When I was younger, and had longer hair, I used to enjoy scaring my nieces and nephews. I invented a faceless, hairy monster called “Brake” who would show up whenever I wanted to have a good laugh. I used to wear a black robe, flip my then long hair on my face, put on glasses, and crawl on the floor from behind doors making low and scary sounds.

I remember when I was a kid, there was an older guy in our neighborhood who some times put on a black robe and a maimed gorilla mask and went around running and screaming. That used to freak me out so much and I always cried when I saw him, despite my mother’s attempts to assure me it was just a normal guy underneath the costume.

It is only now that I think I was doing something pretty cruel, and that I might have scarred these kids for life. Who would do such a thing for fun, except a demented aunt like me? But in my defense, I stopped doing “Brake” a long time ago.

And now I found a new monster! I made fake eyeballs like the ones I blogged about earlier today, and wore my brother’s bank-robber’s mask and put on a black hoodie. I am taking my scary activities online. Be afraid, be very afraid.

The tilted head pose and lack of facial features sort of remind me of Jason.

I want a dozen of these, and in different colors, please…

Source

Explanation: those are eyeballs you stick on your eyelids and take a nap at work. Or scare some kids.

Dave tagged me just now. I have to list 6 things that I think a person should do before they turn 18. I am limiting my list to things a girl should do, because that’s the stuff I know best. Here goes nothing:

1- Get pierced. Start young because you won’t get away with that when you’re older.
2- Meet people off the internet. But be careful!
3- Make silly videos of you and your bestfriend and send them to random people.
4- Break siblings’ things when they make you angry. It’s now or never.
5- Use your webcam extensively. You can later say you were just a kid when you did so and so.
6- Be rude to relatives when they call you “3aroos.” If you’re rude to them later, they’ll think you have issues. Yes, you, not them.

That concludes this very wise post. Now I am tagging Rebellious Arab Girl, Euroarabe, Liza, Lulu, Omar, and Lina.

The rules for this tag are:

Post these rules before presenting your list.
List 6 actions or achievements you think every person should accomplish before turning 18.
There are no conditions on what can be included on the list.
At the end of your blog, choose 6 people to get tagged and list their names.
People who are tagged write their own blog entry with their 6 suggestions.
Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged.

I made grilled shrimps tonight, complete with butter garlic dip. Why? Because I was bored enough to actually undertake cooking something other than a turkey sandwich.

However, I remain utterly untalented compared to my sister, who made this cake yesterday:

I shall never become a chef.

Oh, yeah, and I love this Foamy video too. It’s about Valentine’s Day…I should’ve linked to it yesterday. I really should’ve.

Don’t watch this if you’re,um, sensitive. It will offend you. You have been forewarned.

ROFLING, again.

I identify with Germaine. Big time.

I found a very interesting press release, it seems, in Al Rai this morning. It was issued by the Jordanian Churches Board in response to a report published by Compass Direct News. The report which I have linked to maintains that “Jordan has increased pressure on foreign Christians living in the kingdom, expelling many long-time residents over the past 13 months in what local churches see as an attack on their legitimacy.” Read the rest here.

In response to that, the JCB said that the report had many incorrect accounts and mistakes that could harm the Christian-Muslim relationships in the country. They also warned from the dangers of allowing several groups to enter the kingdom under the pretense of offering educational, health, and social services, and which will later develop into pure missionary work outside the scope of local churches.

The JCB denounced these groups as “extremists” and said they are not recognized by Jordan’s official churches. They also added that they each form their own “churches” after luring in a number of people through whatever services they provide. The total number of these groups is 40, according to the JCB. Here is a link to the article about JCB’s reaction.

وفيما يتعلق بالفرق التبشيرية الوافدة الى الاردن اوضح بيان مجلس رؤساء الكنائس في الاردن..أنه كثرت في السنين الاخيرة تحت ستار الخدمة الاجتماعية والتعليمية والثقافية..ويبلغ عددها في الاردن حوالي 40 فئة..وقد قدم لهم الاردن التسهيلات اللازمة لكي يقوموا بالخدمات الانسانية التي جاؤوا تحت غطائها..وهذه الفرق التي قدمت على أنها جمعيات خيرية،سرعان ما كشفت عن نفسها،فأخذت تسمى بكنائس وهي ليست بكنائس على الاطلاق،وأخذت تطالب بما للكنائس الرسمية من حقوق في الدستور الاردني..وأخذت تقوم بأعمال تبشيرية بين الكثير من المواطنين بأساليب تثير النعرة الدينية،ولا تحترم حرية الضمير،وتضع الفتنة بين المواطنين مسيحيين مسيحيين ومسيحيين مسلمين،واصبحوا يشكلون خطورة أمنية..وتمكنت هذه الفرق من استمالة بعض المواطنين نتيجة للخدمات والاغراءات التي قدمتها وما تزال تقدمها فبلغ عدد المنتمين اليهم بضع مئات..وهذه الفرق التبشيرية الدخيلة على المسيحية أخذت تحاول ان تفرض ذاتها بكل الوسائل لانها مدعومة سياسيا وماليا من بعض الدول.
وجدير بالذكر ان الكنيسة الانجيلية الاسقفية العربية والكنيسة اللوثرية الانجيلية لا تعترفان بهذه الفرق التبشيرية على أنها كنائس.

Wow. Everything seems to be taking me back to the Middle Ages these days! Missionaries in Jordan, hah! I guess with the current financial situation, people will worship the devil if someone gave them anything for free.

Last year on V Day, I did the following:

1- Made up excuse about having to go out for something work-related.
2- Drove around Amman and felt like crap run over twice.
3- Cried.
4- Came back home to find that a loyal someone who reads this blog got me an Amazon gift certificate worth 300$.
5- Felt good.
6- Took pictures of myself.
7- Opened a Facebook account.
8- Spent the rest of the day shopping on Amazon.
9- …and complaining to my mom how nobody understood me.

This year, I did the following in no particular order:

1- Felt loved.
2- Visited sister and kids.
3- SMSed loverboy.
4- Almost had a fight with loverboy.
5- Put cheesy status message on GTalk.
6- Discovered that life has no meaning, and as such, whatever I do or don’t do will not make a difference to its outcome.
7- Enjoyed the rain as I drove around Amman.
8- Became sleepy while driving in traffic.
9- Cursed loverboy for being away but looked at thoughtful present and smiled.
10- Decided not to care for V Day ever again. I don’t believe in saints anyway!

What did you do on V Day?

Finally, The Greater Amman Municipality has decided to do something about the flooding in Amman’s streets after any amount of rain no matter how insignificant.

I had posted about this last year and I was thinking of posting about it again recently, because the situation in Amman in the winter is despicable. The streets are always flooded, the drainage holes are spitting water instead of taking it in, and driving is really dangerous especially because you can’t see the many bumps and holes in the streets under the water.

تخصيص 6ر9 مليون دينار لمشاريع تصريف مياه الأمطار فـي العاصمة

خصصت أمانة عمان الكبرى ضمن موازنتها للعام الحالي 9 مليون و600 ألف دينار لغايات إنشاء خطوط تصريف مياه الأمطار والعبارات الصندوقية في العاصمة.

This is taken from last year’s Waterland Amman: City-Sized Pool post. I feel exactly the same way still:

Every winter the same problem arises — it gets talked about on morning radio shows, evening news, and 60 minutes, those in positions of responsibility are brought to comment and they say next to nothing in citizen-O-meter, and then after the usual citizen rants nothing is done to remedy the situation on the ground. Nobody is charged with anything (ruining people’s cars, for instance) and nobody cares.

How very, utterly, desperately pathetic this situation is! I refuse to get my pants soaking wet up to my knees when I decide to cross the street, I refuse to get water up to my brain when I dive in a street pool, and I refuse to cramp someone’s style by spraying them with dirty wheel water when I pass them by. Moreover, I refuse to sheep-up about this.

Amman Municipality and everyone working in it — FIX OUR STREETS or by the devil, this time, someone will get hurt.