They lighten our days

A two year old and four year old girls heard their mother more than once say something like 'close the door before mosquitoes fill the house!' so once, they were playing in the background and their dad kept checking on them and doing something in the house, usually leaving the door open so he can hear them, but by mistake, he closed it once and when he came back out, the four year old said 'baba, you closed the door on us!'
Two year old: 'He thought we're mosquitoes!'



Same two and four year old were playing in a room while their aunt was praying.
Two year old to three year old: 'you farted!'
Four year old: 'no I didn't!'
Two year old: 'yes you did!'
Four year old: 'if I didn't, and you didn't, then it must me Aunt X!'

…Aunt X is praying.
Still praying.




A three year old girl and after her first day in school came back home and while playing with her dad screamed: 'baba! You're 7mar! (Donkey!)'

The father was so shocked that he just laughed because he knew she didn't mean it. It's one of three:
1. She didn't know what's a 7mar or donkey.
2. She love donkeys and it was only a way of showing her love.
3. She had an Egyptian teacher who told them calling someone a donkey in Egypt is a good thing.

Oh yez I notezd.

Out of all the different accents I have to listen to and understand on a daily basis, or something close, I find the Egyptian accent the most difficult to understand.

I hate ordering from Pizza Hut because they're all Egyptians and I stand there for I don't know how long trying to explain what I want because I don't understand their Arabic or their English and they don't get what I'm saying, very confusing. Also, they always act as if the problem is in me…

This semester, I only have one Egyptian teacher and I gave up talking to him a long time ago, because it can be really embarrassing for me when he talks to me in Arabic or English and I don't get what he's saying, and I'm always expected to repeat what I said few times for him to get it.

Ok, these are few examples that I remember from class:
Teacher: 'something something will cause the something to be fucktuated'
Me thinking to myself: I'm pretty sure it's not that! Guess he meant fluctuated.'
Brime, I'm guessing it's prime but I have a very strong it's something else…
Parzentage, okay this one is eazy!
Infest, I believe infesting has nothing to do with finance so it is for sure invest.

I'm not criticizing anyone or anything because I know myself that I get all 'blah blah blah' and no one understands what I'm saying when I'm tired – both in English and Arabic.

Dubai - SZR

No need to say anything, ha? a picture is worth a thousand words...

To educate them...

Education has been taking a lot of my time, not educating myself because I'm always doing that, but I have been thinking so much about the quality of the education here and how much it needs to be improved.

That take me to the topic of how much it cost, so I just did a simple calculation. If we say the tuition starts at 4000 in KG1 and then increases by 500 every year.

That will sum up to 101500 for each child.

That's impossible though because it will mean that the tuition for grade 12 is 10500 which cannot be. All the schools I know cost at least 12000 for a G12 and could go up to something more than 30,000.

Oh, books and activities where not included.

Add to that, that the quality of education is so bad that many students take extra classes which cost 100-500/hour.

When I realized how much it actually did cost my parents to educate me and my siblings, I had a talk with mom.

It's all about the car you drive

Cadillac Escalade

Cadillac EXT

Which one would you rather drive? and don't say neither, please. If you don't know which one, then just say the EXT, because if you say the Escalade then one day you will have 7 kids to drive them around in this car. or whatever.

UAE university - CIT building

UAE University is spread over 7 different campuses (maybe more!) all around Alain. Female students are all in one campus except for the Medical students who're in Tawam Hospital and IT students who are in Jimi campus.

The IT students study there because the administration thought that it's more convenient for the teaching staff to be in one place and female and male and female students there. So there is an 'open space' office for the teachers with two doors on each side, one to the female part of the building and the other for the male and each is open for two days every week.

Female IT students have to take courses in Maqam campus so it's very tiresome and not convenient at all for them to keep going back and forth. They won't have to go through that for much longer though because the IT building in Maqam campus is almost ready, you can check the pictures here.

With that the male students will be worse off (I'm in micro-economics class. :P) because they will have to travel back and forth between Jimi and Maqam, and there goes their allowances on petrol.

And the train took off…

Out of all the ministries in the UAE I believe that the ministry of Education is the most difficult to fix, as someone once said "it's the ministries' crematory" "محرقة الوزارات".

Now everyone knows how badly education in the UAE needs to be changed, improved, and made better in whatever way possible, I'm just wondering, is the current minister the one who's going to do that, or are we to wait few more years, generations, for the right one?

Dr. Hanif has been a minister for few months now and the thing he do the best I believe is pose for pictures, he is in every single newspaper every day, how's that going to help the ministry?! It needs someone who works night and day for this country instead of someone who attends every single party where there are any Sheikhs.

One other thing he is good at is talking, he talks, talks, talks about everything, yet he never says anything about what is being done to change the education here!

I watched an interview he had on TV last week, not because I'm interested but it was the only available entertainment in the car, and Dr. Hanif was talking about everything that the people don't want to hear or things that are none of his business. He talked a great deal about a university that's opening in Dubai when he has nothing to do with higher education! Then he went to talk about his kids when honestly, I don't think anyone give a damn. All he was saying are general things that could be said about any other ministry instead of talking as an educator, about education, which is what the people want to listen to and know about.

My favorite part was when he said و انطلق القطار or 'the train took off', talking about the ministry of education and all the changes. First thing that came to my mind was "he's joking, he didn't really say that!" turned out he did and he was not joking about it.

People, you've been warned, the train took off, so sleep with one eye open!

Two things I don't get are, why did he choose a train? It's not part of the culture and there's not train in the UAE, wouldn't it be more interesting if he changed it to something like a Bus? I see the connection between that and schools, or maybe a camel? Just to make sure that kids are connected to the culture. The other thing is, what did he mean by it taking off?

I might just contact the administration in the university and see if they can give us a new slogan, maybe something like ' و انطلق الصاروخ أو الكونكورد ' 'the rocket took off, or maybe the concord'.

On second thoughts, we will leave the rocket for a university in RAK.

I will just observe and see where the train is heading.