Bye Bye Arpu+

Today was my last day at my first ever job at Arpu+ Telecommunications Services. Its such a weird and frightening feeling to leave a job, especially your first one. You get used to the daily routine, you know the people well...its just too comfortable to make a drastic change like the one I did! I hear it gets easier after leaving your first job. We'll see how true that is with time I guess. I'm thankful that my first job was such a nice experience...I had great people to work with, bosses who cared a whole lot about my learning curve, the office was close by my place, the company name is big making the experience good for my CV, plus I could leave at 5:30pm sharp which allowed me to maintain a social life plus spend more time in AIESEC. So I cant complain...will really miss it. I just needed to start moving in the right direction with my career, so I had to take the hard decision and just follow through with it. This job was very convenient but not what I want in the long run. Today was just very touching because the people were genuinely upset that I was leaving...and it got me a little emotional. Its nice to feel like you are leaving a nice footprint behind, that people will remember you fondly...I even had clients call me saying it was a pleasure to work with me. It was just sweet...

Focus...FOCUS!

Ok for the past 10 days I have been multi-tasking for hours on end! Would wake up, go to work, then go do IPM stuff, then try to get some sleep while thinking of what to do about my changing jobs and my house chores! I love being busy, but being busy with a large number of things that are totally unrelated is super tough! You cant focus on just one thing which makes life extremely difficult! Imagine focusing at the office with urgent work then getting phone calls in between that have something to do with another job you have! You get confused and unfocused for a few minutes...and the constant interruptions on your train of thought is annoying! The hard part too is when all these people from the different unrelated jobs keeping demanding and demanding things from you...you become overwhelmed and cant help but be tired, frustrated, and even sad! I soooo prefer staying focused on one thing!

The CC Team is now complete!

Over the past few days we have been receiving people from all over the world; they are the teamsters of IPM 2007! Their arrival reminded us of how close IPM was and that got us very excited yet also very nervous! Its time to really push ourselves now; the pace will be alot faster and more intense than it has been for the past year. The stress will only increase from here but so will the fun! The teamsters are great; every one of them is unique in his or her own way and I look forward to getting to know every single one of them more. Here's to a hard yet fulfilling month full of experiences, special moments, and definately lack of sleep and lack of a social life!

Its a miracle! Billy likes me!

For those of you who know Martha, you'd know that she has this dog called Billy whom she always talks about. He's this small white dog who hates strangers! And I mean hates them! Stays barking at you from the second you get into their house till the moment you leave...if you are lucky he will stop barking after you've been sitting down for some time...but then dont you dare move coz once you do its hysterical barking all over again! Well, a miracle happened last friday! I spent the night in Martha's house on Thursday to the dismay of Billy who wouldnt stop barking. But to my surprise, on Friday afternoon Billy jumped on the bed in front of me, put his paws on my lap and started licking my face! It was the cutest thing in the world...and such a memorable moment that we had to photograph it! BILLY WAS LICKING ME!! Wow! We just had to make everyone jealous about that! God knows when it will ever happen again.

The Importance of Having a Witness to Your Life

I was watching the last hour of "Dance With Me", which stars Susan Sarandon, Richard Gere, and Jennifer Lopez. I had seen the movie before but never noticed this really interesting comment that Susan Sarandon said in the movie. She defined marriage in a way that I had never heard before...she said when you marry someone you are promising to be a witness to their whole complete life...you see the bad, the good, the happy, and the sad. You promise to be there for it all. It makes your life more meaninful when someone is there to witness it all as it happens. I found that to be so deep! Its very true too...I mean dont you WANT your significant other or even a very close friend to be there to see you smile, cry, laugh, get mad? I would want to see people I love in all their moods because it proves to me that we are close because they let me in like that...it is witnessing everything that a person is and loving him/her more because of it.

Khedr & Dalia's Wedding!

This has been the most fun I have had in a wedding for some time! Got to dance till my feet hurt and with people who are just hysterical! I have no idea why I dont see them more often?! The bride & groom were all smiles and hyper, and they did really cool unconventional things like the bride was wearing Dr. Martin boots under her dress which are damn comfortable! So she was jumping around and dancing with no aching feet! When they came to have their dinner, they went to a private room to have a private small dinner then came back to the crowd. Plus they didn't take their bride and groom photos till after the buffet and the reason for that was they wanted to see each other for the first time in the actual zaffa! That was the cutest thing! I saw quite a few people in the wedding whom I hadnt seen in forever and some were close friends of mine in uni like Mousse, Mariham, Fuzzy, Gina, etc. Plus had my good friends who make me laugh always like Emad, Mariam, Dina, Maghawry, Beco, and Asabgy. We all danced non-stop and when we did stop to eat we cracked jokes! The DJ was just too hilarious...he would put a song like Pump It Up and then switch to a Nancy Ajram song! He put a really lovely love song for the newlyweds to dance on which was "Come What May" and we were all very touched watching them dance to it...then all of a sudden he switched to "I Will Survive"! Who puts such a song after a romantic nice song?! We just had a great time...and we will miss the great couple whom are flying to the States to start their new life together.

Quitting: a blessing? or a reason for regret?

Just before I started my crazy new years week I quit my job. I quit at 6pm, had to stay at work till 8pm then had to pack and go go go. And till now I havent sat down with myself to think about what this means...I went to work Thursday morning just like any other day and somehow I went home a quitter. Not that I wouldnt have quit anyway but it was a decision I took VERY irrationally...very last second...very lets just get it over with. I'm not too comfortable with the decision even though it definately has been coming for a very long time. Now that I quit, I can work alot more on IPM, plus I am free to really do what I want!! But what do I want...that is the problem. I can take the job offer I got and try something totally new, I can go on an internship through AIESEC, I can pursue a better position in the same career direction that I have been in for 2 years now, I can do ANYTHING...even though that feels so liberating I feel very trapped. I feel very pressured that my next step has to be the right one this time...and to make it the right one I have to know where I want to be in 5-10 years...hmmmm

Happy New Year!

Its 2007 already, can you believe it?! 2006 was a pretty intense year, full of fun times, sad times, confusing times...it really was a roller coaster! When I think back to 2006 I remember great trips like Dahab, Sokhna, IC in Poland, Turkey, Alex, camping in the desert, etc. Those trips were the biggest highlights of the year since I got to know loads of new people, got to experience a lot of new things, plus gained memories that I will treasure forever. A lot of these trips got me thinking about myself and who are the sorts of people I want around me...and more importantly who I wanted to be. In Poland, I did alot of thinking and also came to realize I really did have the ability to survive anywhere all by myself...in Turkey did a lot of family reconnecting...in Dahab and Sokhna bonded with my friends...in the desert realized how truly beautiful it is to have nothing but an awesome sunset and great people by your side. 2006 marked the last time in AIESEC for the people who got me to like AIESEC in the first place! It was the last time I would ever do role calls with them, and the last time we'd travel for a conference together...that was extremely sad but a lot of them are my closest friends till today so I'm happy to say I didn't lose them because of that transition. 2006 marked the year one of my best friends in the world got married! It was an awesome week! Plus marked the first baby to be born from within my uni gang! I have yet to meet this little guy! It marked the very sweet and exciting process of finding someone whom I adore to death...it's been really interesting seeing how protective, worrisome, and happy I have become because of that. I realized how much I really cherish this person and the times we spent together during this past year in particular. 2006 marked a couple of times where I truly felt frightened, which I hadn't felt in years. It marked a time where my whole life changed...the university lifestyle which I had been doing a good job of holding onto was suddenly and inevitably fading away and I finally gave in to it. It was a time where I started to panic just because my 2 best friends were suddenly not around...the 2 people I told everything to were suddenly both not there and because of that I found myself becoming clingy to anyone nearby, close or not, for comfort and advice. It marked another year of being away from my dad and realizing it would really never get easier being away from him. It marked a year where I was more sure of who I was and wanted to be, at least in terms of personality so I was less reserved when it came to showing different emotions which made it harder to be my usual "accept everything and everyone" self. It marked a year where I realized I was really lucky to have certain great souls in my life (especially Askoura, Martha, Tamer, Tarek Habib, Ga3ly, Abdo, and Maggie). It also marked another year of having Salma and Lina as close as ever even though we lived away from each other, we had practice the year I was in Canada and Salma was in Japan...happy to see that we are still managing!

That was 2006...I am expecting alot out of 2007 with IPM coming and me being really tested in that. With it being my last few months in AIESEC. With me changing jobs and being really worried about regretting any moves I make. With me having to let go of certain things that I have no control over yet keep the optimistic spirit up. What do I need to do in 2007? I need to be ready to face this really tough year both personally and professionally. I need to be more clear about what I want and where I see myself in 5-10 years because every move I make from now on will shape my future. I need to make sure the people I adore stay close or else I will lose a big part of why I have happiness in my life. I need to make sure to remind myself that I am still young and can still be adventurous!

As for how I spent new year this year...it was strangely nice! A guy, Lukas, whom I had gotten close to in Poland came to visit! So I took him all over the place, with the help of my friends, and got to spend some time with him which was awesome. It was really cool the fact that out of 700 people in IC I got to meet this really cool guy and less than 4 months later here he was seeing how I live my life everyday and who my close friends were. He actually knows alot more about me than many people in my life and I find that fascinating considering the circumstances in which we met! I'm glad to say Lukas had a good time as well as you can see in his blog. I got to meet new people from different countries in this vacation as well like Oksana, Gabi, Monika, Betty, etc. And I got to have a cozy new years in dahab which included us swimming in the freezing cold, having a laugh, and spending quality time with special people. I hope next year's new years can also have some excitement and some bonding time as well. And I hope 2007 doesn't turn out to be as frightening and as hard as I am expecting.