about the whole constinency thing

the intention remains but i am horrendously , horrifically and disgustingly busy studying for "gasp" 7 subjects this term ! (wish me luck) so blogging will resume as soon as is humanly possible .... and a very happy eid and merry christmas to all

on the occassion of my 19th birthday

On this day of 18 november 2007, I mademoiselle HH also known as hebe , being of relatively sound mind(excepting several occassions of insanity and inerbriation which will be blogged about at yawn inducing length) hereby swear to henceforth cease being a lazy plop of a human being and start blogging with a little more consistency , this I do solemnly swear. cross my heart, scouts honor , honest injun etc etc

witnessed by a random fly I've decided to call nebuchadnezzar and my sleeping grandmother wh0 half the time doesn't know what I'm gibbering on about

they have not signed for somewhat obvious reasons

HH

18-11-2007

incidentally I have no idea how to pronounce nebuchadnezzar which does not please my witness one whit

3amar ya masr

during this week i have seen
1- a long bearded mullah type in gallabeya riding a harley davidson
2- a taxi sporting a single ostrich plume in its baggage holder - a la cyrano de bergerac
3- a fellow on scooter with one shib-shibed foot apparently holding down the boot of a white ford fiesta , he looked very curiously like a dog peeing against a tree
4- in the middle of gameat el dowal street a donkey half keeled over , peeing while the fellow riding the caretta blithely examines his nails
5-el amn el markazy (the egyptian version of S.W.A.T) surrounding cairo university despite the lack of a demonstration

life is so sweetly surreal

the gam3eet el qahira exberience

you know your'e in cairo university when :

1- you decide to go for an aimless amble , promptly get lost and navigate your way back to your modarag by trying to keep the infamous dome of the main building . its basically the lodestar of the entire university

2- the farash is your best friend . if there are books to be brought , burecratic procedures you can't be arsed to do or you have a terrible hankering for tea , he's the guy to go to. however make sure "te3ayedi 3ali" every once in a while , sweetening him up with cleopatra ciggies also does wonders

3- its probably the only university in the world with shoe shine chaps at every corner

4-your dining choices are somewhat limited . its either; koshary , foul (faculty of science), very dubious kebda and panee sandwhiches (law) or crepes (tegara)

5- beware of obese toothless men who offer to stand in line and pay your fees for you

6- the only protests are held by the muslim brotherhood

7- you get kicks by sneaking into other peoples lectures , causing a ruckus and getting kicked out by irate proffessors

8- you have to mentally prepare yourself for any burecratic procedures/paperwork at least a week in advance , also get the numbers of a psychiatrist and a decent masseuse . your going to need them pretty badly after getting it done

9- you realize that the cairo university employees are somewhat like the vogons in"the hitchikers guide to the galaxy" I find this to be a very apt description of them:
"They wouldn't even lift a finger to save their own grandmothers from the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal without orders signed in triplicate, sent in, sent back, queried, lost, found, subjected to public enquiry, lost again, and finally buried in soft peat for three months and recycled as firelighters."

to be continued.......

quote of the day

If i killed myself out of sheer despair she'd come in the room and say "tsk tsk el karawata deh do it again "
- my sister R on my perfectionist mother

A burning question quenched

yes i know the title sucks !
anyhoo after a little research have solved the turtle/tortoise dilemna
(drumroll)
its a tortoise !
will update you soon on its sex

dispatch no#1 from the ramadan feeding front

yea I have returned ye of little faith
I have passed this year of law school , huzzah!
however am now wallowing in the miseries of being born sans phallus in Ramadan, for those not in the know this entails obscene amounts of cooking/cleaning/shouting/weeping with mumikins who in Ramadan becomes a rather volatile mix of Martha Stewart &Medusa (she has a very unnerving stare) . For your amusement a list of pre ramadani doings

day before Ramadan

1-wake up at 6 , cleaning cleaning a little shouting more cleaning
1-go to Cairo university , shout a lot at incomptent employees
2-go pickup grandmother who has been conscripted as kitchen assistant
3- soothe harried grandmother who is in curlers , cooking mahshy etc and not ready to set off for the cinnamon scented furnace of doom(i.e our kitchen)
4-for some reason grandmother has decided carpets need to be washed
5- help grandmother remove all carpets in house managing to chip a vase and drop several knick knacks in the process
6- realize am clumsy oaf , most distressing
7-dust floor and move furniture back into place dropping more knick knacks
8-twiddle thumbs whilst waiting for grandmas washing machine to be done
9-help grandma hang up washing to dry
10- receive very giggly phonecall from mother , apparently the cleaning lady has fallen on top of her . she wants me to pick up samna from great aunt N
11-look for grandmothers tortoise or is it a turtle ?
12- realize that i do not not know sex or genus of grandmothers pet , most distressing
13- finally we set off !
14- in the midst of my ponderings on turtle/tortoise am peed upon by said creature
15- discover that turtle/tortoise pee is scentless and very cold
16-cannot stop laughing and forget to pick up samna till am reminded by grandma
17-am forced to turn around and pick up wretched samna ,eft as rambling hal would say
18-go to aunts to give tortoise and pick up rokak and kofta
19-turtle/tortoise has pooed in cage , turtle/tortoise poo is also scentless. has it something to do with it being herbivorous?
20- give aunt turtle/tortoise who is now somewhat distressed and quivering due to unpleasant contents of cage
21-set off for home
22- room is so tidy! oh and all my books organized so beautifully! how blissful
23-have no time to luxuriate must set off to buy neccessities
24-give very loud EFT plus several muttered curses
25- Metro is so crowded and there are no shopping trolleys ,let out volley of efts and more curses
26- am informed by surly shop assistants that there are neither chives ,coriander ,pepsi or Ricotta cheese to be had for love or money
27-ya halawa shall be flayed alive by mummyikins
28- return home , suprisingly am not flayed alive
29-discover that cleaning lady is weeping because none of her relatives have called
30 -mollify cleaning lady with our old fanous and bag of goodies ,she goes home
31-cooking , cooking shouting more cooking
32- sleeeeeeeeeeeep

converse of a refined and informative nature

my family never fails to amuse

me : r you dont eat enough veggies ,no wonder your'e so weak and always exhausted i mean you don't see popeye munching on chips and sausages
R: jeesh you crazy ass vegeterian , i know i know !
dad: still the poor guy must have had the most awful constipation eating nothing but spinach
me: he was super strong, who cares !
dad: he'd need to be super strong to take a dump !

in need of love ,cake and several gallons of ice cream

I don't know if anyone has noticed but i try to avoid atypical & quite frankly annoying adolscent whinging and whining on my blog , stuff like why oh why don't I have a boyfriend /acne free face / divine bod/ good grades etc etc ad nauesuem . but life has become somewhat overwhelming (as is the rather irritating wont of life) and if i cannot rant pathetically about the idiotic mundanties of my insignificant exsistence on my blog which is privy to complete strangers where can i possibly do it ? to friends , family ? but my rather elegant(bear my delusions) , confident pose would explode rather uncharmingly. so here goes , my first and hopefully last utterly idiotic hormone fueled rant about the silly things that have been niggling me
firstly , i am frankly quite sick of studying law , its starting to seem like an exercise in futility , just look at the state of this country , its exhausting and my proffessors for the most part are pompous, pretentious asses (with a few exceptions) I'm sick of the moronic burecracy , the toadiness of my fellow students who take every chance to fawn at the proffessors
its all just ........ bleugh . but then im already in my second year and starting all over again is going to mean ive pretty much wasted two years sans achieving anything tangible or significant
im am enjoying my journalistic work , despite that most of what i am writing is basically mindfluff but then i am only 18 so what can i realistically excpect ? but still (cue self pitying snivelling) I'm mortally afraid that all my high and mighty literary hopes are nothing but self delusion and that i'll end up a great big ghastly mediocrity (a fate i will not dwell on for fear of arousing dormant suicidal thoughts )
i hate the fact that my parents expectations of me have dwindled so pathetically (due to lacklustre grades amongst other things)
blah blah blah
you know what after writing this , i realize what a wretched silly im being , my problems are really quite piffling and i really oughtnt bore the few people who read this blog
but sometimes the little stupidties acquire a ludicrous significance and they threaten to engulf you unless you tell them to someone, even if to complete strangers
and now i have breaken my cardinal rule of not acting like a gushing , callow teenager with great aplomb
ah well

I apologize

finis twitiness

when freedom dies

so this it ....our so called plebiscite day . God I feel too miserable to write anything coherent , everything just makes me feel ghastly because this is just a great big bloody farce . the slick instructions in el Ahram on how to vote , the platitudes and the godawful chirpiness of normal life that just rolls on
regardless of everything , of people languishing in jails after yesterdays demonstration . the hypocrisy of it all is just grotesque , the stupid stupid pretense about how this day will turn us into some great democratic nation . yes we proved how thoroughlly democratic we are just yesterday, how thoroughly tolerant we are . ha bloody ha , but honestly what is the solution ? what can I or anyone else do ? nothing except let anger and futility writhe inside us and drive us insane

Indifference

you cower in your marble fortress
a bastion of solid cold
while i skulk beggar like at the gates
awaiting alms of feeling
a hungry sorrow gnawing at my heart
how i long to climb the walls
but with each attempt
slip against the unpocked ,smooth marble
scrabbling frantically
falling into an uncomprehending heap
while you peer at me
with mirror eyes that say nothing
I scream at the placid mass
pound at it with aching fists
futile all
even my hot tears
trickle down the walls
and fall unseen
mingling muddily with the kind dust

edible art

a gummy bear bear rug ! so quirky ! me loves !
check out more gummy bear art by artist ya ya chou (what a name !)

ex- first ladies - what on earth do they do with their time?

the other day I went to help my mother man her stall at the diplomats club annual bazzar ,
now I find helping my mother at bazaars an exceedingly amusing experience as its the best people watching you can do , I espeacially love going to ones organized by the rotary club because basically theyre all a bunch of rich pretentious twits who pose and preen endlessly- a show of the most idiotic specimens of humanity who despite being garbed from head to toe in chanel will haggle with you on an 18l.e tea cosy (real incident)
well the diplomats bazaar as always was a highly tedious affair as not that many people bother to come and those who do are mostly old crones who mess up the scarf display and end up buying zilch . but this one was the exception as no other than Gihan el Sadat showed up with a very snooty but chic lebanese lady diplomat . it was very interesting to watch how everyone reacted to her presence
spines straightened , big idiotic grins were plastered on and the fawning began .
i hate to admit this but i felt a bit of a duff as i was atired in jeans with torn hems a very grotty turqoise kaftan but this is not peculiar for me as any celebrity encounters i have tend to see me
looking like something of a guttersnipe . like the infamous occassion where i dined with my father at la trattoria and bumped into both Ahmed ramzy and Omar el Sherif swilling whisky with water .
I had just come out of an exam and was wearing a oversize white sweatshirt much worse for wear after 3 hours in a dirty cairo university lecture hall and those wretched jeans with the torn hems ! not a good look for meeting matinee idols whom one had a schoolgirlish crush on.
but i digress
anyway madame sadat passed by our humble stall and very nicely shook hands with mama and me and took a cursory look at our wares "hagatgom meshkhala awy!"
and then she toodled off . and thus ended my tete a tete with the first real egyptian first lady
which lead me to wonder about the pecularity of the job of first lady
but thats a subject for another post

cos am a lazy sod

havent blogged in aeons i know but am horrifically busy what with the study of law , freelance journalism and such and also to be frank im a lazy bugger who can't be arsed really
but have plenty to blog about ,so my minute readership will no longer languish in misery pondering my fate . i will get my bum in gear
till then yet another tag by cereberous world

extract page 123 from thirst for love by yukio mishima
"miyo alone walked with him to the other side of the bridge .
that was her right. Etsuko saw every detail as she watched them go. saburo stopped turned and saluted yakichi and etsuko standing in the yard . long after his form had blended with the coloured leaves of the maple grove ,the flash of his teeth ,bared in a smile ,shone in etsukos memory"

5 things you didnt know about me

everyones doing it , cereberous world tagged me so what the hey !

1- I'm a mythology buff , I know most of the major pantheons by heart and most of the main myths .
Iin fact hebe is the greek godess of youth and the bearer of the gods ambrosia which endows them with eternal youth , she was also one of the wives of hercules . its utterly pointless esoteric knowledge but i find it fascinating

2- I spent half of my childhood in Namibia , a small country in southern Africa , I learnt both swahili and afrikaans there ,however i can't remember much of either language !

3- I hate talking on the phone , i feel awkward and buffonish and hence tend to ramble on idiotically to cover my self conciousness

4- I am a secret "phan" of the phantom of the opera , ever since i saw the play in the west end in london, since then i have read the original novel by gaston leroux (as well as a few of the dozens of spinoffs ) and play the soundtrack constantly . my favorite song is " music of the night"


5- I played the violin for 7 years , then one day i realized i was horrifically crap at it and decided to spare innocent listeners from mutilated renderings of swan lake (which i was exceedingly fond of playing) I sometimes wonder if i should have just practised a little harder .

the begining of the end or just the end of the begining?

withdrawal of British troops from iraq

seriously convenient

underwear with a pocket for your ipod !!!!!
i want a knickers version pleeasssse !

humans suck

yesterday as i was going down the 6th october bridge ,as usual its was packed as tight as a tin of sardines (unorignal metaphor i know i know) el mohem an ambulance was trying to pass through and not a single person budged .ok its crowded w kol haga but come on someone could be dying in there ! how callous can people get?

dieting vs femnism

a very interesting article
its very strange how we instantnously equate attractive,well groomed women with frivolity and yet we don't with men . how the desire to be healthy and attractive is always deemed as an attempt to pander to men.I think societies as a whole tend to compartmentalize women if your one thing you cant possibly the other. its either bimbo or bluestocking which is ludicrous because real women are a lot more complicated than that .
.hmmm this makes me think of the women i see at the nutrtionist, the majority of which are veiled (though they are a various ages) I wonder why they diet ?

singletons half hearted chuckle

was IMing with an English friend about the miseries of valentines day when she sent me this rather amusing link
and people think the English are such prudes !