Western Arab

When are Arabs going to step down from their high chairs? When will we get past the arrogance? Why is it when an Arab tells me he will call me in two days with the work I requested completed, he never does, in fact days go by and I have to call and ask? Why do Arabs in business treat Arabs as second class citizens? When they promise an Non-Arab American a call in two days, they deliver, but with Arabs, they feel like they are doing you a favor, even though you are paying them like anyone else to do the work you asked for.

This isn’t a one time incident, it is everywhere I go, with all Arabs, Christians and Muslims alike. I made the mistake of going to an Egyptian dentist once. I was going to an Indian prior. So what was wrong with the Egyptian? The same arrogance. I don’t want you doing me any favors, just do your job like with anyone else and I will pay you like I pay anyone else. Instead after the work is done, I get the typical Arab statement. Khalieyah 3alyeena. Translates to leave it on us. Bite me. You know very well I am not walking out without paying you. And you are not letting me leave without paying you. So just tell me to pay X and I will. Then to add insult, after I tell him no, he says ok just pay $xxx for the x-rays. UGH. I am not stupid, you are not doing me any favors, and I do NOT want you to. All this ever does is make me leave with no intention of returning to this dentist or whatever profession it may have been. And the dumb Arab loses another customer.

So why can’t we work together as Arabs? My cousin once needed a paper signed to let him in a class in college. He made the mistake of going to the Arab. Thinking hey, he is an Arab, I am an Arab. He will gladly do it. WRONG. “I am busy now”. “Come back later”. Busy doing what? It is your damn job to sign shit like this. Sign it. So what happens, some blonde American girl walks in. All of a sudden the Arab is not busy, ahlan wa sahlan, welcome welcome, how are you? What can I do for you? So what does my cousin do? Walk to the next room to an American, who signs the sheet without even looking at it. He does his fucking job. Yes I am angry. I am angry with Arabs.

If we look at our “cousins”, we see them work together. They fight with each other as much as we do, but they would drive 15 extra miles to buy from their own than one of ours or anyone else for that matter. Why? Because they want each other to succeed, not for the individual, but for their own as a whole. They think long term. We think right now.

Arabs goes something like this:

Firas: hey did you hear, Abu Fulan opened a grocery store on Main Street, I hear it is doing great. Al hamdillah.

Hashim: Al hamdillah, Al hamdillah. This is great news.

Next day Hashim opens a grocery store across the street from Abu Fulan on Main Street. Spends the next 6 months with his top priority of putting Abu Fulan out of business. Why? Simple, why should Abu Fulan make all the money? Is he better than Hashim??? NO. Hashim can’t let this happen, he must put an end to this. Not only does he end up putting Abu Fulan out of business, but himself as well because he soon realizes he is a complete moron who doesn’t know how to run such a business, and now that he lowered his prices so much to get rid of Abu Fulan, his customers have a fit when he starts to raise his prices again. The mentality is the same, why should he get this or that? He isn’t better than me, I can do this too. It is all about image and prestige. Screw your image. Screw your prestige.

So Arabs. When I come to your work place to use your services. Treat me like anyone else. I don’t want “special” treatment. I do not want a discount. I want to be treated like any other customer, I want service. And if someone opens a business and does good, be happy for them, support them, use their services, buy their products. It is sickening that this kind of competition not only happens just against other Arabs, but against family members. So many Arab families are split because of business.

Today is day three. Weekend will go by. Monday I will call and ask if the work I requestesd is done. Tuesday I will call again. And I will probably have it by Thursday. This way, I am supposed to feel like it took him so much time to do, that he is giving me a great price considering all the time he spent on it. When I know it doesn’t take two hours to do it and his price sucks. Serves me right for using an Arab for service, so why do it? I always hope that there will be some change. That maybe I will find some Arab who is different, someone whom doesn’t treat me as less, someone whom I am pleased to use his service, because he did his job and because I am helping him succeed by using his services and I can recommend his services to others. Maybe too much to ask.

Buzz buzz. I cut my hair today. My shortest cut in years. Size 2 all around. Even the woman at the barbershop had to confirm with me that I want to cut it all size 2. Yes I know, a woman cut my hair at the barbershop. It is the best shop I can find here in Florida, it took me some time to find it when I first moved down here. They keep asking me if I want to trim my eye-brows. I always say no. I like them as they are, it is one of my Arab features.

Here it is

Me - Buzz Cut

Today is one of those days. I woke up but did not want to wake up yet. I did not want to leave bed. I usually wake up and stay in bed for some time period before getting out. But today, I just didn’t want to get up at all. I slept late so I had about five and a half hours of sleep. I have to get up, I have responsibilities. So I go out of bed, walked to my bathroom, and stopped at the door-way looking back at my bed. I desired my bed so much. I just stood there for a short period of time which seemed longer than it was but I was frozen. Bed or not? Temptation. Resist. Fail.

I caved in to my desires and went right back to my bed. I couldn’t resist it, right back under that new nice thick warm comforter I have. It was the first time I used it, perhaps that had something to do with it. Maybe, the virgin comforter made me desire my bed more. Niiice, soooft, smooooooth, droool. Was I just too tired or even lazy? All I know is I got another 30 minutes of well deserved sleep and felt much better. I can still use some more sleep, but those 30 minutes were awesome! So here is to good sleep, sexy virgin comforters, pillowcases and bedsheets!

ugh ugh ugh. it is that time again. time to get the taxes done.

The dreadful time of taxes is here. If you are among the people who get money back, you ususally run and do your taxes to get your refund. I have not had a refund in a long time, granted I will likely pay less this year, everyone is feeling it from this economy. Regardless, it has to be done. I have to waste time to go see my accountant and pay him to tell me how much I have to pay our uncle. Uncle Sam is collecting, and he is in debt more than us.

Crappy economy. I hear the same stories over and over, someone got laid off, a company is closing down, a company is about to fall, a company laid of x people, a company cut holidays, and a company got rid of bonuses. Many are scared because they don’t know when their company will lay them off. With so many unemployed, companies are getting an influx of applications. Few openings, many applicants. Disaster. Let us all hope that things can change for the better in the next 6-10 months. I think that is the time frame that is left to recover.

Deerfield Beach

Long entertaining day. Deerfield Beach, went swimming. Have not done that in a while. I did seem to miss a spot on my back with the sun block so it is burning a little right now. Weather was beautiful this weekend. A lot of people on the beach, plus there was some founder’s event thing, no idea what it was, didn’t care but it was more reason for people to go. Perhaps in my lack of trips to the beach in the past year, a trend grew fast and I wasn’t so much aware of it’s growth. It seems that almost every female on the beach is now wearing a thong, with some “upgraded” to a g-string. What ever happened to family friendly beaches? I know, girls compete with each other and when one does something, the second follows suit. The mentality is exposing yourself solo is bad, but if your friend does it too or if you do it together, it is ok. There is a time and place for everything, let’s keep the beaches family friendly. This is without mentioning the topless beach goers.

Beach was a good start to the day, had fun in the water and on the sand. But a nice wave hit me right in the eye and took out one of my contact lenses. Probably because I was looking at all those girls in thongs and g-strings. But hey being at the beach with my current weight feels much better than being at the beach last year or the past 4-5 years and those girls were probably looking at me too.

I also saw Batman: Dark Knight at the IMAX finally. I have been trying to go see it for the past few weeks. Great movie. Heath Ledger did an excellent job as the joker. Movie is two and a half hours long, but looked very nice on the imax screen. Why so serious???

12 years ago. High school. AP Bio.

Yes I took AP Bio, that is Advanced Placement Biology. Wow how did I end up there. I wasn’t even good in regular Bio. But my AP Bio teacher was very cool, in fact my regular bio teacher was cool as well, maybe that is why I took AP. I surely wasn’t supposed to be there, but doesn’t mean it wasn’t a good experience. I wasn’t a good student in AP Bio, my classmates knew this, my teacher knew this, and I knew this. Yet, my classmates mostly liked me, my teacher liked me and I liked me. I will have to say I at least made the class entertaining.

There was AT LEAST one girl that was interested in me in this class and tried to get my attention, initially. She later found out how I really am, and all that changed. She was Greek. 90% of that high school was Greek, if you are reading this and you are Greek, you probably went to my high school. High school was fun, it was some of the best years I had.

Cliff Notes

So AP Bio, my teacher was cool and let me joke around and completely interrupt her lessons to make my jokes or annoying comments . I mean there was serious time sometimes, but that didn’t apply to me, it was for everyone else, I think we all knew that! Or maybe my teacher didn’t know that until she decided to take my cliff notes, which had a picture of someone inside. Yes the picture was of a girl, no I will not say who she is, and no I don’t have the picture anymore. And yes she was fully clothed. I am not sure why she took it, but I think she wanted to try to be tough with me. To tell me, I should behave perhaps. That didn’t fly with me so well. I was quickly angered with her and within seconds I planned out my revenge.

It so happens that day, we were supposed to do something in class, I don’t know what it is because I didn’t know what it was then. I didn’t pay attention but do know that she gave out rulers to everyone. There were maybe 30 people in the class, so 30 rulers. It was simple, she took something of mine and I was supposed to do the same to her. I left my seat and walked around the classroom, I collected every ruler from every student, just before the class ended. In my hand I had a stack of 30 rulers clenched in my fist. I didn’t even say anything to my teacher, I just grabbed my book bag and walked out of the classroom. I am pretty sure she needed them for the next class, but I wasn’t going to let her get away with taking my belongings!

Funny thing, I never let those rulers out of my hand, I walked with them in my hand the whole day, and AP Bio was one of my morning classes. I don’t think I put the rulers down anywhere the entire day. I got asked the same question by whoever saw me and wasn’t scared that I would hit them with the rulers. Why do you have all these rulers? Usually the question came with a smile, laugh or look of confusion or maybe fear. My answer was the same, my teacher took my book, I took her rulers. Which I think sent a message to many students and perhaps other teachers, DO NOT TAKE HIS STUFF. It was only until I was no longer angry sometime in the day that I eased up my clench on the rulers. I had sweaty palms back then, wait maybe I still do … well squeezing my hand on them didn’t help that. After the long day, after final period (class), I decided to go see if she was in the class room and to make a trade.

Ruler but like 30 of them

I went up the flight of stairs and opened the door to see her at the end of the hallway, just closing the classroom door and about to lock it. In that moment that I saw her, she turned to me and saw me step out of the stair case with 30 rulers still in my hand. Did I tell you this teacher was cool? She couldn’t even control herself, she just burst out laughing when she saw me. She quickly opened the class room door and let me in. She asked why I took them but really she knew already, and I didn’t have to ask for a trade, she just went straight to her desk, opened her drawer and handed me my book back, at which I pried open my fist to give her back the rulers. We were back to same old the following class. She never took my belongings again. Thanks for being such a cool teacher.

Treadmill

My workout routine as of now goes like this. I go to the gym atleast three times a week, that is every other day, which sometimes can be four times a week. At the gym I do pull ups, the amount I can do, pretty much two. Very pathetic I know, I used to do 15 easy but I was also 150lbs. Now I can only do two, but a few months back I only did one . So I do this so I can strength myself in that again, and get a stretch a bit before I get on the treadmill.

I set the treadmill to random so it inclines and declines randomly.  The level setting I put on four, I enter my weight, the time to 30 minutes, and I set my starting speed to 3.5. I walk to warm up at this speed for two minutes, then I increase it to 4.7. I jog/run at 4.7 for 20 minutes, decrease it to 3 for next 4 minutes and then increase it to 4.7 again for final 4 minutes. The machine then has a 5 minute cool down which I keep between 3 and 3.5. So I end up with a total of 35 minutes including the cool down, 400 calories burned and a total of 2.4 miles.

I have also been doing 60 crunches daily and have added 10 declined pushups as well. I do the crunhes sometime in the afternoon, and I have been doing the pushups at night time before going to bed. And that is my workout routine for now, it will probably change as I improve and I will add/subtract as needed.

Workout schedule is way off track, but with reason. I have been busy with family events the past week and have not gone to the gym. Normally this would be a big indicator of intention to quit the workout routine, setting off alarms. But that isn’t the case, I will be back at the gym tomorrow. Further I have started to doing 60 crunches everyday and that has been going on for probably a week, maybe more, so I am still getting something in. This is by no means a replacement to the workout, but an addition, the workout is the main activity. In order to burn calories and burn fat, I need to sweat, and I only do that running on the treadmill. The crunches are just to help shape up a bit.

Which leaves me still in the 200-204lb range. Must break 200 again. Must continue.  Flex!

A random weekend Saturday, which I will sum up with just phrases. Don’t expect this to make any sense. No explanations. No details. Just incomplete sentences. Perhaps I will know what these phrases mean a year from now, perhaps not. They may or may not trigger a memory of today, but that doesn’t matter now. So here they are:

• cow stomach linings
• town center fives and nines
• Las Olas and Las O Not
• 24 hour dunkin donuts

And some memories that came up today. Some fun, some good, some eh. Phrases from these memories:

• Double Tree
• Hooters Pass Thru
• A1A Beach Leak
• Lost Lucky at a Gas Station
• Mohsen Weekend

Sleep

Alright, so sleep is very important and very fulfilling when you can get it, everyone knows that, right???? So why am I not satisfied? Sleep doesn’t come easy, it takes me anywhere from at least an hour to sleep. Even  if exhausted, I can be literrally passing out on my computer desk, but the second I get up and head to bed, that is all over, I am wide awake all over again. So what is the problem, I would seriously pay money to be able to sleep on cue. I know my dad can do it, he is blessed with the talent or gift, I think my uncle too, but he will be asleep before his head reaches the pillow when he wants to sleep. My mom on the other hand is like me or me like her.

So sleep, when I returned from Lebanon last October I was exhuasted. I was up all day long in Lebanon and my flight was at 3:30 am or so Beirut time. That means I did not sleep all day long and all night long, I got some half sleep on the plane back to Germany dozing off and on and hearing all the noise around me, from the loud plane engine to people and kids chatting or making noise. Plus I surely wasn’t going to miss the food they gave because I was sleeping, food on those long flights is your free pass for atleast 30 mins of your flight going by without notice. Now if I can just sleep normally, I would take that. Once in Germany, I had to walk from one terminal to the other, I don’t know how to best describe this, but it was a long ass walk! So another 3 hours waiting for next flight, ofcourse no sleep. And finally the longest flight of the trip, Germany to Florida.

I think I got some half sleep on this flight, atleast my sister was me this time on the flight. The last time I flew back from Lebanon, a crazy Leb woman kept talking to me, and I had to PRETEND I was sleeping, but that didn’t stop her, she kept trying to talk to me to see if I would wake up. She even showed me gold she got for some body, I think it was for a guy, possibly her husband, and only after showing me the gold, did she need to go to the bathroom and leave her bag with gold with me. Great, did she detect honesty on me?

So finally arrived at Miami International. Having filled out my customs form, I thought I was already ready to zoom thru customs. It went smoothly, you would think by the time you go thru the questions and walking to get to baggage claim, that the bags would actually be there. So yes more waiting time for luggage, and because my sister was with me, there were six maybe seven bags, one belonging to me. After retrieving them all, I saw the exit and I was excited, I was finally getting past all the check points, I was going to be FREE. Things don’t always go as planned as the man at the exit gate wanted to know what sweets and nuts I brought with me that I listed on the customs card. Look they need to make this a policy, all Arabs bring back with them sweets and nuts! We used to bring cheese and meat too but you made such a big deal out of that, that we kinda stopped, but when we say sweets, it is so you don’t say wtf is baklawa? wtf is ghoraybeh or senora as the Lebs call it? And nuts are just nuts, a bag of mixed nuts, actually I had probably 12 bags of them, but that is beside the point! So he laughs cause I have nuts and says I must go to door number 13. I wanted to scream, or maybe yell at him, right in front of me was freedom, and he wants to send me to door number 13. Can I bribe him with a bag of nuts??? Door number 13 was another room with x-ray machines, they told me they wanted to scan all the bags so I placed them on the belt and they did, I think they probably scanned me too but I didn’t notice or I didn’t care and just wanted to get out already.

So what does all this have to do with insomnia? Well I ended up going to see my other sister, and stayed over and awake the rest of the day, arrived home around eight and go in bed at 9. What was amazing was that I instantly fell asleep, I had the best sleep I have had in years. So what did it? Was it the exhaustion of being awake for more than 24 hours, I was sooooo satisfied with my sleep, that I didn’t care to count how many hours I was awake to get this sleep, but then it continued for atleast 3 weeks, I would go to bed and SLEEP. It was amazing, sleep around 10 and wake up around 6, I was up in the morning for fajr (dawn) and I wasn’t tired. I was enjoying sleep.

With everything else, good things tend to come to an end. I slowly fell of sleep track again and landed back in insomnia. So what was it about the trip to Lebanon that made me sleep? I can conclude that I think I forgot everything, I was on vacation after five years of working without a vacation. I was able to to forget everything that I left here, mainly responsibility. Worries, bills, internet, video games … everything. Yes in Lebanon where a mob fight broke out over a tailor shortening someone’s pants too much in which the army had to get involved, I forgot all responsibility. But as is life, it slowly made it’s way back to me and took away my sleep. I want my sleep back, give it back to me!!!