A life worth living.

Tuesday, July 01, 2008
One year ago, we toasted ourselves in a kitchen (cannot mention how the kitchen looked like the next day!) and to a future that we had just finished penning out moments before.

One year later, I am sitting at home in Karachi, missing my other home in Amman, my lovely apartment, the people I met and knew and the random sights and sounds that became as familiar as if I'd lived in Amman my entire life.

I want to say something befitting the past year – the challenges, the depression, the moments of euphoria, the feeling of joy I had every time I updated a document for updated facts and figures: more members, more experiences, more partners, more events, more interns, more exchanges – at that time, it was easier to just go with the flow. I can't write anything befitting.

I know, without a doubt, that being on the Jordan MC was the best decision I ever made in my life – and I know that that feeling of ‘this is right’ – that I had in March last year has never been as intense at any other turn of my life recently. Call it writer’s block, or an acute failure to summarize, but there is no way I can even start describing my year, the people I met, the experiences I had..

One year ago, I didn’t know my teammates very well. One year later, I know them all too well – their propensity for forgetting things, arguing topics to death, our collective ganging up on each other and our shared love for watching seasons of TV shows all weekend and quoting Barney Stinson nonstop. There is so much I could say and write about them, but it still hasn’t sunk in that our team's term has ended, the same way it hadn’t as we sat on a bench in the airport as they saw me off and made our last jokes together.

One year ago, I was hopeful for an AIESEC country’s future. One year later, I am sending out resumes and setting up dates for job interviews, hoping for my own future, my real life to begin, for me to bring that value added experience into an organization. (When will I stop writing in sales-speak?!)

Reflection has never been my strong point and probably never will be, but I am infinitely more self aware about the person I am now. I miss so many, many things about Jordan – which is why the fun emails I get from Laura and Nadim make me smile every morning and often giggle hysterically, and sometimes make me wish I could extend my residency to have some proof of my connection to the country beyond memories, photographs and people.

Bas khalas – yella shabab, lets move on.

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posted by saba at 3:16 PM, | 5 comments

Stay / leave

Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Sitting at the airport in Amman. Stealing wi-fi. Spent the morning running around picking up my flight ticket from my harangued travel agent who got me off the Gulf Air waiting list and on a flight for today, shopping, eating at Hashem, meeting people, answering phone calls and arguing with cab drivers. Apart from the travel agent and airport, this could be any day in the life that was mine until I stepped through the gate.

This doesn't seem right, and it doesn't seem wrong either. I'm just waiting for my real life (version 2) to begin, yet again, I suppose.

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posted by saba at 10:16 PM, | 0 comments

random random!

Wednesday, June 04, 2008
It won't hit me that I'm supposed to be home in a little less than 2 weeks until I actually have a ticket in my hand, absolute proof that the streets, sights and sounds of Amman will be a part of my past, will be remembered in fragments and anecdotes, from pictures that will soon be relegated to an obscure folder on my laptop. I don't want to write a 'reflecting-back-on-my-year' post just yet, I want time to stop still and let me live and breathe each moment - and for the past few weeks I have been doing exactly that.

In other news & randomness..
  • My successor, Akos Szakaly, arrived from Hungary a couple of days ago! In true tradition, he had to wait for 25 minutes at the airport, and I took him to Hashem and Danesi on his first day here (and felt like I've been living here for centuries as he stared wide-eyed at everything, and I argued with cab drivers and talked to all the afternoon staff at Hashem)
  • I randomly chanced upon EP 18 for Gossip Girl (I thought the season had ended at 17!) You know you love me..xoxo.
  • Weekend conversations (or weekday ones for that matter) with people from home are the bestest. Thats why I now know all of the gossip and news from Karachi courtesy Emad, and how Adeel Naeem's room in Singapore looks like, or what he bought on his last shopping trip :P
  • Shops in Amman have strange mannequins. Enough said.
  • The AIESEC Lahore video is the coolest! And now I have 'Get down tonight' stuck in my head..but oh well, I miss those guys!
  • Last weekend was the most fun I've had in a long time! If someone had told me a few years ago that I'd be cooking biryani, watching Rang De Basanti with an American (who went to school in India) and Canadian (Iranian/Brit actually..), and dancing in a gay bar on a weekend..I'd have thought they were repeating a sitcom outline..
  • On that note - I'm going to miss Laura and Nadim and Shamsy! And if my picture is in Layaleena's next issue..I'd better get a scanned copy.
  • Random events in Amman can turn out to be pretty cool. For e.g. the Syrian film @ the Royal Film Commission was rather boring..but what a gorgeous venue, replete with free popcorn & drinks..score. And despite how long it took us to find Cups & Kilos in Al Rabieh today, the jazz gig there was absolutely fabulous.
And as a last note: Laura's blogpost on Amman has this great quote on life here, which even a year later - still rings true for me:
"What an unexpected night....and one that brought so many interesting realities into light. Everytime I think I've finally come to understand something about Jordanian (or more accurately, Amman) society, something comes along and completely contradicts it. I still haven't figured out Jordan, and I don't know if I ever will."

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posted by saba at 3:15 AM, | 1 comments

Rants of the day!

Thursday, May 29, 2008
Rants of the day:
  • Where are your friends when you need them? Stuck in a meeting, THATS where. Kambakhton.
  • Thankyou, dear intl text messaging system, for sending me the same messages about 20 times.
  • Why are all taxi drivers becoming slightly neurotic in the summer? Though today's was a nice guy. He practiced his Urdu with me 'kya haal hai, bhaisaab!' and then we ranted about other drivers who ask all girls if they're married
  • I am sick of inventing new occupations for my fake husband/fiance.
  • Why is everything so expensive? I hate 11% inflation (or is it more?), and everytime I convert how much money I've spent on just buying potatoes into rupees I have a slight heart attack
  • Also..why are books so expensive? Ebooks are just not the same..
  • Why am I addicted to Facebook and Gmail? WHY.
  • I am so incredibly stressed. Even happy music isn't helping.
  • Why is everyone asking me why the HIMYM season has ended? Its not like I work for Barney Stinson or something.
More later..

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posted by saba at 5:22 PM, | 1 comments

Going somewhere and getting nowhere

Sunday, May 25, 2008
Over the past few weekends, I've been in a bus/cab going somewhere - Damascus, Aqaba, Damascus again..its another long weekend and it feels rather weird to be in Amman, despite the fact that I spend most of my weekends in the city.

I've lived here for a little over a year now (375 days to be precise) and I now feel oddly disconnected. I can't seem to put my finger on it, but something has changed in how I view the city and the people. I don't know if its disillusion, recent events, or the realizations that bubble up to your head when you have the time to sit and reflect about your life. I hope the feeling goes away soon because I want to look back on my last days here with a sense of accomplishment and happiness..and not this.

In other news - I have unfortunately had to see - the worst talent show known to mankind - Star Academy. We were driving back from the fantastic reception event at Huda's only to see a huge congregation of people at Abdoun. Apparently a huge screen had been put up since one of the finalists was Jordanian. Memories of the endless campaign that was 'vote for Petra as one of the new seven wonders..' came to mind, and a bunch of us saw a bit of the final at Books@ when we ended up there.

Simon Cowell would have had a field day. Heck - any one with even the least bit of musical sense would have had a field day. It made for great entertainment value though - the screechy voices, the elaborate sets, the backup dancers, staring with shock at the elaborate nature of the show and trying to figure out who was the worst of the lot.

I spent last night laughing insanely over Skype/Gtalk with Sharz and Rabia. Many a devious plan and fictional scenario were devised and brilliant memories from university relived. I woke up this morning and was trying to guess what time it when the phone rang with aapa and my sister on the other end, having breakfast together. Yay for all the amazing people in my life :)

In other random news - the taxi driver sagas continue (the servees driver from Damascus got into a huge argument with another passenger over buying cigarettes from the duty free, yesterday one driver told me that I could only learn Arabic if I live in an Arab country (yes, finally some common sense!), and everyone who has tried to extort money off me for nominal fares has been yelled at.)

And cultural diversity has taken a new turn - atleast four of the waiters at Hashem yesterday could speak a smattering of English (new guys hired to withstand the onslaught of the tourist season?) I'm making plans to have a Bollywood movie session with an intern from the US and might cook biryani and chapatis with a Kenyan intern, and most surprising of all - Alex (who, as the oft repeated story goes, is originally from Belarus, grew up in Australia and lives in Bahrain) pronounces Arabic letters way better than I ever will.

Off to enjoy the rest of the long weekend. Did I mention its Independence Day today? And we're off to see what is rumored to be a military parade. (I have already started getting flak for this from Sharz, but I'm justifying this as its fine when the country isn't really ruled by the military..)

Update: And Nadim's blog has the sad saga of the parade that didn't happen..

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posted by saba at 1:59 PM, | 0 comments

Back in Damascus

Saturday, May 17, 2008
From the very talented Kay..which totally fits my mood as I spend yet another weekend in sunny Damascus. I love random trips. More later..right now I am marveling that Blogger isn't banned..as are Facebook, blogspot addresses, YouTube..

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posted by saba at 12:20 AM, | 0 comments

Spring madness

Friday, May 02, 2008
Written: Friday morning, 4:00 AM

Have spent the past four days in a state of lost confusion and panic. Frantic emails, Skype chats all afternoon with hourly updates, ringing phones. And all of this for a very small role in getting Jordan's partners to the MENA Symposium - which didn't help soothe my nerves with having our own event coming up in 27 days. Tick tock, tick tock. I have spent half a year working on this and as the final product comes together, I feel more on the edge than I have ever been. I can't seem to wrap my head around anything at all.

The days spent in Damascus have left me longing for more - I almost went to the Embassy to get another visa for the weekend. Everyone says the haze of Damascus fades but I can hardly wait to go back, even for a day.

I have about 45 days left before I go back home to start a new(?) chapter. My life has come full circle right now. Opportunities I would have applied for or would have killed to get two years ago are now being offered. A part of me feels flattered..the other: more conscious than ever that the decision I am taking to go back home is the right one. Dhruv's recent blog post (a must read, btw) is a scary reminder of how close I was to going down the same road. I read and re-read it again and again, it was like an eerily accurate description of my own state of my mind at some crucial points this year, down in black and white.

I am glad for the stabilizing influences in my life, the sometimes slow and painful process of trying to understand why I need to do this, but every time I think about going back home: I smile, I can't wait to be understood (literally, and not so literally) and no longer irrelevant in the bigger picture. Even watching Gossip Girl makes me miss home - we have our very own text messaging network that I will finally be able to respond back to now, unfettered by expensive int'l text messaging rates.

--

Update: Saturday night, 11:00 PM

Back from Aqaba for Labor Day weekend! Aqaba was hellishly crowded - and reminded me more and more of Karachi, especially the incredibly kind hospitality of the Momani household and the boat ride on the Red Sea. Aqaba will always be one of my favorite places ever. Can't wait to go on a trip - replete with the most awesome seafood ever and the craziness of friends - at home soon!

:) The Arab Revolution flag On the Red Sea, with Eilat in the distance

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posted by saba at 3:56 AM, | 0 comments

Randomness!

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

  • Beautiful spring afternoons/evenings in Amman spent walking and snapping away random sights
  • Sohaib got into HARVARD! At last count, everyone I know is either envious, in disbelief, or well..envious. Which is why sentences these days start with.."F**king hell, can you believe it?"
  • And no one I call from home seems to recognize my voice anymore. Which means I can probably call pretending to..oh wait. Evil plan in the making.
  • Spotting a sign for 'Jammu Kashmir Restaurant". Must go. Must assess whether it is (a) Pakistani (b) Indian (c) Kashmiri (d) bad Pakistani/Indian food made by locals
  • Cooking an entire pot of curry pakoray from scratch and guarding it with my life. And eating parathas! Yay for the punjabiness.
  • New question of the year: "Yes my name is Persian.." "Oh, is your mother Persian?". That beats "Is your Dad Arab?" I need a new name that is neither Persian or Arabic.
  • Having one of the grant folk look at me with what I'm sure was pity and sympathy when I stumbled into their office this afternoon. I am officially done with grant management for today.
  • Finally getting GPRS activated on my phone..and then wasting all my credit checking Facebook at 4 AM.
  • Realizing calling Egypt is more expensive than calling home. Even though Egypt is next door and Pakistan is..well, rather far away.
  • Chocolate milkshakes during a 30 minute break between two meetings and spilling the beans on my illustrious day to E.
  • Random Urdu conversation with a guy I met at a party. 'So did you watch a lot of Indian movies?' 'Nope. I had a Pakistani girlfriend'. Thats a new one.
  • Random emails from friends all over the world
  • Getting lost in Amman again!
  • Wishing I had a day off tomorrow, cos everyone else does. BHAAA!

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posted by saba at 7:59 PM, | 1 comments

This week, that day..

Thursday, March 13, 2008
I've spent the past few days in a state of incredible stress, fueled by the realization that I have major deadlines for super important proposals all set for Thursday. What is it with me that I must say things like 'I PROMISE this will be sent by xyz day/time' to externals? Why must I promise? Why can I just not say the things that other normal people do? Why why why...

Of course, it hasn't been all bad. There's been some random good news, both related to work and to the other things in life - like the fact that there's a new Harold & Kumar movie coming out, I am actually witnessing proper spring for the first time (as evidenced by my glee at seeing flowers blossom on trees and hearing birds chirp on the odd day that I wake up before noon..) and Oksana's brilliant mispronunciation of a very common work term that led to Momani and I coming up with new jokes all day and me yelling out 'it is 9 AM! you cannot use that word at 9 frikkin AM!, random conversations with Leeda today (over which I have laughed hysterically) and randomer/annoyed conversations with Emad (we take turns whining). I've also had lots of fun working on GCC stuff this week, I love the diversity of my team and the supercool stuff we're doing!

Sigh. This is such a far cry from the start of the week where I went slightly mad shopping at a vintage clothes sale* (its not my fault, I should never be allowed to leave the house with my wallet again), was singing raucously at a karaoke night with some newly made acquaintances to now where all I want to do is rest my head on this table and go to sleep (except I'm in a coffeeshop/bar and might only wake up in time for their Friday breakfast)

*Oh no. I just found out that the sale is back on for the rest of March. Must resist temptation..must..

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posted by saba at 11:10 PM, | 3 comments

Random conversation of the day!

Tuesday, March 11, 2008
While my brain currently feels like its going to explode spewing PDF files, Excel sheets and other must-do priorities, it isn't made easier by all the chaos in my life and in my country.

Its 3 PM, and I'm still slightly disconcerted with how my morning went.

Rushed out of the house, lugging backpack to find a cab for meeting with our grant body.
I looked behind me, only to see a huge bunch of 'protestors' nonchalantly walking up the sloping street I live on. My first Jordanian rally/protest, yay!

Though, I'm still unsure if it really was a protest..because the bunch of people were carrying banners, huge flags of Jordan, had police/army escorts and a bunch of photographers clicking away. There were..no slogans. Even the random protests at the Karachi Press Club have more noise & spirit than what I witnessed. Truly disconcerting.

Anyway, find cab - and immediately after I get in:

Talkative taxi driver#2939247: "Where are you from?"
Me: "Pakistan"
Talkative taxi driver#2939247: "aah, not America?"
Me: "No, P-A-K-I-S-T-A-N"
Talkative taxi driver#2939247: "so you don't have an American passport"
Me: "No.."
Talkative taxi driver#2939247: "ah, do you like Americans?"
Me: "Err.." made noncommittal gesture. You never know how people are going to react to your answer.
Talkative taxi driver#2939247: "Yes, too many Americans in Pakistan.."

A number of the usual and not so usual questions followed..do women have to cover their head in Pakistan, how long have I been living in Jordan..and then:

Talkative taxi driver#2939247: "why not speak Arabic?"
Me: "I can read & write it! Plus I work with foreigners.."
Talkative taxi driver#2939247: "Americans?!"
Me: "No.."

This is not a conversation you want to have when going to a meeting with an agency funded by the Americans..I'm convinced he could've been from the Intelligence, but then, I'm also convinced I saw a ghost pass outside the window of my house a couple of days ago..

P.S: Watching The Crystal Maze on YouTube is a good way to cure stress issues! 'And you've only got two crystals../To the Medieval zone!' ..love YouTube :D

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posted by saba at 5:57 PM, | 0 comments

'Who are you gonna call? Whatchoo gonna do when you're stuck in the airport zoo?'

Tuesday, March 04, 2008

..or Telecommunication in Transit

Alright people, you'd better watch your feet cos I'm about to drop some knowledge. Haha, I love Barney Stinson's lines! :D

Anyway, over the course of many a discussion and random caffeine inspired moment of idle thinking, I have come up with the following theory: 'Telecommunication in Transit/the Airport Call theory'. Its been born out of listening and trying to interpret the countless stories people tell me (read: my friends with 'extremely interesting / the stuff soap opera dramas are made of' love lives).

Now basically how it goes is this: you're at an airport, killing time in a departure lounge. Depending on your luck, the lounge probably has minimal forms of distraction & entertainment, but you have your cell phone. Obviously, you can pick the phone up and call a friend who will undoubtedly listen to your ranting and raving, but thats not what you do. You call or text someone who you truly care about - whether its a new crush, your boy/girlfriend, someone you're undeniably attracted to.

However, you don't do this intentionally, and this is where it gets interesting. They're the ones that currently matter to you the most, so you call/text them. You think you're doing it because hey, maybe h/she is an insomniac or you miss speaking to him/her - but the truth is, you just want to be with them. See, this is a sign of how you can tell if you really like someone - if you can talk to him/her at an ungodly hour from a different timezone, this is the person you want to end up with.

So the next time you're in transit, desperately trying to find free wifi or thanking God that your cell phone has extensive roaming (instead of window shopping at duty free or drinking at 7 AM at an airport bar), or trying to hide your phone from the flight attendant because you want to send one last message before the plane takes off - remember: this is who you (regardless of how much you convince yourself or tell your friends that its just a fling/random crush) want to be with. The Airport Call theory has spoken.

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posted by saba at 9:53 PM, | 4 comments

Sunday bloody Sunday

Sunday, March 02, 2008
..or why Sundays suck.

Despite having been in Jordan for 8.5 months (wallahi, has it been that long already?!), I still haven't got used to the Friday - Saturday weekend. It was fun when I was a kid in the Emirates and Saturdays were reserved for bubble baths and some sort of essay writing*. Anyway, I feel cheated out of a holiday regardless of whether I spent most of the weekend wrapped up in a comforter catching up on sleep. Perhaps its because most of the world that I see popping up online is enjoying a relaxing Sunday while I..well, try to get my mind to wake up and work.

Take for example this Sunday, where..

...our MC meeting began to resemble a circus show (perhaps this is due to the fact that a teammate was juggling things and jumping around today during said meeting) and intense caffeine starvation could be marked by the number of cups strewn around us.

...my schedule looks empty, and Monday looks packed. Perhaps this is an indicator that Monday really is, when my week starts off.

...I must have sounded like someone on a mood-altering drug, because during a coaching meeting I said the following things:

- Account Management is like a game of Snakes & Ladders
- AIESEC's like a big factory!
- Used an analogy of a local fast food chain selling bacteria ridden juice to explain bad quality exchange

Sundays suck. The only thing that is getting me through today is free coffee refills and the song 'The Salt Wound Routine' by Thirteen Senses. I want to be eating aloo parathas instead of looking at open documents that require my undivided attention but right now, make absolutely no sense. Snakes & ladders, anyone?




*in what now appears to be a fervent bid on my parents' part to make my sister and me writers, we had to write an essay every weekend on something - whether it was a trip to the zoo or something or letter writing (which when it was in Urdu, was usually a grueling exercise) However, I do recall also writing out long lists on Saturdays which usually involved wish lists of toys (which we'd never get)/books(which we'd always get, until our parents discovered it'd be cheaper to get us books from Pakistan since we read everything we got in hours and hence brand new shiny books would lay untouched for months afterwards). Hmm, so this list thing is a childhood habit then..

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posted by saba at 10:25 PM, | 1 comments

A fragmented existence

Saturday, February 09, 2008
It feels strange, these days. Sometimes I wonder if im losing my mind, or am just too tired by the time , but everywere I look around I feel like I am seeing scenes from home. I thought the TV screen in a coffeeshop was showing a Pakistani TV channel, and I often see people who look vaguely familiar, except they’re not at all.

In the past few months, I have become acutely aware of behavioral system clashes – I realize so many of the behaviors I sought to adhere to at home clash with how people act and behave here. This is purely related to AIESEC, because culturally I find other differences, of a more pleasant kind. But the acute feeling of homesickness, (that I think I am proud of feeling, simply because it tells me of what are the things I valued and miss, as opposed to when I lived at home, and so many things were what I took for granted). But the feeling of being lost in translation, of having blank looks and stares on either sides, of people just not understanding that this (the introverted, quiet person) is who I really am, and I am not uncaring, its because I find the seemingly required change process, against what I believe in and stand for.

This is not meant to be a reflection on all the people I have met and worked with in this country, for even in the madding crowds, I have met people who simultaneously keep up a constant flow of bilingual translation and make an effort at empathy.

I speak to three of my closest friends almost everyday, and between our common sighs, crazy plans for the future and an understanding that we are trying to come to terms with our past and our present and our future, I realize that to me, it is truly love, friendship and all the sappy annotations personified when I know that despite them being tired, overworked, exhausted, battling different timezones, expensive text messaging rates and faulty internet connections, I can always reach out and chatter on. And despite the fact that sometimes it is very, very hard for me to explain what it really is that is going through my head, or for me to understand stories in fragments, it has kept me going, helped me smile, and helped me breathe when I wanted to panic and board a plane going anywhere.

Here's to our collective pasts, presents and futures. My coffee cup brimmeth over.

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posted by saba at 10:51 PM, | 1 comments

whatever gets you through today

Wednesday, February 06, 2008
Is it only Tuesday? Perhaps a pitfall of working through two weekends has made me forget what sleeping in means as a concept. Envy friends who yesterday went offline touting (read: taunting me) great plans of sleeping in and watching TV all day under the guise of the Kashmir Day holiday. Though one friend has nothing to be envied for thanks to Murphy's law. HA!

Signs I am too tired?
  • Sang along to Sunday by Sia until I went hoarse and began fearing for complaints from neighbours.
  • Had an email conversation with a member yesterday where I kept reiterating I was 'free on Tuesday, but not tomorrow' until she kindly pointed out that tomorrow was Tuesday. Embarassed enough to want to die in shame when calendar pointed out the same truth.
  • Had nonsensical babbling conversation with Alex at 8 AM this morning, which involved us having a pretend sales meeting online. Also featured Bob the flunky, now that I read the chat again. Wonder if Bob actually exists. At 8 AM, I suppose imaginary participants in imaginary sales meetings are awake and functioning.
  • Bought a phone card with the aim of killing two birds with one stone - calling the family and break a 50 JD note. Left card in shop and only remembered it 5 hours later. Thankfully did not forget change from 50 JD.
  • Spent 20 minutes talking to myself about the benefits of leaving warm, warm house and going out in the cold to buy junk food goodness.
  • Inspired by dysfunctional relationships and lives of friends to begin writing the Great Pakistani novel. Abandoned attempt after two lines and thought of friends suing me years later over privacy infringement (read: washing their dirty laundry in public / exaggerating their dysfunctionality / pointing fun at them while pretending to be Great Pakistani Author)
  • Trying to nap, cat-like, in front of heater. Realize I am not a cat and hence cannot fit entire anatomy in front of the heater. Miss cat. Wonder how cat is faring now that temps in Karachi are dipping to 0 degrees Celsius.
  • See enough Excel sheets to start thinking life would be much simpler if everything came on Excel, with a neat formula to sum up everything. Realize life is not Excel, and laptop is not lifeline in the manner of oxygen tank.

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posted by saba at 12:06 AM, | 0 comments

somewhere, a clock is ticking

Friday, February 01, 2008
The snow is melting outside. I am sitting inside my very cozy and newly cleaned up apartment, listening to the Jab We Met soundtrack on repeat. There's something about listening to Pakistani/Indian music these days - everytime I do, I want to be home singing aloud madly with friends from home, I want to dance at a wedding, I want to wear bright clothes and not be swathed in five layers like I am now in this wintry, wintry city. I am such a far, far way from home that the long voice chats I have had with E & S have helped me feel like I have brought a small part of home into my living room, but then they say things that make me ache for familiarity, even E going offline because of a scheduled electricity blackout. Which reminds me, the complete closure of Amman because of the snow reminds me of strikes in Karachi. What an odd thing to remember.

Questions about my personal life have begun to scare me. I don't have time to think about this, I don't have time to think about this, goes the refrain in my head - and when I am confronted with questions that force me to think my head goes blank. You know, like that moment in a Calculus exam when nothing makes sense, and you wish you were anywhere, anywhere but here?

Someone asked me a few days ago how I still felt an identity crisis everytime I leave and arrive back to Jordan. I have no idea why, but the question of the nomadic existence has popped up in conversations recently, and despite the fact that I haven't been as much of a nomad as some of my other friends, the thought of even seeing the inside of an airport is giving me hives. Going from airport to airport, filled with a sense of trepidation or excitement, replete with a soundtrack to match, playing on repeat in my head and on my mp3 player - I am living this much-coveted dream finally, instead of wondering about it (because now, when I see people saying that they want to travel the world, I wonder whether they know how much it can emotionally make or break you?)

I haven't written anything meaningful in a while, and I have an entire folder full of thoughts and emotions from everything I felt when I first arrived. Is this writer's block or just the fact that familiarity has now transcended everything? The conflicting feelings of wanting to stay and wanting to move on are blending into nothingness. I have to be awake in 5 hours and all I want to do is to wake someone up so I can talk to them, or wish I had asked someone to stay awake so I could talk. Except these days, I rarely make any sense at all.

Oh well. As always, GetFuzzy says it best:


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posted by saba at 9:32 PM, | 3 comments

forever young / i wanna be / forever young..

Wednesday, January 02, 2008
In 2007 I..
  • lost something meaningful
  • left a burning city and now watch it burn again from afar
  • loved and lost
  • left home to live in a completely new country
  • learned how to cook
  • floated in the Dead Sea, waded in the Red Sea, and looked beyond to the lights of Jerusalem and Eilat
  • befriended some absolutely amazing individuals who I want to have in my life forever
  • worked harder, longer and with more determination than before
  • felt the shock and disbelief of my mother dying all over again. May God rest Benazir Bhutto's soul in peace
  • saw New Year fireworks from Taba and Aqaba, and the first sunrise of 2008 on the Aqaba beach
There are so many more things I want to write but I feel renewed after finally getting proper sleep in weeks last night, and I don't want to dwell on the past. I want to be...forever young

(Thanks Heidi for playing the song on the beach and getting it stuck in my head again!)

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posted by saba at 9:58 PM, | 0 comments

Of Eid and St.Nicholas..

Thursday, December 20, 2007
I'm like the Grinch who stole Eid. No seriously - I've developed an antipathy to the holiday years ago (several issues that you can read about in a psychiatry textbook somewhere); and so everytime I mention not liking Eid to friends here, I always get dumbfounded looks.

These past few days might actually change that. I've slept enough to literally make up for a month of minimal sleep, I went to Hashem and Jafra with friends from work, and I celebrated Eid and St.Nicholas' Day with Oksana - both of which involved us leaving chocolates on each other's pillows. This morning we woke up to text messages from Momo and ended up going on a treasure hunt set up in our house by him (with rather difficult and cryptic clues!!) to end up at a big basket of gifts and candies!

Our house looks like such a Christmas postcard - Momo got us a Christmas tree which looks gorgeous decked out with fairy lights, and Oks and I are knitting! (Technically, she's knitting and I'm learning how to). And after years it actually felt like Eid as Oks and I went for Eid lunch to a Pakistani restaurant (our Indian friends would disagree cos its called Kashmir ;)) and had actually well cooked Pakistani food! :)

Oks and Momo - thank you for an awesome couple of days, and helping me rediscover a holiday spirit of sorts.

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posted by saba at 12:51 AM, | 1 comments

the place where you can't remember / and you can't forget

Friday, December 07, 2007

Anyone who has been in a leadership role in AIESEC knows that a large part of your everyday agenda includes meetings – strategy, weekly team updates, coaching, sales – the list goes on. This week has had me doing all of those; but I’ve also spent a large part of it as Saba, the person. Whether it was meeting up with a fellow nomad, or with editors of Jordanian magazines, or even the random chat I had with the guy who runs the repairshop near my house (in Arabic, and on Pakistani politics!) or the time I took out of AIESEC business meetings to chat with CEOs on doing business in Jordan and how my integration has been into the culture here…after a long time I felt like I was talking like Saba, the individual and not Saba, the AIESECer, which dominates so much of my identity now, even when I meet people outside of AIESEC.

Despite the fact that the news from home is anything but pride-worthy; I feel more and more connected to being a Pakistani. After months of being in Jordan I start speaking in Urdu phrases before correcting myself. And yesterday, I was filling out an application and for the first time I had to write my address in Jordan as ‘home’; and it was looked unfamiliar and out of place; and yet right somehow

As I look at scanned pages of the travelogue series I am writing on Jordan for The Friday Times, I miss the familiarity of buying TFT from the same hawker every week on my way back from university, or the excitement I used to feel seeing my name in print. A scanned page isn't the same as trying to read TFT in a rickshaw while desperately holding on to my paper, handbag and books.

As a last thought - the intense pain in my back or the fact that I am catching up on sleep by resting my head against elevator walls in myriad office buildings, means that I am finally, finally tired enough to not be able to think about anything at all - especially the things that upset me. I miss my random day-long update chats, and I miss being able to share the everyday-ness of things, but at least I can still try and be there for those who matter.

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posted by saba at 2:56 AM, | 0 comments

Brand-speak

Sunday, November 18, 2007
Today, I went to a session on branding organized by the great folks who have given us a grant; which was basically for grantees to be educated on branding and how to brand the grant organization when doing specific promotion.

While it was a replica of the first lecture of the Branding course I took at university in my last semester, and of any session delivered on branding at an AIESEC conference for newbies: I realized that I have taken so much of my knowledge for granted, having been part of AIESEC and having a university degree, that so many things seem blatantly obvious. 'Of course the color sea green isn't going to appeal to young people / orange makes one feel warm and caring'..et al were some of the thoughts running through my head during a discussion on a logo's colors. At the same time, the other grantee organization was scribbling down notes, asking questions, discussing different taglines, debating branding principles..

It was surreal. I felt like I was back in a lecture where you just want everyone to grasp concepts at the same rate as you do, or want to debate because you do have a different point of view. And I've realized that I'll never take all of this knowledge for granted again - cos somewhere, someday, I'm going to discover a new path to the learning curve


P.S: I wanted to burst out laughing when the words Brand Equity came up. Those of you who took the course with me know what I mean

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posted by saba at 9:28 PM, | 0 comments

come undone

Monday, October 29, 2007
These have also not been an easy few weeks, because many long forgotten memoirs have popped up. Of Eids gone by, good, bad and worse, of old relationships, the pain and happiness of which I thought I’d forgotten, of old friends who I no longer keep in touch with and vice versa, and of seeing my parents in and out of hospitals for most of my life. I think what upsets me the most is that I have no control over my mind. I thought I was stronger, that I had effectively blocked so much out of my head and heart, that I would never be troubled again by the years gone by. Yet, the moment I am alone for a protracted period of time / the infrequent nightmares / the events surrounding my friends’ lives / the song lyrics that mirror events in my life / – I stop and I can’t take it anymore because it all comes back.

I want the eternal sunshine of a spotless mind.

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posted by saba at 3:24 AM, | 1 comments

Updates, updates!

Monday, September 17, 2007
  • Over exhausted to the point where a nervous breakdown has started looking like a good vacation idea
  • Unable to recognize teammate after her vacation. I find that highly embarrassing.
  • Sleeping 10 hours straight (after 1.5 weeks of 3 hours sleep or less every night) does not help all that much
  • 4 AM plotting of how to win Annika over is fun
  • Using trademark sad voice helps when convincing tough police woman that my residency papers cannot wait and I need it to be processed right now!
  • Kindness by random strangers in shops and taxis makes me want to cry
  • Craving pakoras and aloo ke parathay
  • Making my own suhoor /sehri is not fun
  • Saying "we are geniuses, geniuses I tell you" when feeling overworked helps
  • Developing a close friendship with the snooze feature on my cell phone does not aid productivity, but can cause teammate and self to be late for a conference we're supposed to be running
  • Trying to believe that the laws of gravity also work in pulling you towards favorite coffee shop is highly irrational
  • Ramadan day naps are only refreshing as long as your phone does not ring as soon as you have fallen into deep, dreamless sleep
  • Inability to speak more than one sentence of Urdu does not help when meeting people who can speak Urdu. Which, btw, in Jordan - apparently ranges from random people to CEOs to the Jordan Prime Minister (who I have not met, but bragging never hurt)
  • Ramadan in Jordan rocks. To the point where I wonder how I can finagle my way into spending every Ramadan here..

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posted by saba at 4:58 PM, | 1 comments

Yikes..

Sunday, September 02, 2007
Sometimes your usually accurate daily horoscope can really turn your stomach into knots..
You have reached a large bend in the road of life as several years of preparation come to a close. It may still take a while for you to get a clear sense of where you are heading, but change is in the air. Nevertheless, it's up to you to respond to the current challenges and make a firm commitment so you can accomplish your goals as they continue to take concrete shape.
Ooh. Fun..

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posted by saba at 5:13 PM, | 2 comments

Of spirituality and meow-speak

Tuesday, August 28, 2007
This week..

Went to Mt Nebo and Madaba! Thankyou Huda for taking Rachel, Erika and me on such a fun, girly road trip! :D I finally got the much-awaited for moment of overlooking the Promised Land. I felt quite imbued with spiritual energy afterwards, and made many a spiritual comment to show my newly gained wisdom. See sample conversation below:

Emad: I dun have a defense
Me: you dont have to defend yourself
Emad: im not going to
Me: I am all accepting and all goodness
Emad: of course
Me: i am imbued with much spirituality today

Newly gained spiritual energy did not make me feel angry at annoying sister telling me I should not be so excited since the Promised Land was not meant for me. Hmph.

Had hours of guilt-free morning sleep. See, I live with Oksana - who I love to bits - but is annoyingly enough a very efficient morning person who wakes up at 6 or 7 am to start working. And hence I feel guilty enough to drag myself out of bed at 8:30 (sometimes I try and work from underneath the comforter by speaking to Oksana but that never works. She can barely understand me and hence I am forced to see the sunlight by emerging from cocoon of said comforter) But with her gone - I sleep till 10 AM! Woohoo.

Thought I was going to have relaxing weekend after spiritual trip. Instead ended up working through the weekend (but with great excitement as EBs did a kickass job all week and were writing to update me!), meeting the SG..thought Sunday would be calmer but then..

Get call from Grant Manager. Need to send in 4 pages of introduction to revised grant application before next morning. Spend so much time at Books@ working on it that I was convinced I'd have to spend the night there, and the servers thought it would be funny to confuse me when I finally got up to pay my bill. Was not amused. All spiritual energy was replaced by singalong music infused energy, combined with free coffee refills at Books@.

Also have convinced myself that God has sent all cats to my house as a sign to cheer me up when I come home all tired. Dad says cats have a sense for sniffing out fellow cat. I'm going to stick to the God theory before I start talking in meow-speak.

More later..

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posted by saba at 4:05 PM, | 0 comments

Saturday, August 04, 2007
This week…

I cried more than I possibly have in the past four months which, even though it was not related to my personal life and well being, or my work, was a good excuse for me to actually take out all the conflicting emotions of the past few months. I found an absolute inability to cry that had stemmed into my soul and I found it quite therapeutic, though I can’t say the same for my teammates who had to deal with me sobbing through the day. I love you guys, just in case you didn’t know. I also should thank Alex for listening to me whine online non stop this week and advising me to listen to Travis, or my sister for telling me I should stop listening to Oasis’ Stop Crying Your Heart Out, for that was “highly shushpishous”

I moved apartments – we now live in a gorgeous place in downtown Amman, more details/pictures/videos soon; but I walked into the house the day we moved and felt like I had come home. It a nutshell, it is incredibly warm and cozy, has grape, lemon and pear trees outside, a gorgeous porch where we entertain friends, drink tea and stare at the sky.

I went exploring our neighbourhood with Rachel. We ended up at crossroads at a loss at where to go (quite like the scene in Castaway), in a lovely art gallery/shop called Love on a Bike – where the owner/artist gave us a gorgeous postcard, a bottle of bubbles (yay!) and CD of music, which I have been admiring/listening to nonstop, and then at a rooftop café to drink fruit juice and smoke arguileh, enjoying a spectacular view of Amman – watching fireworks take off from different neighbourhoods to mark weddings or celebrate the tawjeehi results, which is the final exam Jordanian students take at school.

I spent time chatting away with friends of friends/housemates about politics and the Middle East and religion – did I mention our house is perfect for entertaining and having great conversations? =)

I finally bought Iraqi currency from the days of Saddam which are sold by pavement vendors with great gusto. I now carry about 600 in worthless currency in my wallet but I know everyone wants a note with a despot’s image on it. I also think they'll make excellent gifts..

I spent an enormous amount of time poring over Excel sheets in an effort to do myriad Finance related work. Honestly, while I love my work, I do find it a tad bit lonely when on a Thursday evening you have friends signing off Google Talk saying they’re going offline and wishing you a good weekend, while the Finance survey you’re trying to complete seems to have no end in sight. It is obviously also unfair of me to take out my angst on housemates/teammates by beating them repeatedly at games of Uno..which we've been playing nonstop since we moved, courtesy Momo's housewarming gift.

I met a CEO who actually understood what it means to get work done the very instant it needs to be done (quite a rarity!), and a taxi driver who spent 5 minutes telling me how Musharraf was a very bad man, after I prompted a conversation on Pakistan following a news item on BBC Radio, a staple favorite of taxi drivers. Has to be a step up from when a taxi driver said “Pakistan…mosques and swords” after I told him I was Pakistani.

I spent a lazy afternoon with my teammates, coming up with nicknames for each other, creating imaginary friends and nagging each other, and am now sitting here wishing that the weekend was not coming to an end..sigh.

More ramblings sometime next week...

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posted by saba at 6:55 PM, | 2 comments

The Two-Month Milestone

Saturday, July 21, 2007

2 months, 6 days and counting...

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posted by saba at 1:59 PM, | 1 comments

Random updates from my life

Tuesday, July 03, 2007
- The house looks like a refugee camp. A rather cool one though - with 6 nationalities at last count this morning and lots of people who make tea (with milk!!), share random stories, fix the water cooler, make you miss home with their stories of takeaway biryani and quorma, and help you clean up!

- In the past 2 weeks, I have been to enough meetings to lose track of my own self, and drunk enough tea to burn a hole in my stomach. FYI: drinking VERY hot tea on a VERY hot summer day wearing a suit is not the ideal combination. Its ironic that I really love tea and my job :)

- I met a taxi driver today who was from Basra, Iraq and came to Jordan four years ago, has not seen his family since then and asked me if I knew Princess Sarvath (who is Pakistani and Prince Hassan's wife) If only I knew royalty..

- I paid salaries and now I feel like a grumpy old accountant, the likes of which you'd rather stay away from when you're a kid

- I went to the King Hussein Club and met someone who visited Pakistan during the Zia, Bhutto and Musharraf years, as he worked with King Hussein & Queen Noor. I also stayed wide eyed and open mouthed for the first 5 minutes I was there because the place is SO classy (and apparently looks like a palace, but for the un-palace initiated, this is the next best thing)

- I am thinking about my life and what I want to do here this year and how I slowly feel like a new person with some of the old-me labels still stuck on...

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posted by saba at 5:59 PM, | 1 comments

The One-Month Milestone

Friday, June 15, 2007


So today marks my first month in Jordan - 12 more to go - and I honestly don't know where the days have flown by..

..between some very intense and fun transition with the superfantastic Annika and Monika, doing transition simultaneously with the new LCVPERs, booking and going to meetings, meeting the external champions of AIESEC in Jordan, creating the AIESEC Jordan 2010 Roadmap..

..getting to know people better, discovering new things about the city, experimenting with cooking, sleeping on time, smoking arguileh in balcony cafes, learning a bit more of the language..

..as my daily schedule fills up, and my time becomes my own, i find myself more confident and calm, and even the ensuing exhaustion on long days brings with it a strange sense of satisfaction combined with homesickness. Satisfaction at the knowledge that everyday I am more and more productive, and homesickness at the fact that there is no one to fuss around me constantly like my Dad does..

..more later. till then I shall rejoice that today is Friday and the start of the weekend and I can put all brain activity on hold.

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posted by saba at 11:53 AM, | 0 comments

waiting for my real life to begin..

Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Sitting at Karachi Airport, after having made several fruitless attempts to connect to the "free wi-fi" (you were right emad!) and chatting away with Dodi, who was here waiting to board his flight to Toronto..

I'm waiting - as the Colin Hay song goes - for my real life to begin. I can't hardly wait!

:D

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posted by saba at 4:04 AM, | 1 comments

random 2 am thought

Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Why do I miss something that I never really had in the first place?

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posted by saba at 2:30 AM, | 0 comments

Friday, April 27, 2007
I have been trying to write this for a couple of days now. And then I was watching Grey's Anatomy and a line from the show struck out "Some people believe, that without history, our lives amount to nothing."

For the past few days, between counting down days to my departure to Jordan (17 days to go now) and looking at old pictures, I have wondered about the series of events that has led me to this juncture in life. From the unknown to the surety that what I am about to embark on is the right thing.

That feeling - that this is right - is often connected with those big, life-changing events. Its how we somehow try to explain to other people why we fall in love on first sight, fall in love with the 'wrong' people, believe in a cause no one ever associated us with, switch careers and degrees and generally take on new challenges.

Except it is hard to put that 'right' feeling down in words, and hard to explain. And for someone as clearly dramatic as me, who can picture moments and words that have changed my life or the way I have made decisions, this is odd - but I wouldn't have it any other way.

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posted by saba at 3:03 PM, | 2 comments

:)

Thursday, April 19, 2007
So yesterday, while checking my old MSN display pictures to find one that didn't make me look like I was 10 years older, I found this - it used to be a picture I had on MSN after the trip to India in August 2005.

Left to Right: Batool, me, Sharz, Emad and Adeel

We were at Cafe Coffee Day in Janpath, Delhi, on an extremely fun day where we must have landed up there 4 times in the day, meeting randomly - and while we were all together we decided to have shisha and were so extremely high that it took considerable amount of effort to haul ourselves up from the couch and get to some serious shopping. I'd like to feel like that again - high and carefree, without a single fear or doubt in my head. I miss you guys!

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posted by saba at 2:32 PM, | 1 comments

The Voice of Tomorrow =P

Friday, April 13, 2007
The coolest part of talking to someone who's in a different time zone (in this case, 2 hours before Pak time)

me: goodnight from tomorrow-land!
Oksana: good night from the glorious past!

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posted by saba at 12:55 AM, | 1 comments

comfort zone / unknown

Thursday, March 22, 2007
I rarely use this blog to detail my personal life - I write on another blog for that. But this is something I feel like sharing with my friends in the network.

This has been an interesting week. One that has seen me deliriously happy, extremely hyper and at times a bit overawed at the strength of my own emotions.

Over emails and conversations with the YouCan'05 survivors, LCP friends who are now taking up some extremely exciting opportunities in their own MCs and international MCs (I'd write a list of names but honestly, it would take up too much time. I am intensely proud of all of you :) ), Jo and Emad, and my friends - I know this: we all stand at this juncture between the comfort zone and unknown, regardless of whether our future seems secure or hazy.

This feeling hit home yesterday more particularly. I was sitting at the table in the MC mansion, imploring the Milano delivery guy to bring our pizza as soon as possible as I was dying with hunger, and laughing at Emad's Martha Stewart moment (which involved him scrubbing every surface and dish in the kitchen until it shined). I later went to have coffee at my favorite coffee shop, sitting alone, wishing someone had not gotten to the crossword in the paper before me, and everything was well - just so familiar. I know this all, at the back of my hand. Where to, and where not to order food from. What are the best shopping bargains in Karachi. What is the ideal fare to pay for any part of the city. How to avoid getting stuck in traffic (thats becoming obsolete now though)..

..these are the questions I know how to answer. While having a chat with Oksana a few days ago about what clothes I should bring to Jordan, I had a flashback to last year, when Delia and I were making a list to send to Joanna about what she should bring (it also involved Delia trying to translate certain things from their description and their Romanian name to English =P)

While this step away from the comfort zone is extremely exciting, it is also surreal. Is this really happening to me? Do I actually have to pack for a year keeping in mind that airlines only allow a 20 kg baggage limit? Which airport in the Middle East is the one I'd rather have a 10 hour stopover in? Will I disconnect completely from my LC and country? Will I really not come back to Karachi during the year?

These are inane questions, I know, in the bigger scheme of things. These will spark the bigger questions. The ones that really make you lose sleep, rather than suitcase packing trauma.

But in the inanity lurks the realization of the comfort zone being replaced by the unknown factor. Not the unknown of the decisions I have made, but the unknown of how I will change in this year.

I look forward to re-reading this in March 2008.

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posted by saba at 9:45 PM, | 6 comments

From PostSecret

Saturday, March 03, 2007
sigh.

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posted by saba at 2:43 AM, | 2 comments

if the world isn't turning / your heart won't return / anyone, anything, anyhow

Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Just had a really long voice chat with Delia - even though I was lying down in my living room at 3 AM; I felt we were still somewhere in uni, having a random conversation about life and love; which would inevitably include the phrases "You're crazy!!" and "Boys are stupid." I miss you! :)

The past few days have been quite great.

Highlights?

Sleeping well for the first time in days; deep, dreamless sleep.

Going shopping. I used to love shopping - and then I went to Delhi and shopped so much I literally never ever wanted to bargain again in my life; or look through piles of clothes and wonder whether any of the stuff I was buying was actually wearable.

Rediscovering inspiration; from conversations with friends, between answering questions that all seem the same and yet aren't.

Watching Police perform at the Grammys! I was torn between screaming like one of those incredibly annoying teenagers in My Super Sweet 16 or sitting still and listening to a great rendition of Roxanne.

Going to Espresso and the randomness that usually ensues there - from acquaintances of my sister mistaking me for her (we're identical twins) or running into mutual acquaintances and having conversations while sitting at separate tables.

Making vacation plans. If all works out; I will have my first proper vacation in more than a year. If not, I'm just going to go into hibernation. Either way, I'll be able to get away.

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posted by saba at 4:05 AM, | 3 comments