Lyna

This post is for lovely Lyna, I will truly miss you once you are gone. I will miss the nights we used to drive around trying to figure out what we want to do or what we want to eat. I will miss the days we would drive to Bukwara for your Lebanese Cocktail. I will miss the times at Starbucks talking about the most random things and trying to make conversations with the Americans from the base. I will miss the times you were afraid to be who you are and struggled to come out and share it. I will miss you at weddings, at family gatherings, at AIESEC meetings, at coffee shops…

In less than a year I have made a very dear friend, a friend who I shared a lot of my life with without her knowing it; A friend who understands me more than any one else in my life. A friend who has supported me in all of my doing no matter right or wrong. A friend who has always been there for me. I will miss you Lyna I truly will.

This post might be one of my worst because I can’t really write. I cant tell you how much I will miss you or how dear you are to me. I will struggle without you here with me; It has already started.

You will be missed.

So Sad, Yet So Happy

Last week on Tuesday night, we had our usual once a year cooking at my Aunts house. Every year my whole extended family gets together and cooks ‘ash’ and distributes it to everyone for the death of our Prophet’s daughter Fatima. This is supposedly a sad event and everyone wears black and works their asses off for the prophet’s daughter. The day goes like this:

All the women go to my Aunt’s house early in the morning to start preparing the ingredients and what else is needed for the rest of the day. Later on all the women (somewhere around 20) sit in the main hall and cut the vegetables and clean the beans etc. Around 12.30 pm most of the women just sit around and drink tea or smoke ‘gadoo’ (something like sheesha but smells like weed); while some of them cook lunch for the rest.

During lunch hours, some of my cousins and their fathers drop by during their lunch hours to have lunch at my Aunts house. After everyone had lunch, usually all the lazy and old women go into my Aunts room and take a short afternoon nap; while all the energetic ones just sit around and joke & chat very loudly as if it was on purpose not to let the rest of them sleep. While most of the ladies are talking and sleeping, a very few are preparing to cook the meat and beans so they will be ready to add in the ash at night. Later in the afternoon more people start showing up; these are usually my cousins with small children that go to school in the mornings, the cousins and aunts that work, the cousins that study etc.

The most fun part is in the evening when all the men and the rest of the family start arriving; everyone is happy to see each other. The women that were working all day take a rest while all the fresh women get into the kitchen and start shredding the hot meat that had been cooking all day. Some men linger outside next to the big hot pots and help with stirring the mix. After everything is put into the pot and everything begins to cool down a bit, dinner is served. Every year one of my cousins who owns an Iranian restaurant brings dinner; usually I don’t like to eat in a very loud or noisy place, but I love eating on this night with the rest of my family. More than 50 people sitting around dinner while a couple run back and forth to make sure there is enough supply of chicken and meat kebabs, hummus, motabal, warag ainab etc

On this night, almost everyone is making a joke out of everything. Be it from the men making fun of their wives or vice versa, to the hummus at dinner, to my cousin’s wrong sentences … Everyone is happy on supposedly such a sad day.

After everyone leaves, some of the women stay over to help with distributing the ash to our houses early in the morning. So the next day when we wake up we can continue to enjoy the family gathering by tasting the wonderful ash that almost everyone had a hand in.

Decisions

I’m really excited about the rest of my year; finally I will be able to see the world and experience the different aspects of life. At the same time I am scared, I don’t know what decisions to take, how these decisions will effect my life? Are they wise ones? Are they worth all the tension I have created within my family? Will I really be able to go and do things that I want to do. Will I be able to go to the places I hold close to my heart? Am I capable of taking up these responsibilities? Will they regret choosing me?

Questions, Questions, Questions… I spend most of my unused time thinking of these; while driving to work, while driving to school, while talking to a person who makes no sense.

I don’t want to approach July, yet I can’t wait for August.

Seasons of Love

I have been listening to this song over and over again and driving people crazy at work with it.

Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes
Five hundred twenty five thousand moments so dear
Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure? Measure a year

In daylights?
In sunsets?
In midnights?
In cups of coffee?
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife?

In five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes
how do you measure a year in a life?

how about love?
how about love?
how about love?
measure in love...
seasons of love...
seasons of love...

Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes
Five hundred twenty five thousand journeys to plan
Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure a life of a woman or a man?

In truths that she learned
or in times that she cried
In bridges he burned
or the way that she died

Its time now to sing out though
the story never ends
Let's celebrate remember a year in a life
of friends

remember the love...
(oh you gotta remember the love)
remember the love...
(oh yeah, its a gift from up above)
remember the love...
(sing out, give out, measure your life
in love...!!!)
seasons of love...
seasons of love...

What I am

There are people in my life I wish I had not met.
There are things in life that I wish I had not done.
There are places in life I wish I never visited.
There are decisions in life I wish I had not taken
But all these make up who I am.
All these have made me what I am today.

Satisfaction

A couple of days ago, I went out with some of my friends that I haven’t chilled out with since last summer. We went driving around Bahrain getting random things to eat and drink and talking about our lives and where ‘Shereen’ is at the moment.

I used to hang out with them all the time, we would spend almost the whole day together when I first got to university, but that all changed when I got even more active and started working. Meeting them after such a long time made me think about the steps I took throughout that time. I was telling them about my stories of Morocco, Egypt, the States, the people I met and the things I did and they were not the least interested. They went over why I shouldn’t have done most of the things I had done in the last year and how I should stop acting as a kid and start to grow up.

They then started talking about the usual things they used to talk about like cars, bags, weddings, who is doing what etc which I never had interest in anyways. I felt left out, I felt I did not belong there anymore; I felt they didn’t even want me there anymore.

I realized maybe I do sound like a kid to them; maybe it is crazy to want to leave the good life I’m living here and take the challenge of living somewhere much difficult. But that is what I want to do; that is what gives me satisfaction. It’s the small things in life that make me happy; doing crazy childish thing like asking for diet water makes me laugh, makes me happy and I enjoy my life that way. Everyone has something that makes them happy maybe is a new car, a new bag, a boyfriend, a whatever for me it is much simpler its just the people I am around, the weird things we do together, the driving around with good music we can sing along to and make people laugh even though it is laughing at us.

A True Failure

All my life I am seen as a leader by my friends, my teachers, my family, my colleagues. Today I have realized that I am nothing of that sort. Anytime I am the leader of a group everything goes wrong. I either don’t have enough people in my team or they just don’t attend. Does a leader ever exist without people who believe in him or her?

In AIESEC, I have the smallest team of six people and you would think that it would be easy to manage a team of that size but it is driving me crazy. Most meetings are just attended by 2 or maximum 3 members. I have tried with all sorts of ways being from emails to sms to calling them up and encouraging them to come but nothing seems to be getting to them. They might attend for one meeting and then lack off again.

My Student Life Organization team is even worse. During the years at university I invested most of my time to this team as different leading positions within the team and after not given the chance of leading the whole team by being president, I decided to leave since I had been humiliated after giving so much and nothing being appreciated. I was given the position after everyone had left and the organization had collapsed. Now I am trying to run an organization that had more than 30 members with only 3. Me, my vice and my events manager.

At work I have always been given the most difficult tasks; Tasks that no one else wants to do or tasks that are incomplete and should be completed with a headache. Yesterday I heard my boss say to his assistant whatever problems you have with cases give it to Shereen. Most times I get the job done, after running around the whole day and bugging the people to process what I need. But when I don’t get it done, I feel like there is no need for my presence if I can’t finish a task given to me by my superiors.

The three things that I hold close to my heart and work my ass off all day for them have been a total failure when it comes to me doing them. So what do these people (friends, teachers, professors, colleagues) see in me that I don’t see? Maybe they don’t see my downfalls but here I’m letting you all know what RELLY happens.

I might be a failure but I am proud of myself, I’m proud of every sweat I have put into anything I do because whenever I do it, I do it whole heartedly. I do it not for selfish reasons but for the betterment of everyone. I might not always get things done, but at least I try and God knows I try HARD. There is not much left for my terms to end but I promised myself that when I leave, I will leave the organizations better than I started and this is what I am planning to do. I am a failure; but I am one hell of a good failure.