Thursday, July 16, 2009

Flying Sky high: episode 1

This flight occurred sometime in spring 2008.

It’s been such a long time since I’ve flown Saudi airlines, almost 2 years!! Anyway I was shocked 2 find that the TV systems were so advanced that if you have a smart card like Showtime u can watch satellite TV on the plane like MTV, live football matches...pretty cool! I was also travelling 1st class for the 1st time in a very long time!! :D it was worth the freaken money! The place was so damn spacious, I cud stretch my legs as far as the eyes can see! my toes were happy J giggling with joy. Don’t even get me started on the chairs!! They are out of this world literally! As if they came from some sci-fi flick. Their look is so futuristic; they turn into complete beds with the magic of the Zzz button. The TV screens are bigger for greater satisfaction. The toilets actually flush! None of that space-pressure suction in economy class.

However, the boarding was a disaster!! Nightmare is the right word. Our take off was 1/2 an hour delayed, so to pass the time they started to put animal videos on the screen, you’d see 2 rhinos fucking but hear bird sounds haha (I know retarded!) then it became a Japanese horror flick they kept turning the lights on & off, babies crying…when the pilot came to speak I guess the mic was too close to the speakers so high pitched sounds kept shooting across the plane, a Jordanian woman running from the wc covering her ears about to cry, luggage compartments shaking… Literally an alien flick in the making.... All that was missing was Lil Wayne drooling with 4 arms & 2 heads wit a snake body that is 1/2 machine from General Motors.

After watching Hangover hilarious movie btw, this baby 2 rows in front of me started flirting with me & my sister! We laughed our heads off! It, yes I repeat it kept licking its lips and semi winking at us.

We finally reach queen 3aliia airport in Amman at midnight.

A 2 hour flight, and yet another fucking crisis arises!! 4 fucking flights! On the same luggage-claim check point!! It was a catastrophe my suitcase was in a huge pile on the ground, WTF! In rage HAMMUDI SMASH! (I went through a hulk fit with one of the workers there). In the end we made it out and saw our mom, aunt, and cousins. We thought the craziness was over but nooooooo, as we left the airport, there were 2 Jordanian students who arrived from abroad (it looked like they just graduated). So to celebrate the crazy bedouins started making a festival in the middle of the airport. Then as we drove away they were on front of us shooting fire works from a pickup truck!! towards cars!! we dodged 2!! finally we arrived 2 my uncle's house safely.

Imagine all this in one night!! I swear an epic movie

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Finals are finally over! :D

Ssup Readers!! I know it’s been weeks since ive posted anything! Well I’ve been very busy with finals and scheduling social events as well as planning my vacation.

Finally finals are finally over!! :D I hate the last 2 weeks of any given semester with all the tests jammed up and the never ending nights of redbull and sleep deprivation. Books, slides, notes u name it!  In short it is a season of ink explosions and suppressed teachers lashing out in writing messed up questions. Redbull and espresso addiction lingers in the air.

It is the time when cheating tactics pay off! We all know them from tiny papers hidden in your palm, notes and slides in your mobile phones,  to codes between students. Let me break down the strategies in my college and the dumbest situations you can imagine!

 

At our university Yomama AKA Yamamah, the west auditorium is a favourite among all students because of the easiness to cheat there!  I mean literally students would have papers in their laps or notes on a seat next to them like I do, or write notes and formulas in one’s hand with tiny papers hidden up 1’s sleeve or watch (which I recommend). However since the technology boom, cell phones have been a top choice. Downloading slides, pdf documents onto a phone has been a very convenient method. Inevitably, some professors and doctors caught on to this trend and started demanding that everyone turn their phones in before the exam. Usually to avoid this sticky situation, a student would have two cell phones with him, one being the decoy. However, at Yomama University  iPod Touch’s do the trick!

 

My usual routine is literally studying the night of the exam, so you can figure that I pull all nighters.

Saturday 13/6/2009 was inhumane; I had 3 finals the same day! WTFF! (What the fucking fuck!)

Around midnight I went to get 2 iced shaken espresso’s vanilla flavoured from Starbucks but for some reason that night they closed early!! They are lucky I did not have a gun at the time…anyway I decided to go with the awful alternative redbull.  Studying as fast and thoroughly as I can like an accountant looking for a lucky number, before I knew it dawn broke! I decide to take a break. I take a shower, and go down to the kitchen for some breakfast. Now picture this: I boil some water to make some quick noodles, and for some reason decide to add garlic! (Don’t judge me I was sleep deprived!) The sun has just risen, small rays are breaking in through the window, and the powdered garlic exploded over my noodles cuz the lid was loose! With garlic up my nose and sunlight in my face I definitely looked like a suicidal vampire.

 Off to college I was on an empty stomach. It is so far out of my city that I bet if I were to turn my GPS on, it would dispay “heading north to…nowhere”!

I arrive park my car, I have 30 mins before my first exam, which is statistics. I get out of the exam confused cuz it is a completely different language to me I hope for the best and go on looking for an empty classroom to study in.  One down, two to go.  As I sit down and skim through my OB book, I sip my third redbull of the day. I literally have 20 mins before my exam and I start to feel queasy cuz of the damn caffeine! Along with the snacks I ate while reviewing. Stuck in this dilemma to either hold it in till after the exam or do it and sacrifice the precious reviewing time I have left. I decide to do it cuz I was on the verge of exploding! I run from bathroom stall to bathroom none have enough toilet paper! So I decide to run to the library across campus where a bathroom for special people AKA handicaps lies. I usually use this wc in particular cuz it is the cleanest due to little use. If u have ever entered a special wc before you’d notice many strings which I like to call life lines hanging from the ceiling with many bars on the side to help them move around. As I dash in there, sit on the toilet in a hurry I realize I forgot to turn the lights on! I find myself surrounded by 3 lifelines and I know one of them is red for emergency! BUT WHICH ONE!?

While the other two are a light switch and a toilet flusher. Trying hard to remember which one is red I couldn’t! So I decide to continue my business like a blind bat. I slip my pants back on (after washing of course!) and realize I have 8 minutes left, I start doing the eni miny mo countdown, then interrupt myself thinking fuck it! And just pull the 1st one I reach out for…u think I flushed? GUESS AGAIN! I triggered the damn alarm! In panick I try to open the door with all my force forgetting it is locked. When I finally unlock it I race out the door stumbling, trying to avoid being seen by everyone in the exam halls facing me. I felt like a hippo trying to dive silently.

 I get out of the OB exam with flying colours (who the hell invented this metaphor?), and have 30 minutes left for my last exam of the day, which is quality management.

 Noon strikes, and there we were, my brother and I in our quality management exam, about 3 tables, 2 students apart. The questions were easy and direct, except for the last 3. He so eagerly tried to grab my attention and give me the answers confidentially believing they were correct. So I gave him a “fine! Show me the answers” look. BAD CHOICE! When I saw the answer to the 1st Q I knew it was all down hill from here!

The question was: in one of ISO’s standards, customer focus is aimed to create:

          a) employee cooperation

    b) customer satisfaction

    c) new clientele

    d) none of the above

it is no thinker! That obviously the correct answer is b…well my brother so proudly showed me his answer which was – drum roll – fucking choice a)!

after the exam he kept arguing with me  on why the hell I refused to take any answers from him. At the end of the course we both got a B+ but I was 2 marks higher :D