23 Things I Want to Do Before I Die

1. Backpack through Europe
   
2. Go to Australia
   
3. Go surfing
   
4. Learn a new language
   
5. Be a mom
   
6. Have really long hair
   
7. Go on a road trip through Egypt
   
8. Climb St. Catherine
   
9. Work for Google
   
10. Write a novel
    
11. Play an instrument
    
12. Go into a sex shop
    
13. Visit 100 countries
    
14. Live alone
    
15. Go on hig
    
16. Camp in the desert
    
17. Take self-defense classes
    
18. Go swimming in the ocean at night
    
19. Go to a strip club
    
20. Audition for reality show
    
21. Go to the movies four times in a row
    
22. Live in another country
    
23. Meet Nawal El Saadawi
    

3ashan Ta3rafo Bas, I'm Not Crazy

My sister met my boyfriend of just barely three months last night. The first thing she said to me afterwards was that she got a good vibe from him. The second thing she said to me was, “howa momken yet2adem emta?”

I wish I could escape all of it.

Trophy Boys, Trophy Wives

My mom keeps asking me if any of my friends are getting engaged, married or having babies. It’s insane to her that my 21 year old girlfriends who just graduated from college are all single. It’s insane to me that she would think that. I’m not being temperamental and I’m not trying to be rebellious or make a statement, but I just don’t understand why in the world everyone thinks that for a woman to find true happiness and success in life she has to find a husband. Like it’s the trophy you get for growing up well. “Congratulations, you’re a smart, sexy, pretty and funny woman! You win a man who will put up with you, fuck you, and let you do the dishes and laundry.” Some prize that is.

I won’t get into the fact that half of all marriages end in divorce, abuse or some form of unhappiness. But I just think there must be some alternative one can look forward to other than a simple domestic life. Perhaps some people are just better off being alone; exploring, traveling, discovering the world. I’m not saying that I’m one of those people. Let me be the first to tell you that I dream of having eight babies. Cooking romantic meals for my husband. Cleaning up after my kids. Driving them to soccer practice. But I just wish that I could feel that this really is what I want for myself. Not what society is enforcing me to have.

I usually tend to talk about how much I hate society versus my own individual wants and thoughts. And I know that most of that talk is overused and overrated. But it’s frustrating for me that ever since my sister got married and I have been having people I barely know tell me how much they can’t wait for my night as well or how they’re dreaming of the day they come visit my house with my husband. LIKE I CAN’T GET A HOUSE MYSELF!

My sister told me today that if a woman is 25 and single, her hopes for ever falling in love and living happily (married) ever after start to diminish. Apparently that leaves me three and a half years find that perfect man (or keep the current one around long enough), get that perfectly romantic proposal, anxiously introduce him to my parents, save up a shitload of money or all that a marriage entails, and go through the great ordeal of planning a wedding. Should I feel like I’m running out of time?

A Million Little Pieces

Individuality

I am just like Jean-Jacques Rousseau in that I have always prided myself on being different. He said: “But I am made unlike any one I have ever met; I will even venture to say that I am like no one in the whole world. I may be no better, but at least I am different.” I make a habit out of rejecting what society calls “normal”; challenging it and forming my own opinion of it and usually this opinion is in opposition. Mohammed Al Garf called me rebellious and I said I called it “individuality”. I discussed this openly at an AIESEC conference and everyone stared at me with gaping mouths and confused eyes. My Management professor defined rebellion as “the rejection of all values and norms”, conformity as “acceptance of all values and norms”, and creative individualism as “the acceptance of only pivotal values; rejection of others”. Next AIESEC conference, maybe I’ll talk to people about my creative individualism.

Future

I started my last semester at the new campus two weeks ago and ever since then I have been consistently doing two things: 1. complaining about everything that has to do with university; and 2. counting down till I don’t have undergraduate classes ever again. Right now I have 12 and a half weeks left. But I just realized that after 12 and a half weeks, I have no clue what I’m going to get up and do every morning. I have to start exploring the world and myself; I have 12 and a half weeks to make discoveries. But all I’ve ever known is that I want to travel the world and find a way to live on my own.

Performance Appraisal

I was recently told that I see the cup half empty; I criticize and poke holes instead of acknowledging a concern with possible solutions. I was told that I tend to get very stressed out when someone steps into my work. I worry about myself that I can never get close to people. I worry that I repeat my mistakes and that I am extremely stubborn. I trust too easily and I am very unforgiving.

Australia

The one positive personal thought I have from attending International Congress 2008 in Brazil is that I want to live in Australia. I want to learn how to surf, eat fish all day and become a complete hippie. But apparently Australia is about 17 hours away.

Emotional Investment

I recently realized that in the past four years, I have been single an aggregated sum of just about six months. I think it’s pathetic that I am be a woman who believes and fights for her strength and independence, yet I am a woman who cannot seem to live without affection from a member of the opposite sex. It makes me paradoxical and it makes me naïve and that is even worse. Jon Bon Jovi sings out to me, “I hated you the night you said you loved me/I hated you ‘cause I couldn’t love myself.” Perhaps that explains why all my relationships self-destruct? I am trying to learn and evolve. Apparently the wall I am oh-so-famous for having around me is gone. I am now willing and able to let people underneath at least one layer of my skin and see me. So there is still hope.

Egyptian Girls Who Sleep with their Boyfriends

The inside of the door of one of the bathroom stalls on the second floor New Falaki building discusses this topic. Everyone who wrote on the wall to discuss this topicl is judgmental. It’s judgmental to think that the girls who sleep with their boyfriends are whores. It’s judgmental to think that it’s closed minded to think that girls who sleep with their boyfriends are whores. I think everyone should be free to do whatever the fuck they want. And I wonder, why is no one discussing Egyptian boys who sleep with their girlfriends?

Time and Space

I now believe in Einstein’s theory of special relativity and the structure of spacetime. I seem to have been moving in time but in fact, I haven’t been moving at all. There are people that have not been a part of my life for some reason or another who are suddenly back. Or rather, all this time I thought life was progressing and all the while time has been standing still. There is Mahmoud Al Durrah who shares my gaps on MWs. We sit and it’s as if we didn’t get into a fight over a year ago and stop talking to each other completely. Adham Zidan was my first Computer Science friend, but since he switched majors two years ago, we have had nothing else in common. Now he is in my Romanticism class and he is not the same person I met four years ago. But there was a hint then of the person he is now, and the puzzle has fallen entirely to place. Shyma Zikry. Where do I start with this story? All I can say is that freshmen and sophomore years were probably the best two years of my life. I never realized that until now, and I never realized how much I missed this girl until now. I never thought we would ever be able to get past all the bullshit and be Heisse Pynk again, but I have bended time and space.

An Epiphany aka“I Once Told a Guy I Liked Emotionally Naked Men. He Thought all He Had to Do Was Take off his Shirt.”

I miss my blog. It’s been a while since I’ve blabbered about the random thoughts that go through my head. I recently discovered that there are at least five individuals that read my blog on a regular basis. That scares the living crap out of me. I feel like there are five people in this world that have seen me naked. I guess that’s why it’s been a complete month since I’ve clicked “New Post”. Don’t think for a second that it’s because I haven’t been having random thoughts, because I have had plenty of them. About love and stereotypes and certain boys and The Government and the rules society imposes on us and the fact that I am going to Brazil next week and women’s rights in Egypt. So I will confess that there have been many times where I started a blog post in my head or even in a word document and quickly clicked “No” when Microsoft asked me if I wanted to save changes to Document1.

Everyone who knows me has heard me say at one point in time, “I hate people”. One thing I pride myself for is being able to admit my flaws. But why I hate people has always been a mystery to me, which is part of the reason why I never do anything to try and change that. But yesterday while I was having a very fitful and short sleep, I came to a realization, an epiphany if you will. I don’t REALLY hate people, I just hate people who are judgmental or people who are not tolerant to other people’s beliefs (whether religious beliefs, or my belief that “beauty” is a demoralizing term used to make perfect human beings feel incompetent, or anything in between). But since virtually everyone in the world is judgmental and intolerant, I HATE ALMOST EVERY PERSON IN THE WORLD. But that’s not even my epiphany, that’s something I’ve half-known all along that only became more clear to me from talking to Hossam Nassef (has anyone Googled him yet?)

I am a girl that people do not get to know all that easily. Even people who think they know me well or have known me for a very long time, they’d be surprised. Like I said, I have the ability to admit my own flaws. But if you peel off the layers of silliness and immaturity, and then peel off the layers of anger, all you will be left with is a very, very scared little girl. I can handle being judged by the people I hate because I have strong convictions that it reflects nothing about me. But for the people who got to peel and peel (or the people who just followed this link), they might have judgments and they might be accurate and that scares the shit out of me.

Rawlla Cawsta *British Accent Version*

There's just something about being the only one in a crowd of people that doesn't drink and have sex that I just can't get over. Especially when both points are magnified at the same time. My first night in London, I couldn't shake off the feeling that AIESEC tends to put me in an environment I don't believe in. But then again, maybe it exposes me to the world beyond the shelter I live in. It's an experience you don't get anywhere else; the internationalism, the amount of responsibility, the exposure to new ideas and new cultures.

 

This weekend I learnt something new about AIESEC. I learnt that it operates in over 100 countries. A fact that is written on every flyer and webpage ever created to comply with the AIESEC brand. A fact that I got to experience first hand and see with my own eyes for the very first time. I sat at a long table with six other people, each one from a different part of the world, each one representing their country. I felt like I was back as a delegate in Model United Nations, except that this wasn't a model. The people representing each country represented the countries they came from. And the issues we were discussing were real. It made me feel important and influential.

 

Next month I am going to Brazil for a full scale AIESEC conference. I can't describe how pumped I am to multiply the number of people I'll meet by 100. Add a odd hundred to their nationalities. Intensify the experience a bit more. I feel like I'm writing up a poster ad for AIESEC, but this is seriously what it is. If anyone (but probably no one) scrolls down to earlier AIESEC-related posts that include me cursing the day I joined they'll be confused. But AIESEC, just like parents and boyfriends, has that inherent ability to give you rollercoaster highs and lows. This is the high.

The Age of Spiritual Machines

I have a mental Delete button that I can use to delete people out of my life. I wish I had a Shift+Delete button because every time I delete someone out of my life, he finds a way to crawl back in.