Ungrateful And Bored

Man-(or woman)-kind are greedy, ungrateful beings; they always want what they can’t have and hate what they currently possess. Take me as a prime example; for the first six months after I moved to Calgary I was lonely and depressed. I didn’t know anyone and no-one knew me. I was a social outcast who didn’t have a friend to call my own. And I was a bitch about it. Complaining to myself, whining to my husband and nagging to everyone on my blog. I was pathetic and pitiful and thought I would die alone, never having experienced the joys of a coffee date with a friend.

Fast forward to 8 months later, specifically Wednesday, May 8, 2013, I get a call from a lady I met briefly at a henna party two weeks ago. She’s excited to meet me and because she spent the first year living in Calgary all alone, she’s decided to take me under her wing. So she proposes we do something on Friday evening. I’m flustered at her kindness and somewhat ashamed to tell her that I already have friends over for a BBQ. She then proposes Sunday. And again sorry, no can do, I’m going to BBQ in the park with another group of friends.

I decide not to tell her that the Sunday before I had another group of friends over for an Easter party, the Friday before that I attended a BBQ and the Saturday before that we had a party evening over at somebody else’s house. It would have seemed so mean to tell her that my social calendar is so full that I actually don’t want to attend half of the things I’m committed to.

And here is the proof that I am an ungrateful human being. Not a long while ago I would have killed to talk to somebody other than my kids and hubby. Now I’m complaining that I meet the same people too much and I’m already bored of them. But who can blame me. Come on. Who gets together every other day with the same group of people. Don’t they run out of things to say?

Unfortunately I know myself. I like to surround myself with a wide range of friends because, except for my really close friends, I get bored of people way too fast. My biggest worry when my husband proposed was that I can’t be married to one person for the rest of my life. What if I get bored? Thankfully it hasn’t happened yet, but I’ll keep you posted when it does.

I’m coming across as a complete ass, right? I swear I’m not that bad once you get to know me. Just don’t get that close, I don’t think my social calendar can handle too much more of this n

Fact; Egyptians Ladies Love to Bellydance

In my quest to assimilate to my new life here, my introverted self has taken a vow to break out of my shell and get to know some new people. And even though I may grudgingly resent having to change out of my pyjamas most of the time and go and meet somebody or another, I have been somewhat consistent to my vow. So it’s along that line of thought that I forced myself last Saturday to shower (which I try to do regularly), put on make-up (which I try to never do at all), get into some nice clothes (didn’t put on heels though – that would have been over-kill for me) and go to a henna party for a girl I don’t know organised by a girl I don’t know and attended by a bunch of other girls I also don’t know.

What’s a henna party you ask? Well it’s an Egyptian – or the Middle Eastern – version of an all girls bachelorette party. Except that this particular bride-to-be was not actually a bride-to-be but was in fact already a bride, or the more accurate description would be a happily married wife of over a year. So why the henna? Because her husband was in Egypt most of the past year and was just recently able to get to Calgary. So obviously the Egyptian community ladies jumped at the chance to get together, dance like crazy, eat just as crazily, get henna tattoos (I have no idea where they found a henna lady in Calgary) and make dirty jokes about sex.

Back home in Cairo I usually tried to avoid these parties like the plague; I don’t dance, hate most arabic music, hate all loud music, don’t usually eat that well at crowded functions, hate gossip and find the not-so-subtle sexual belly-dancing half naked ladies prancing around a put off (I seem like such a prude – I assure you I’m not). Which are all essential ingredients for a successful henna party.

So there I was on a typical cold Calgary evening after having driven 45 minutes to get to the party room of a typical Calgarian condominium when I walk in and a blast of pure Egyptian social frenzy hits me. I did my dues, talked and chatted around for an hour and then got the hell out of there.

I walked into my house at midnight to find my husband sleeping on the couch. He woke as I came in and sleepily asked me how it was;

I shrug off my coat; “For the last hour and a half I felt that I was back home in Cairo.”

“Then you had fun, right?”

“No, it felt exactly like home, but not in the good way!”

Portfolios & Skinny Cows Go Hand in Hand

This weekend was just plain crazy! On top of all the errands I had to run, I also needed to finalise my letter of intent and portfolio for the grad school application deadline which is tomorrow.

Now I knew that I was going to be really crammed for time with two kids, a house to run and a portfolio to do. So I sent a scanned copy of my printed portfolio to a friend in Egypt and asked if he could do me a huge favour and make a new Photoshop one for me. My friend said yes, I was indebted one huge favour, but I could rest easier knowing that it was going to be done by someone else and I could focus on writing a killer ‘Letter of intent’. Then Friday afternoon I got my portfolio back and I cringed with horror. I could tell that my friend had put in a lot of effort to help me out, and I was appreciative, but I was also devastated. It was so not me. And now I had only two days to start from scratch and put together a hastily constructed portfolio.

My friend’s well meaning design

Thankfully with some help from my awesome husband I was able to finish it at 1am last night and get it uploaded on the admissions site. It meant a sleepless and stress-racking weekend. But at least I was done. And the effects of that weekend have finally caught up with me today; I’m moping around the house trying to get anything done but failing miserably. I could barely get myself to write this blog. I have chicken thawing in the sink taunting me, my house is upside down due to the post weekend antics of two boys (Monday is my house cleaning day) and I’m eating like a pig.

Right now I’m contemplating pulling out my Skinny Cow ice cream from the fridge and plonking down in front of the TV with Jo and an episode of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, and I realised what exactly I was signing up for. One weekend of stress-filled deadlines and I’m already acting cuckoo. How in the hell am I going to survive two years of grad school – that is if I get accepted of course.

Oh well – what’s done is done – now where is my Skinny Cow ice-cream?