas? If anyone has an argument either way, contact me, I wanna know your thoughts.

Til next time!!

Finals are over!!!! .... Now what?

YES! I am just excited as the rest of you, our academic year is coming to a close! And as I sit here listening to my disgusting co-worker clip his nails in the lab (I KNOW-- IN WHAT WORLD IS THAT OKAY?!), I'm pondering about what freedom I have. But freedom from what and for what? It's true, I am sick of being ultimately stressed about things, but what am I going to do now? Am I just going to sit and rot for the rest of the summer? I need that rush of there's-something-to-be-done-and-I-better-do-it, and I need new information to digest all the time. What am I going to do without school? Is this just me?

So I've decided, learning will not stop in the summer. Here's my brain's to-do list SO FAR:

1. Read a book every week. I want to prime myself for next semester. I am taking classes with reading galore, and I want to keep myself conditioned. I'm thinking reading a 300-400 page book every week might do that for me (I'm not saying that they're all going to be about Einstein's theory of relativity, but I'm sure the Shopaholic series will give me some relaxing brain food in between "A Tale of Two Cities" and "A Brief History of Time".

2. Write at least 10 pages a week. I can write 70 pages a day if I wanted to, because I'm in love with the written word, but I'm aiming for ten, so if I don't do it one week, I don't want to kill myself the next week because I have too much to do.

3. Learn about the stock market. I've come to realize that it's not the "stilettos versus platforms" is what makes the world go round. And if I am to understand politics to a greater degree than I do now, I am going to have to understand the way money changes lives. I am against the stock market, I guess, because from what I understand, the money gleaned from it is taken right from the pocket of the Little Man, and in my world, that's not okay.

4. Read the Qur'an and its tafseer. I know I'm not a sheikha, and I'm glad I can admit that, unlike some people who sit there and recite hadith after hadith without reflecting on themselves. So this summer will be another small step for my deeper understanding of Islam and its Holy Book.

I do have other goals during the summer besides being a nerd and giving myself schoolwork, but this is what it is for now because I'm already starting to miss having to revise a paper for the umpteenth time before handing it in or cramming for a test by an awesome teacher whose busywork I hate. Well, I guess you'll be hearing a lot more from me.

Good luck on all your remaining finals!!!