Another update

Almost ready to quit.. Not much left to do but say the words. But I will probably wait till after Ramadan. Oh, right Ramadan started. Ramadan is the Muslim holy month in which we fast all day, sunrise to sunset, and we Muslims are supposed to be very pious this month. We pray, sleep, wakeup pray, eat before sunset, pray, sleep, pray, pray, eat at sunset, pray, pray, pray and then sleep. Oh, and we find time to work in between all of that. The Saudi national day fell on the first day of Ramadan so it put kind of a damper on their plans to celebrate the day as it had been planned.
I have a plan for quitting but I will save it till later. No sense giving the plot away.
In other news a bud of mine started his masters at LSE, wish him luck. I hear that school is pretty tough and he is studying math. Good lord, talk about a tough subject. But god willing, a term we Muslims use quite often, he will come through in good style.

quote of the day

The best thing I heard today was something my friend Bill said "Everytime he says hi I feel like killing myself". There are moments that you can look back on and it always brings a smile to your face. One such occasion was when I was in small pizza place on staten island the weekend before I left ny. I had a couple of friends from college come down to say goodbye and we shared quite a few jokes about the old times and some about the current times. I can think back to that and it always bring a smile to my face. Similarly, everytime I will think of Bill saying that line I will smile.
In other news, people from work are going to China for a training course and I don't get to go. Might not sound like a big deal but I really wanted to go, so did Bill. He is after all Chinese and has been home sick for a while. But thank you government officials for loosing his travel papers at exactly the right time. I was told I would be going on the this trip too, I guess I am not good enough to learn about the new technology... I'm feeling particularly happy right now.(note: that was a sarcastic comment) Oh, well the good news is I plan to leave the company sooner rather than later. Pity too, there are some nice people here. The people being sent are scared of being outside the country. I mean come on, this would be an exciting trip where you would get to learn about a different culture. I wonder if it is xenophobia ? probably, seeing how they think low of people that are not Arabs. Anyways, back to reading about the FIX protocol.

Out of hours

So the company's owner has been asking everyone but me and my friend, both of us go to lunch at non approved times, why we keep going to lunch at times other than 12.30 to 1.00. Very annoying, we can work over time and not get paid but if you go to lunch between 12.45 and 1.30 it becomes an issue. I'm thinking of quitting... can't take too much more of this kind of crap.
I took my sister and her friend out to dinner yesterday, she got straigth A's in her classes and I thougth she deserved a treat. We sat in the family section of a restaurant and boy let me tell you, the girls there were hottt. I mean I don't know if I am supposed to be looking around in the family section of a restaurant, but .. wow. I didn't know that under the viels the girls would be that good looking. Anywho, the topic of discussion at yesterday's dinner table was how my sister managed to get straight A's when
1. She hates what she was studying
2. She does not put in the required effort to understand the subject matter.
She is studying computer science but she hates the subject. She loves being able to show up my bro in computer knowledge so I guess I know why she took it. But still, if you hate a subject how can you be good at it?
In 11th grade, junior year of high school, I hated chemistry. In my senior year I had an awesome chemistry teacher and I realized I didn't hate the subject, I hated how the old teacher taugth the subject. So I guess she has really good teachers, but some how I doubt it. My experience says a good teacher can make any subject interesting, though in college I took subjects I thought were interesting and more or less taught myself. The professors, not all of them though, were more a hinderance in education than a source of help. But then again college is supposed to teach you how to learn. If you actually end up learning something, consider it a bonus. Not too many people end up working on things they studied. I will never have a job designing computer chips in VLSI. But I studied that stuff all the same. But I am alright with that, what I hate is working over time and being told I have to go to lunch between 12.30 and 1.00

I'm with stupid.

I saw a t-shirt that said "summer time is always fine time". What happened to all the really good t-shirts like, I'm with stupid, The mountain dew has reclaimed its thrown, buzz off, big smiley face etc. All we are left with is summer time is always fine time. Ridiculus. In Saudi Arabia it's almost always summer time. So is it always fine time ? I doubt it.

another blah day

Another blah day, after completing email to sms project there really isn't much to do around here. They want me to test mms content.. how exciting. Things were looking extremly glum till I found this gem of a movie review of a recent teen horror flick
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?no=316323&rel_no=1
The last line, more than anything else, made me break out into a grin.
Now, I don't usually enjoy such things but you know what? sometimes it helps to know someone else sucked at something really bad.

Navaratilova

She is 49, with about a week left to turn 50, and just won the mixed doubles event at the US open. What an amazing physique. In other news I got back to the gym ,yesterday, after a week of being sick and got in a ligth workout. Today I will hopefully spend more time on the eliptical, should get in a good 1/2 hour on it.
If you are ever around the arab world don't be surprised if someone gives you the air kiss. It's quite a common way of greeting each other. You peck someone on the cheek once on the right, once on the left and, depending on the part of the arab world, once on the left or right. Men hold hands quite often and it is not considered weird at all to have an area demarcated as men only in a shopping mall. In a completely male dominated society with all its opposition to homosexuality I think it would be very easy for someone of that sexual preference to survive in Saudi Arabia. All you would have to do is tame the extragavent sense of dressing. Actually, you know what? Seeing the way some of the guys dress here, even an extragavent sense of dressing wouldn't give you away.
For those of you who don't know where all of that came from, I found out that Navaratilova is a lesbian. You can't really hold that against anyone, I know a family friend that was born gay. When everyone was around 10 years old and playing football on the streets, he was inside playing with his "action figures". He is now in Canada studying fashion design. Some people are just born that way.

o-sama

Did anyone ever realize that in Japan people refere to Osama as Mr. O ? The word Sama means Mister. I think the next Bond movie should be Mr. O, anyways I thought I should share my only original thought of the day.

sick

For the past few days I have been sick, and so predictably there were no posts during this period. I promise to make up this lack of communication soon with a joke my dad told me. I try to post it tommorow.