Moving House

Hello, reader. I'm closing down this blog soon. I have moved to a new blogsite. For the new address, please email me.

Thank you for reading me. It's been great.

Kids

Kids have cooties. Boys AND girls.

This is the number one reason I avoid dealing with them as much as I possibly can. They're little people who have no control over their emotions; all of their emotions are insanely heightened. When they're happy, they're HAPPY. When they're angry, they're ANGRY. When they're hungry, oh they're HUNGRY. When they're sad, you get the gist. 

They know no social, political or socio-economic boundaries.

They have no control over the range of their voices. Decibels to them is a name given to a mystical community of mermaids and mermen. 

They say things they're not supposed to, and then they don't say things they're supposed to.

They have very limited vocabulary.

They don't have a sense of limitations, they don't know when to stop. Repetition is funny to them. How crass. 

Their characters are underdeveloped. Like Sylar. No, like Mohinder Suresh. No, like Parkman. 

They don't have finesse, no appreciation for art, or the senses. 

They think the manifestation of power lie solely in physical outbursts. How asinine. How utterly crass.

Kids. Unimpressive.

I don't know why people have them.

Maybe they remind me too much of myself, or of the things I want to be now, me, a non-kid. 

I'm *fortunate* enough to have the *magnificent* opportunity to always be surrounded by kids. Yes, I started teaching kids again after a whole year. Well, it was a fun first day. My class consisted of a bunch of 10-11 year old children who were so bursting with fruit flavor that all I wanted to do was take a stick and bang it on the board twice to shock them into silence. I did the next best thing: stare at them quietly for a few minutes. It worked. Once I got their attention, I took their attendance, had them introduce themselves, and start on their classwork. It was fun. I referred to them as ladies and gentlemen. It was almost a business 101 class. I'm quite proud of them. At the end of the class, they pushed their chairs in, cued up quietly and left. 

I like kids who understand my power. *snicker*

***

The best kids class I ever taught was 2 years ago, a level 4 English class, a smart funny artsy ridiculously insane group of kids. I miss them now. I came across a piece of paper they all wrote on and handed to me on the very last day of class. It's filled with inside jokes, the kind of stuff I cherish.

(sic)

to my favorite teacher ms nesreen, I wish for you a happy future. good by mr cris*. 

Raba'a

dear mr. cris, Hi and bye and I wish you will be lean again ;-) and I wish your next B-4* are worse than yours now. good by. miss nissreen i wish you will become mrs.!!! don't forget us.

Aliah

Thank you for teaching me and you are a good teacher and good luck in you life and don't eat a lot! and if I saw Adnan Fallatah* I will tell him my teacher says hello.

Yazeed

Thank you for study me mr cris and I wish you have good life.

Ibrahim

Hi Hi to my teacher thanks for you to be my teacher & for helping me. I wish to see you another time.

from Shams (Maha!)

* Inside the classroom, we each had alter-egos. Mine was Mr. Cris, the know-it-all 50-year-old English teacher with a horrible British accent.

* B-4 is the name they gave to their class.

* Adnan Fallatah of the Ittihad football club was a favorite classroom meme. All the students were hard-core Ittihad fans.

I ran into a couple of these students early this year. They've all grown up, shed the cooties, moved on to teenage drama. Me? I'm still racing around the teacher's room in a swivel chair.

The Mind Dump

My favorite chair in the house is a black and white two-seater couch with detachable cushions. It used to be in my room. It now rests in the living room, where I usually sit until 5 or 6 in the mawnin, armed with laptop, iPod and cigarettes in pocket, waiting for that elusive phenomenon some people like to call Sleep.

What do I like to take with me everywhere? Let's see. My iPod, for one. My point-and-shoot whose features Souma and I were DSLR-snobbing just last night. My 2 phones, one of them really Summer's, but she has given it to me. Yes, she has. I keep these four things in a small, black Sony bag originally intended for my humangus headphones. I always carry a bottle of perfume, right now, Burberry Sheer Pink. I usually have at least 2 lighters in my bag, one of which is probably stolen from one of my smoker friends. I might also have a book in my bag, or a really rumpled 6-week-old copy of Time magazine, for when I choose not to walk around with my friends and stay back at a restaurant or cafe with a smoking area. I don't do wallets because I usually don't have any money anyway. 

My father has very precise handwriting. He jumps from casual scribble, to playful print, to pompous cursive, to full-blown calligraphy in both English and Arabic. He is cheating, of course, since he is an artist. He has more control of his handwriting's moods, and they usually don't betray what he's feeling at that moment. My mother has only one kind of handwriting. She doesn't do print, and her cursive has that distinct g-y curve, and small trails and loops on her Rs and Ps.

I remember school when I was very young. My earliest memory is coming home in the afternoon feeling extremely carsick, changing from my uncomfortable school uniform into my sun-dress, and coloring in the thick, white fonts of the Ikea catalogues of the 1980s. I would go through each page, ignore the furniture, and go straight for the labels, the captions, and painstakingly fill in each letter with a different color.

When I was little, I used to look forward to my parents grocery-shopping. It was such a treat to be chosen as The One. We were a whole army of kids, and it would've been mayhem to take all of us. Instead, my parents would choose 2 or 3 of us to go with them, while the rest are left at home. The good thing about being picked, is that we got to buy candy and push the buggy. The thing is, it was also such a treat to be left at home. Being left at home meant we didn't have to help with the grocery bags, and we had the house all to ourselves, wreaking havoc in all the rooms of the apartment. We could be as loud as we wanted, play basketball inside the house, pretend we were the World Wrestling Entertainment (I always wanted to be Rey Mysterio or at least one of the Wolf Pack gang, but of course I always just ended up as a "spectator"), and just literally Laugh Out Loud.

College for me was fun in the first half. I was filled with hope and idealism. By the third year, I had become too brooding and self-deprecating to hang out with my old high school friends. I spent the last quarter of college in my room with, again my brothers, and many many bottles of beer between us. If I wasn't there, I was at Sarah's with my college posse. 

Let's say I had the chance to leave a note before I died. The note would read: "You will never guess the passwords, suckers." I might want to write something profound that will resonate with angst and hidden meanings, but I would force myself not to.

The first time I fell in love, I was 17 or 18. I was in love for about 20 days. I can't remember why now, but I remember what it was like. It was a winter month, and I was always cold, I remember, I always had a jacket or a sweater, and I was always on the phone or out with him, and he was one of our childhood friends. By the 20th day, everything just fizzled, as expectizzled. He remains a good friend. 

I would put letters in a time capsule. Letters to people I haven't yet met, but will meet in the future. It will all be, of course, about me, but isn't that what writing is about? Everything is about the author. Whatever they tell you, however much they talk about something or someone else, it's always about the author.

We don't celebrate Christmas, but I have a favorite Christmas. It was 2004, the year I got to spend a whole week with all of my siblings, except for Omar who was in Riyadh, and Ayman and Othman who were both in Jeddah. Adnan made us some secret-recipe margaritas, Waleed, Zen and Pollock cooked and bbq-ed, Amir sang on the karaoke with me and my sister, and my sister's son MD snuck whole plates of food out to the stray cats and dogs. We hadn't been able to get together, all of us, for years at the time, and I don't know when we will be able to do that again. Nothing connects us now, except rusty telephone lines.

I don't like rainbows. Much.

***

This was a creative writing exercise called The Mind Dump. Thank you for participating. 

I Think It's...

Sweet when people wave good bye without actually waving, with just a firm hand, like a frozen high-five.

 

Sweet when your friends and your other friends get along so well that it doesn't feel like you introduced them to each other, like they'd known each other forever. Friends-in-law.

 

Sweet when you receive presents that may otherwise be extraordinarily ordinary, and yet are just what you need or want. Like bookends. A snapshot of you in mid-laugh. A candy bar.

 

Sweet when people tilt their heads sideways a little bit and smile at you across the noise in a huge room.

 

Sweet when people look out into the wide unknown and contemplate their future, with that preoccupied look on their face.

 

Sweet when sunlight shines through the curtains and tiny, little nothings float around in the sunlight.

 

Sweet when you catch people smile into their pillows first thing in the morning.

 

Sweet when you close your eyes against a cool breeze, sun-kist.

 

Sweet when you hear a song you could've written.

 

Sweet when someone remembers.

 

Sweet.

 

 

And a little romance never hurt anyone.

- 14 November 2007

Definition of Madness?

Noun. A moment in one's life when, inexplicably, wrong just seems right.

What do Ted Bundy (serial killer), Albert Einstein (theoretical physicist), Dave Chapelle (crazy) and I have in common?

Yep. I'm a murderer, a genius, and all kinds of crazy. Also, I broke my fast for a cigarette.

The thing about moments of madness is that there's always an after-party in your head, where the guests are guilt, remorse, and a trapped feeling of knowing you will have to pay for your sins sometime in the foreseeable future. 

The question is, is the fleeting euphoria associated with it worth all the trouble?

If I can bottle the guilt that comes after this "crime of passion", I might just solve the energy crisis.

Here is, instead, a list of situations that, put together, might equal the guilt of breaking fast for no reason other than a futile assertion of cool. Might.

* Skipping a credit card payment.

* Cancelling a class.

* Calling in sick at work to laze around with friends.

* Not returning prized DVDs of close friends.

* Sneaking out of a parent's house.

* Sneaking peeks at a sibling's diary.

* Flinging a mobile phone across the room in anger.

* Eloping.

* Lying.

* Shopping mindlessly during sale season.

* Not paying a restaurant bill because they missed a charge.

* Joking at the expense of someone else.

* Using the work phone to make overseas calls.

* Stealing someone else's lighter.

* Not removing make-up before sleep. 

* Avoiding a phone call.

* Wearing an outrageous outfit at a relative's wedding.

* Getting drunk at an office party.

I hate morning-afters, and their counterparts.

Remembering The Tinman

Broken hearts have terrible memories. They forget what it was like.

*****


So this is what heartbreak is.

You feel so crushed you're almost numb. You're sitting there, with your jittery hands, and your pounding heart, and your averted gaze, and your embarrassing nails, and your out-of-place bag, and your unwanted food, and you are crushed.


You almost believed it. For the first time in years, you remember The Tinman, who stole your heart, the smile from your face.

What robber, what thief, who took away the part so essential to the whole, who stole your heart, who took it away, knowing that without it you can't live.

You had faith in this, that it would work, because it was so unexpected, because it came to you at a time when you weren't looking, or expecting anything from anyone of such close proximity.

Sometimes, before tonight, you would mentally shake yourself, and hit yourself on the back of the head, and suspect that there is some dark magic involved that made you so preoccupied with him, that dark magic you've only ever heard of, that dark magic that manipulates vulnerable souls into thinking they are attracted to someone.

Sometimes, the shaking and the hitting would work for a few seconds, and you would convince yourself that you were right; why else would you be so besotted by someone you wouldn't ordinarily be besotted by. Why else? But it would only last a few minutes, and then you're back to the kidding-yourself.



Was it a trickster using mirrors and sleight of hand

A strong elixir or a potion that you drank?

Who hurt your heart

Bruised it in a place?



And some neighborhoods away, there lies your friend in her bed, crying her eyes out because you know her and you know that she IS crying, and you feel her pain, a pain that is probably identical to yours. And you want to share with her the story of the Tinman, but you know you can't because you've kept so much from her. You are so crushed that no tears come to your eyes.



You are so embarrassed that you said the things you said. You would think you knew better.



You are crushed by the images that cross your mind, of a happy ever after that will never be yours.



You are reminded by all the things that you don't have that could be the reason behind this loneliness. You are reminded by the profoundness of the pathetic situation you are in, of how deeply sorry it is. You are reminded of the neglect that is the only thing you possess, neglect of self, neglect by others, neglect by friends, neglect by family.



You are forced to rise from this. You are forced to pretend nothing happened, that there was no heartbreak, that you didn't have to give up anything because you never owned up to anything to begin with.



Your arms feel weak, your knees.



And you feel even worse by your friends' concern for you. That their concern should explicitly imply that you have, in fact, lost before you've even begun the game.



You are now forced to dust yourself off, and to remind yourself over and over again: Wrong person, wrong time.



Remind yourself, over and over and over:




If you can tear down the walls
Throw your armor away, remove all roadblocks, barricades
If you can forget there are bandits and dragons to slay
And don't forget that you defend an empty space
And remember, the Tinman
Found he had what he thought he lacked
Remember the Tinman
Go find your heart and take it back


Who stole your heart?
Maybe no one can say
One day you will find it I pray...



You are forced to convince yourself that everything's gonna be alright, from here on out. If you just hold yourself together. Like you always have.



*****

Citations Needed

The Berlitz Wikipedia

Instructor's Manual (n) bulky book you take everywhere, presumably to prepare lessons. Main purpose is to cause extreme discomfort on account of its heaviness. To be read in the car on the way to work for maximum cramming.

Student (n) the number one cause of violence and thoughts of murder.

Cleaning Lady (n) i.e. Khala Zahrah; person who witnesses increasing signs of teacher madness, when you deliberately slide down the hallways en route to your class. *cough*

Break Time (n) a 15-minute-period between classes dedicated to catching up on gossip and acquiring any number of diseases from 2nd-hand smoke.

Thursday (n) when the countdown starts for Saturday, when you have to work again.

Friday (n) the day you spend being miserable about tomorrow being Saturday, when you have to work again.

Saturday (n) damn it.

Senior Instructor (n) instructors who have been working at Berlitz for at least 2 years, who can't stop talking about WadhHa, the greatest center director of all time.

Junior Instructor (n) new instructors who are probably getting really tired of hearing about it.

Cafeteria Lady (n) person who knows when an instructor is PMS-ing, based on how much candy and chocolate the instructor consumes.

Twix (n) the Berlitz instructor's kryptonite.

Bulletin Board (n) where you should post a document you don't want anyone to read.

Receptionist (n) person whose job all instructors want.

WadhHa (n) the greatest center director of all time.