Why Can't I?

We're All A Little Loony

Do Not Feed The Fish

My name is Spanish

Hi! My name is Ujala. Yeah, it's a nice name ... it's Spanish actually. It means "I wish" :)

Uh-huh. No kidding. We were watching the first few episodes of the new TV series 'Supernatural' yesterday. Downoladed from the net by Lee ... with some Spanish subtitles for some strange reason.

So at one point, one of the characters goes "I wish!!!" and you know that radar everyone has that goes bleeping crazy when they hear or read their name? Well, mine went on alert and the subtitle for that specific dialogue read 'Ojala!"

Ujala with an 'O'.

So yeah, it's a Spanish name ... it means "I wish" :)

Smile :)

I went to the pantry to get myself a banana, but they were clean out :( so i decided to get a hot chocolate instead. I am a 'Office Coffee Machine' virgin no more. Free hot chocolate all day and getting paid for it? Oh my. Have I died and gone to heaven?

Anyway, so I'm taking the ho'cho back to my desk and I pass this guy in the hall walking the opposite way. He smiles, I smile back.

"How are you?" he smiles.
"Doing well, and you?" I smile back.

Never saw him before. Doubt I will again soon. Doesn't matter.

I love big companies where you don't know anybody outside your department. Puts things into perspective.

A smile from a stranger is nice. It's kind of reassuring in a "I'm smiling at you and that means you look like a friendly person with whom exchanging smiles would be pleasant" kind of way, no?

The Desk and the Fruit Bowl

Ah, I'm loving my life these days (NOT that I don't love it otherwise). I'm in the Honeymoon Phase ... y'know, the one where you've just embarked on a new relationship ... the ship has just set sail and ahead of you lies a whole ocean of possibilities unexplored ... millions of miles of uncharted territory ... you're filled with a keenness and anxiety (of a good kind) and you can't help but look at everything through rose-tinted glasses.

*sigh*

The first few weeks of a relationship are so spine-tinglingly delicious, aren't they? Not that a seasoned relationship doesn't have it's own virtues (I could write a whole blog on the pros of relationships that have endured the test of time) but we're talking about new ones here now, okay? So let's focus.

Rose-tinted glasses. Yes. Isn't it amazing how you can look at everything in that new relationship with such a positive outlook that even the drawbacks become 'quirks'? And before you interrupt me with the question that has been nagging you since you started reading this entry ... No, I am not confessing online of a secret affair I have started of late.

It is an affair, though, and not a very secret one at that. And I hope it lasts.

Seeing as I've just started my new job, I can't write about much else for a few posts, can I?

Not while this 'Honeymoon Phase' is around at least. Ooh, I'm loving it. So where do I start?

My desk. Yes, a BIG CLEAN NICE NEW DESK. With nothing on it. And since I have no desktop computer (they gave me a laptop) I have even more space. AND I have two dividers for tacking stuff onto. Wow. I've already brought in a bunch of photos and little knick-knacks to personalise my home away from home. I love getting a new desk. A clean one. Seeing as any in my possession for more than a week becomes the complete opposite of clean.

I'm telling you ... when I packed up my desk at the last job, I had a gazillion things. I'd accumulated them in less than a year.



(No, that's not my desk ... it's just a pic off the net to illustrate my point ... but boy, does that make me want to do a Monica!!)

There must have been about 200 magazines. Where did they all come from ?I only remember buying five or six. Fifteen at the most. There were about 500 CDs with various stuff - half of them unlabelled. One of these days, I have to see what I put on them. Till then, I have to keep them safely, lest I lose some vital info that don't need now, but will as soon as I've thrown out the CD it was on. Funny how it works that way ALL THE TIME.

I've taken a picture of my desk pre decoration and I'll put it up in a few days with one of the desk when I'm finished giving it it's first overhaul.

I just hope no one nicks the stuff from my desk.

Alright, Number Two for my list: fruit. They've got FREE FRUIT in this office. As much as you want. We've got a whole fruit bowl for our own office. It's always got a bunch of bananas, some green apples and some red ones. All shiny, new stuff with no blotches and the apples aren't the cheap kind that collapse like cardboard, but hte nicer, crispy types. I know because I had both yesterday .. an apple and a banana and I don't even eat fruit! I can't remember when was the last time I had either. Maybe the company thinks if it encourages us to fortify our systems with free fruit, then we'd take fewer sick days. Smart.



There's a whole other - and much BIGGER - fruit bowl in the pantry. Pantry's not quite the word for it though. What do you call something that has a lovely galley kitchen with everything but the stove, has a candy/chips dispensing machine, a freezer full of cola drinks, fruit juices and mineral water FOR FREE, a couple of nice armchairs to realx in, a lovely marble bartop with bar stools AND A FLOOSE BALL TABLE?!! Whatever you call that - we've got one of those. And the marble bartop looks over the parking area and the entrance of Knowledge Village which is quite serene and calming in it's own urban kind of way.

In the days of yore the landscape was organic - all hills and trees and stuff - but today it's all roads and cars and buildings, which is not bad: it's just different.

And there's something quite soothing about being perched atop a bar stool overlooking the parking lot, the busy roundabout and the traffic on the road beyond ... you can see it, but you can't smell it or hear it. No smog, no toot-toot of Impatient Dubai Drivers. You sit and munch on your apple in the pine-scented, elevator-music-playing pantry and YOU ARE KING OF THE CASTLE.

:)

I think it's nice that I'm writing down all the little quirks of my new workplace, cuz I'm sure - and not just because I'm me, but because I'm a Yuppie and because Yuppies are quite thankless that way- I will become fazed and jaded with all that is new and shiny now, when it becomes not-so-new and not-so-shiny.

I am quite sure I will start complaining about the fruit bowl ("Why don't they EVER have pears in there? Or peaches?!!"), about the pantry ("Why do I have to pay for my Mars bars when the stupid Coke is free?!"), about my desk ("Why is my back to the door? I want more privacy!!") and then we'll all know that my Honeymoon Phase is truly over.

*sigh*

Till then, I'll make the most of it. Okay, I'm gonna go now and munch on an apple while I contemplate the never-ending line at the U-Turn in tune to Mozart's Whatever Symphony ...

I'm the Boss of Me

So, what better way to come back from a brilliant two-week holiday in England than to find yourself out of one - no, wait - TWO jobs?!

I'd always thought I was a bit psychic (though my family will reassure you that 'psycho' was more like it) and I swear honest to goodness I woke up with this foreboding feeling one fine morning in Croydon and I KNEW that if I checked my email, I would have bad news from the bottomless-pocketed building materials supplier that I do freelance PR for.

Sure enough, a cup of tea and two toasts later I was as stunned at my 'special powers' as I was at the prospect of having lost a major chunk of income. They wanted to halt PR till we decided on a new - and better - direction. HaRRumph.

As if that wasn't enough, boarding the plane to head back to Dubai, I kept nagging Arfiman with my conviction a firm 'boot' awaited me at my day job.

Sure enough, I returned to find that my salary for September hadn't been transferred into my account. The month passed with no deposits into my account. October came and went. And so did November nad my kind employer assured me that I would get paid. When? He had no clue.

Loyel as I wanted to remain to him (he had been a nice boss, despite everyting) but try as I may, I could find no ustification to work for free for the fourth month in a row and so I picked up the 'appointments' pages.

Have you heard all those stories about job ads in papers and how they’re a farce and done just to go through the motions when actually the hiring officials only ever hire friends and friend of friends?

Well, they’re not true. My current job (the one I was in limbo with) came from the paper (very interesting story which I will get to in a bit) and so did another one before.

Current job was spotted in the paper entirely by coincidence – and with the help of my ‘special powers’.

You know how coal needs to be in really tiny pieces for it to be burned for shisha-usage on a regular ghar ka coolha? Well, it’s really inconvenient because our coal comes in huge chunks that have to be broken down into small bits. The breaking down is a messy process with soot and coal shards everywhere. Yes, I do have a point here and yes, it is related directly to the story I have been telling …

So in order to not get the soot all over my nice marble counter tops, Arfiman uses a newspaper to envelope the coal before he smashes it to smithereens. It was while throwing out one such newspaper that I spotted the tiny, tiny ad for current (in limbo) job. All covered with soot and battered by the hammer, this sorry piece of paper helped us sort out our finances for quite a long time.

But now was time to say goodbye, so I picked up the paper yet again as I had coffee with my Nice Boss who told me he’s not obliged to pay me anymore but it would be nice if I can keep working for him.

“Don’t do that in front of me!” he exclaimed as he saw me scour job ads right infront of him. “At least wait for me to leave!!”

Tough luck chico, this chica is not going to work for free anymore. (Matter of the truth is that chica worked for free for about four more weeks after this conversation took place).

So, being in my new ‘I can take on the world’ frame of mind, I sent out my CV in response to … um … one job ad.

You know how they say you shouldn’t put all your eggs in one basket? Well, I was sick of being fucked with and I said ‘Screw it! I am applying for JUST ONE JOB and let’s see who the fuck can stop me from getting it’.

I might have known better as the job offered to pay almost 50% more than my current salary AND it clearly said ‘UAE Nationals Preferred’. Which – in employment terms – means, UAE Nationals Only!

But – as I said before – I was tired of being fucked with. I was going to use my special powers’ and I DID. So I went out there tough as nails and got the job as sure as rain.

Ya-haan, I did.

So I am yet again gainfully employed (though the process was a bit lengthy and tedious despite my ‘special powers’).

But the good news is, Alhamdolillah, I've finally landed a job that I'm worth. I get my own Parking Space, for Christ's sake!!! How much better can it get?

So thankyou Allah Mian, for stannding by my side and the moral of the story is:

1. Don't let anyone tell you not to put all your eggs in one basket.
2. People really do get hired as a result of jobs advertised in papers. It's not a farce.
3. When life starts fucking with you, you grab it by the balls and show it who's Boss.

and I'm the Boss of Me :)

Silver Jubilee

BPC is 25 tomorrow.

And what to show for it?
Travelled to 10 countries over 2 continents.
Can speak two languages fluently and can order mint shisha and/or ten coins in a third.
Dropped out of Art School halfway through.
Spent a night in an Afghan refugee camp: all in a day's work
Cycled 500 km.s in five days for charity
Climbed Jebel Qihwi (Hajar Range, Oman), which is 5886 ft/1794 m - which makes it almost 300 km.s higher than Everest Base Camp!
Ran 11 km.s in a few hours for the Terry Fox Run in 2003
Ate raw eggs first things in the morning for a month to put on some weight
Put on 5 kg.s in a year of marriage
Has published a piece in a London magazine
Has smoked weed in Amsterdam (who doesn't?!)

Has done many things to make an honest buck:
- taught photography
- hosted kiddy birthday parties at KFC
- edited/wrote for magazines
- face-painted snootty brats at funfairs
- touted everything from spas to building materials suppliers
- written speeches for people with cushy numbers who put their foot in their mouth the moment they speak
- photographed weddings/couples/launch of a new shaving cream
- survived 30-inch high mini-people at a preschool stint

*whew*

Can't think of many things that I had wanted to do by the time I was 25, but there are a few:
- travel to more than 15 countries (NOT DONE)
- find a life partner (DONE)
- make more money than my first real boss (SO DONE! ... and just in time too ... will sign the contract for that job today ... just hours short of my 25th!!)
- go backpacking around Europe (DONE)

So let the countdown begin ....

25 is what I will be tomorrow
24 seems to be the borderline: the OTHER side of 'grow-up'. I'm past it now. Yay!
23 is when I was engaged to be married :)
22 thousand dirhams is what my ex-employer owes me (give some hundreds)
21 is how old I was when I came to Dubai
20 is when I realized that formal education isn't for me
19 was a great age to be: some very good memories of some very good times there!
18 books I have at home that I havent even started reading
17: isn't that when I flunked high school Math TWICE in a row?!!!
16 is when I first REALLY liked a boy
15 and a half months I have been married
14 was when I realized boys can be talked to
13 is when I moved from Saudi to Karachi .. to a MIXED school. Boys ... YUCK!
12 is probably the age when I had the msot best friends at any one time.
11 is what I turned in 1991: my first realization of
10 countries I've travelled to.
9 seasons of FRIENDS: the BEST show ever.
8 people can sit comfortably around the TV in my living room
7 jobs I have had since I moved to Dubai ... 8th one starts next week.
6 months I've had my Lumina and loved it! (AND gotten 4 speeding tickets!)
5 people without whom my Dubai would be incomplete
4 times I've been to Istanbul ... and I still wanna go back.
3 salsa classes I took .. someday I will go back and take more
2 times I've seen snow: once for real in Istanbul and once, fake in Ski Dubai
1 is the number of days left till I'm 25! :)

And to quote from the blog that inspired my countdown:

"and the numbers will not make sense ... they never do! ... there will be more numbers for everyone and only you can make them into a life that you see yourself in ..."

HAPPY BUDDAY BAKPAKCHIK!