One skill I am proud of having acquired during my four years of career life is how to manage my budget. I have mostly been underpaid, but I have also convinced myself that it doesn't matter because I do not have many expenses anyway, and if ever I shall be in need I have a ceiling above me and enough food in the fridge. Provided by my bankers provided by nature, of course, mom and dad.
Seeing the pattern in which my salary has increased, stayed steady or plummeted in these years, I am amazed. I unexpectedly have an affluence of money on me during the time I most need it. I remember a couple of years ago when I had to take a lot of expensive medications and I remember clearly that I didn't borrow from my parents any of their costs. I also had enough money to buy a mobile phone and share in my laptop. Say I didn't need this money at this time, I would have spent it foolishly. And if I didn't have it, I would have been miserable. Praise the Lord.
However, in recent months I've been inexplicably intent on calculating every penny that comes and goes. I have taken a new interest in Mathematics, probably my most hateful subject for me as a child, young adult and adult etc. Whenever I am, and at all times I find myself reaching out to a calculator (at one time begging for one at a hypermarket. The woman I asked turned out to be a foreigner and could understand naught, gratefully) and calculating one thing or another, either how much I will save, how much the raise might be, any surprising bonuses (how I can actually calculate a surprise bonus is beyond me, so don't ask), birthdays, travels etc.
As a rule I now save 20% of my stable salary, and 50% of bonuses if I don't need the money. I hurry off to the bank and stack it there before I venture to City Stars or any of the glitzy places where you usually empty your pocket and your soul and fill your carrying bags. Having reached this pact with myself, I still spend hours on end every day calculating, calculating, calculating. I now understand why wealthy people have heart attacks and depression. It's not that I am worried or care too much about making more money, but for some reason I am obsessed with it. I wonder if this is contradictory. I am saying I do not care because I have this strict policy of avoiding consumerism and stacking my shelves with trendy clothes, shoes, accessories and make-up I know I will not use. Not only will I not use them, but also I do not really need them. It's tiring, I should do the Maths once a month on average, not thirteen times a day. But I'm probably just avoiding what I should be doing: working.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Monday, December 20, 2010
Quarter life crisis - Part One
She: I want to plan your 50th surprise birthday party.
I: Why the 50th?
She: I don't know. Because it will be such a big day.
I: Why the 50th?
She: I don't know. Because it will be such a big day.
I: I think my 40th will be a lot more fun. I will either be married with children and depressed, or unmarried and depressed, so I will adopt a two-year-old girl and a stray dog.
Are you balady?
One of the most thorough analyses of Egyptian society that I have come across lately, from an old post by Sarah Carr:
I gradually learnt that the factors determining balady status include language, wealth, education and appearance. Thus someone who only speaks Arabic may be balady, but not if this person is my grandmother, because we are an excellent family, Amnesiac. If however he only speaks Arabic and he is a plumber, he is almost certainly balady. If the same plumber happens to have got lucky and accumulated wealth he is probably still balady and worse still ‘nouveau riche,’ and one determines this by looking at his shoes and his wife. In contrast if the son of a very rich man does nothing but go to the club everyday and knows mostly nada about nada he is still not balady because he speaks English and comes from good-breeding. Wealth is not a conclusive determinant of balady-free status because the family might be intellectuals, which means that at some point in their family history someone’s father had a full library but an empty bank account: members of these families will almost certainly never be balady. Education is important too: State universities are generally frowned upon, private universities are acceptable, and having attended AUC at some point virtually guarantees that the individual in question is not balady. A university education abroad (in western Europe or the US) means that the individual in question both has money and speaks another language and is decidedly not balady - though not if through his own brilliance he is there on a scholarship and his family live in Boulaq. Observance of one’s religious obligations is necessary and good, but excessive piety/religious conservatism is not, because it may indicate an uncultivated mind.
I gradually learnt that the factors determining balady status include language, wealth, education and appearance. Thus someone who only speaks Arabic may be balady, but not if this person is my grandmother, because we are an excellent family, Amnesiac. If however he only speaks Arabic and he is a plumber, he is almost certainly balady. If the same plumber happens to have got lucky and accumulated wealth he is probably still balady and worse still ‘nouveau riche,’ and one determines this by looking at his shoes and his wife. In contrast if the son of a very rich man does nothing but go to the club everyday and knows mostly nada about nada he is still not balady because he speaks English and comes from good-breeding. Wealth is not a conclusive determinant of balady-free status because the family might be intellectuals, which means that at some point in their family history someone’s father had a full library but an empty bank account: members of these families will almost certainly never be balady. Education is important too: State universities are generally frowned upon, private universities are acceptable, and having attended AUC at some point virtually guarantees that the individual in question is not balady. A university education abroad (in western Europe or the US) means that the individual in question both has money and speaks another language and is decidedly not balady - though not if through his own brilliance he is there on a scholarship and his family live in Boulaq. Observance of one’s religious obligations is necessary and good, but excessive piety/religious conservatism is not, because it may indicate an uncultivated mind.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Not in the name of Islam!
People who claim to speak or act in the name of Islam often tarnish it the most. I cannot find any explanation for the punishment of a Sudanese woman for committing the unthinkable crime of wearing pants. Nowhere in Islamic Sharia should women be flogged for wearing pants. Some Sudanese "Sharia Court" has simply invented its own code of ethics which are as unislamic as can be and decided to rip apart the skin of a woman for wearing pants! Every Muslim should be indignant ... what gave them the right to act out such a barbaric act in the name of Islam?
Even the punishment that should be imposed on fornicators or adulterers according to Islam can only be carried out if they have been caught red-handed by four witnesses. And not any witnesses, witnesses who believe in God ... Now do any couple who decide to get laid actually do it in a place where they can get caught by four believers? No. And what does that mean? This punishment is more of an intimidation than anything else. What actually happens, sadly, is that a woman's relative kills her right away if he simply suspects she has had an affair with someone. This is incredibly unjust.
The punishment for fornication or adultery should not be related to the Sudanese woman, because she is not accused of these crimes. Still, for some incomprehensible reason, the so-called court in which so-called Muslims have handed down the "adultery" punishment!
It's disgusting and it's enraging. I have recently accepted that democracy is a huge myth, but does the alternative really have to be full-blown idiocy and cruelty?
Even the punishment that should be imposed on fornicators or adulterers according to Islam can only be carried out if they have been caught red-handed by four witnesses. And not any witnesses, witnesses who believe in God ... Now do any couple who decide to get laid actually do it in a place where they can get caught by four believers? No. And what does that mean? This punishment is more of an intimidation than anything else. What actually happens, sadly, is that a woman's relative kills her right away if he simply suspects she has had an affair with someone. This is incredibly unjust.
The punishment for fornication or adultery should not be related to the Sudanese woman, because she is not accused of these crimes. Still, for some incomprehensible reason, the so-called court in which so-called Muslims have handed down the "adultery" punishment!
It's disgusting and it's enraging. I have recently accepted that democracy is a huge myth, but does the alternative really have to be full-blown idiocy and cruelty?
Tuesday, December 07, 2010
One Day in the Life of a Common Cold Patient
It was inevitable. Friday was a mad day of nursing and rushing around the house, caring for the ill. By night I had started to feel the cold approaching. The upside is, however, I experienced an exceptional form of astral projection.
On Saturday it was official. I was going to be interred for a few days. My throat began to sore, like a hundred tiny people scratching endlessly inside it, and wouldn't be expelled by spits or drowned.
On Sunday I succumbed to my fate. I suddenly woke up at 7 am, wandered around the house unbelievingly and attempted to read. A few hours later I sank into sleep, or so the clock says.
This must be what delirium is. I can see a twitter homepage, but I am much larger than life; I have devised a way to be able to view people's direct messages. AG and HA have similarly been able to hack one another. I try to concentrate on their argument but the page is violently spinning. I hold on to the lap top, but it is still spinning and my attempts at espionage failed.
I woke up and changed my place of sleep. I am in a dark room, alone, and I suddenly see a black figure emerging among the furniture before it disappears. I trace it again with a human partner, but we lose it. I wake up and hurry to my mom and dad's room, but it's locked. I go back to my bed, and to my horror, find myself on the bed. I rush back to the room and shriek in terror. My mom and I look at an eyeless Haifaa Wahby. IT'S NOT BLOODY FUNNY.
I think of ways to spend the day, and find refuge in music. But I can't wake up. This must be the biblical Limbo where evil souls are exposed to extreme torment to eternity, when you can neither sleep nor stay awake.
The midnight radio offers an acceptable remedy, and I listen half-willingly, thinking of how I could possibly be on my feet in a matter of hours for work. True, it must be a terrible sin I am being purged of, for around this time, my bones began to ache. As if a hundred people have smashed my skeleton using axes and left it by the roadside, not even bothering to bury it.
Just around the time I begin to sod off at the effect of painkillers, I wake up to a terrible domestic quarrel. I keep imagining what to say to absorb their anger, and all my other-worldly attempts converge at someone storming out of the house. What an anti-climax. During the half-hour sleep, though, the tissue papers have made a competition as to which of them should be most worthy of my attention. Each roll of paper spins itself, and rolls on its upper edges naughtily. Though the screams have been silenced now, I am fully awake again until 4 am. In a blink the clock ticks 6, and I sit bolt upright. I retain my calm expression whereas deep down I have enough anger at the forces of destiny to burn down the world in one blow.
On Saturday it was official. I was going to be interred for a few days. My throat began to sore, like a hundred tiny people scratching endlessly inside it, and wouldn't be expelled by spits or drowned.
On Sunday I succumbed to my fate. I suddenly woke up at 7 am, wandered around the house unbelievingly and attempted to read. A few hours later I sank into sleep, or so the clock says.
This must be what delirium is. I can see a twitter homepage, but I am much larger than life; I have devised a way to be able to view people's direct messages. AG and HA have similarly been able to hack one another. I try to concentrate on their argument but the page is violently spinning. I hold on to the lap top, but it is still spinning and my attempts at espionage failed.
I woke up and changed my place of sleep. I am in a dark room, alone, and I suddenly see a black figure emerging among the furniture before it disappears. I trace it again with a human partner, but we lose it. I wake up and hurry to my mom and dad's room, but it's locked. I go back to my bed, and to my horror, find myself on the bed. I rush back to the room and shriek in terror. My mom and I look at an eyeless Haifaa Wahby. IT'S NOT BLOODY FUNNY.
I think of ways to spend the day, and find refuge in music. But I can't wake up. This must be the biblical Limbo where evil souls are exposed to extreme torment to eternity, when you can neither sleep nor stay awake.
The midnight radio offers an acceptable remedy, and I listen half-willingly, thinking of how I could possibly be on my feet in a matter of hours for work. True, it must be a terrible sin I am being purged of, for around this time, my bones began to ache. As if a hundred people have smashed my skeleton using axes and left it by the roadside, not even bothering to bury it.
Just around the time I begin to sod off at the effect of painkillers, I wake up to a terrible domestic quarrel. I keep imagining what to say to absorb their anger, and all my other-worldly attempts converge at someone storming out of the house. What an anti-climax. During the half-hour sleep, though, the tissue papers have made a competition as to which of them should be most worthy of my attention. Each roll of paper spins itself, and rolls on its upper edges naughtily. Though the screams have been silenced now, I am fully awake again until 4 am. In a blink the clock ticks 6, and I sit bolt upright. I retain my calm expression whereas deep down I have enough anger at the forces of destiny to burn down the world in one blow.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)