Why can't kids be sweet?

I missed my class at 8 this morning and decided I will take the whole day off and a very long weekend.

Around 2, my cousin's kids came from school and two of my cousin's are staying with us for few days so I decided I will do something good to the world and baby sit them. It all went very well at first, I gave them lunch and they ate it like good kids – if you would ignore the fact that they insisted on have berry cocktail on their rice with the meat.

I think the berries might have something to do with it because those three girls TURNED WILD! They started running around the house screaming and throwing things around. I yelled once and one of them was like 'so what? What can you do to us?'

I got so mad because no kids talks to me like that so I said 'I will give you a time out in the bathroom and lock the door'

That worked for about five minutes.

At that point I decided even helping in the kitchen can't be that bad and called mom to tell her but she talked me into giving it another try.

I decided to try some TV but turned out they're not the kind to sit and watch TV but to jump over chairs and tables.

After trying to calm myself down for few minutes, I just started yelling and took them all back to the games' room – which is not a bad thing for them when I think of it now. Anyways, this time another one of them turned to me and was like 'you don't scare me!'

After all the yelling I don't scare her?

I yelled louder this time and warned her that I will send her to downstairs to her mother and she won't get to play with the girls.

That worked for like 5 minutes and then they got into playing playstation for few more minutes and I decided I will leave them because they can manage like that and I'm so sick from sitting in the games' room.

Now I'm just writing this and they're walking all around the house… I'm going to buy myself some ice-cream later.

Two of them were whispering to each other and going downstairs, when I asked them where they're going they said they want to see my brother's teacher and she's downstairs, then they came back and were like whispering how she's 'Jiniya!' then they took the youngest and told her they're going to see her again but that she should kiss the Jiniya and you should just look from far away. Not only are they annoying, they're racists too.

Ramadan

One of my favorite things about Ramadan is going to pray Taraweeh in the Masjid because you go pray and come back and have nothing to do, nothing to worry about. If I decided to pray at home, I will end up praying after 11 and doing nothing before that except sitting and thinking how lazy I feel after Iftar. Anyways, so Friday night I was excited waiting for them to say if tomorrow is Ramadan or not so I can go pray.

My sister made the mistake of telling my grandmother who was visiting that Saturday is Ramadan before they announced it and didn't she get a look! No physical harm was done though.

Apparently my grandmother says that Saturday can't be Ramadan because President Gaddafi said that it's Ramadan before Maghirb in Libya, so as far as my grandmother know, if any other country said Saturday is Ramadan then they're just following Gaddafi. It's nothing new though, she's always saying for one reason or another that those people don't know anything and they give us the wrong dates.

My sisters and I then walked to the Masjid to pray – that Masjid is one of my least favorite. The architecture is so beautiful but the people who pray there are just nasty. They ladies smell so awful that I keep wondering how can they stink like that, what did they eat or do to smell like that – I though it was impossible. Also, every woman would come with her herd of kids who would play around, scream and run. It was a typical nightmare in Ajman.

Yesterday, we came back to Alain and went to pray in the Masjid near our house, it's such a nice Masjid and the Imam, masha'allah, is so good (people from all over Alain come to pray in it) and people smell nice here. The secret is to find an old lady and pray next to her – they always have gallons of perfume on them.

I wonder what we are having for Iftar today...

Technology, Entertainment and Design

I found the TEDtalks podcast and have been listening to one every now and then and finding some really remarkable and recommended them to many who also enjoyed listening to them. Just listening to all these people share their ideas and thought is amazing and not something you would find everyday.

Here is a link to link to their website and this link to its blog.

You can also find the podcasts on iTunes, just search for TEDtalks in podcast.

Enjoy.

Personality test

Here is a link to an online personality test.

This one is very accurate and to the point, even though not everything is really sweet, I mean who would really want to know how 'friendly' they are?

I did it and the results were kind of things I known but most I was not really aware of. I also shared it with my sisters, mom and friend and they shared theirs which kind of helped in understanding them and helped them to understand me – they got me all wrong when I asked them before.

Education

Here is an interesting article about the education ministry.

"We want to elevate the standards of education by creating a motivational academic environment. We are in a process of redeveloping the educational system across the country. Our utmost priority is to consider what is in the best interest of the pupils. All the elements involved in the educational system will undergo extensive changes," - Dr. AlNuaimi

Well, Hello there, but it's about time someone did something about the educational system here and in the article they sounded like there would be some changes.

I wonder what would be done about this textbook. Last week a book that showed policemen as the 'bad' people in society (Grade 5) and orders were that the pages that include that lesson should be ripped from all books.

Maybe I should have switched my major to education; this is interesting, well keep you updated.

My classes this fall

Summer is over and so is first week of classes, which was hectic and frustrating. I couldn't decide how many courses I want to take because I don't know how many more semesters I'm willing to spend in the university. I finally decided on five only which means I will have five more semesters including the internship. This will make my mom happy because she will have her dream of me and my sister graduating in the same year; just think of how cute that would be! –Slaps self-

I planned it all along time ago, my schedule, and that I will not take a class at 8 in the morning because I don’t want to wake up that early during Ramadan. I ended up registering afternoon classes and was happy with that only to go to one class and find that the teacher was changed and this teacher can't give us at that time and only time that would be okay for everyone is 8 in the morning. I didn't cry. It's just going to be so annoying to go two days a week at 8 and the other two days at 12, and finish at 6:20.

Alain at 8 in the morning is different and special, there is actually traffic especially near the schools' road, and the weather is so fresh and people are just calmer and I feel like they're thinking deeply about all the details – or maybe it's that they're not thinking but still asleep and therefore so quiet.

I, so far, like all my classes and professors and hopefully they're as good as they seem to be. What I find entertaining is that in most of the classes the teachers are so funny but only me and my friends get their jokes and laugh while the other girls are just sitting there starring, some might laugh after we laugh by few minutes just to show they understood.

I can't remember many incidents but in marketing class the teacher was talking about how a person can be a product, like Paris Hilton, then he went quiet for few seconds and said 'she can be a service too'

Then he was telling us how when we go to an interview we're selling ourselves… in a good way.

Another professor told us a story that happened to him in the male's campus. He was sitting in the advising office when this Japanese guy came to register and he wanted to register 8 courses (no the normal in the university is five, and only A students and graduating students can take 7, no one takes 8!) when they tried talking him out of it he told them how in Japan everyone takes 8 courses. Later, my Prof. saw him around and they were talking when the Japanese student told him how 'books here are HUGE; in Japan they have smaller books. (Palm size) I just busted out laughing at that even though it was at 8 in the morning, I just can imagine Japanese people carrying around a smaller version of our books.

That's what is going on in my life and insha'allah I will be updating more now; I have a lot to say about the change that's going on in the university.